You may have noticed a recent influx of whining wackaloons, whose enchanting cries have consisted mostly of “You’re all so uncivil” and “This is not a science blog”. This is fallout from the Weblog Awards, where a couple of climate change denialist blogs have effectively turned out the disgruntled conspiracy theorist vote. One of those blogs will almost certainly win the ‘award’ — which tells you the value of these contests — so don’t worry about that. However, I do want to reply to the mindless, repetitive complaints of our new visitors, even though they will almost certainly evaporate when the award voting closes later today.
I want my commenters to be uncivil. There is no virtue in politeness when confronted with ignorance, dishonesty, and delusion. I want them to charge in to the heart of the issue and shred the frauds, without hesitation and without faltering over manners. These demands for a false front of civility are one of the strategies used by charlatans who want to mask their lack of substance — oh, yes, it would be so goddamned rude to point out that a huckster is lying to you. I am quite happy that we have a culture of being rude to frauds here.
The other claim is also a stupid distraction. This is a blog by an educator and scientist. We are not one-dimensional caricatures — I write about whatever interests me, whenever I feel like it. To claim that because I sometimes laugh and sometimes get angry and am a concerned citizen of a screwed-up country and have interests outside of journals and academia and am a father and husband and am willing to express myself on any topic that strikes my fancy means that there can’t possibly be any science here implies that you are a freaking idiot with a bizarrely narrow view of who scientists are, and a peculiarly close-minded vision of how this medium actually works.
Keep this in mind, O Regular Readers of the blog, and please do feel free to be uncivil to these fresh fools from the pseudoscientific fringe of the blogosphere.
I noticed that. They’re getting extremely annoying. Is there a way to ban the mose destable ones?
No problem, ya beardy git.
fuck all y’all
Not only are some of them very concerned about manners,they are also pretty dense.
“Nullius in verbo” : take nobody’s word for it. Demands for evidence are not uncivil or impolite, they’re what is required if we’re going to do science rather than run a tea-party.
No problem. They’ll be gone back to their little hothouses of shared ignorance tomorrow, since this is the last day to vote in those awards.
Emmett, you’ve almost got it right. Savage my arguments rather than my facial hair, though…and besides, if the cartoon on your website has any pictorial accuracy at all, a guy with the scraggly wisps on his chin that you’ve got doesn’t get to slander anyone else’s beard, ya wan faint hippie-wanna-be baby-jawed pissant.
Nah, bring ’em on. We have a group here who are literate and uncivil, and we like a fight. We call fuckwits fuckwits, simple as. It helps, of course, that we are also all part of the nonsense-denial conspiracy; round here we calls it rationalality.
This is why I keep coming back PZ. I am a recent convert from the world of pseudoscience. I thank you and others for opening my eyes to the fact that “sawgrass” isn’t going to help my enlarged prostate!
I think it’s ok to question the hypotheses of the climate scientist. Even Brian Dunning is doing it. Denying for the sake of denying, however, doesn’t help anyone.
Beard fight! Beard fight!
I am going to get some hot chocolate and enjoy the hostilities. It gets me warm and tingly all over.
Questioning hypotheses is fine, but the infrared-optical properties of the CO2 molecule are not hypothetical, and the rising atmospheric CO2 level since the industrial revolution is not hypothetical. Basic physics means that warming is the default assumption.
See it and spread the news: MAJERUS, M. E. N. Industrial Melanism in the Peppered Moth, Biston betularia: An Excellent Teaching Example of Darwinian Evolution in Action. Evolution: Education and Outreach. In: ://www.springerlink.com/content/h7n4r6h026q1u6hk/fulltext.html>
As of a couple minutes ago, you were #2 at 29.9%. I do read some AGW doubters, but I’ve yet to encounter one who doesn’t want to get away from fossil fuels.
Then again PZ,
you have had a few hot topics in the last few days,it wasnt only the weblog thingy,the rabbi thread brought out some fine specimens as well !
Oh,and Janine,its 32degrees Celsius here at 1am,im sweating like a bearded scientist,and hot chocolate would just about kill me ! LOL
We’re supposed to fight an uncivil war then?
Who’s this Emmett person, Mr. Meyer?
On the theme of pseudoscience and conspiracy, I have this to say : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9Ib1WDDgjs&feature=channel_page
Note the temperate and even handed way I’ve made my post? Given our hosts call for rudeness, this is an ingenious and counterintutive response which is actually quite rude.
Clinteas, that is because you are in Oppositeland and it is summer there. Here in the real world of the mid continental North America, we are hunkering down for a few days of sub zero weather. I desire anything that could warm me up. A beard fight between PZ and Emmet helps.
Let the hot and angry words fly!
Clineas, you are bearded? You want to join in the battle? No need to take sides. I wanted a bearded battle royale.
Dr. Meyers,
You are certainly entitled to be discourteous at your pleasure, this is after all your house and civility certainly has not been in fashion for a long while now. It accomplishes nothing, though, except to further drive a wedge between people. By being rude you perpetuate hate, and the right/left divide and the same old politics that got us into our current mess, which you refer to as a “screwed-up country”.
So, please continue to be as rude and discourteous as you like, and it shall be returned to yourside in kind and we can both further perpetuate the screwiness of our times, or we could forget the trivial differences between our opposing views and get on with building a better country, and give President Obama the best chance possible to correct the mess that we are currently in.
best regards.
Right on Prof Myerz.
I reserve the right to call a church a waste of real state whenever i feel like it.
Janine,
Im very unbearded…..
Too hot !
Those who proliferate the Noble Lie™ don’t truck with such coarseness and vulgarity -they’re consumed with being noble after all and deny the lying part. They think their protestations against crude language and hostile tones are actually valid debating points that garner rational credibility when their main arguments have little merit.
“I didn’t cuss and call everyone a f**ktard, so I win,” says the archly smug religiobabbler.
*sigh*
I always try to start out civil, but demanding civility will that in a hurry, along with repeating refuted arguments ad nauseum. Sounds the AGW deniers alright.
Every time I think about growing a beard, a certain Redhead threatens me with nail polish in it.
What about fake beards? Are those sorts of frauds allowed in a beard fight? What if they’re terribly polite and particularly well-kempt beards? And then of course there’s the potential counter-culture battle of the merkins …
Well, it sorta goes without saying, but ‘civil war’ is a bit of an oxymoron, anyway…
‘Excuse me? Sir? I beg your pardon, sir, but would you mind terribly if I napalm your children?’
‘Oh, by all means. Be my guest. Why, I insist!’
‘Why thank you kindly. And top of the morning to you…’
Hear hear! I will do my damnedest to be as uncivil as is warranted (as determined by myself and PZ if necessary) when confronted with ignorance, stupidity, and delusion.
“By being rude you perpetuate hate, and the right/left divide and the same old politics that got us into our current mess, which you refer to as a “screwed-up country”.
best regards.
I love the best regards. nice touch
All together now:
Clinteas, are you saying that I need an different flimsy excuse to get you, Emmet, PZ and others trying to lay the smackdown on each other?
Alright, who is the most rude commentator here?
GO!
What have the Polish got to do with it? (Anti-Scrabble bastards!)
I have no idea how these blog awards things are run, but in the recent Canadian equivalent no less than *two* of D’Oh!Leary’s founts of drivel were in the running in the Sci & Tech category, so that tells you how much credibility the process has.
Oh Joy,a troll !
Is it only me or does this sentence not make an awful lot of sense?
Gee,i love perpetuating screwiness,any takers?
Shorter JohnnyB:
Cant you just respect my views without being so discourteous and intolerant to call them bullshit when theyre bullshit?
I’m sorry to disappoint those expecting a beardfight, but I’m afraid I must concede that our host does, indeed, have the superior beard — my goatee is, as my South Park caricature suggests, a puny ginger affair. I not only lack the concentration of testosterone in my watery Celtic blood to grow a proper science beard or go bald, but also the melanin in my skin to do anything other than turn bright pink and get cancer when exposed to sunlight.
<offtopic>I’ll be in the SF Bay Area in Feb/Mar and (maybe) Boston in late March for a week or so; if any friendly local Pharyngulites want to meet up for a beer, contact me.</offtopic>
Brutal honesty about your views is not rude. I’m quite religious and I have read this blog daily for longer than it has been at scienceblogs. If your view of the world is so shaky that it can’t hold up to lively discussion perhaps the problem lies with you.
It is every free person’s right to be rude, but we should set the bar a little higher and be rude and funny. The Dutch-speaking crowds here can check out the example set by Hans Teeuwen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcCOktdsz-0
The Revolution will not be civilized!
Agreed. I loathe insincere politeness. It doesn’t fool anyone except the person using it… sort of like breast implants.
Johnnyb @ #19:
Isn’t it odd how these calls for “unity” and “nonpartisanship” from the right only occur after the Republicans lose?
I think Obama should just say “Screw all y’all” and do what’s *right*, not what the right wants. Then again, the odds of that are slim. Damn liberal fair-mindedness.
(PS: I have a vandyke, but I can’t grow a full beard. I always end up with big bald patches.)
I kept wondering why frisbees got bigger and bigger.
Then it hit me.
I agree that there is no *obligation* to be civil to the pseudo-scientific (or anti-scientific) fringe. I’m not sure, in the long run, that rudeness is more effective than engaging them civilly. You may have seen this clip by Neil DeGrasse Tyson (whom I don’t think has an ounce of woo in him); it’s more persuasive than I could ever be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYBFqse7tiU
Boston eh….Wonder who you would go and see there LOL
Gee those ministers,not only fail in the beard contest,but also no shame at all !
No beard fight! But I have the Star Trek battle music playing in my head. I want rudeness pushing into ultraviolence. Damn, I guess if I really need my blood fix, the is always The Passion Of The Christ.
Do you see what you all are pushing me towards?
PZ speaks like a true professor, asking you to open your mind and come to the truth yourself.
Which may be why so many folks simply cannot make a successful transition from the spoon-fed primary and secondary education systems in the US of A.
———
Totally off-topic, but I was reading Greta’s post regarding Gary Marcus’ book Kludge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind. Now, brains and ideas cannot fossilize (except in a church, temple or a certain political party) so what work has been done in the evolution of the brain? What I’m referring to more specifically is the turning on or off the genes of animals in utero to attempt to devolve the brain and compare against various baseline responses. Would such a thing even have any value?
PZ: “I write about whatever interests me, whenever I feel like it.”
This is what pisses me off about some of the posters on Phil’s blog. Anytime he writes about anything other than astronomy, especially his posts on “woo”, posters come out of the wood work to complain about how Phil should stick to only astronomy. The concept of a “personal blog” is lost on these people.
If PZ or Phil or anyone else with a blog wants to write about the giant crap they took this morning, then, as the owner of the blog, they can damn well do so. We, the readers, then have the option to not read that post. But please, don’t write a post bitching and moaning that you disagree with the topic of choice on someone else’s PERSONAL blog.
Indeed. This Modern World had a comment on this just last week, I believe.
What’s especially precious and comical about certain denialist types insisting on ‘civility’ is many of these are the very same people who endlessly ascribe all manner of deliberately devious evil and/or rampant stupidity to their opponents pretty much every time they open their mouths. Y’know… global warming’s all a commie plot by radical eco-freaks hellbent on destroying civilization and they’re all buying into it because their either with them or useful idiots who’ve never looked at the numbers or read the science themselves and thought it over, and hey, stupid, you’ve swallowed the Kool-Aid, too, ya brainwashed moron… But be civil to me, dammit!
Right on it, ya poor dear. Oh, did my calling you deluded and pointing out in detail how you fail at basic logic at such a level it’s a wonder you can feed yourself–why, did my saying that upset your precious digestion?
My sincerest apologies. You poor thing.
Shared-ignorance-caused domestic warming is a MYTH!!!1111111one
Thus spake SC, OM:
Well spotted! My spelling (or rather, my parents’) with one “t” seems to be the less popular alternative in the US for some reason, so people getting the number of t’s right on the Internet is the exception rather than the rule. I’m well used to it and have long since stopped expecting people to spell my name right.
C’mon, PZH: say what you mean. I hate it when you mince words.
I have come here to post comments in an uncivil manner! Besides which, it is more unciviler to be a liar than a con artist than it is to point out the liars and con artists.
BTW… what perpetuates the “left/right” divide isn’t rudeness from the left, but the dishonesty and official corruption of the right. Right-wingers and scumbags of all stripes expect YOU to be civil, while they take advantage to steamroll right over you.
fuck em
Thus spake Clinteas:
I’ve family and friends in the Greater Boston area. There are probably many more, of course, but the only Pharyngulites I know (or I’m pretty sure) are in that area are SC and MAJeff (who I haven’t seen in a while), either or both of whom it’d be fun to actually meet in person.
LOL Emmet,
I was of course referring to our favourite anarchist…
I reckon it would be great to meet people here in person,or have a pic on your posting thingy,like on RD.net,so you can get an idea of what pale shriveled bent and disfigured net creatures we spend our time debating and talking to here…:-)
Johnny B:
I just love it when some dolt like JB@19 comes up with the “can’t we just get along?” tripe. After all, the differences are just trivial. Reality vs. complete divorce from this universe. Yep – barely a point of divergence.
*blushes and winks at clinteas*
It would be fun! I’ll/we’ll be in touch. Sorry to have to go now – my sister’s on her way up for a visit, and those floors won’t clean themselves! Enjoy your day (or night), everyone!
Well-intentioned, intelligent commenters who disagree with the majority opinions here will do well to remember that the rest of the commenters here are extremely intelligent and respond well to evidence that you’re trying to learn and understand. You have to be thick-skinned enough to get past the rancor and frustration that’s often their first reaction. You can’t afford the luxury of taking offense in here.
Just remember the lawyer’s saying: “When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the theory is on your side, pound the theory. If neither is on your side, pound the table.” (Kidding!)
Paconious@20
Um, real estate. Appropriately snarky though.
From my perspective, the lack of civility directed toward contrarian or ignorant commenters is an artifact of the oppositional nature of the discourse here among the proletariat.
I normally lurk rather than participate, because only so much entertainment can be got by mocking the incorrigibly self-deluded. I do long for a society where disagreements and misunderstanding can be dealt with through persuasion and education. But, I understand we are realists here.
And, yes, of course this is a science blog… though certainly not exclusively so.
The Countess and The Count are also somewhat nearby in Cape Ann.
In case you want to vote for PZ more than once, just delete the cookie. The site uses macromedia cookies. Just find the macromedia directory and delete the cookie to this site in it. Do this two or three thousand times. Right now. Go.
Hey, this is fun… I just need someone to aim it at…
Would you think me less than civil
If I gussied up my drivel?
Would your disappointment shrivel up and vanish in the mist?
Would you give me greater latitude
If I cleaned up my attitude?
I do not need your gratitude, goddammit, I am pissed!
Comments here may seem…well, rude,
But they’re rarely misconstrued
If you’d rather be a prude and miss the point, then go to hell.
Want polite? You’re out of luck, you
Smarmy bastard, cos you suck. You
Don’t deserve less than a “fuck you, and the horse you rode as well”
Asking Llaauurraa about her magic underwear is not uncivil. OK, maybe a little, but it’s funny too.
The big problem that I see is that of some people being personally attached to their conclusions, and not their processes. So any attack on their ideas is interpreted as an attack on their person, and then the whinging starts about “respect” and “atheists are mean,” etc. Then someone actually does call them an asshat douchebag. It gets frustrating.
My vote for most uncivil is Holbach, followed by BobC.
Best uncivil content? truthmachine (please come back)
What I don’t understand is the hate accusations. Why is it every time you criticize or disagree with these folks they start whining about “why do you hate me?”, “you’re just perpetuating hate!”, etc.
If they really want to be liked maybe they should consider examining the merits of their bullshit arguments objectively.
I haven’t seen anyone called an ignorant slut in these here parts for some time. I miss that.
There appears to be blatant cheating going on in this site’s voting for the weblog awards. During the last 15 minutes, the voting rate for Pharyngula has increased by an order of magnitude. Incivility and cheating is simply not acceptable.
Hear, hear.
I, for one, think that saying, “You’re making no sense and you’re deluded if you think this is going to change our minds” is no ruder than saying, “You have no morals, you must be miserable, and you’re going to suffer an eternity of hellfire after you die.” The primary difference on this blog isn’t manners, it’s that suddenly the godless freethinkers rule the roost while the theists are in the minority.
OT,
http://www.struggle.ws/anarchism/writers/anarcho/anarchism/libcap/refuteAC.html
speedwell,
SC had a reference for you:
Shane, you ignorant slut.
Brian @17
I could tell it took a toll on you, but you were indeed civil. And along the lines of some of the other posts here, nice to see what you look like! (stereotypical handsome dark-haired Irishman…)
No, no…don’t do the cookie deletion trick. It will be caught. All they have to do is look and see two or three thousand votes, all from the same IP address, and they’ll simply throw out every vote, even the valid ones, from that IP. Or they’ll look at the history and see a suspicious bolus of votes going one way from one source.
It’s also a very right-wing site. Expect that votes for a left-leaning site will receive especially scrupulous scrutiny, while the votes for Wingnuttia will be waved on through. I suspect that a lot of the votes for that ghastly Watt site and its mob of denialist fanatics are machine-generated, but I doubt that they’ll be disclosed.
I am in Boston (Cambridge actually). I am always up for some Pharyngulation of the area.
@28 – “Alright, who is the most rude commentator here?
GO!”
I’ve always wanted an excuse to post my fovorite clip ever – Thank you! ;-)
Kevin Bacon says it best.
Also, I’m giving my notice here of volunteering to have Cuttlefish’s babies.
I disagree.
You can shred the creationists, conspiracy theorists, global warming deniers and general wackaloons to bits and it can be done with civility.
Take quote mining, for example. If they’ve used a particular mine previously, it’s totally possible to call them a liar in a civil manner when you point out how they’ve educated on the mine in the past.
There’s no need for a response like “You’re fucking liar, dipshit” – it only shows that you’re as much of a jerk as the quote miner.
It’s your blog and you can write what you want to, write what you want to.
Thus spake clinteas:
I surmised as much. My avatar on RD.net is a little generic graphic I created based on the RD.net banner and Dawkins’s 7-point scale of religiosity, rather than a picture of me. Photos do seem to be very popular over there, as do distracting animated avatars.
Would it be acceptably on topic to offer a
FUCK THE CONCERN TROLLS
too?
Janine #10
What? Katie Holmes is fighting Nicole Kidman?
Oh, I kid Tom Cruise!
Blondin
’cause they’re idgits. Fuck the fucking fucking fuckers.
We are so mean when we question their fairy tales, and point to reality.
shane @ #62:
People got offended by that shit, you pompous ass. :-P
Yes, but there’s so many of them, I fear you’d wear it down to a stump before you got halfway through.
Benjamin Geigar,
I believe that you are confused, the right would have been perfectly delighted if the left had been civil towards President Bush. I admit that I do not recall precisely, but after the 2000 election did my side not ask for a show of national unity? Did we not ask you to support President Bush? I thought that your side was invited to support your President, but I could be wrong.
Was the right playing nice with Clinton? Were we trying to make nice back then? I seem to recall being fairly mean to Clinton, calling him a rapist and a drug dealer. Then after Waco calling him a babykiller, and having him impeached for Whitewater. I thought that was my side playing hardball, but again, I might be wrong.
Now could be a new time, if we allow it to be, of course, that would require people to behave in a civilized fashion to each other. My side lost this election, and they deserved to, so be it. Barack Obama is now my President against my wishes, so be it. In different times, under different circumstances, I would react differently to this fact, but truth be known, what the country needs now is leadership and whether I like it or not, I realize that we are all in this together. My fate is tied to the success or failure of this country, if Obama fails the country fails, and my personal prosperity is threatened. So, what shall I do? Sow the seeds of discontent, wish Mr. Obama malice because I disagree with him on some issues, or shall I wish Obama the best and hope that he proves me wrong. The choice should be obvious.
What is the intent of leftwing bloggers? To gloat? To insult and an inflame the right? You do know that we are all armed, right?
Please understand, that our two sides living together in the same country is exactly like an unhappy arranged marriage. If it were possible to get a no fault divorce, it would be in our mutual best interest, but there is no such thing as a no fault divorce here. Divorce will mean a civil war, where our own friends, families and fortunes will be destroyed. Shall you continue to stoke the flames that make life so unbearable together that it justifies such a cost?
Complaining about other people being civil to you, ha! This place is like Bizarro World.
Haven’t read these comments carefully yet — been busy being longwindedly naive on another thread! — but I just thought I’d note that someone’s got PZ’s Weblog Awards back. Now, I guess, we’ll see how good the HuffPo readers are at Pharyngulizing a poll!
Thanks PZ
I’m still having fun with the whackos on the other thread.
I would take you and Emmet up on that beard war though…
I bet that the AGW denialists are cheating in the polls. It’s in line with their philosophy to cheat, cherry pick, lie, distort. Cheating in the poll would be justified to them because they’re fighting a CONSPIRACY!
Shaden Freud, I was waiting for someone to move the meaning there. Thank you. And TC deserves all the ridicule he gets.
oh, i’ve been looking for an excuse to troll for too long now! just laid down some sweet invective at that watt site, i expect it to be moderated but damn it feels so nice.
Alyson:
I’m thinking Cuttlefish will be flattered, and Mrs. Cuttlefish -not so much.
KnockGoats @ 65: Thanks, I missed that. I’ll go have a look.
#50
Actually, the last Boston Pharyngufest run by MAJeff was quite well-attended. Rebecca Watson, Blake Stacey, and many others were there. PixelFish’s photos are in this group.
Thus spake SC, OM:
I look forward to it. Isn’t cleaning floors a much better way to spend time on your knees than praying, though?
Cue double entendre in 3… 2… 1…
Please understand, that our two sides living together in the same country is exactly like an unhappy arranged marriage. If it were possible to get a no fault divorce, it would be in our mutual best interest, but there is no such thing as a no fault divorce here. Divorce will mean a civil war, where our own friends, families and fortunes will be destroyed. Shall you continue to stoke the flames that make life so unbearable together that it justifies such a cost?
Did this guy just threaten a civil war if people don’t pander to his drivel? That crazy russian economist may have been on to something …
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield, OM January 13, 2009
Yes, but there’s so many of them, I fear you’d wear it down to a stump before you got halfway through.
That is why there are strap ons.
But some of us avoid sex with trolls by engaging in the troll stomp. All you need are strong legs and sturdy boots. One get get great troll whine this way. And it is great exercise. Why, look at Patricia, she can twirl all day.
Ooh, ooh! This is a fabulous yet incredibly civil (I’m not implying there’s anything wrong with lack thereof) explanation of the difficulties so many people have in even listening to scientific information…here’s an excerpt:
“Arguing against a field of science you’ve not understood is like muscling in on a card game you’ve never learned. Without an understanding of the rules, you have no valid basis for adopting a strategy, or even trying to mount a convincing bluff. The person who declares evolution to be nonsense because noone’s ever seen an ape mutate into a man is a conspicuously uninformed as a person who shouts “Snap” at a poker game, though of course their own lack of comprehension prevents them from seeing it.”
If I sent this link to my siblings who are cretinists, that would sever the family ties forever…
My favourite bit…
What is the intent of leftwing bloggers? To gloat? To insult and an inflame the right? You do know that we are all armed, right?
@Bill Dauphin
I used to comment at HuffPo until I tired of their woo support of Chopra and the anti-vaccine crowd. It’s nice to see that isn’t the case with AGW.
Hey PZ, I’ll tell you what I’d like to do to some of these new guests.
First, I’ll smack them in the face with a big fucking copy of On the Origin of Species (Hardcover). Then I’ll take a banana – you know, the fruit designed by God to prove his existence – and shove it straight up their asses. I will then follow the banana with Satan’s answer to Gods perfect design: the coconut. The ease of fit will dictate my next move by telling us whether they are Catholic or Protestant. Let’s assume they’re Catholic. I’ll add another coconut so they can feel it. I’ll then force feed them some of those crackers they so love. I’ll even make them easier to swallow by softening them up with some fresh ‘million murdered baby’ stew (home brewed). As a finale, I will put on a priest’s collar and dance naked on a picture of the pope while singing a little ditty I wrote about Jesus’ and Bill Donahue sharing the holy spirit.
I call it The Christocrats.
BTW, Emmet… IIRC Kseniya is somewhere in MA… though these days I’m wondering if she wasn’t just a mirage.
FWIW, I’m in the Hartford, CT, area, so Boston isn’t a ridiculous drive. I was hoping to come to MAJeff’s Pharyngufest, but was, at the last moment, Overcome by Events™.
This statement is profound.
Emmet @ 50: I am also in the Boston north-west suburbs, not far from the home towns of Daniel Dennett and E.O. Wilson.
Johnnyb @ 19: Your statement is one from a person who has no logical argument, no facts based on critical thinking or evidence of your (now hidden) position. The right wing is, and always has been, the perpetrators of hate. The left has always been the agent of fairness and moderation. The right has always been out for self and selfish interests even when detrimental to all others.
That crazy russian economist may have been on to something – Brian Coughlan
Which particular C.R.E. would that be?
But what about the guy who threatened civil war in post #80! What is up with that!?
Unfortunately, lack of civility and plain nastiness seem to characterize many left-leaning outlets. I see it as a weakness. Greater strength would be demonstrated by strong arguments presented with honor. There is a difference between fighting hard and fighting dishonorably.
I see no value in vulgarity and ad hominem approaches. This is the greatest weakness of the new atheist movement. Ad hominem always has been, and still is, a lazy and morally flawed substitute for good arguments and honest interaction. I find that when I am uncivil or nasty, I usually feel the worse for it.
If meaning and fulfillment were to be found only in survival and physical comfort, then it may not matter how the race is run or the battle fought, but this is not the case. For whatever reason, human nature is such that the highest meaning and fulfillment in life are found in the method of the running and fighting.
I suppose that, in the former case, shooting an unarmed man is acceptable. But higher fulfillment cannot be found in fighting with dishonor. It is unfortunate that many secularists do not seem to understand this, they view themselves as smart beasts, whose only goal is to gather food, mates, and knowlege.
@62
Shane you ignorant slut.
Does that make you feel better?
JonnyB
“Was the right playing nice with Clinton? Were we trying to make nice back then? I seem to recall being fairly mean to Clinton, calling him a rapist and a drug dealer. Then after Waco calling him a babykiller, and having him impeached for Whitewater. I thought that was my side playing hardball, but again, I might be wrong.”
Wingnuts never cease to amaze me…
Which particular C.R.E. would that be?
This one : http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html
GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKER! I hope this helps.
@100,
Concern troll is concerned.
From the post:
To claim that because I sometimes laugh and sometimes get angry and am a concerned citizen of a screwed-up country and have interests outside of journals and academia and am a father and husband and am willing to express myself on any topic that strikes my fancy means that there can’t possibly be any science here implies that you are a freaking idiot with a bizarrely narrow view of who scientists are, and a peculiarly close-minded vision of how this medium actually works.
================================
This is an admission that this is not a science blog. it is something but it is not a science blog
PZ, we shouldn’t be rude because it detracts from our argument and the creotards won’t actually listen to what we have to say… oh, that’s right, they don’t anyway. That and stopping someone’s argument cold because their skin is too thin to take the pounding they deserve is almost as satisfying as actually debunking the shite they profess.
I agree with PZ, pretty much. I’d say that when it gets to the point where people are making baseless personal accusations* unrelated to the argument and meant to do damage, that’s when being uncivil has gone too far. But I’ve rarely seen that here – sometimes, yeah, the arguments are interlaced with insults, but usually they have some basis in what the person has said, and usually the argument is at the fore. If the commenters’ usual behavior counts as uncivility, then fuck civility.
*Saying “you’re ignorant and anti-science” based on someone’s views about, for instance, GW is not a baseless personal accusation. Taking the same post about GW and responding “you would clearly stomp puppies given the chance” probably is.
@smijet,
I’m confused. Are we the proletariat?
Regarding the web log awards, over on the Jennifer Marahosy denialist blog readers are being urged to vote more than once so I took a look and yes you can vote oce every 24 hours – that doesn’t seem honest to me. Who was it that said, “vote early and vote often”.
I live and work in Greater Boston, too. In fact, I’m looking out over the semi-frozen Charles, right now. Mmmm, slushy.
Here is an example from JohnnyB on the previous thread showing how nice, courteous and civil he is:
“…why does the lunatic fringe who believes such garbage as Global Warming…”
I’ll bet Jebus guides him in his quest for a better world.
Seriously though, and I don’t mean to harp, isn’t threatening civil war Treason or something? Are american right wingers really thinking about secession? Really?
Sort of makes the Palin pick a bit less insane. Still insane of course, but an internally consistent kind of insanity.
Seriously, am I the only one that reacted to post #80? Am I?
Well?
Brian@103,
Thanks. The stupid burns… but the downright crazy amuses!
I am a regular whatsupwiththat (WUWT) visitor. We’ve all been tagged as “conspiracy theorists.” Nearly every reader there believes that man’s presence has warmed the earth to some degree. The disagreement is over how much, how good or skewed the data is, and how good the models have and will predict the future. Call me a denier, but on the flip side there are many scientists and politicians pushing an agenda based on poorly controlled data and statistics.
Lastly, I would think that an apparently atheist-leaning blog would find a kindred spirit in those at WUWT; both are deniers of a sort
My favourite comment from the Richard Dawkins forums was concerning the latest blatherings of a Church of England dignitary. He/she called it “nothing more than a cuntload of toadshit”.
Lovely.
hindsight kind of tells us that for next year’s award, perhaps we should discourage voting for phyrangula? since it’s a piece of shit poll and serves nothing but to galvanize the stupid and attract trolls.
i guess it’s been a slow news week and we have nothing better to do than beat up on the weak of mind…
::dunno::
See until recently, I too thought that scientists must be unbiased, objective, infallible, and wear a white lab coat. Fortunately, however, I read an editorial comic that set me straight:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/the_scientist_in_the_white_coa.php
PZ is clearly both biased AND human, and therefore must be a scientist.
“you can vote oce every 24 hours ”
That’s how the voting process has always been for the Weblogs so make sure you vote evry 24 hours to cancel out the wingnuts who do.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha ha ha ahhhh. . . .
Wait, you were serious?
[facepalm]
The fuckers don’t want you to say “fuck”. Especially when they are the ones doing the fucking – and fucking up while doing so.
Matt. Publish or shut up. AGW deniers are no different than the ID crowd. They don’t want to do the science they just want to criticize it. SHOW that it’s wrong. Don’t just question the methods.
The ice caps are melting.
I’ve always wondered how lying about science and scientists, no matter how politely framed, could ever be considered anything but extremely rude.
Any name-calling in response to such extreme rudeness is generally polite by comparison. To any just person, that is.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Lastly, I would think that an apparently atheist-leaning blog would find a kindred spirit in those at WUWT; both are deniers of a sort
True, quite true. One group deny illusion, and the other reality. Exactly the same:-)
MattE, if the data for AGW isn’t good, then fight the argument in the scientific literature, not on blogs. Oh, but that would mean you would have to actually have some valid data to supply to the argument, and preconceived ideologies would have to be placed on hold in order for the paper to be accepted. Since this is the truth on how science works, what is impolite about saying this?
Regarding #80-
Perhaps if I see the wingnut hatefreaks who infest our media lining up for unemployment because the market for their shit-flinging has gone the way of the buggy- whip, I will consider making nice with maimed authoritarian-follower personalities like yourself.
Until that day, shitnozzle, take your barely-veiled threats and go fuck yourself with a Fluke 80K-40.
@114 “Lastly, I would think that an apparently atheist-leaning blog would find a kindred spirit in those at WUWT; both are deniers of a sort”
Does this mean we atheists should also find a kindred spirit with people who deny that evolution is a valid theory?
Wait. That doesn’t make sense.
Okay, now you’re getting it.
PZ is apparently unaware that the call for civility comes from a RealClimate blog post here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/weblog-awards/
Readers of Climate Audit and Watts feel that a double standard is being used.
Certainly the Real Climate authors do use a double standard, simultaneously being uncivil and calling for civility.
But as far as I am aware, PZ has never made any sort of hypocritical call for civility. He has been consistently uncivil with those with whom he disagrees.
Unfortunately, by being so aggressive, he has lost his ability to be scientific objective. It is hard to simultaneously tell somebody “you are so full of crap, you are a disgrace to science” while critically analyzing somebody’s writings and papers.
In the case of Watts, he has published a great many papers (authored by others) that are flat out loony, dishonest or misleading. Although he does publish some interesting things, PZ’s comments about his blog are, IMNSHO, justified.
In the case of Climate Audit, McIntyres “audits” are scientifically sound and have resulted in improvements to the calculations a several major consensus scientific organizations. PZ’s treatment of CA has about as much scientific objectivity as a creationist science teacher.
I’m not sure that this is a bad thing. You can’t be a good scientist if you don’t have doubt (Newsweek had a good article recent article about this http://www.newsweek.com/id/177740). You can’t be a good attack dog if you do.
PZ is a very good attack dog.
Concern noted. zzzzzz.
Sorry, PZ, I have to disagree with you here.
You regard your war against anti-intellectualism, like your war against religious bigotry, as a war with two sides. This oversimplifies the affair dramatically.
If you are interested in winning a debate with a single opponent, and an engaged and intelligent judging panel, then a lack of civility (particularly in context) can earn you points. But the war against anti-intellectualism is a war between smart people and a very small minority of blowhards (some of whom are clever in their own right, just deluded), and in the middle is 95% of the human population. For those people, a huge chunk may have the inclination to act rationally, but insulting them needlessly is not going to win you recruits. It might let you hang a bloody creationist’s scalp on your intellectual coup poll, but the voting public has a huge impact on science policy, and pissing them off by lumping them together with people you disagree with is counterproductive at best.
Being right matters when you control the outcome of the discourse… when you’re in court, or when you’re arguing science with another scientist at a conference. Being right doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as it ought in the court of public opinion, and it certainly matters quite a bit less than being able to convince people to trust you.
OK, Steve_C, since you mention the ice caps melting, maybe you should know that only the northern icecap is in decline. The antarctic icecap has been growing at the same time the northern icecap has been in decline. See these charts:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.jpg
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.anom.south.jpg
There was a good piece in Skeptic magazine about debating with creationists, and how a lack of civility can slam their minds shut. Of course, first, you’d have to find a creationist with an open mind–and that was a flaw in the piece’s premise. There might be some open-minded creationists out there, but I haven’t encountered one yet myself.
MattE, publish your ideas in the primary scientific literature. That is the only way to convince us.
Corey Albrecht #72 wrote:
That depends on how one defines “civility.” One of the problems frequently pointed out here is the way popular culture often protects pseudoscientific or religious beliefs behind a barrier which demands “respect.” This particular version of respect replaces honest debate with a phony tolerance and harmony. If you argue, then you’re not allowing people the freedom to believe what they want. Or something.
You’re talking about “shredding” someone’s argument with civility. But when it comes to some topics — such as religion — the very idea of even disagreeing may be taken as evidence of hostility, egotism, and rudeness. I take great care, both online and off, to avoid unnecessary invective and insult when I disagree with someone. Not so I can model “nice,” but so that I don’t give anyone an easy excuse, a handle to grab to deflect the discussion onto personalities and social issues. I’m wary because of experience.
It generally works online, in a discussion forum, but my experience in real life is that all you have to do is disagree and you’re accused of incivility. It doesn’t matter how nicely you say it.
Though I did try experimenting a few times to see if I could successfully cushion overt disagreement over some New Age crap with so much sweet-spoken tact, smiling pleasantry, flattering compliments, and reassuring redirections to areas of agreement that I could avoid them calling me some variation of “mean.” It had mixed success. They didn’t get offended or start in on attacking me personally, but they didn’t really seem to get my point either. From what I could tell, my argument was seen as a hypothetical metaphor, and they thought I was really agreeing.
Can there seriously be that many climate change denialists right now? I thought that most people agreed with the real science by now.
I wish these fucking idiots would learn what the fuck ad hominem fuckin means. It is not rudeness, nor crude language, nor insults. Saying “your stupid argument means you are an idiot” is not ad hominem. Saying “your argument is stupid because you are a fuckward” is. Do you see the fucking difference? Shit, I am so sick of that.
@Brian Coughlan, I’m not sure it’s a totally crazy idea. I mean, I’m not planning on starting one myself, since I’m a moderate pacifist, but he’s right about this being an unhappy marriage. It’s beyond disagreement on the principles of government; it’s a culture war. Maybe we’d all be better off if the right seceded. *shrug* But then all of us kids trapped in the middle who want evolution and guns and an end to the war and stem cell research and marriage rights for everyone and less taxation would probably be a little screwed, eh? It’s not like we’re getting our way anyway, though. I don’t know. Probably we’d be better off. All the ignorant creos would go over there, the kids in the middle would stay over here, and we’d have intranational variation, instead of all having to focus our energies on this kind of fundamentally irresolvable culture conflict.
@MattE, if you don’t see the difference between atheism and global warming denial, you may fuck off. By the same token, communists, creationists, and gay people should be kindred spirits, as they’re all in a minority of some kind.
Uhg. It’s just a blog. People come spouting garbage and we call them on it. That’s it.
Bill Green’s blog says it all.
He’s another John Galt, Ayn Rand, Ron Paul worshipping utopian redbaiting wingnut.
The Right’s motto: Force over Reason. “You may have the lion’s share logic but we’ve got the lion’s share of guns!”
Yeah, Johnnyb, I’m gloating, motherfucker, what are you gonna do about it?
Anyone want to bet that the people complaining that this is not a science blog, expecting it to be all science, all the time, have never once read a scientific research paper? Or, at best, they’ve opened a journal before but couldn’t understand it?
Otto: Don’t call me stupid.
Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I’ve known sheep that could outwit you. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you’re an intellectual, don’t you, ape?
Otto: Apes don’t read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “Every man for himself.” And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked ’em up.
So very apropos: http://wonkette.com/
On the Weblog Awards: the HP’s announcement is having a noticeable effect. We’re now only 200 votes behind.
As I noted earlier, this is *exactly* what Watts wants. He acts like a gentleman and demands that folk be civil after labelling any critical view as an ad-hom. You’re just feeding his persecution complex and making his minions all that more fanatical.
I LOVE this blog, PZ. It is my favorite blog. And that’s saying a lot, considering how many damn blogs I read. The best part of this blog is the discussions!
THIS THIS THIS! I don’t comment much, as I’m still new and a little intimidated, but I feel … at home here. People always want everyone to be so fucking nice all the time. “Oh, oh, but you’re not going to get anywhere if you’re not NICE!” Fuck that, truth is not always “nice.”
Seriously. Whenever I’m called out for not being “nice enough” (whatever the fuck that means!) I just remember that the great PZ feels exactly as I do about being “polite”.
I suppose I can have a little fun with this before banishing the site from memory (a matter of simply not bookmarking it and waiting five minutes, mind you).
“One of those [climate change denialist] blogs will almost certainly win the ‘award’ — which tells you the value of these contests…” Translation: “If I don’t win, the contest was meaningless.” Pray tell what your reaction would be if you were winning by a large margin? Yay, hypocrisy!
“I want my commenters to be uncivil. There is no virtue in politeness when confronted with ignorance, dishonesty, and delusion.” Translation: “Faith in the superiority of our positions is justification to be as vulgar as we like in dismissing any attempt to make us think.” There is a considerable difference between being frank and being rude. One insists on putting the facts first and may still remain civil. The other is a common mask for those who really have nothing of import to say.
“The other claim [“This is not a science blog”] is also a stupid distraction. This is a blog by an educator and scientist. We are not one-dimensional caricatures — I write about whatever interests me, whenever I feel like it.” Translation: “Okay, so this is really just a blog about me, but I just happen to blog about sciencey stuff a lot, and there are lots of links to scientific articles and blogs on the sidebar. Oh, and I’m an educator and a scientist, so what I say is important because I say it.”
A quick perusal of the site tells me three very important things: First, you like to be needlessly offensive. Maybe you think the shock-jock style gets a message across or something. Second, you are unnecessarily combative towards anyone holding ideas with which you disagree. You attempt to lambaste, berate, and marginalize people based solely on their disagreement with you and intentionally attempt to offend and provoke them. Go post your opinion of the contest here and see how it feels to be on the other side (or be a coward and refuse [no doubt while articulating the reason as something like refusing to play my game, it’s a waste of time, etc. {asides within asides… hmmm.}]).
All in all, your combativeness is likely to keep you trivialized more than anything else (I will, however, and for different reasons, agree that the “Best Science Blog” award is rather meaningless as anything other than a measure of how well the sides line up behind a single candidate). It’s a “preaching to the choir” thing; nobody else is willing to put up with the incessant haranguing long enough to get whatever message you might have. Incidentally, that would make you a failure as an educator, no? Maybe that accursed civility does have a point (keep in mind that this is coming from one who wrote a paper equating politeness with lying).
By your own admission, you don’t want a discussion or debate. You want a shouting match. You want to verbally (or its text version) abuse ideological opponents into forgoing any debate. You seem to think that shutting down an opposing viewpoint through shear harassment is tantamount to proving your ideas’ superiority.
Okay, you’re probably already considering how best to mock me for having forgotten my third point. I thought about just leaving it hanging since you or your cohorts would do a good job of making the point for me, but I suppose I should illuminate the denser folks. Put most simply, you are arrogant.
Well, that’s all the time I have for poking fun at a single site and its author. Don’t bother telling me I’ve wasted my time; this sort of thing is how I amuse myself on slow days, even if it never sees the light of day. I’ll leave with one of my favorite quotes (something of a finger in Professor Myers’ eye): “If you can’t say anything civilly, you’ve nothing worth saying.”
Nerd of Redhead, I don’t actually do climate science for a living. If your minimum level of acceptance is for people who publish, there is minimal room for conversation here. There is a lot to know out there and I don’t hear you making a reasonable response to the clear undisputed fact that the antarctic icecap has grown in area (and increased in thickness I might add) in an almost equal amount that the northern icecap has shrunk. This is a clear case where Steve_C’s common “knowledge” was not correct.
Religion is juvenile myth and superstitions.
That is truth, not incivility.
It’s not just a matter of finding an open-minded creationist with whom to debate, unlikely in the extreme. It’s that the real concern are the many who know little about science and need both to see that we have answers, and that the dishonesty of the creationists/IDists really does provoke a reaction.
I think that’s what’s flawed in most calls for treating pseudoscientists with politeness–people actually judge honesty by emotions to a considerable extent. If we weren’t offended by lies, people would seriously wonder if they were lies. Any competent and honest scientist or supporter of science would be offended by the constant barrage of defamatory statements made by various liars.
How bizarre would it be if we did not counterattack with respect to Expelled?
So there it is, he finally admits that he was just trolling, that the “dialog” they claimed to want to facilitate was only a matter of lies.
There would be something wrong with people who aren’t offended by being called virtual Nazis. Indeed, I think that only neo-Nazis would not be offended.
I’d add that while it’s true that Ruloff wanted to generate anger in order to play the victim, and that this does work with his captive audience, the fact is that our response of calling them the liars they are appears to have worked fairly well with the rest of the populace.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Nerd of Redhead, I don’t actually do climate science for a living.
If your minimum level of acceptance is for people who publish, there is minimal room for conversation here. There is a lot to know out there and I don’t hear you making a reasonable response to the clear undisputed fact that the antarctic icecap has grown in area (and increased in thickness I might add) in an almost equal amount that the northern icecap has shrunk. This is a clear case where Steve_C’s common “knowledge” was not correct.I think that makes your point with greater brevity.
@ #108 Angel
Would you prefer Hoi Polloi?
Bye Cortillaen.
I too will forget you in five minutes.
I feel better already.
MattE, you fall victim to DailyTech’s stupidity if you think global data doesn’t show a decline. The fact that it’s mostly concentrated in the north was predicted by climate models as far back as 1979 (Polar amplification showed up then, though it took a few years to properly represent the hemispheric differences). It’s safe to say that if science predicted it, it doesn’t contradict the science.
MattE, Real Climate did the yes, we know the Antarctic sheet is getting thicker thing almost a year ago, now.
You want to bring stuff like that in here, bring in that context, too. Otherwise, it ain’t especially honest, really.
Once the deniers ignore a civil “You are wrong, and here’s why….” they begin to earn their uncivil responses. The longer they persist in dishonest argument, the less respect and civility they deserve.
And to #80:
The Rovian policy of aiming for 50% plus one might be what the Republicans needed to win a few elections, but it is an uncivil and rude way to govern. Bush’s “some say” strawman and Coulter’s “Treason” are much more dishonest and rude than the open schoolyard taunts like Franken’s “Lies and the lying liars that tell them” or Moore’s “Stupid White Men”.
Do not confuse eloquence with politeness. I am an advocate for the return of finely honed ridicule if done right. (Read Winston Churchill for examples.) However, I have found that the use of rudeness and ad hominem attacks are most often substitutes for knowledge — not unlike the liberal use of “fuck” that exposes a shallow verbal tool chest of adjectives from which to express oneself.
Bill Green (#100) got it right. “lack of civility and plain nastiness . . . a weakness.”
Also, a well-tuned instrument sounds better than doubling the wattage of the amplifier. Same goes for speech. The message is more effective is delivered well. Yelling doesn’t help. Neither does printing in all CAPS or resorting to uncivil rants.
Be passionate, but express yourself well. PZ: the run-on sentences in your 3rd paragraph was more rant than meaning. Turn down the amplifier, read “Elements of Style,” and then get on with the discussion. You’ll be more effective, I assure you.
Cortillaen @#145–
Thank you!!! As I said back at post 59, I needed someone to aim at!
Shane, you ignorant slut!
PFolkens, can you spot the grammatical error in your own post?
Cortillaen wrote:
Or a whistling past a graveyard in the dark thing:
http://normdoering.blogspot.com/2009/01/introducing-derren-brown.html
Hey you-all. Consider the possibility that you-all maybe wrong! Huh?
PZ is the clown who wants his government to spend a fortune it doesn’t have on a rail system that will lose money and cost the government more money it doesn’t have, ridiculing those who point out that basic fact of life to him, and he thinks being uncivil to those who want to wake his liberal ass up is some sort of profound calling…
His politics, and those of his closest minions, are full of odd beliefs and religio-fruitcake tendencies, all protected from examination by an unspoken tacit blog-policy that name calling and ridicule are wonderful methods of political discourse.
Long since, have I been disabused of the notion that if you are an athiest (and maybe a scientist) you are by default rational and reasonable. There is ample evidence here that that is not even close to the truth.
Group think and monkey antics resides here in a large pile of liberal woo too, and it saddens me to report…
“Fecal flingers are everywhere!!!”
Lordy lordy lordy…
Thanks all, clearly not much reason to stay and chat so I’ll be off forever. My last thought, Brian, Nerd, Steve et al, goes back to my original comment about kindred spirit with the atheists and climate change deniers. I reject intelligent design because the science overwhelmingly rejects it. I question climate change because, if you actaully take a look, you’ll find the science supporting a man made cause is actually rather flimsy. I could go on about why, but you don’t actually seem to care, you’re committed to a belief.
Well uncivil it is then. You are science bigoted asshole of the first order. A most significant waste of good oxygen.
Just another university professor, over paid, under worked and self impressed with your own useless opinion.
Here’s a hint . . . buy long underwear and get ready for really long, really cold period of your “global warming”.
And remember – Al Gore lied and still lies and the Hockey Stick was fraud.
Now see there how polite Bill Green #100 was when speaking out of his ass, setting an example of decorum for all people who speak out of their asses? Notice how courteously he characterized secularists as dim and simplistic beasts “whose only goal is to gather food, mates, and knowlege”? And witness, too, his amicable, cultured concern as he implies that we would shoot an unarmed man without compunction. Also, see the underhanded way (as Steve M pointed out) he implies that because we aren’t always polite, and sometimes use invective, that we are using ad hominem arguments instead of actual arguments.
Thank you, Bill, for your example of well-mannered discourse, showing once again that contentiousness, snideness and general asswipery and douchebaggery can be done with gentleness and civility. But then we already know that, don’t we?
This site has taken on a classic Stalinist mentality. Mob rule, hatred and cheating in the voting over the last few hours.
Now there’s a line that one could dry out and fertilize South Dakota.
“Fuck” is a word, and a versatile one at that, and it is part of the English language. Using the word indicates nothing other than that the author chose to use it. To suggest it is indicative of a shallow verbal tool chest is a pathetically weak argument from someone with an inflated sense of self-righteousness. Overuse of the word could indicate limited literary skills, but so would overuse of any word.
If you want to show how deep your verbal tool chest is, write eloquently and clearly without using definite articles or pronouns. That would impress me.
Fred, thank you for that rant. I just wish it made sense.
P.Z., Your invective post already showed you bore responsibility for the contemptuous, uncivil culture. But I learned of the science blog poll here, and based on most of the posts, would not have assumed that this was a science rather than political blog at all.
Do you really think discourse is improved when the personal attacks obscure and outweight the dicussions of the evidence? Even the ancient greeks recognized the problems with ad hominem arguments.
@135
I agree with your definition and think, as I said, that it is very common at left-leaning outlets.
My post was not directed at this blog specifically, since I know little about. Rather, it was a record of thoughts triggered by the Myers’ immediate post. I grant that lack of civility and ad hominem are not equal, and I don’t think I indicated that in my post.
Bill
I love to read this blog.
It will carefully document the rampant slavish adherence to dogma of its writer, and his acolyte followers . A true atheist would question everything, particularly something that is taken on faith! I’ve followed this whole global warming charade for over 20 years, and had been a devout follower of the anthropogenic theory of catastrophic global warming until I realized that the whole thing is based on the thinnest of evidence. As anyone here heard of “dependent on initial conditions?” Open your eyes! We live in a world dominated by chaos, one can only make projections an insignificant time into the future.
To focus so narrowly on one type of “dangerous” industrial effluent is ludicrous. We have no idea of what will be the next impending danger to confront mankind, to mindlessly waste our resources on chasing something we can never catch is simply stupefying.
The gloves are off!
I will thoroughly enjoy your squirming comeuppance in the next few years.
MattE, if you wouldn’t mind, please inform us as to where it’s flimsy. Obviously, you must have perfect vision uncluttered with an understanding of climatology, so you must be unique in your ability to spot holes in the science. Care to teach us lowly atheists how we’re wrong?
Fred appears stuck in 2006, before the National Academy of Sciences exonerated the hockey stick, before the IPCC drew attention to the dozen other studies corroborating it, and before the Wegman report that the denialists love to cite said that it wasn’t important and was time to move on from the stick. It’s almost like how creationists would have us stay stuck a few hundred years ago, except somewhat more pathetic.
Only one? I found three and I wasn’t even looking all that closely.
James F@140, I’ll take that bet.
Johnny B said:
“I believe that you are confused, the right would have been perfectly delighted if the left had been civil towards President Bush. I admit that I do not recall precisely, but after the 2000 election did my side not ask for a show of national unity? Did we not ask you to support President Bush? I thought that your side was invited to support your President, but I could be wrong.”
Dear Ignorant Fucktard,
This country did, in fact, unite behind President Bush after the attacks of 9/11 only to have our Constitutional Rights marginalized and our country thrown, dishonestly, into a war of Bush’s making.
You do understand that when soldiers die, they don’t come back from the dead…their lives are over…families are ruined….YOU DO GET THAT, RIGHT???
So, next time you wonder why thoses of us on the LEFT are so passionate in our protests of the soon-to-be-gotten-the-fuck-out of office administration…it’s because the lives of Americans and innocent people depend on it.
FUCK YOU very much.
Pfolkens: All that was missing from your missive was a harrumph – oh, and your inability to understand that reasoning with creationist idiots is futile no matter how civil or grammatically correct the rebuttals are, you smug pedant.
Brian Coughlan
Exactly.
MattE, it isn’t science until it is published (or accepted for publication) in the scientific literature. You can write a scientific paper. But, you will have to obey the rules of science, and you will have the paper reviewed by experts in the field prior to publication to make sure your data, methods and conclusions are appropriate.
I’m a profession scientist of 30+ years. Requiring that the data be in the primary scientific literature weeds out a lot of crap. Which is why I require it.
MattE, I think Nerd of Redhead, or anyone else here, would settle for a reference to a published article. You don’t have to have authored it yourself.
Nerd of Redhead, you need to elaborate more with people like this. I don’t think they fully understand how scientific debate works. I think MattE is still trying to graduate from the Crayon Crew.
I feel sorry for PZ in all this. He can’t control his blog, and he’s all too aware that when a commentator says “climate change deniers are a bunch of moronic wankers”, a fairy dies. Yes, every single time.
And like our queen, he’s not able to speak for himself. Never mind PZ we love you.
And we hate fairies (except the gay kind).
#138
I am delighted that you almost characterized me correctly!
I’m not sure where you got the “worshipping” idea, though.
Posted by: Janine, Bitter Friend | January 13, 2009 11:54 AM
Bye Cortillaen.
I too will forget you in five minutes.
I feel better already.
Isn’t it amazing how such a long post (Cortillaen’s) can have zero content?
Posted by: Steve B | January 13, 2009
A true atheist would question everything, particularly something that is taken on faith!
I do wish you would meet our cute little house troll by the name of Facilus. He also knows better than any atheist what the true meaning of atheism is. I would so enjoy watching a battle between these two definitions of true atheism. It would be more fun than a beard fight.
Steverino@175,
Get some historical perspective. Bush’s war time civil rights measures pale in comparison to FDR’s and Wilson’s. You can start a conscription, censorship, wage and price controls, internment camps, sedition laws and proceed from there.
Heh. ‘In the next few years’. Ya don’t mind if I call that out, now, do ya?
See also a few other predictions that come to mind…
I figure it’s this thing with the determinedly deluded. Vindication is somehow always just around the corner. Next year! They’ll see! Any moment now!…
(See also ‘Fools! I’ll show them all!…’)
@ #80
Yes, the right is not being hate filled towards Obama at all. They’re not trying everything in their power to tie a string between him and Blago, even after the DA said there was nothing to tie that string with. O’Reilly hasn’t been spewing his “I’m so afraid of what this country is about to become” bullshit for the last 2 months. Rush Dumbass has not been pouring his hate for Obama and anyone who even looks left over his ignorant hate filled radio show. So you can take your mock civility and claims of “playing nice” and stick them exactly where you’d tell me to stick them, were the roles reversed. It’s worthless, and so is trying to reason and play nice with you overly-religious, hypocritical, moronic fucks who make up the “base” of the GOP.
@ 145
Faith is not required when you base your arguments on science & fact, instead of doing everythign in your power to discredit science and scientists because your religion can’t stand up to facts. And if you aren’t religious, that’s fine. You’ve still bought into their bullshit. Congratulations for being an idiot without any cause whatsoever.
And yes, being an Educator does not always mean you’re correct. You have that one right. However, you need to reread that and not take it out of context and shove your own words into PZ’s mouth. He’s saying that there are multiple sides to him, and being an educator is one and being a scientist is another. And then there is more to it than even that. If you are one dimensional and have no secondary interests outside of your professional life (if you even have one of those), that’s too bad for you.
Good Day (see, I left a little good will at the end too… I’m civilized now!)
FUCK! It seems to me that you’re pretty fucking ignorant on how fucking amazing the world “fuck” is! It is the single most useful word in the fucking English language! You can use it for so many fucking different ways, it is fucking astounding! I want to fuck, I want to get fuck, fuck that’s awesome!, fuck! I just stubbed my toe, oh I can’t fucking believe I just got fucking fired for looking up fucking porn at work!, fuck do I love a good hamburger, man I can’t believe that fucktard just got elected, oh fuck we’re crashing!, oh fuck me harder!
etc. and so on.
“FUCK” is a great word. THE fucking greatest, perhaps.
I question climate change because, if you actaully take a look, you’ll find the science supporting a man made cause is actually rather flimsy.
What do you base this on? All the actual climatologists, the relevant experts, disagree with you. Why not tell us about Quantum Physics and how the LHC will kill us all? You’re about as qualified on that subject as you are on climatology, by your own admission.
I could go on about why, but you don’t actually seem to care, you’re committed to a belief.
This is not true. I mean half of it is, we don’t care, that’s true, but your analysis is wrong. Big surprise there. We don’t care enough to engage in a serious debate, because you’re just some random kook who disagrees with mountains of established science. What on earth would be the point? We’d by crazy to care. Life is too short.
First of all, [The] Elements of Style should be italicized, as it’s the title of a book. In a medium which had no universally-accepted way of indicating italicization, such as plain-text e-mails, this wouldn’t be a sticking point, but here, where HTML rules, you’ve opened yourself up to those who love pædantry.
Second, the manual fetishized by so many is a poor and hypocritical excuse for a usage guide.
Hehe. The climate kooks are smarmy little brats. We won’t miss you!
If we wanted to “debate” AGW, we’d actually post over there.
Buncha fuckin babies.
Thus spake Bill Dauphin:
Kseniya posted a few times about a month ago, AFAIR, but beyond that I haven’t seen her much at all, which is a pity.
I also see Teh Merkin, NewEnglandBob, and Blake Stacey are in or around Boston, so there’s more people than I thought (at least 7 if I’m counting straight) who can recommend a suitable embibing emporium for the 20th/21st of March. Most likely, I’ll be in Boston that weekend, staying a few days into the following week to have a look around a bit before flying back to CA to fly back to Sweden (yes, I know it’s crazy, but it’s the cheapest way for me to do it). My only regret is not getting to spend St. Patrick’s Day in Boston, where I’m led to believe there are bars where there’s a bottomless pint glass for any genuine Paddy for as long as he can belt out ballads in a sufficiently broad brogue, which I can do for far longer than it takes me to fall off my bar-stool ;o)
It’s hard to support a man who STOLE THE FUCKING ELECTION by disenfranchising 40,000 mostly black voters in Florida. At least, it’s hard if you care about things like integrity of our democracy, justice, truth. You know, those things?
Fuck.
One of these things is not like the others.
Bill Green (#100) wrote:
I always get a kick out of reading crap like this from conservatives who appear to be entirely unfamiliar with the likes of Coulter, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, etc., etc., ad infinitum. The liberals are nasty pieces of work, but conservatives are just telling the unvarnished truth it seems.
I’m sure there is a quote about motes, beams, and eyes.
Marilove,
Fuckity fuck fuck!
Posted by: MattE | January 13, 2009 11:50 AM
“If your minimum level of acceptance is for people who publish, there is minimal room for conversation here.”
It’s right under his nose and MattE still doesn’t get it.
FUCK! It seems to me that you’re pretty fucking ignorant on how fucking amazing the world “fuck” is! It is the single most useful word in the fucking English language! You can use it for so many fucking different ways, it is fucking astounding! I want to fuck, I want to get fuck, fuck that’s awesome!, fuck! I just stubbed my toe, oh I can’t fucking believe I just got fucking fired for looking up fucking porn at work!, fuck do I love a good hamburger, man I can’t believe that fucktard just got elected, oh fuck we’re crashing!, oh fuck me harder!
etc. and so on.
“FUCK” is a great word. THE fucking greatest, perhaps.
Eleven minutes between double posts. I am impressed.
I kid. Please do not let my teasing prevent you from posting again.
Using incivility insures that the object of it will not think about the rest of your message; they will obsessively focus on attacking you due to the incivility. Civility insures that if there is any chance they are capable of thought, they will consider it.
Often, there isn’t any such chance. At which point, yes, it’s pleasant to be able to vent, especially on some nice relatively private place. You just shouldn’t delude yourself that you’re going to convince anyone on the brink (or already off into la-la land) with such remarks.
Of course, psychology and neurology aren’t my shtick; perhaps someone with expertise in those fields can explain this phenomenon… or explain to me why I’m a horse’s ass for believing it is one. More useful would be to explain what is generally involved from a neuropsychological framework perspective with “someone changing their mind” (or at least, point me towards a book or paper in the right direction).
I am again remined why I generally don’t visit places like this. I regret the time I have lost posting here.
Tom The New Here Gray @106:
Close but not quite. From this blog’s subtitle:
That is a declaration that this is not a science blog.
Who threw the concern troll smoke bomb in here? The smell of concern farts is getting overwhelming. Phew.
P.S. Reality is that obnoxious, confusing, and downright unrespectable stuff going on all around you.
Right back at ya Bill Green. ;)
Bill Green,
I, too, regret the time you lost posting here.
I must say I’m disappointed. I thought the point of science was to argue from the data, not sling mud. I’m not a “denialist”, that offensive term that seeks to link to anti-semitic revisionists. I am a skeptic. I’m waiting for actual scientific evidence, and am finding little outside of politically-motivated organizations.
This is nothing like the evolution vs. creationist debates. The case for AGW is not even close to that for evolution, and being skeptical of it is nothing at all like clinging to mythical fantasy.
How being rude advances your argument is not at all clear to me. I find it unconvincing.
Mr Meyers, you are an idiot having no clue about climate change, but ready to describe everyone who have opinion different from your as “pseudo-scientific”. This sort of stupid arrogance of uniformed people is the main reason why you, left-wing fanatics, lose every open debate with “deniers”.
Craig, “denialist” means someone in denial, not a Holocaust denier, and claiming otherwise is a claim of persecution.
I am again remined why I generally don’t visit places like this. I regret the time I have lost posting here.
Not half as much as we’ve regretted having to read it …
“AJ Milne: Heh. ‘In the next few years’. Ya don’t mind if I call that out, now, do ya?”
Not at all, meet you at http://www.longbets.org/
“I am again remined (sic) why I generally don’t visit places like this. I regret the time I have lost posting here.”
You regretted posting here so much that you decided to waste time posting here, AGAIN, to point out how much you regretted wasting your time posting here?
Wait, I’m confuzzled….
Posted by: Joan | January 13, 2009 12:39 PM
…This sort of stupid arrogance of uniformed people…
This has been one of the more entertaining threads in a while. PZ, what is the uniform you wear?
Why yes Joan, we all wear uniforms. How ever did you know?
Twit.
Obviously it’s the uniformitarian uniform.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Mayhempix
Absolutely correct. MattE, it isn’t you publishing per se, but rather the data you use having been published. That separates the wheat from the chaff. Most anti-AGW stuff is chaff.
craig@203,
Discussions of AGW here remind me of debates with the Seventh Day Adventists that appear at our doors. When they can’t answer they assume that if they brought back the “experts” they could answer. They probably have never once read a climate research paper? Or, at best, they’ve opened a journal before but couldn’t understand it?
Posted by: Bill Green | January 13, 2009 12:11 PM
@135
“I agree with your definition and think, as I said, that it is very common at left-leaning outlets.”
As opposed to rightwingnuts like Bill O’Reilly who thinks liberals come to the conclusions they do because they are “pinheads”.
You are a fucking idiot because you have convinced yourself that the left somehow uses ad-hominem attacks more than the right and the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Little Green Footballs, Free Republic, et all.
I love how the deniers call us left wing idiots for supporting the science but scold us for calling their bunk pseudo-scientific.
Oh the irony.
So, only a few hours until the tedious cuntrags and dickwads slither back under their rocks.
*waves at the morons*
I shall neither ignore nor yield to ignorance.
Great post. Thank you.
You are my kind of person. I have you bookmarked and will visit often.
The Internet is not an inherently civil place. There are several hypotheses about why. Shitcock.
The notion that the Right invited the Left to be civil and to unite behind Bush, and that the Left ungraciously refused, is pure bullshit. When is polarization ever a unilateral problem? Some of the most acidic and divisive voices in the history of acidic and divisive voices have been coming from the Right, and continue to.
(OT, but I have seen traces of Kseniya within the past week or two, over on the “Another Shooting” thread, and the “Brockman Asks” thread.)
We can’t help it if you find our posts, and attitude generally, uncivil. If so, why don’t you, and I say this politely, just fuck off?
Oh, yes it is. The people who challenge AGW employ the same sleazy tactics of misdirection, misrepresentation and outright lying as the creationists do.
Evolution is one of the most well-checked and solidly established ideas in human history. The case for something else could be weaker than the case for evolution and still be strong indeed.
If AGW denialists actually employed scientific arguments instead of throwing about spuriously “scientific” jargon — every term, number and citation serving as handmaiden to their fantasy — this would be more convincing.
Commenting seems to be b0rked after the upgrade or whatever, because I am certain I did not hit submit twice!
But fuck it, the word fuck is so great it deserves to be there twice.
marilove,
I’ve no objection to “fucking” (either linguistically or physically), but I enjoy insults for their amusement value, and I find inventing epithets like “stomach-churning lump of mouldering duck vomit” or “cowgull” (a portmanteau of “coward” and “seagull”, used to describe one-time posters of a pantload of bullshit) is usually more amusing than calling them a “fucking retard” or somesuch. That’s not to say that colloquialisms like “dumb as dirt” don’t have a certain earthy charm, but I tend to prefer something slightly more creative, like “thick as goose-shit in January”. De gustibus non est disputandum, I suppose.
Great post. Thank you.
You are my kind of person. I have you bookmarked and will visit often.
Sigh, I highly doubt that most anyone here is trying “convince” any denier of anything. We all understand how pointless it is. If facts and evidence can’t even convince you that facts and evidence exist, what chance do we have?
So, by the arguments I’ve heard, if we aren’t trying to convince you, being rude and uncivil serves no purpose, good or bad, and it becomes our choice. We choose to vent. So please, enjoy the “go fuck yourself.”
Good Day (see, again ending with good tidings. I’m as civil as any denier, creobot, or right-wing lunatic).
africangenesis,
If JohnnyB had mentioned FDR or Wilson, then I would have referenced both, but he did not. I was posting in the context of his statement and the “apples and oranges” comparison he was trying to make.
There’s something really screwy about that Weblog vote. Every time I go over to vote (once a day) it’s always Watts Up ahead by about 1000 votes, this morning it’s 10,908 for us and 12,689 Watts Up. Did they get a 1000 vote head start? (Yes Kel, my math sucks.)
I’m remembering back to the millionth comment contest, the Pharyngula fry came out in hordes, it’s hard to believe Watts Up has as many readers or voters as PZ does.
A clarification: being rude does not mean lunging for the other guy’s beard and giving it a gratuitous twist. It doesn’t mean you have to use profanity, even. It means calling out bullshit when it is ladled up in front of you.
That kind of incivility is actually very useful. It breaks the logjam of useless Alphonse & Gaston style deference and forces both sides to dig right into the substance of their differences. And when one side harrumphs off and leaves the fight because you haven’t shown the proper amount of obligate respect for their cherished delusions, it gives you a free hand in ripping them apart.
Joan – Fuck off.
Bill Green wrote:
Yes, it is sad the way we didn’t honourably buy your honourable bullshit in trying to honourably paint left-leaning outlets as lacking in civility and full of nastiness while honourably implying that conservative nastiness is just “fighting hard”.
So now that we’re not honourably buying your honourable bullshit and honourably agreeing with your every honourable utterance thus honourably changing our dishonourable liberal ways, you’re now honourably playing the honourable victim and honourably announcing your honourable intention to never honourably bestow your honourable presence on our dishonourable selves again.
How honourable you are.
Poor dear. You must be postitively and honourably bedridden right now.
I guess it is an indication of what a twisted person I am but I see the words fresh meat and all I can think about is Fresh Fruit For Rotten Vegetables. So here is a track.
Hmm. You make an interesting proposition. Actually profiting from the deliberate dishonesty of others is attractive, now that you mention it. I might think of it as payment, really… Seems to me I am due a few bucks at least for putting up with the ranting of a certain troofer who polluted an office environment I was working in a while ago…
Don’t suppose you have a specific bet in mind? I see there’s a few up there already from climate skeptics and those apparently unimpressed by their antics. Got a fave already?
Being polite doesn’t reduce hate, it just covers it up in lies.
You’re a bit off here. It’s not the “divide” that got us into this mess, it’s “the right”.
That’s fine, but what about the huge, gaping differences, the ones that are simply impossible to reconcile?
Oh, and in case you hadn’t noticed, the Right has zero interest in “forgetting our differences”. Indeed, they are intent on continuing on as if they were still in charge, and people like Obama and Reid seem content to let them call the shots in the name of nonexistent bipartisanship.
Oooh PZ, you’re so masterful. Kissy kissy.
Which is even ruder if the other guy is female.
Fixed!
re 198:
I do not post much but I read this blog regularly and in general it appears to me that for most of the “regulars” (aka “minions” and “sycophants”) the insults and incivility do not start until it is painfully certain that the target of the abuse is already closed to rational argument. In almost all cases, politely expressed opinions (no matter how opposed to the “liberal bias here”) generally get polite responses. People dropping in and for their first post unloading a “Myers you bigoted asshole…” get the flaming they deserve. Also people who repeatedly post the same bible verses or worn out creationist myths about evolution get little patience because it is clear they will ignore all arguments anyway.
So, yes, insults will close an open mind, and most of the commentators here appear to understand that and refrain from insults until it is clear that the mind is already firmly closed.
@213 AG said: “Discussions of AGW here remind me of debates with the Seventh Day Adventists that appear at our doors. When they can’t answer they assume that if they brought back the “experts” they could answer.”
Come on, AG, use something new. You’ve already used that analogy about four times on this blog. In your words, I challenge you to challenge yourself!
(Yeah, yeah, tell me this is an ad hominem attack.)
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield, OM | January 13, 2009
A clarification: being rude does not mean lunging for the other guy’s beard and giving it a gratuitous twist.
Which is even ruder if the other guy is female.
Just think what it is like for dwarfs. Especially when it is rude to point out that you are a female.
Mmmmm… Sashay passed me big boy, and I’ll give you a gratuitous twist on the behind.
That was René Magritte chiming in.
@ PZ
> And when one side harrumphs off and leaves the
> fight because you haven’t shown the proper amount
> of obligate respect for their cherished delusions,
> it gives you a free hand in ripping them apart.
This is great if you’re just arguing with the one side, I grant you.
The problem I have with incivility as a default position is that it assumes a closed context between you and the idiot you’re arguing with. This isn’t a classroom, where one disgruntled moron will leave and let you continue your lecture and educate the remaining undergraduates.
It’s an open symposium, where the large majority of people who are unconvinced either way are drifting in and out of different talks, some offered by smart people and some by idiots. Many of these people aren’t bad people, they’re just undereducated. They lack the ability to differentiate between the quality of one speaker and another. More to the point, some of the speakers are actively attempting to proselytize the view that a class of speakers (in which you are included) are in fact of low quality, by introducing false standards.
The context of the argument now is not who is right and who is wrong, but instead who is actually capable of presenting quality information in the first place. This isn’t a battle of truth or facts, it’s a battle of trust.
And if you’re being a generic ass, when one of those undereducated people drifts by your talk, they have little reason to trust you, so they walk on. This is a lost educational opportunity.
Ce n’est pas une science blog!
@ Bill Green #100:
I suspect you are being ignorant and/or dishonest about either what ad hominem means (despite knowing the magic words) or on where it occurs, ie about which side is actually guilty of it. Hint: it’s not generally the atheists here.
But you can confirm or deny that by being precise about who exactly is a “new atheist” and showing us copious examples of them doing what you claim – especially in contrast to non-new ones or non-atheists not doing it (ie what the population probabilities are). Otherwise you are merely trying (incorrectly*) to get away with defaming atheists via the vagueness of your “new atheist” term; and aren’t even succeeding in distinguishing them by the thing you claim to be a distinctive feature.
* The legal situation (in the UK at any rate) is that you can be sued by more people for being vague, in that you are potentially including a greater number of innocent wounded parties, than if you were specific. Again, as with ad hominem, the bulk of ill-educated cargo-cultish followers tend not to know the truth on this.
Ah, so you’re a psuedoskeptic! Good to know!
#223: I like the simplicity yet complexity of the word “fuck” — it is just so versatile! It can be used when you’re happy, excited, amused, sad, angry, annoyed, surprised, horny, tired, hungry, etc.
That and “fucktard” is like, the greatest insult ever. I also like “asshat.”
My favorite kind of creo/winger posts are the ones where they post something so transparent and false but seem to think it’s a valid argument we’ve never heard.
It’s like dropping a seal into a shark tank.
Sometimes its fun to coax them and string them along and then devour them, sometimes the waters have been still for too long and they get torn apart immediately.
Rarely do any of the creowingers have an open mind or an original thought, and that’s usually because they’ve been linked to PZ from some cesspool of ignorance.
Thus spake Janine, BF:
Hmmm… What about PIXIES?
Ben@238, Give me a break, I think I’ve only used it twice before, and most of the people here are obviously unfamiliar with the climate dicussions we’ve had. I don’t see you complaining about the f-bomb, troll, denialist, whining and twit arguments, and they each have been used more than 7 times. Be consistent.
@ Jeremy C #109:
It makes sense for a web log competition though. One might like to imagine that the ideal voter checks back through the archives of each before coming to an informed opinion, but in reality that won’t be happening. Assuming there are any non-partisan voters at all, they’re far more likely to react to just the new content – which for active blogs could easily be changing on a daily basis. Eg some days PZ posts more science than on other days (when it might be more politics or more about religious criminality or …).
“I’m not a “denialist”, that offensive term that seeks to link to anti-semitic revisionists.”
“Denialist”, it is a descriptive used to explain a certain type of behavior. It is not specific to Holocaust Denialists but AGW Denialists love to play the victim and claim that it is to avoid discussing real peer reviewed facts and studies.
denial |diˈnīəl|
noun
the action of declaring something to be untrue : she shook her head in denial.
a statement that something is not true : official denials | his denial that he was having an affair.
Psychology failure to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion or to admit it into consciousness, used as a defense mechanism : you’re living in denial.
AGW Denialists ignore, distort, parse and/or make up facts to support their emotional, ignorant, religious, bigoted, political and/or business points of view. In the case of man-made climate change, denying insurmountable scientific evidence is Denialism.
“AJ Milne: Don’t suppose you have a specific bet in mind? I see there’s a few up there already from climate skeptics and those apparently unimpressed by their antics. Got a fave already?”
I’ve been looking, and most are pretty “safe.” None of the predictors are going out on a limb very far. I’m tempted to make my own. I’m plenty willing to stick my neck out and take my licks if proved wrong.
Keep an eye on http://www.longbets.org/
Surely there should be some scientific criteria for nominating a “science blog”…
I know, I know, IT’S THE INTERNET.
This is not a science blog!
This is not a love song!
“oh, yes, it would be so goddamned rude to point out that a huckster is lying to you.”
You sexy, hairy, sexy beast…
Clickback on Bill Green and peruse his reading list. It’s all you need to know about Bill.
And Joan? Blow me.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield, OM | January 13, 2009
Hmmm… What about PIXIES?
Do pixies in Discworld have beards?
@ SteveM
> I do not post much but I read this blog regularly
> and in general it appears to me that for most of
> the “regulars” (aka “minions” and “sycophants”)
> the insults and incivility do not start until it
> is painfully certain that the target of the abuse
> is already closed to rational argument.
Really?
I grant you that PZ’s blog attracts a pretty persistent class of troll, who will go on blathering idiocy well past the point of being shown (politely) that they’re being an idiot. That unfortunately comes with being a popular science blog, you see that quite a bit over at Phil’s place too, particularly on the antivaxx threads.
On the other hand, I have noticed posts that are critical of our host’s worldview have a tendency to draw the immediate label of “troll” from someone. Perhaps not the regulars, but in general I see the gut reaction is less of “let’s see what this person has to say” and more of “here’s another one of our persistent trolls!”
Try it sometime. Create an alter ego, log in here and play Devil’s Advocate for a week. Don’t be a troll, but pick a nuanced and at least somewhat defensible position that can be argued against the general opinion of the thread. For every reasoned response you get, you’ll get more, “You’re just an idiot/blowhard/nut”.
OK. After reviewing all the troll posts so far, I’ve come to the following conclusion: incivility is like kryptonite to a right-wing, creotard!
fucktastic!
Pat Calahan:
It’s a BLOG. It’s not a symposium and not every entry has to be didactic.
“AJ Milne: Don’t suppose you have a specific bet in mind? I see there’s a few up there already from climate skeptics and those apparently unimpressed by their antics. Got a fave already?”
Keep an eye on http://www.longbets.org/
My prediction will be made under the user name yamahaeleven. It will post in the next couple of days, they don’t put them up immediately. As it costs $50 to post a prediction, I’ve already put some money where my mouth is. Be glad if some of you would do the same for your side. Hopefully, we’ll come up with a mutually satisfactory recipient for the bets.
Thus spake René Magritte:
It’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe and blog is masculine :)
Posted by: Joan | January 13, 2009 12:39 PM
“This sort of stupid arrogance of uniformed people is the main reason why you, left-wing fanatics, lose every open debate with “deniers”.”
Oh really? What “open debates” were they and who decided the outcome?
Also, if I recall correctly, the majority in the US voted for Obama and likewise the GOP for McCain, both whom recognized the real science of AGW.
Your stupid arrogance is showing…
Emmet, you indelicate slut, everyone knows pixies don’t have beards. Snowsnakes and Snipes do.
Thus spake Janine, BF:
I’ve no idea, I was just hoping you’d be able to finally answer the long-standing question: What about PIXIES and DWARFS?
Sounds promising. Care to pass on the specifics now? I could use those.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield, OM | January 13, 2009
I’ve no idea, I was just hoping you’d be able to finally answer the long-standing question: What about PIXIES and DWARFS?
We will have to get the ants running and ask Hex.
Well, picking an argument on, say, something political could have the effect of attracting insults, but hey, we’re grownups. And speaking personally if I found my views were being attacked in an unfair and abusive manner I’d either be rude back and defend myself, or leave.
I love the fact that there is – sometimes – great rudeness here and even greater profanity. It may be juvenile, it may be over the top, but it’s Pharyngula, and it’s far and away my favourite blog.
Thus spake Patricia, OM:
I didn’t know pixies were Brazilian — you learn a new thing every day.
Janine,
Just so you know I have the most righteous, ass-kicking beard on this site and it is merely a seasonal affectation.
And what the fuck is with all this new atheist, old atheist shit? What, I’m an “old atheist” just because I live in California and people here are a little less proud about flaunting their ignorance and superstition so I don’t have to laugh in anyone’s face on a daily basis?
Never fear religiots I feel the same way about your silly “world-view” as Richard Dawkins does but as long as you stay in Alabama or Texas or the Vatican or Jerusalem or Terhan or Mosul or any other backwards hellhole were these fundies seem to congregate and STAY OUT OF CALIFORNIA you won’t have to hear it from me, ok.
@247 AG, those aren’t worn-out, inaccurate analogies.
Pharyngulites know that engaging in Whack-A-Troll is good for relieving stress and reveling in a little schadenfreude.
Conservofascists can dish it out but they mewl like coddled brats when you toss it back at them.
AJ Milne,
My prediction is as follows:
I predict that the global average temperature increase will be below the IPCC 3rd Assessment report, chapter 9, figure 9.14 1S92C low prediction by 2012.
You should agree that my prediction is easily falsified by January 13, 2012.
Posted by: Cpl. Cam | January 13, 2009
And what the fuck is with all this new atheist, old atheist shit?
As far as I can tell, this is the difference. The new atheist is alive and are open about there lack of belief. An old atheist is someone like Robert Ingersoll or Emma Goldman. They are no longer able to speak.
Erm, you’re more describing the Republican Party than anything here, dipshit. In fact, one of the bigger Republican cheaters, Ken Blackwell, might become the new head Republican. Shocker.
@ E.V.
> It’s a BLOG. It’s not a symposium and not every
> entry has to be didactic.
[snort] Certainly, not every entry needs to be filled with scientific rigor. Certainly, PZ as host is allowed to write about whatever the hell he wishes to write about, and adopt whatever writing style he wishes. I’m not attempting to tell PZ what he can or can’t write about. I’m not even attempting to tell PZ whether or not he has a right to encourage incivility; for example, Glenn (#148 above) posits a perfectly reasonable defense of incivility in some cases.
However, I quote PZ, above:
> This is a blog by an educator and scientist.
Notice… not a blog by a scientist. An educator, and a scientist. Someone whose stated purpose is to educate.
I’m just pointing out to PZ that the consequences of encouraging incivility is that he’s losing out on the opportunity to educate some people. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it isn’t necessarily a good thing. There are reasons to have a public personae that is or isn’t one way or another. There can be good results of adopting that public personae that outweigh the negative results of adopting that personae.
Nobody’s bothering to argue that point, however. :)
Instead the vibe I’m getting is that people here seem to want to claim that there is no negative result of incivility. This is plainly fucking stupid, and discounts the actual science of cognitive behavior. Piss people off, and the adrenal gland kicks in and their ability to think rationally is hugely impaired. If you’ve already given up the individual target as a lost cause and you’re merely interested in showing that you can win an intellectual debate, that’s fine.
However, if you’re pissing off people who might otherwise be inclined to agree with you, you’re cutting off your own nose to spite your face, and you’re not educating those people. In fact, you’re deliberately making it more difficult for those people to be educated, by anyone, to adopt your position.
Now, admittedly, we all know that textual communication lacks context so this could all very well be largely imagined on my part. I don’t read this blog as often as I read Phil’s (or even other blogs on scienceblogs.com), so I may be generalizing outside my bounds. I grant quite readily that I could be pointing out something that PZ has already considered, weighed, and judged to be a worthwhile trade-off. Hell, he may have written entire blog posts about it elsewhere on this blog. But I’ve never seen him or anyone defending him on the threads in which I’ve participated even acknowledge that there is a consequence to being uncivil. This seems odd, to me.
Naked Bunny, was that quote by AG? It seems to be a habit of his to call the lot of us Nazis, commies and Stalinists. Dumbass fucktard.
I have, several times, (disagreed with the “prevailing opinion”, just not under another name) and have never gotten such totally dismissive replies. That is part of my basis for arguing that the people here generally are civil until presented with clearly closed-minded wind bags. And I don’t think it is because I am all that respected here, I don’t post often so I don’t I have all that much “cred” to keep people from attacking if they really were just out to trash all dissent. I’ve also read plenty of discussions here with people who seem to truly want to discuss their belief in the Bible versus our atheism without trying to prosythletize. They did not get insults and invective.
So yes I stand by my claim that “a nuanced and at least somewhat defensible position that can be argued against the general opinion of the thread” will not get more insults than reasoned responses.
Beard fight?
PZ, I’ve had my beard and mustache since Thanksgiving week 1974. Is yours of similar vintage or is it merely a Johnny-come-lately? :)=
Janine BF:
I have a full beard. It was once very dark but now has taken on a Santa-esque air even though I’m a couple of years shy of 50. If you remember Jonathan Frakes with a beard on STNG, that’s what I looked like in my 30’s. Now – meh, but I’m up for a beard smackdown. Take that Emmet OM and your puny ginger goatee!
SteveM@277, Can you point to such examples? I suspect that you didn’t hit close to their religions.
It’s not? Damn it, I’ve been waiting for the nude male servants to arrive with my wine!
Pat, does this look familiar?
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.
Your whiney ass judgmental bullshit is boring.
Janine, Bitter Friend – Would it be too much to ask for you to go back to “Janine, Vile Bitch?” It just made me so happy to read that over my morning coffee. The little things, you know. . .
It took a few hours but it seems that the weird beard are now spoiling for a fight.
LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!
PZ,
I imagine I’m probably on your list, however, I feel compelled to point out that I’ve been reading your blog for quite some time and never posted until recently. I’ve just happened to notice a major uptick in hostility lately, more so than usual. Now I see why that is.
– Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth
If you’re convinced of your position, be proud that you’re convinced. If you believe you can convince others, try! The one thing you should not do is to openly insult those you’re trying to convince. It’s antithetical to your goals, and if it’s not your goal to convince, then why bother posting about the science of evolution at all? If it’s merely to elicit a response from a cheering squad, I just don’t see the point. Are you Darwin’s Cheerleader since Richard Dawkins already got Darwin’s Rottweiler?
I did add CA and WUWT to my reader, ever since you complained about them. I had to go see what all the fuss was about. So, for that, thanks. Perspective on the world cannot come from just one source, otherwise we’re as bad as those that believe everything they read in the Bible.
*cheers*
Thus spake E.V.:
Puny, perhaps, but from your description, my coppery chin ornament is much sexier than your snowy old soup-catcher.
Posted by: Joan | January 13, 2009 12:39 PM
“This sort of stupid arrogance of uniformed people is the main reason why you, left-wing fanatics, lose every open debate with “deniers”.”
They used to say that about jailbird Hovind. But the pseudoseptics (creotards and climate deniers) had already lost the important ‘debate’.
Damn, I can’t believe I am late for the beard fight. What exactly are the rules in beard fighting?
Why is it that the folks coming here to disagree have to write novellas in the comments? Seriously, brevity, folks. They’re comments, not a blog within a blog. I didn’t read most of your arguments for civility because they were just too damned long.
Oh goody! Nude male servants. With wine.
But do they have beards?
@Pat Cahalan
If I read you right, you think that incivility turns people off to the message. I completely disagree. I was turned on to P.Z. about the time of craker-gate (sorry, I hate the term too but it works) because he dared to be disrespectful. I love the idea of speaking honestly about what you are feeling and thinking. There isn’t enough of it in my opinion.
Ahah! From the moment I saw the post, I knew this would be a laughing stock thread. People just love to vent their everyday frustrations into something, and nothing better than to do it with creationists. Well, today we have denialists to hit, so why not?
But I did expect better from PZ. He’s a fucking moron with arrogance abounding, and I love him for it, and now he’s being offensive at a site that I also like pretty much, Climate Audit. It was expected. I also read WUWT, but in a more curiosity-driven state, as if it were a UFO blog or something. It does make preposterous claims, and I laugh a bit out of it. Sometimes, RealClimate or Open Mind make a good laugh out of them too.
Climate Audit, though, is a different beast. McIntyre does publish in the literature, and some commenters over there also do, the posts are technical and comprehensive, so its clear what they are doing, and the real discussions unfold in a much clearer (and readable) thread than this one, for instance. They have shown how miserable the “Hockey Stick Team” is, and apart from the fact that they *might* give more fuel into denialist territories, I also think that this kind of cutting through the crap is a scientific endeavour. I just happen to pity the idiots that think otherwise.
Don’t think that being a “skeptic” or a “denialist” is a bad thing per se. As some many people pointed out in here, great, just publish a paper, and it’s true that there have been more papers pointing out a catastrophe than not. Mind though that we’re mostly non-scientists over here, so all we have are clues. And if I trust PZ on biology clues, I won’t exactly trust him on things concerned with Climate, for he’s as clueless as I am with that.
Personally I smile at the hubris of some scientists who go at great statistical lenghts to try to model what I see as a stochastic non-linear, full of variables and spatial differences event, to predict the consequences of the rising of a constant in the climate. But that’s the only thing I can do. I just hope that the powers that be won’t make many mistakes in this first half of the 21st century.
@ Steve C
> Pat, does this look familiar?
> Evolution, development, and random biological
> ejaculations from a godless liberal.
Yep, that looks like the average idiot troll. So your point is what, precisely? That because there are idiot trolls, acting like an asshat is universally justifiable?
> Your whiney ass judgmental bullshit is boring.
Thank you for providing a timely counterpoint to Steve M’s #277. You have successfully discounted everything I was saying without providing a single drop of credible justification for your rejection.
There is a difference between being critical and being judgmental. Here, let me illustrate:
“There is a difference between being critical and being judgmental, you dickhead” – that’s judgmental
“There is a difference between being critical and being judgmental. In the first case, you are talking about…” – that’s critical.
Oh, I suppose that’s also being “whiny ass”, by your implicit definition.
E.V.’s beard has more tickle power Emmet…
Patricia, I am sorry but women were rather frowned upon at those Greek parties.
@ Helfrick #291
A single anecdotal case has huge generalization issues. Bad social scientist! No biscuit!
If you read my #275, above, you’ll note that I did in fact acknowledge that there can be positive outcomes to being deliberately offensive. Now, can you perhaps provide me the courtesy (how apropos!) of acknowledging that there can be negative outcomes from being deliberately offensive?
Ward S. Wanker strikes again.
Sorry to all the other “weird beards” but my beard which has apperared in different states from goatee to Amish to full over the past 25 years plus would win by a knockout in any match.
To all proposed challengers: you will be “hair today, gone tomorrow.”
Gee, thats really nice. PZ inspires me to be a better scientist. Its make understand which not apply our way
of thinking, curiosity, excepticism, logic and reason in
all aspects of our lives, its useless.
Being a free thinker its the only way worth living.
Posted by: Patricia, OM | January 13, 2009
E.V.’s beard has more tickle power Emmet…
And where, pray tell, are you being tickled?
Janine, Yeah I know, but we’re having it here. I think it’s very kind of PZ to provide nude male servants with wine, during the beard match. Now that’s what I call a generous host!
Windy has dibs on first in line.
The regular reprobates here are very civil: If you’re an idiot, they don’t mess about saying so. A simple direct “fecking idiot” clearly concisely and surprisingly often explains the problem. Not saying so is uncivil, because it’s a lie.
— So opinionates a proud member of the breaded git club…
Mayhempix,
— Henry David Thoreau
Peace.
SteveM: I do not post much but I read this blog regularly and in general it appears to me that for most of the “regulars” (aka “minions” and “sycophants”) the insults and incivility do not start until it is painfully certain that the target of the abuse is already closed to rational argument.
Pat Calahan: I have noticed posts that are critical of our host’s worldview have a tendency to draw the immediate label of “troll” from someone. Perhaps not the regulars, but in general I see the gut reaction is less of “let’s see what this person has to say” and more of “here’s another one of our persistent trolls!”
I suspect that the willingness of the regulars to head over to Abuse after losing hope at the Argument Clinic may set a bad example to newcomers and irregulars… who, seeing insults are “acceptable” in some circumstances, presume they are socially acceptable generally. And the failure of a regular and respected someone to say, “now, now… one foolish post isn’t enough to prove a total fool” doesn’t help.
Obviously, someone who comes in to the blog and starts off grossly rude to begin with from their initial remarks deserves abuse in return. A preface that “since you show no hint of being civil, I see no reason to remain so” might help emphasize the threshold to newbies. Similarly, calling the folly of a fool to be folly by fool is eventually justified. I would suggest use of Goldfinger’s Rule (“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action”).
The difficulty would be with the typical “drive-by” variety of troll, who posts something to provoke reaction, with no further comments. I feel that tolerating an immediate insulting accusation of “TROLL!” risks eroding the blog’s reputation for integrity. I would suggest it might be more desirable to have a cultural norm of asking “Are you serious, or trolling?” rather than a declaratory accusation. Perhaps a regular who does not sign in with TypeKey (or cares to create the dedicated TypeKey ID if not yet claimed) might wish to use the name “Speaker-To-Trolls” as the de facto standard handle that does such checking.
However… it’s PZ’s blog; he gets to decide what he wants to put up with. I’m just part of the peanut gallery here, and not even a regular poster.
#275 Pat Cahalan:
The kind of people who are being insulted, climate deniers and creationists, normally do not want to learn, and if someone was to try to teach them science they would probably have to start from the beginning. The educating parts of this blog are normally on more advanced scientific issues (e.g. the chemical replicators post a couple of days ago).
You can’t expect every blog by a scientist to be a respectful and polite blog that constantly teaches basic science for the wilfully ignorant. Instead we have a blog that teaches those who want to learn, and insults those who are wilfully ignorant.
Patricia, I found a hidey hole for us. Just go down to the second photo.
Pat Cahalan @275:
And that’s when the hilarity begins. See, some humor is based on exaggeration. Exaggerate your average Creotard and there’s little left other than spittle and foam. Making them dance is like emptying your revolver at the feet of the local town imbecile. It won’t win you friends from the local noise police but it can be quite amusing at times. If you can get them to stumble and fall into some horseshit, all the better.
What bothers me is this common false dichotomy: Either we are obnoxiously polite and never get our points across, or we are rudely confrontational and Speak The Truth. The reality isn’t much like that, but insisting or implying that it is so certainly serves the urge to be a mobbish bunch of dicks. PZ added a touch of nuance at #228, at least, but I think Pat Calahan is dead on. Simple rudeness, not merely a lack of excessive politeness but bonus, free-wheeling insults, is just not really constructive, and it turns most conversations to shit. Not least the conversations about touchy and complex topics.
Fundamentalists think you’re fuckwits and you think they’re fuckwits. They don’t learn anything when you call them a fuckwit, except that you think they’re one. Calling people ‘fuckwits’ anyway is usually defended in this culture by the claim to the platonic truthfulness of your position, that you in particular get to say that because you happen to actually be right that they’re a fuckwit, but that’s worth nothing in a conversation whose purpose is communication, not masturbation. Nobody has ever been called a fuckwit so many times by people they disagreed with that they eventually went “Gee, maybe I’m stupid and they’re right”.
Janine, What! Are you wanting to play show & tell in the midst of a beard fight? Why you saucy minx!
But, unlike the resplendent efflorescence below my lip, his crude faceful of wan yard-brush bristles might chafe a lady’s thighs.
Posted by: Luis Dias | January 13, 2009 2:10 PM
“I also think that this kind of cutting through the crap is a scientific endeavour. I just happen to pity the idiots that think otherwise.”
lol, McIntyre is no more than a common pseudosceptic. Read the deltoid thread on his efforts to defend Pat Michaels misrepresentation of Hansen. It illustrates how the climate fraudit’s ‘cut through the crap’, producing a concentrated shit-sandwich.
And Watt’s blog is laughable. Leif pulling him up on posting that BS temp data (with the 6th order polynomial)was great. The dude’s a dope.
Pat Calahan:
You made several valid points; I agree with you. That said, I add that many individuals that come to discuss topics civilly are usually answered by very well tempered, well versed posters. Trolls are another matter. Sometimes it is difficult to discern trolls from those who are truly curious but basically repeat pseudo arguments that have been debunked numerous times before.
The spectrum runs from Chuck Wagner, Fr. Whosit, and a host of obvious trolls, to Walton, whose repressive upbringing has crippled his intellectual capacity, who was treated civilly when he first started posting. There are huge fights between those who cling to Libertarian ideals and those who -well, consider them to be shite (the ideals, not necessarily the believers) and gun laws and on and on.
Truth Machine is an example of a once respected contrarian/misanthrope who wore out his welcome, which brings me to the final point: why do people keep posting when they obviously dislike the site and those who regularly post here? Bill Green sashayed out in a huff because no one seemed to give a shit for his opinions. His humiliating kiss-off missive will soon be forgotten but odds are that he’ll come back to try to sway opinion once again. There are several blogs that I’ve become disenchanted with and never felt compelled to comment or return for reading (Are you reading this UTI?) for a myriad of reasons. I read Pharyngula for many reasons, and I’ve learned a great deal from the posters here, chief among them that I’ve allowed framers like Nisbet to rule my life and keep me muzzled for years for fear of insulting the religious majority I was once a part of, the very group that I knew lied through there teeth to propagate an ideology in order to dictate behavior and keep themselves in power (while living off of donations and gifts). (yeah, I know, I have issues…)
For those who despair about incivility, don’t start any shit and there will be none flung back at you & don’t pull out a cudgel and then start bawling when your opponent reflexively pulls a gun.
Also, I think ginger goatees are getting an inappropriately harsh treatment in this thread…
Some ladies wear chaps.
@melatonin,
Don’t know about that Hansen affair, but in my book, Hansen is a “real life Big Fucking Troll”, independently of GW being a real threat or not, so I won’t complaint if McIntyre dissed him.
Fuck. How about this. Someone says something stupid. You tell them it’s stupid and why it’s stupid. If they don’t like it, which they never do, tough.
Everything doesn’t have to be constructive.
Pat is a douche bag because he didn’t recognize the line that’s just beneath the name of the blog. Everyone who frequents this blog knows exactly what it’s about. And for some concerned AGW denier to come here and tell PZ and the regulars what the blog is SUPPOSED to be about is fucking stupid.
Pat hang around if you like. Just quit saying stupid shit.
Ahh, the concern trolls are out in force. OK trolls, tell me how to politely make you go away, with you understanding that I consider you to be an absolute fool for what you are saying.
I’ll get the popcorn.
I stand tall, alongside comrade PZ. He speaks truth.
The “incivility” being talked about is much less about obscenities, and much more about calling a spade a spade . Witness the weeping that took place in religious circles when the State of Washington permitted a display over the Xmas holidays that found fault with all religions. That is example of GOOD incivility, in my book.
It is appropriately uncivil to object to church support for the teaching of creationism in our schools, with ridcule. Their position (age of earth =6K years?) is worthy of intense ridicule.
Long live PZ and his blog!
Janine, Haw! That is perfect. I wish I had a tee shirt from there.
Believe it or not I’ve actually been to Humptulips, WA and Bucksnort, TN.
A sentence which is exactly one word too short.
DarkSyde at Daily Kos has posted his take on this kerfluffle.
http://darksyde.dailykos.com/
I’m just sayin’, “calling a spade a spade” isn’t as innocently honest as it sounds when you already know your interlocutor firmly believes it to be a club.
No, but sometimes they get the hint and fuck off to go be fuckwits somewhere else. I’m not here because I have nothing better to do with my time than to spoonfeed knowledge to individuals whose intent is not to learn at all but to beat me about the head as soon as I’ve leaned far enough forward with the spoon. The fundies don’t come here to learn; calling ’em a fuckwit or giving ’em a handjob won’t make a difference either way. They’re going to go back to their churches where their meth-smoking, pole-smoking, altar-boy stroking preachers tell ’em that homosexuality and materialism are the downfall of man, can I get a witness (and a donation in the collection plate)? If they were interested in biology, they wouldn’t only accept the biology that they got from Cornfed, local moonshine-swilling squatter turned preacher and faith healer. They want answers to their questions? They want a basic education in evolution?
Then they can get the marks to go to a decent school and shell out the hundreds of bucks for good quality textbooks and magazines, and journal articles and so on like the rest of us here did.
Similarly, you want to run in the Boston marathon? Then quit complaining about how rude the other runners are for refusing to pull you in your wagon, put the twinkie down, and start fucking training, fatass. Otherwise, get the fuck of the course.
To RyanG @ #33:
Amen. I’m glad this blog has people like you around.
Steve_C,
While I agree with the general idea of what you’re saying, all too often the “why it’s stupid” is forgotten in the zeal of “tell them it’s stupid.”
You can’t convince people by punching them in the face, and that’s a terrible way to start even if you do intend to follow up with a convincing argument. All it does is project your own insecurities onto others. That’s what bullying is really all about.
Incivility was what Martin Luther King and Gandhi were all about, but the way they went about it was what made them legends. If our purpose is to educate, there are great ways to do that, and none of them have ever involved being a cretin.
Well, I think that this is a decent competition and people should naturally be polite, and the bloggers whom I know actually are.
On the other hand, in a broader context, I agree that nasty hacks and charlatans, such as the self-described fu-cking ejaculating liberal extremist running this blog, should be derided and pissed upon.
Decently, of course.
@ Steve C
> Someone says something stupid. You tell them
> it’s stupid and why it’s stupid.
You’re omitting the fact that there are other people involved in observing the conversation. That’s fine, you have a right to do that. I reserve the right to point it out. I’m amused that you seem to be so offended by me pointing this out. I’m further amused that you can’t just concede the point and move on.
(you’re also conveniently avoiding the fact that you need to provide the “why” to use this as a defense, which at least in the particular case of responding to my post, you failed to do).
> Everything doesn’t have to be constructive.
Oh, noes! An implied false dichotomy! Your Rhetorical Skilz defeatz me! Note: things that aren’t constructive don’t necessarily need to be destructive, either.
> Pat is a douche bag because he didn’t recognize
> the line that’s just beneath the name of the blog.
I see, so I’m a pejorative because I lack full context. (I’m so inclined to paraphrase Churchill!)
But you stay classy, Steve. Every time you open your (rhetorical) mouth, you’re providing evidence of precisely what I’m talking about :)
@ Breakfast
> Nobody has ever been called a fuckwit so many
> times by people they disagreed with that they
> eventually went “Gee, maybe I’m stupid and
> they’re right”.
I agree (thanks for the nod of support there), but actually I’m less concerned with the fuckwits and I’m more concerned with the people who are neither rational empiricists or fuckwits, but who get tagged by the excrement flung at the fuckwits and thus decide that the rational empiricists are just asshats.
Brownian:
Very nice. May I use that with impunity?
If I go to a creationist site I do try to convince them. If they come here spouting stupid things, I often give them a one or two post chance to show that they’ll either respond to ideas or will actually read something link I’ve posted. But those types of visitors are very very rare.
Great Emmet, just great – now I have to get the screen wipes.
I keep a well trimmed beard, thank you, and a little conditioner after shampooing does wonders for any thigh chafing that might arise and leads to the reason why I don’t need chapstick™.
Steve B, True atheist! Is that anything like a true Scotsman? Ironic that the fucktard doesn’t even know the meaning of the word he so blithely uses. A hint for you Steve B, the word itself says nothing about questioning, only about a lack of belief in god/s.
Posted by: Luis Dias | January 13, 2009 2:37 PM
“Don’t know about that Hansen affair, but in my book, Hansen is a “real life Big Fucking Troll”, independently of GW being a real threat or not, so I won’t complaint if McIntyre dissed him.”
lol, perhaps. But independently of Hansen being a troll, McIntryre’s behaviour in defending Michaels was not that of an honest auditor. It showed his sloppiness and tendency for misrepresentation. I wouldn’t trust him audit to my daily turd. His aim is to obfuscate the science, and he does it well enough – sometimes he even finds a nugget, which is then paraded around the deniosphere like a head on stick. But he has become some sort of NASA conspiracy phreak.
Brownian, by any chance were you wearing your fedora while you typed that?
Be my guest, Dinkum.
I agree, Brownian — it’s likely impossible to persuade and educate most of the people you encounter in these contexts in any serious way. But let’s not praise ourselves for being assholes to them as though by doing so we educated them…right? And in a context where the real goal is to persuade and educate, and there is any hope of doing so, we had better take an approach that works and doesn’t only antagonize. What that is, and what actually makes for progress in the public square, seems to me to be very hard to figure out, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t involve ‘fuckwit’.
As an aside, the term ‘concern troll’ pisses me off — this group shouldn’t need a label with which to dismiss anyone who disagrees with its consensus. There’s nothing trollish about what I’m doing at this moment; I’m trying to have a sensible conversation about something that really concerns me, and I’m open to rational persuasion, as I hope everyone else here is too. ‘Concern troll’ is an embarrassingly ideological way to denigrate the motives and reasoning of dissenters. (I mean, there probably are some genuine concern trolls out there, but far fewer than regularly get accused of it.)
Bring it.
Pat. You’ve proven you’re a boring concern troll. How long have you been posting here? How many topics have you posted on? You don’t know anything about what goes on here other than the language gets spicy and that we don’t suffer fools.
And you’re still saying stupid shit. Who exactly is this third party watching from the sidelines? People like you?
Who thinks like this “Those pharyngulites are right about that stupid argument made by that poor ignorant creationist, but why did they have to be so… mean?”
Really?
I’m not concerned or offended. Annoyed is appropriate though.
Luboš Motl:
What the fuck is a conservative physicist?
Wow, first time visitor here. Bunch of angry little alarmists.
Obviously can’t stand the idea of people questioning the way science is done. You all stay warm, ok? ;)
Vote for Watts.
No, Tony. We LOVE when people question science. It gives us a larger pool of people to laugh at.
Your blog is the best…and it does not need to win any phony, meaningless award to prove it. Those of us who read you, know it.
The problem with concern trolls is that they can’t be bothered to do their fucking research. Whining about civility is simply the same ‘framing’ bullshit that has been discussed, dissected, and roundly rejected here a long time ago. A little back-reading or simply lurking for awhile really isn’t all that fucking difficult, and when you don’t do it, it’s obvious.
Instead, snorting hand-wringers drop in, pass sanctimonious judgment, and start preaching. Blah blah fucken blah. Concern is noted. Heard it before. Still not interested.
@ John Phillips, FCB “Steve B, True atheist! Is that anything like a true Scotsman? Ironic that the fucktard doesn’t even know the meaning of the word he so blithely uses. A hint for you Steve B, the word itself says nothing about questioning, only about a lack of belief in god/s.”
Perhaps I wrote incorrectly, I shouldn’t presume, but how do most atheists become atheists? Shouldn’t we/they use similar skepticism when confronted with dogma of any kind?
E.V. – I think that’s someone that only takes half their dose of laxative.
Tony Byron (#337) peered into his navel,
I suppose if you think posting an article without much analysis is a way of “doing science”, then yes, I can’t stand that.
Steve C.
I have to dissent on your branding Pat as a concern troll. I tend to side with Brownian on the matter, but feel Pat’s POV is well reasoned and sincere, and entitled to his opinion. Whether you feel this is worthy of a flame war is your prerogative, but reread Pat again, he’s not a raving ideologue issuing ultimatums over false dichotomies.
As far as I’m concerned, Pat and I will just agree to disagree on this issue. (Notice how I’m not attacking you, just disagreeing with you; I’m saving that for Luboš )
Didn’t we use to have something called a three post rule? I’m sure the meat will still be fresh enough even if we let it hang a bit.
There seem to be three main ways. 1) No indoctrination a children. 2) Reading the bible cover to cover and realizing what a horrible book it is (my discovery). 3) Realizing at some point you are being lied to about god and the bible.
Pat, you go ahead and handle this one for us, OK?
Concern troll is concerned about “concern troll”?
Just kidding. Couldn’t resist.
The people who get accused of being concern trolls, but aren’t really according to the true definition of the term, are usually infrequent or very new posters who post a condescending screed against everyone on some triviality, which is not simply dismissing someone who disagrees with the consensus. At one time or another, pretty well every regular poster here (including me) has gone against the consensus and/or upbraided, or been upbraided by, individuals for their choice of terminology, their opinion, or for being nasty. I don’t know about you, but I see a distinct difference.
You’ve never run a blog before and run stats on it, have you? There’s hundreds of people that read mine without commenting. Many people just don’t feel the need to be a part of the peanut gallery. If they’re offended enough by what I’ve said, they tell me so.
Sometimes they just come in “off the street” from Google or whatever and read an entry that’s long since cooled down and nobody is still actively responding to.
It’s like having a loud argument in a restaurant and imagining that nobody else hears you and that, even if they do, it’s “none of their damned business anyway.”
@ Steve C
> You’ve proven you’re a boring concern troll.
This is laughable. You don’t know anything about me, Steve, and yet you have decided to place me in a nice little container that conveniently allows you to ignore everything I say. You’ve done this, I might add, without actually acknowledging *anything* I’ve said.
> How long have you been posting here? How many
> topics have you posted on?
Excuse me, but how is this germane to the rightness or wrongness of my observation? If this is the barrier to evaluation, how can anyone new ever offer anything of import?
> You don’t know anything about what goes on
> here other than the language gets spicy and
> that we don’t suffer fools.
This presupposes many things (for example, that one is required to comment in order to actually read the blog). It also ignores the fact that I already mentioned the fact that I don’t read this blog often, and that my point may already have been addressed.
Lots of blogs have spicy language. Lots of blogs don’t “suffer” fools. What you (specifically, in this thread, I don’t know about your general demeanor elsewhere on this blog) are doing here is tagging people immediately as a “fool”.
Shit, Steve, I’m not even asking you to outright *agree* with me (as I pointed out in 275, above)… just actually nod your head and acknowledge that being an asshole can occasionally have negative side effects. Other people have done it (Denker, E.V. for two examples), it doesn’t cause their entire position to crumble into nothingness.
Patricia:
Or a savant with a hemispherectomy.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | January 13, 2009
but how do most atheists become atheists?
There seem to be three main ways. 1) No indoctrination a children. 2) Reading the bible cover to cover and realizing what a horrible book it is (my discovery). 3) Realizing at some point you are being lied to about god and the bible.
I am afraid I was not so intellectual about this. I remember allowing Jesus to enter my heart. But I never felt anything. So I decided not to lie to myself about this.
@Pat Cahalan
I’m neither social nor a scientist. I have in fact heard that anecdote != evidence. You claim to defend the sensibilities of some unknown, easily offended crowd with nothing but your own conjecture. So I submit my story in hopes that you realize this blog will attract people open to this form of discourse.
I did read your post. It’s not uncalled for open hostility and rudeness that is usually on display here. It is a lack of deference to poor reasoning and superstition that you see. I would agree with you if the situation fit your criteria, but I don’t see how it does. The type of people I see getting offended here are the ones that say “I’ll pray for you” to an atheist.
“” but how do most atheists become atheists?”
There seem to be three main ways. 1) No indoctrination a children. 2) Reading the bible cover to cover and realizing what a horrible book it is (my discovery). 3) Realizing at some point you are being lied to about god and the bible.”
Now use a similar frame of mind, methods 2 and 3, and apply it to other forms of dogma!
Drop that final god.
Shouldn’t we/they use similar skepticism when confronted with dogma of any kind?
Dogma is defined, IIRC, as: an idea held to be incontrovertible as declared by an authority.
If we’re talking about climate change science, the only “authority” is the reality of information. The climate is changing, and in ways that can be directly traced to human beings’ behavior. It would be convenient to ignore that, or find ways around it, or to look down our noses at the slavish adherents to the mindless dogma of biology and meteorology, or to “open our eyes” to the wondrous possibilities inherent in sticking our fingers in our ears and shouting, “I can’t hear you!” But it takes a lot more intellectual effort to accept that if we continue to behave in the same way, the Earth will be fried and life as we know it will be untenable.
@ E.V.
> As far as I’m concerned, Pat and I will just agree
> to disagree on this issue.
Probably the case :)
There are a number of different layers of this conversation, and you can argue it all the way down to what the actual purpose of the blog is (in PZ’s mind, metaphysically speaking) vs what the consequent of the blog is (in the collective “every reader ever”‘s mind, metaphysically speaking). It’s not a “turtles all the way down” argument, but it does pass out of the realm of a general commentary on constructive discourse and into that metaphysical realm, which is somewhat outside the scope of Pharyngula.
Tony B @337 is the Global Warming Denialist version of the creationists who spout,”So if we’re descended from monkeys, how come there are still monkeys?”
(How can there be global warming if it still gets cold?) Idiot.
I’m not being an asshole. That’s what you fail to understand. You’re being the asshole.
You can be an asshole without uttering a curse word.
Do you always bust into parties, and ask to shut off the loud music and to stop serving beer, because you don’t think that’s the appropriate way to behave?
It’s stupid to come to this blog and tell us the way we’re behaving isn’t effective. Did anyone say that it was supposed to be effective/positive?
Jesus Christ on a cracker.
Expecting not to have to lie to yourself isn’t intellectual? That is what an intelligent person would do. I would put you into #3 on my list.
I just pulled the list from my memory banks of the threads where PZ asked people to tell about their deconversions. It isn’t a complete list by any means, and the order may be off–even way off. Everyone’s journey is their own, but a lot of paths overlap.
:p
There is a difference, sure — but I’m still troubled if outsiders are labeled just because they disagree.
It is fair to say that this stuff has been discussed to death here, though. The problem is, people still seem to just want to be rude a lot of the time (and that false dichotomy of polite vs. rudely accurate keeps getting bandied about). It pays to remember that this is not a PR outreach program, but a like-minded community, though. I just get very suspicious when I see attitudes seem to take on that settled, mobbish, crusading moral certitude that we so like to blame others for. The feeling that comes out of posts like PZ’s here is that there’s no such thing as being ‘too rude’ when in the service of truth, even if any individual, if pressed, would admit that there are some reasonable limits.
“” but how do most atheists become atheists?”
In my case I was born that way, but I have many friends who once they realized it was OK and safe not to believe in a god(s), dropped the chains of programmed religious ignorance.
Steve B:
A true atheist would question everything, particularly something that is taken on faith! I’ve followed this whole global warming charade for over 20 years, and had been a devout follower of the anthropogenic theory of catastrophic global warming until I realized that the whole thing is based on the thinnest of evidence. As anyone here heard of “dependent on initial conditions?”
Thank you Steve. I was convinced by your post but I felt bad that the majority of the scientists don’t know the contents of your great post. It’s a desperate time so I submitted it with your name to one of the peer-reviewed journals, hope you don’t mind. Is it now too late to ask you if the contents of your post was solid and would not cause any embarrassment for you?
Breakfast, I agree with much of what you’ve been writing, and I don’t think you’re being a concern troll (yes, that term bothers me too, as do the professional whiners who that term is supposed to be applied to.) Pat has also made a few good points. There are a few I’d like to add my two cents to (No, I’m not wearing my fedora Patricia, and I’ve just shaved my beard, so I’m feeling a little vulnerable and thus uncharacteristically nice today. Sort of.)
About being called a fuckwit: yes, it sometimes works, or at least it’s worked on me, both directly and indirectly. As a rather brash and opinionated individual, I’ve been called out more than a few times for talking out of my ass. It wasn’t always in a manner as rude as being called a fuckwit and nor was it always as polite as ‘hush, the adults are talking now’, but it always stung. And if you’re the type who thinks, it can make you stop and consider why such learned individuals might not be as interested in your flip opinion based on no actual knowledge of the subject whatsoever as you are in delivering it. And if you’ve got a heart as cold and black as mine, you’ll think even further about how you can trip up those pompous eggheads at their own game, and you’ll run off and study the subject. And more often than not, you’ll realise just why those pompous eggheads were right after all. As for indirectly working, nothing freed me from my gong-fu induced woo-ishness than realising a few of my venerated heroes were full of shit because others that I respected weren’t afraid to call ’em on it. That’s where the collateral damage comes in–it can actually be occasionally useful. (What? PZ just called Benny Hinn a fraud? But, but, I just sent him little Lurleen’s college fund. He can’t be a–ahh, I see now.)
But there are those who come here and are genuinely interested in learning but have, unfortunately, been filled with misinformation (and who knows what else) by their respective churches, and get tagged for it. What can I say? In my case, I know it’s a little bit of battle fatigue, and it’s a little bit of ‘once bitten, twice shy.’ I’ve been burned here so many times by fundie trolls in sheep’s clothing that I’m afraid I’m a little gun shy and trigger happy. I don’t like it, but there it is, and sometimes I mistake genuine commenters for trolls. (And trolls aren’t always trollish nor non-trolls never trollish.) But I’m not above apologising for it (nor am I above slipping back into bad habits), as Randy Stimpson and David Heddle can both attest to.
This said, is there room for civil comments and civil commenters? You bet your ass there is, and I’m extremely grateful for the posters on both sides of the divide that are, not because I think they’re better or more effective or more godly or whatever, but because they’re not me. And I can learn from them.
This place isn’t a salon–it’s a saloon, and PZ’s the bartender and proprietor. He doesn’t haul out his shotgun often but he’ll do, more often than not because you’re complaining about the noise rather than shooting tequila bottles off the bar while swinging from the wagon-wheel chandelier. You can enjoy a quiet conversation here if you want (killfiles make effective earplugs), but if this place isn’t your style, you’re always more than welcome to head to the lounge at your local Chili’s.
Michael X said:
“No, Tony. We LOVE when people question science. It gives us a larger pool of people to laugh at.”
Please try to pay attention Michael.
I said: “Obviously can’t stand the idea of people questioning the way science is done.”
If you don’t know the difference between science and the way science is done then please ask a grownup to explain.
@Alyson:
“Dogma is defined, IIRC, as: an idea held to be incontrovertible as declared by an authority.
If we’re talking about climate change science, the only “authority” is the reality of information. The climate is changing, and in ways that can be directly traced to human beings’ behavior.”
Bingo! Someone is thinking here! Listen very carefully to what you just said. We are no longer talking about “Global Warming,” instead “Climate Change!” Of course the climate is changing! There just happens to be a small minority that is just not buying the “we’re **cking up the planet with everything we do” philosophy. Sure we are doing some nasty things, but shouldn’t we be applying resources to those things that science and economics show we can remedy quickly and cheaply? Do any of you realize how much mitigating and reducing carbon dioxide emissions is going to cost humanity? Do you realize any idea anyone has come up with to reduce CO2 emissions WON’T CHANGE SQUAT? Are you all prepared to build 2 to 3 nuclear power plants every week to make an actual dent in CO2 emissions? Did you know that for every watt of power generated by wind or solar has to be backed up by a watt of base-load generation, such as coal or natural gas? Didn’t think so.
Fixed it so Bill Donohue doesn’t fly into a rage.
Actually, we’re well aware of that fact. That’s why we treat morons like morons. I do usually try to answer politely to a polite comment, but at the second one or third one I don’t tolerate a dishonest approach any more.
What you apparently fail to recognize is that this is the world-wide web, that numerous polite and (by our standards) overly deferential treatments of pseudoscience exist out there. Talkorigins is just one. And you know what I’ve found out? Very few of the IDiots/cretins are at all tolerant of a place like Talkorigins, indeed, they seem to hate it all the more for being thorough and polite.
Furthermore, there are plenty of forums which are more polite, in which they can engage if they don’t like our tone. So they don’t need to be here at all in order to learn, if they in fact are open-minded.
So when they come here, often with disingenuous bullshit, they’re really just asking for it.
And yes, we’re dismissive of mindless jerks because we’re mindful of the audience out there. People ought to be afraid to attack well-supported science, both because we have a good command of the facts, and because we’re not going to suffer fools gladly–unless, of course, they really can support their claims (not something I’ve encountered on the creationist side). What honest science does suffer fools gladly? Apparently, only the one under dishonest attack is supposed to do so.
The fact is that you’re just unaware of the dynamics of the situation, and shooting your mouth off in ignorance. Most people are frankly not going to be persuaded by the facts alone, because they aren’t going to study the issues sufficiently to do so.
We can give good short answers to many questions, and we often do so when the commenter is polite–although there are some jerks who simply attack. But we’re not in this just to “persuade,” the fact is that we’re out to make people look stupid when they ignorantly attack science, hence we rightly jeer at people who persist in dishonest and ignorant attacks on science after they have been properly answered.
Yes, some do so before that, however this is not UD, where people are censored without engaging in truly egregious acts.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Not the flute-playing prostitutes.
*serves some wine, nudely*
Teehee. I was hoping he WOULD notice.
True enough. However, if you’re right, how will we know it wasn’t due to more than six years worth of proactive global reductions of the anthropogenic contribution to greenhouse gas levels?
Thanks, Brownian – that all sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Well said, PZ.
Well said.
Too much fun.
You go PZ.
Sic ’em.
Ah-ha! So it’s you Naked Bunny. You stop coveting all the nude male servants. The rest of us want some wine and groping too. Especially since the beard fight died out so soon.
Science is defined by the way it is done you tiresome twit. It’s a method applied to areas of study arbitrarily defined and classified by man that continue to change in scope and name, but the method remains the same. The systematically organized body of knowledge called “Science” is a product of the method.
But it’s lackwits who claim to have a better way to truth than through painstaking evidence gathering, hypothesis making and controlled testing, that get the brunt end of my insult stick.
So you got a problem with how science is done, present a better way. I need a good laugh today.
Bingo! Someone is thinking here! Listen very carefully to what you just said. We are no longer talking about “Global Warming,” instead “Climate Change!” Of course the climate is changing!
Wow, Steve B! We’re all so happy you could come here and show us the light! Never again will I ever listen to those liberal cranks known as “chemists” or “meteorologists” with their alarmist “experiments” or “studies.” Oh great Einstein, my life is changed! You have saved us all with your healing wisdom! I never knew the difference between “global warming” and “climate change” before! I’m so happy that I listened to YOU. We really need brave souls around here like you, Steve B. Otherwise we might never know anything.
@Watchman:
” You should agree that my prediction is easily falsified by January 13, 2012.
True enough. However, if you’re right, how will we know it wasn’t due to more than six years worth of proactive global reductions of the anthropogenic contribution to greenhouse gas levels?”
Just look at the atmospheric CO2 levels reported by Mauna Loa observations and you will note that there hasn’t been any diminishing of CO2 in the last 3 years. It is unlikely that it will diminish over the next 3 years. You will readily agree that it is unlikely that any reduction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions will occur over the next three years. Anyway, I’m not betting on CO2 levels, just temperature change.
Emmet: It’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe and blog is masculine :)
I had my last French class 20 years ago. :-P
And it was a play on the Magritte painting, so artistic license, please? KTHX. :)
Not if the problem will have long-term and expensive consequences. That would like suggesting that someone with cancer should only take vitamin C and other quick and cheap remedies, rather than getting chemo.
Is that cost greater than what not mitigating and reducing will cost humanity in terms of impacts on food supply, diseases, weather-related disasters, flooding of major coastal regions, etc. etc. etc.?
Yes I did — did you know that there are carbon-neutral renewables that are suitable for baseload power such as tidal, wave, geothermal, and ocean thermal (as well as more exotic options such as space-based solar and various approaches to fusion)? Did you know that there are various methods for storing power from wind and solar and other intermittent renewables to make them directly suitable for base-load power? Did you know that significant reductions in CO2 could be had through conservation?
@ Steve C
> I’m not being an asshole. That’s what you fail
> to understand. You’re being the asshole.
Oh, it’s quite possible that I’m acting in a way that you find asshole-ish. This doesn’t necessarily make me an asshole.
> Do you always bust into parties, and ask to shut
> off the loud music and to stop serving beer,
> because you don’t think that’s the appropriate
> way to behave?
Bad analogy. I do, for example, if they’re having a grand old time at 2 am right next door to the house where my two year old is trying to sleep. Hell, I’ll stop the party myself or ask people to tone it down if I’m *at* the party but it’s reasonable to assume you’re pissing off the neighbors.
Which is basically my point; I’m just mentioning the fact that this *isn’t* a private party miles away from the rest of the world. It’s a public blog, rated very highly among science blogs in particular. People who aren’t scientists come here simply because it is those things. Some of them are going to drop by, read a post like this, and say, “What a bunch of assholes”.
> It’s stupid to come to this blog and tell us the
> way we’re behaving isn’t effective.
Since when is it a net negative to try and offer someone constructive criticism?
> Did anyone say that it was supposed to be
> effective/positive?
Well, again… PZ is an educator. It stands to reason that he’d like to be a good educator. If he’s doing something that I believe may make him less of a good educator, isn’t it remiss not to point it out? Sure, I’m an occasional reader. As I’ve said before, multiple times, what I’m saying may not be relevant, or it may have already been tossed over a few times and judged to be worth the trade-off. I don’t have a problem with people acknowledging what I have to say but discounting it, perhaps providing me a citation or a link to a previous discussion where this has been hashed through before.
How does any of this make me an asshole?
For some reason, I feel compelled to point out to Patricia and others that I have a full, soft, and luxuriant beard. Not sure why, but I must do this. This incarnation of beard was begun on 05 November 1975. Available for perusal by anyone near Charleston, SC or, several times a year, in Washington DC. Photos are available in the lobby, tip your waitresses, try the veal.
BTW, getting married on 24 Jan 09 so the beard will be off limits after that. :>
(What? Oh, yes nurse, I will shut down the computer and take my meds now.)
Alyson, happy to help.
Concern troll is concerned about “concern troll”?
And, somewhere, a parcel of dark energy was created.
That’s almost like an LOLCat caption. CONCERNED KITTEH IS CONCERNED.
Steve B said
Again with the true atheist. Please define what a true atheist is, at least as you understand it. For to repeat, atheism ONLY means a lack of belief in god/s. There doesn’t even have to be a reason for the lack of belief. E.g. someone who had never been brought up with such a belief. Similarly, I know plenty of atheists who have the requisite lack of belief in god/s but believe totally in various shades of woo.
watchman@371, The Mauna Loa CO2 statistics should tell you that. We are currently ahead of the worst case scenerios, although if somehow the recession can be prolonged …
I give up. I get it. I get it. You’re concerned.
The entire web is a loud party at 2 a.m. and half the people are fall down drunk. That’s why you leave the party and go to the polka club to escape the chaos.
Ooompah pah pah. Ooompah pah pah. Ooompah pah pah. Ooompah pah pah.
This isn’t the polka club.
@312,
I’ll toss my uneducated ginger goatee in to the ring if it gets me some harsh treatment. Just don’t tell my wife.
Y’know, when I drop by the comments section for Manchester United, I expect to find soccer hooligans hurling F-bombs in lieu of intelligent conversation. Funny thing is, the conversation on their blog/forum is far more civilized than on this “science” blog.
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach assert:
FYI, profanity is used to intimidate people or to signal that informality is appropriate (so those who choose to can talk like uneducated cretins) or for cathartic release. But PZ, bless his heart, has come up with a really FRESH use for profanity, who cares if it’s absurd?!
Why bother expressing yourself like an adult when you can prove the superiority of your viewpoint with a shouted “bullshit!.” And when his regulars chime in with f-bombs, it just makes the science here so much more accessible to the average joe and his family.
I understand that PZ’s bitter that his blog likely won’t win and expresses his disappointment with jibes about Anthony Watts’ blog. However, Watts has performed signature service by surveying temperature stations and pointing out the pathetic siting of most of them. That accomplishment alone deserves recognition.
Why JefferyD, you sly dawg you. Congratulations on your engagement! I send you a slutty cyber smooch!
Hey Christner,
Fuck off. You suck. Your name sucks too.
@Tulse
“…did you know that there are carbon-neutral renewables that are suitable for baseload power such as tidal, wave, geothermal, and ocean thermal (as well as more exotic options such as space-based solar and various approaches to fusion)? Did you know that there are various methods for storing power from wind and solar and other intermittent renewables to make them directly suitable for base-load power? Did you know that significant reductions in CO2 could be had through conservation?”
Finally, a real debate! Yes, all of your alternative methods of power generation have potential. Not one of them is ready for prime time. Even if we increase our investments in those methodologies by an order of magnitude, they won’t make much difference for many decades to come. All of the renewable sources you mention are exotic. The 2-3 fission reactor plant construction pace I mentioned earlier is just for covering growth in demand, triple that figure to replace existing power generation infrastructure. Build a smart grid and save over 25% of that, but that is a simple political solution, sorry it won’t get done, too much nimby.
Nobody has ever been called a fuckwit so many times by people they disagreed with that they eventually went “Gee, maybe I’m stupid and they’re right”. – Breakfast
How do you know?
You can’t convince people by punching them in the face,
Ward S. Denker
Erm, this is a blog. No physical contact occurs. Yes I know you’re being metaphorical, but it’s a stupid metaphor: punching someone in the face, other than in self-defence or defence of another, is wrong. Calling them a stupid fucktard isn’t, if you have reason to believe that’s what they are. Yes there are occasions when regulars here, me included, go over the top. Too much exposure to crass stupidity and invincible ignorance tends to lower your threshold. But with creobots, denialists and (yes) “libertarians”, the first post is often enough to indicate that they are not open to reason. Oddly enough, some of the initially most offensive trolls do calm down and present at least an attempt at an argument after they’ve been told what stupid shits they are a few times.
All it does is project your own insecurities onto others. That’s what bullying is really all about.
No, I don’t think so. Bullies often have a heightened sense of their own worth and entitlement. The “low self-esteem” stuff has no evidential basis.
Pat, PZ is not only an educator. This is a public citizens blog encompasing everything PZ likes or dislikes. Further, even if PZ were solely interesting in education, he need not be an educator every second of every day. In reality, he’s also a concerned citizen and combatant against religious lunacy, and likewise, that doesn’t lead into how he teaches biology in the classroom.
This blog and it’s content is more diverse than one particular topic that serves more than one audience. If you don’t like religious topics, read up on a Peer Reviewed Research post. Something for everyone.
re:#97 (NewEnglandBob)
“The left has always been the agent of fairness and moderation.”
Except when you disagree with them, then you’re “a perpetrator of hate”.
Hmmm, eerily reminiscent of the tactical logic the religious folks use.
Pat Calahan (#381) “But, But But..!”-ed
To his students, who pay him to educate them.
You aren’t in that demographic (whiny finger waggers).
What makes you think your criticism is constructive?
Think of it this way:
Imagine how horrible it would be if we were welcoming of folks like yourself who ONLY seem to talk about tone and how offended they or others are.
It wouldn’t be very progressive if we have to stop the “real” threads and wait for the tantrums to stop.
Steve,
Did you know that for every watt of power generated by wind or solar has to be backed up by a watt of base-load generation, such as coal or natural gas?
Sorry, but just that simple little nugget gave you away. You have no fucking idea what you are talking about. It is wrong on so many levels that I won’t even start — unless, of course, you are genuinely interested in learning something.
Random question: is being a condescending douche a prerequisite to be a AGW denier? Or is it just the ones that come over here?
You’ve made an impressive comeback today, even though as you mentioned, you don’t have to have the most votes to be a ‘winner’, you just have to continue to produce a varied and interesting blog based more on fact than on fiction.
Christner, you’re an idiot. Do you think I wouldn’t notice that sneaky way you substituted “profanity” for “incivility”? Disrupting a pattern of unwarranted deference to bad ideas does not necessitate cussin’, although you seem to think so.
As for the rest of you, I have some bad news. There will be no nude male servants here. All we’ve got are rude male servants, so you’ll just have to make do.
And by demographic, I meant your demographic.
Just in case you were concerned.
However, Watts has performed signature service by surveying temperature stations and pointing out the pathetic siting of most of them. – Chris Chrisner
The term is signal service, halfwit. If you’re going to tell barefaced lies, at least try to use the right words.
What! You expect us NOT to tell your wife. That’s it buster, you just march over to the spanking couch. It’s the one beside the Naked Bunny with a Whip. I’ll be busy sending your wife a naughtygram.
Pat C.:
I do have to ask what is your definition of “metaphysics”? It’s much too vague a concept to go undefined and therefore a rampant mantra (and escape clause) for the woo crowd.
Hey PZ, check your original quote:
I substituted nothing. Your quoted comment and the tenor of comments here prove how you and your little tribe relish the use of profanity and general rudeness to strangers.
Christner, you could be more wrong, but it would take practice.
PZ has won this piddling noise contest before and isn’t interested in getting out the vote this year as a simple perusal of previous posts would inform you. Leaning that fact will require effort on your part. I am not optimistic.
As for your armchair psychology, save it. Profanity can also be used when you get angry for good cause. And scientifically muddleheaded smug little boys like yourself deserve to called such and not treated with kid gloves. You damage genuine scientific inquiry and provide no positive output into the solution of real problems. You are a parasite upon the scientific method and it’s practitioners that provide you with the comforts you take for granted. So if some of them cuss at you for offering a shallow view point or peddling nonsense, don’t be surprised. You deserve it.
Oh, and not one profane word in that whole post. I suppose it must be to your liking.
Smooches back, darling Patricia.
Now, off for fried shrimp, a tall umbrella drink, and some music.
Ciao
Oh, and Christner, since you are worried about profanity, fellate yourself in a sand pit full of squid while being sodomized by a rhino. See, no profanity.
Stu,
Yes, I am interested. Post links. But I must say my skepticism on “renewable” power has grown over time. I just don’t see how renewable power can be integrated into our grid as it is currently configured.
Hell, I’ll stop the party myself or ask people to tone it down if I’m *at* the party but it’s reasonable to assume you’re pissing off the neighbors.
Which is basically my point; I’m just mentioning the fact that this *isn’t* a private party miles away from the rest of the world. It’s a public blog, rated very highly among science blogs in particular.
What an incredibly stupid analogy. No-one is in any way discommoded by this blog unless they choose to read it. If they look and don’t like, they can go away. So why don’t you, you tedious concern troll?
What!? No nude male servants. WAH!!!!!
Well alright for you PZ, you big meany. In that case there will be no bare breasted barfight either. *pout*
I distinctly heard Dan Akroyd when I read that and scanned on for something about a misguided ignorant slut…
This appeal to incivilty (uncivility?) is a very BOLD endorsement from one that so aggressively attacks the most extreme religious viewpoints–and by extension those holding those views.
That takes courage…or stupidity (or ignorance, which is a bit different). There’s a fine dividing line between the two.
PZ, your remark, “I want them to charge in to the heart of the issue and shred the frauds, without hesitation and without faltering over manners.” is one I happen to agree with.
BUT,
PZ, you go on to point out that you’re “…a father and husband and am willing to express myself on any topic that strikes my fancy means that there can’t possibly be any science here implies that you are a freaking idiot with a bizarrely narrow view of who scientists are,…”
That’s a gutsy admission–recognizing the psychology of some of the demographic you’re provoking, or maybe you don’t realize it.
No doubt you realize that those of that persuasion (especially very many in the religious nut case category) are mentally unstable. It doesn’t take much to provoke them. All it takes is just one.
Case in point: My wife worked at an abortion clinic for some time, and a remark by a protestor really unsettled her. Something in the manner spoken or something. She couldn’t recall the exact words or “put her finger on it” that was so unsettling. She quit. A few weeks later the doctor was shot & the staff were shot at. All she did to provoke the remark was work there & look at this guy. Which is nothing compared to your latest blog.
You are inciting uncivil behavior that is [or appears to be] contrary to your stated position as an educator (be uncivil versus educate). Religious whackos just love hypocrites — the extreme in that demographic just can’t resist seeing them as a target. It’s really inspiring to them! Why a family man would go out of his way to provoke THAT type of person is baffling. Read some of the comments closely….if I was you I’d feel like I just became a walking bullseye for some headcase.
Good luck to you.
“…had been a devout follower of the anthropogenic theory of catastrophic global warming…”
Well that’s SteveB’s problem right there. First he was a “devout follower of AGW and now he’s a devout follower of AGW Denialism.It reminds of David Horowitz who was a fanatic leftist in the 60s, became disillusioned when his heroes turned out to be flawed humans like himself and then became fanatic rightwingnut. Fundie personality types are always all or nothing and there is no area in between.
I for one am never a devout follower of anything, but as far as it goes, I will take conclusions based on the scientific process and peer review over anything posted by a true believer.
SteveB:
As anyone here heard of “dependent on initial conditions?” Open your eyes! We live in a world dominated by chaos, one can only make projections an insignificant time into the future.
and then…
There just happens to be a small minority that is just not buying the “we’re **cking up the planet with everything we do” philosophy. Sure we are doing some nasty things, but shouldn’t we be applying resources to those things that science and economics show we can remedy quickly and cheaply?
People then “wonder” about the incivility! Someone comes along, describes the problem as non-linear — then pretends that it should be economically modeled as a linear system! (The underlying assumption of the second point being that there’s a cost-benefit proportionality, and we should make a decision based on that).
That’s why people get insulted as dishonest, ignorant cretins pretending an intellectual air simple to advance a propagandistic agenda. How else to respond when you discover that your opponent isn’t a “good-faith” interlocuter, but is simply using you as a mark?
“Science is defined by the way it is done you tiresome twit.”
That’s exactly why I said specifically “questioning the way science is done” and not “question science” as you said.
And by the way, questioning (accepted) science is the path to advancing science.
I won’t get too detailed here but doing science does not include collecting unrepresentative data from asphalt parking lots and blacktop roofs or cherry-picking dates (in Europe specifically) such as 1991 as a baseline.
“Tiresome twit” is nice…I appreciate someone who goes outside the box for an ad-hominem. Obviously you are not an average “angry little alarmist”.
You will be in a subset.
@ Glen (#328)
> People ought to be afraid to attack well-supported
> science
I’m having trouble agreeing with this outright. While I sympathize with the underlying principle, I generally find that when people as a class fear something, they marginalize it. IMO, that’s not good for promoting science in the public eye. This is one of those instances where being “right” (correct) isn’t necessarily the end-all-beat-all goal.
> The fact is that you’re just unaware of the
> dynamics of the situation
Why is it that nobody seems willing to note that I’ve already mentioned that this could be the case?
> and shooting your mouth off in ignorance.
Hey, Glen? I’m hardly shooting my mouth off… and while I’ll gladly concede that PZ is an astoundingly better biologist than I’ll ever be, I do have something of a familiarity in cognitive theory, philosophy, general science, and argumentation, mmmk? So I’m not exactly an ignoramus.
> Very few of the IDiots/cretins are at all
> tolerant of a place like Talkorigins, indeed,
> they seem to hate it all the more for being
> thorough and polite.
Doesn’t this add weight to my point, not diminish it? If, like some on this thread, tweaking the cretins is a good in and of itself, then isn’t this approach more constructive in that regard? And if, instead, the point is to educate, isn’t being thorough and polite a more generally useful approach than vitriol, enabling you to reach a broader audience?
Now, I’ll grant you that PZ may have decided that other blogs are a better venue for hitting the broad audience, and that his temperament is more suited for grabbing and educating people like Helfrick, who gravitate towards the style. Okay, that’s fine, it’s certainly his right. And if Pharyngula wasn’t a continuous contender for #1 Science Blog, I wouldn’t even have any objection whatsoever. But by his positioning, he *is* attracting that broader audience, at least in drive-by traffic. Like it or not, PZ is one of the few public faces of science blogging.
So I feel compelled to comment. That’s all. It doesn’t mean that I don’t agree with a lot of what PZ says. It doesn’t mean that I’m attacking his science. It doesn’t mean that I support idiot trolls. I’m just making an observation.
“Science is defined by the way it is done you tiresome twit.”
That’s exactly why I said specifically “questioning the way (the method)science is done” and not “question science” as you said.
And by the way, questioning (accepted) science is the path to advancing science.
I won’t get too detailed here but doing science does not include collecting unrepresentative data from asphalt parking lots and blacktop roofs or cherry-picking dates (in Europe specifically) such as 1991 as a baseline.
“Tiresome twit” is nice…I appreciate someone who goes outside the box for an ad-hominem. Obviously you are not an average “angry little alarmist”.
You will be in a subset.
Yes, yes, yes. And you and your little tribe relish smug holier-than-thou attitudes. We can do this forever. But do you see how you’ve actually stated no point and argued no claim? It is this puritanical focus upon style and not content that obsfucates any actual discussion. We actually discuss content. You just don’t like the style and that doesn’t bother us, because in the end, it’s trivial.
Lastly, only certain strangers generate hostility. And it is those, like you, who enter here with a negative attitude of their own.
I just don’t see how renewable power can be integrated into our grid as it is currently configured.
Christ on a crutch, do you need help carrying those goalposts? Do you think maybe there’s a reason grid overhaul should be, and luckily seems about to become the first priority?
But thank you for conceding the main point. We can move on now.
Your beard has a birthday? I’m not getting in a beardfight with someone whose beard has a birthday — the same way you don’t argue about who’s the best USS Enterprise captain with someone wearing spandex and pointy rubber ears.
Frog:
“People then “wonder” about the incivility! Someone comes along, describes the problem as non-linear — then pretends that it should be economically modeled as a linear system! (The underlying assumption of the second point being that there’s a cost-benefit proportionality, and we should make a decision based on that).”
I don’t care about civility, I’m in complete agreement with PZ in that regard.
Why not use a linear model for short term? We don’t have much else. You will have to agree with me that it is rare for any linear model to be accurate for very long, we should only apply resources to things that give a short term measurable benefit.
Are you saying that we should use chaotic models for the short term and linear models for long term projection?
“… the tenor of comments here prove how you and your little tribe relish the use of profanity and general rudeness to strangers.”
Holy shit! Christo is on to us!
Nonsense — there are tidal and geothermal projects generating power at this moment (in Brittany, Spain, Scotland, etc.), and one such plant has been operating since 1966. And unlike conventional power plants, the technology for these kinds of approaches is pretty basic engineering, and doesn’t require much in the way of exotic solutions.
Not at all — as I said above, some are generating power right now, and because most are built not as large megaprojects, but instead as relatively small units that benefit from economies of scale, they are likely to become rather cheap and easy to produce very quickly. It is anticipated that Europe may have as much as 5,000 megawatts of capacity just from wave and tidal installation by 2020, and that is with current investment levels and not an order of magnitude increase.
Space-based power and fusion are, granted, but not the others, which involve extremely straightforward engineering using current technologies.
JY: Why a family man would go out of his way to provoke THAT type of person is baffling. Read some of the comments closely….if I was you I’d feel like I just became a walking bullseye for some headcase.
So PZ should live in fear? And if there are no models of courage, where would anyone else show courage?
This is about moving the Overton window. The nice moderates get to live in freedom because a few crazy radicals create the cultural space for that.
Now, of course most of us are hiding in our basements, living quiet lives of anger because we won’t run the risk for all of us — but that’s nothing to be proud of, or to call “intelligence.” It’s just a fact of life — most of us are Kafka moles.
You are inciting uncivil behavior that is [or appears to be] contrary to your stated position as an educator (be uncivil versus educate).
This statement, on the other hand, is just plain stupid. It’s a simple-minded version of consistency — sameness across all domains, rather than internal consistency of one domain. Of course, in a university setting civility is the name of the game — hypocrisy would be PZ demanding civility from his students, while he sputtered and insulted them!
What is happening here is a completely different game — it’s an open forum of debate with a tendency to attract idiots who think their mumblings are on par with the Buddhas. So the rules are different.
In your little mindset, a “pacifist” would be a hypocrite for playing football on weekends. Now, that’s just a trivially worthless position, no?
@402,
Sorry but I like to be the one holding the whip; though I do appreciate Bunny for her methods. Besides, my wife is more than welcome to read the blog and I’m posting under my real name.
I, for one, was tackled by my Mac and forced to read Pharyngula daily where you rude fuckers breached all decency with your profanity laden abuses hurled toward prigs, assholes and fucking idiots. I will alert the proper authorities at Scienceblogsnow that my offensensitivity levels have been so rudely breached.
Keep it down you crude fuckers, it’s required reading and a public forum; for as you know, all bloggers on Scienceblogs represent the world’s Science Cartel. *maniacal laugh*
It goes over equally well, that’s the connection. I really doubt that jeers and thrown beer bottles from the pickup trucks of the “south’s gunna rise agin'” crowd ever made a homosexual think “Wow, I never thought about it that way before, I guess I like the opposite sex now.”
All it’s made them think is, “Where are the cops when you need them?” and “I guess I’m going to have to avoid this area of town now.”
I find it laughable that some of you are comparing the place to a “rough bar” or a “saloon.” It’s doubtful that many of you would survive an actual rough bar. Now, if you’re saying that this is an “intellectual’s ‘rough bar'” then I say they guy that’s got the biggest gun is the one with the greatest incisive wit with which to mow down terrible arguments. The rest are just pretenders, the intellectual equivalent of the above-mentioned jeering, bottle-throwing bigots.
Speaking of idiots have you ever read some of the tripe put out by James Hansen. The guy talks of protecting creation and being carried off by mephistopheles. Ha! The guy needs to put forget the literary pretensions and clean up his data.
I just don’t see how renewable power can be integrated into our grid as it is currently configured. – Steve B
It already is. Currently produces about 6% of total energy used in the US, but 30% of California’s electricity (note: not 30% total energy). The US DOE reckons wind power alone could account for 20% of US electricity by 2030. Some countries, of course, have higher values already.
The big short-term reductions in fossil fuel consumption and CO2 production, however, lie in energy efficiency and behaviour change – much faster and cheaper than any building programme.
From Tulse:
“Nonsense — there are tidal and geothermal projects generating power at this moment (in Brittany, Spain, Scotland, etc.), and one such plant has been operating since 1966. And unlike conventional power plants, the technology for these kinds of approaches is pretty basic engineering, and doesn’t require much in the way of exotic solutions.”
Of course all of the renewable methods work, but they are limited, and if they worked real well, we’d be using much more of it already. If you are a denizen of the coast, or near it, how would you like a wave power system within your view? Several wind power projects have been canceled for aesthetic reasons. Many don’t want whales to be chopped to bits by tidal power extraction. Go ahead and produce all the renewable/alternative power you possibly can, it just won’t come close to reducing CO2 emissions to any level that would make a measurable difference.
@Nerd #346:
How about 4) you realize all the annoying people are going to heaven and all of the interesting people are/will be in hell?
I may be wrong but I thought Naked Bunny with a Whip was a he.
And Ward Dinker: I guess you are under-armed in this battle.
Unfortunately, he also thinks you’re a fuckwit ;o)
The guy needs to put forget the literary pretensions – Hank
He needs to “put forget the literary pretensions” does he? You need to attend a remedial writing class. Then you can specify just what data you’re talking about, what’s wrong with it, and where in the peer-reviewed literature the matter has been discussed. Until you can do that, piss off.
Tony, I wish I could return the favor. You however remain in the majority of insufferable trolls.
My whole point was that these claims are interchangeable and laughable.
So here’s what I can conclude so far. You speak as clearly as mud, equivocate around the word “science”, provide no clarification, all the while continually claiming to “question the way science is done”. Yet if, as you say, you’re questioning of science is actually just doing science in the typical sense, then all I can request is that you quit spending time on APGW and take an English class and start using phrases in ways that don’t muddle the meaning of your statement.
For example: “Obviously can’t stand the idea of people questioning the way science is done” would read, if said by a scientist: “Obviously can’t stand the idea of people questioning YOUR CONCLUSIONS.” See the difference? One statement questions, within science, the conclusions of particular findings, while the other questions science as a method. English!
Lastly, “tiresome twit”, in the context I used it in was not an ad hominem. It was an insult. If my response to your statement was that I wouldn’t agree with you because you’re a tiresome twit, then it would be an ad hominem.
I’m afraid if I spend any more time teaching you english I’ll need to charge tuition.
JY,
If death threats and looney posters scared PZ he would of stopped blogging years ago. Sometimes when they are particularly rabid he’ll post relevant information and we all do a little investigating.
One guy emailed PZ using his wife’s work account. That didn’t go well for the poster.
@ Ryan (#396)
PC> PZ is an educator. It stands to reason that
PC> he’d like to be a good educator.
R> To his students, who pay him to educate them.
R> You aren’t in that demographic (whiny finger
R> waggers).
Not in my opinion… sorry. Educators and scientists don’t get to be educators and scientists only when they damn well feel like it and only to the audiences that they select.
This blog is hosted by Science Blogs. PZ notes in his profile both his profession and his place of employment, right there in the first line. I would imagine he asks (indeed, rightly so) that people judge the relative value of his postings at least partially based upon his profession, and grant him a standing as an expert in biology and at the very least a practitioner of education.
A scientist (note, again: I freely admit this is *my opinion*) has a responsibility to further the cause of science. An educator has a responsibility to further the cause of education. Particularly for tenured faculty -> you have tremendous authority and privilege granted to you by your standing, and you have a professional obligation to be aware of that, and not abuse that standing. PZ has mentioned agreement with this general principle himself before, by criticizing (rightly so) educators and scientists who abuse their standing to support horseshit outside their actual fields.
> What makes you think your criticism is constructive?
Maybe it’s not, but it’s certainly not destructive. Why are you responding as if it is?
> Think of it this way:
> Imagine how horrible it would be if we were
> welcoming of folks like yourself who ONLY seem
> to talk about tone and how offended they or
> others are.
I’m posting comments about tone and offense… on a thread about *tone and offense*. How horrible! I’m posting comments *germane to the topic*, on a comment thread *specifically about that topic!*
I’m not hijacking some other thread. I’m not commenting about tone on a thread about biology. PZ is positing a standard of behavior, and I’m mentioning possible consequences of that standard. Isn’t that what the comment section of a blog is supposed to be… for? Discussion?
This place deserves some kind of award, that’s for sure.
Surely not science related though.
We need to identify, ban, and tag these deniers now. It should be simple to compile a list for future incidents and to share with other sites. Deniers can yak all they want to themselves but disproven lies have no place in the public scientific arena. They are only further pollution clogging up rational discussion. It might be humorous, but also tragic, that each posted lie also generates further CO2 and wastes more precious energy resources. If we are serious about reason and the environment (the natural, objective one and the virtual ideal one) then we must commit to purging these toxins out of the system.
Hello KnockGoats,
Thanks for real numbers!
“It already is. Currently produces about 6% of total energy used in the US, but 30% of California’s electricity (note: not 30% total energy). The US DOE reckons wind power alone could account for 20% of US electricity by 2030. Some countries, of course, have higher values already.
The big short-term reductions in fossil fuel consumption and CO2 production, however, lie in energy efficiency and behaviour change – much faster and cheaper than any building programme.”
I urge you to look into Germany’s situation, they may be one of the countries that have a higher value, much higher, I think. They have to buy considerable amounts of base load power from France and others to make up for the times solar and wind just go dead. That 30% electrical power figure for California must be nameplate power, not average, as wind power only produces that energy at optimum conditions, hence the need for expensive back up power.
It’s doubtful you’d survive telling me that in person.
(Hey, since we’re obviously flexing nuts, now.)
“Anyone want to bet that the people complaining that this is not a science blog, expecting it to be all science, all the time, have never once read a scientific research paper? Or, at best, they’ve opened a journal before but couldn’t understand it?”
Maybe, but I can tell you what absolutely IS the case – when PZ posts straight science posts, they don’t read them. You will never find them commenting in those posts’ comments threads. Never.
They NEVER participate in those threads, they never engage, they never show up to say “my, isn’t this interesting.”
They ignore the science threads, and that’s why they want nothing but science threads here – so they can safely ignore them in the same way they ignore all other science-related publications.
They want PZ to stop politically-oriented posting because that’s all they care about, all they HAVE is their political opinion backed up by emotion and nothing else… and their strategy for winning the debate is to convince their opponents to not bother showing up.
SteveB: I don’t care about civility, I’m in complete agreement with PZ in that regard.
Why not use a linear model for short term? We don’t have much else. You will have to agree with me that it is rare for any linear model to be accurate for very long, we should only apply resources to things that give a short term measurable benefit.
Well, there you go again! Some phenomena show threshold effects — climate being a classic example. A series of linear approximations is guaranteed to be complete wrong! It’ll miss the threshold, and once we hit that it will be impossible to respond appropriately.
We know that the Younger Dryas climactic disruption in North America was triggered within a very short period, for example. It may have made N.A. basically uninhabitable for a millenium. So you suggest that we don’t use our foresight to try to avert such a disequilibration of the system, and instead keep our noses to the grindstone? Seriously?
Regardless of the quality of our current models (and I do not doubt that they are seriously screwed up), the overall envelope is clear. We are looking at a number of explosive positive feedback loops, from decreasing albedo to ocean acidification and massive methane hydrate release. To just “declare” that away because our models can’t tell us whether current technological practices will bring us to the threshold in 10 years or 100, is insane.
Bored bored bored. Once again PC wants to determine the ground rules. PZ has avery right to run his blog anyway he sees fit. PZ’s personal blog wasn’t much different when he was running it himself.
Seed brought him aboard knowing exactly the kind of blog he would run. He and Ed Brayton get into it from time to time too.
I’m thinking Ed’s blog is much more your speed.
I dunno, I can run pretty fast for a short guy.
Don Smith, FCD
In my post #360 I acknowledged that my list was probably incomplete. Add all you want. And anybody else. It’s on the table, have a go at it.
No Tony Byron, YOU should win an award. Would you mind listing your science credentials for the Academic posters here (I am not one, I freely admit) but there are more PhDs and PhD candidates than you can shake a stick at. We’ll all consider your assessment of Pharyngula as soon as you can prove you’re not the trollish buffoon you appear to be. Thanks.
Pat, for fuck sake. This is the most popular blog on ScienceBlogs. PZ has won numerous awards and he’s always been this way.
At a certain point the evidence against your claim that PZ’s method is bad simply becomes overwhelming. PZ is successful as a scientist, educator and public intellectual because of the way he is.
So here is my challenge friend. Either begin to support your claims with real evidence or save it. Your time for assertion is up.
5) Hell has all the good bands.
No, no Steve. A lot of us post on that one too.
Of course all of the renewable methods work
Phew. Okay, for a minute there I thought you were actually going to debate that.
but they are limited
I assume you mean geographically and temporally? If not, please elaborate.
and if they worked real well, we’d be using much more of it already
They simply haven’t been economical yet. Now we can either start fixing that right now, or wait until oil hits $500 a barrel and the entire world economy keels over.
If you are a denizen of the coast, or near it, how would you like a wave power system within your view?
Oh no! A bunch of buoys half a mile off the coast!
And I’d like it just fine if the alternative is hand-cranking my lights in the evening, thank you very much.
Several wind power projects have been canceled for aesthetic reasons.
Yes, people are morons. Film at 11.
Many don’t want whales to be chopped to bits by tidal power extraction.
Are you serious? Do you have a link for this?
Go ahead and produce all the renewable/alternative power you possibly can, it just won’t come close to reducing CO2 emissions to any level that would make a measurable difference.
Depending on how serious we get about it, 20-50% by 2030 sounds plenty measurable to me.
Dammit! Emmet!!!
*wipes monitor screen again*
And…
I do believe I have struck a nerve. I got a tired, un-witty cliche meant to deride me and an outright insult (jeers and bottles). Neither seemed to address the point being made, unless I need to consult a numerologist to find the hidden meanings.
When the response resembles exactly what I predicted that it would resemble, doesn’t that make you the slightest bit embarrassed? Don’t you realize that you resemble most what you like the least? It looks like denial to me.
I hit a nerve with little more than holding up a mirror. I didn’t have to parody either of you, you did that yourselves. Look hard at what you’re seeing. Is that who you are?
This place is what it is, and if it weren’t what it is then it would be some other way. And if it were some other way then some of us wouldn’t be here because we like it the way it is now. Point is, regardless of what goes on here, this place is an enjoyable internet hotspot for many. Pharyngula is interesting, and if you don’t agree you can fuck off!
My four day growth of chin stubble makes me feel like I brought a knife to a gunfight. I’m backin’ outa here real slow now…
“The rest are just pretenders, the intellectual equivalent of the above-mentioned jeering, bottle-throwing bigots.”
Then why do you come here Ward? Are you a masochist? Or do you like pretending you are above the filthy heathen hordes that desecrate this blog because it gives you the feelings of superiority you lack in real life? I mean let’s get real here. You certainly don’t come here for the community support. Maybe it’s because it’s lonely over on your “Libertarian Atheists” blog and in hopes that somehow someone will gravitate over your way? You definitely tried to bait me to come over to “debate” you on healthcare… notice I’m not that gullible.
IMHO you seem miffed and feel rejected because the vast majority of us don’t buy into your Free Market God BS and have no qualms about saying it bluntly and to the point. You have even coined a “law” and named it after yourself no less: “Denker’s Law: As the length of an online discussion with liberals increases, the probability of a liberal presenting the false dilemma that a libertarian is either extremely naïve (does not understand the plight of the poor) or morally corrupt (hates the poor) approaches one.” It reeks of victimization while the true meaning inherent in it goes right past you.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield, OM | January 13, 2009
I dunno, I can run pretty fast for a short guy.
Can I call you Rincewind The Wizzard?
Frog:”Regardless of the quality of our current models (and I do not doubt that they are seriously screwed up), the overall envelope is clear. We are looking at a number of explosive positive feedback loops, from decreasing albedo to ocean acidification and massive methane hydrate release. To just “declare” that away because our models can’t tell us whether current technological practices will bring us to the threshold in 10 years or 100, is insane.”
Now just how certain are we of these positive feedback loops? Have we seen them in the past? Positive feedback loops should have killed us long before we even walked the earth. Are you saying that the climate system is balancing on a sharp knife edge, and that any perturbation will send us spinning to either hell on earth or hell freezing over? That is what positive feedback should give us, an either/or, no shades of gray allowed, and any perturbation will send it spinning off.
When I said “Pharyngula is interesting, and if you don’t agree you can fuck off!”, it was meant to be accompanied by this video:
Am I the only one finding Pat’s concern about civility boring? Yawn.
Pat Calahan: Not in my opinion… sorry. Educators and scientists don’t get to be educators and scientists only when they damn well feel like it and only to the audiences that they select.
Now you are really veering into concern trolling. PZ’s entire life must be committed to “science and education”, as if he was some kind Fraa in a concent from Anathem?
You think that’s a serious point?
Yes, we get to have multiple lives. We’re allowed to be politicians one day, and educators another. You don’t get to demand that we be straight-jacketed and removed from certain elements of the public and private discourse.
PZ isn’t required to rigorously describe the digestive anatomy of cephalopods at an orgy — he’s allowed to screw and moan just like everyone else. Only an asshole would demand anything else.
Ward S. Denker, if it makes you feel better, I have been ignoring you. But I guess I am not now.
Back to ignore!
Thus spake Dr. Wankseed @452:
Not in anyone’s funny bone, you didn’t — what’s wrong with a little humour?
Yeah, sure. Creationists like to toss that one out too, usually whenever someone gets tired of hearing “if we come from monkeys, then how come there are still monkeys” for the six thousand, four hundred and twenty-third time and takes them to task for it.
But do continue; there’s nothing better than to be lectured about predictable behaviour than a living, breathing stereotype.
No need for the mirror, Ward. I have a few myself. And my god do I look fantastic!
Thus spake Janine, BF:
Not being a Pratchett devotee, I had to look it up — I think his beard is more like E.V.’s than mine, don’t you?
as wind power only produces that energy at optimum conditions, hence the need for expensive back up power.
Or, with an upgraded grid (to transfer solar and wind energy around efficiently), battery storage at house level and increased pumped storage facilities, you wouldn’t need as much. Not to mention that efficiency increases would severely decrease peak demand.
Anyway, that doesn’t even seem to be the crux of your argument. Am I correct in assuming that you are advocating against renewable energy primarily because it would not help quickly enough?
Steve B:
Apparently.
Do I have to connect the dots for you?
HAHAHA. Nerd. See my post #443.
Umm, no.
I know this should go without saying, but here it is for the logically challenged anyway: positive feedback loops are regularly encountered in which a threshold must be crossed before feedback is meaningful. You’ve encountered this yourself, if you’ve ever used a PA. Feedback squeal in a microphone->amplifier->speaker chain only accelerates to that horrible squawk you know and love if the sound pressure on the mic gets to a certain point.
Were we to follow your hilariously broad statement down the chain of ‘reasoning’ you have taken it to (I use the term loosely), it would be impossible to use a microphone at all, provided there existed a speaker connected to it somewhere in the universe. But it is possible, and with the speaker in the same room. You have to set the gain according to where the speaker is.
Adding this up with the rest of it, I have to suspect from the general disingenuity of your arguments here you’re really just lying your fat ass off, Steve B. That much illogic doesn’t happen by accident. You have to work at it.
MMGW – the new religion of the neo-flagellants:
http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/7743/capture7720082574320amur6.jpg
::shrug:: Nothing wrong with calling bullshit when someone spews bullshit.
But on the other hand, if someone has legitimate questions, asked from honest ignorance (as opposed to stupidity), then they should get a short but civil reply from those who know the answer.
Emmet Caulfield @419: LOL! good one. but.. what if those aren’t fake ears. but plastic surgery ?
Stu: “Or, with an upgraded grid (to transfer solar and wind energy around efficiently), battery storage at house level and increased pumped storage facilities, you wouldn’t need as much. Not to mention that efficiency increases would severely decrease peak demand.”
That is all well and good, but we are no where near the technology to do that. Increasing efficiency is something we already do, it pays right away, dumping large amounts of government largess won’t help us increase efficiency any faster than it already is.
“Anyway, that doesn’t even seem to be the crux of your argument. Am I correct in assuming that you are advocating against renewable energy primarily because it would not help quickly enough?”
Sort of, you could set me into the “it is too little too late so all of this AGW panic is pointless” camp.
Now just how certain are we of these positive feedback loops? Have we seen them in the past?
Yes. For instance, there have been these things called “ice ages”.
Positive feedback loops should have killed us long before we even walked the earth.
And they did. At least a lot of us.
Are you saying that the climate system is balancing on a sharp knife edge, and that any perturbation will send us spinning to either hell on earth or hell freezing over?
No, not “any perturbation”, but we’ve been mucking about with it for centuries now, and it is obvious and proven that we are disturbing natural cycles.
That is what positive feedback should give us, an either/or, no shades of gray allowed, and any perturbation will send it spinning off.
No, it would not. Why are you making things up?
SteveB: Now just how certain are we of these positive feedback loops? Have we seen them in the past? Positive feedback loops should have killed us long before we even walked the earth. Are you saying that the climate system is balancing on a sharp knife edge, and that any perturbation will send us spinning to either hell on earth or hell freezing over? That is what positive feedback should give us, an either/or, no shades of gray allowed, and any perturbation will send it spinning off.
Are you that ignorant of geological history — even the recent history of the holocene?
The Dryas event is one example, due to the dumping of glacial water down the Hudson. There is also evidence of massive methane hydrate explosions at the end of the last ice-age, we know that the Saharah’s conversion to desert was fairly quick… That’s not including less clear similar events going back tens of millions of years.
Now, Stevey, in reality positive feedback loops aren’t unbounded — a threshold gets hit, then a saturation occurs. It’s the same thing you see in any biochemical reaction or information system — a big old S curve. Usually, it leads to a disruption, but the rest of the system (aka, trees, wolves and worms) adapt after a die-back. I’d really prefer not to be involved with one, or leave one to my children and grand-children — now that would be uncivil.
The only basically uncontrolled positive feedback I’ve heard about was the Snowball earth effect about 600 mya, where the entire planet may have been reduced to super-arctic conditions. Even that case obviously saturated and was only a meta-stable state that eventually de-stabilized leading to another positive feedback towards planetary tropical conditions.
So, yes — we can be fairly certain these “positive feedback loops” exist, just as the negative feedbacks exist. Yes — we have evidence of their past behavior, and good evidence that we are entering their reactivation (just google siberian methane hydrate — if that doesn’t scare the hell out of you, you’re just too stupid to live). No, the fact that these loops exist does not imply that we’re living on a knife’s edge constantly — most of the climactic time is spent in meta-stable states. Just like a personality — meta-stable most of the time, with threshold effects that can completely transform it in a blink of an eye, to a new meta-stable state.
What we have to worry about is massive perturbations; since it’s non-linear, most of the build up will be quite slight changes (the “linear regime” of biologists trying to cheat) until we hit the threshold. And if you don’t think we’ve done a massive perturbation that is very likely to create a possibly unexpected threshold-crossing, well I guess ignorance is bliss.
Wow, just wow. I could somewhat respect your position until this little nugget. That is an asinine statement. Are you the type of person that finds out he is talking to a doctor at a party and hikes up his shirt to ask about “this damned rash”?
@ Michael X
> At a certain point the evidence against your
> claim that PZ’s method is bad simply becomes
> overwhelming. PZ is successful as a scientist,
> educator and public intellectual because of
> the way he is.
Mr. X, there are several obvious and immediate holes in your argument. One, the particular measurement of popularity you cite is not in any wise a reasonable metric for quality of science or educational ability. I’ll go ahead and grant you PZ is a good biologist (I have no reason to doubt this and will accept it on face value. Even if this is not true, it would be difficult for me to claim this in any justifiable way, as I have no standing as a biologist myself). At my present place of employment, I’m surrounded by outstanding scientists (not to mention my own educational institution). I do not notice a general positive correlation between “good scientist” and “good educator”.
Also, not I did not claim that PZ’s method was “bad”. I observed that it can have negative consequences, something which seems pretty obvious, but some here have rejected that observation.
Claiming that *PZ’s method* is in fact (either qualitatively or quantitatively) bad is a much more rigorous claim. Who am I answering here? All I really wanted to accomplish by my commentary is the first, actually. I’m really quite astounded that some people have difficulty actually acknowledging the point.
> So here is my challenge friend. Either begin to
> support your claims with real evidence or save
> it. Your time for assertion is up.
I just may accept your challenge, sir. What evidence do you require? Are citations from peer-reviewed psychology journals acceptable? Sociology? Educational journals (they may not be properly scientific)? Do you require refereed journals, or are conference papers enough to provide you with some sense that what I’m saying has value? I’m imagining that you yourself are not a social scientist, so what authorities will you accept as a reference?
Moreover, since you are now asking me to invest a large amount of time in research (as opposed to making a simple observation that has generated a substantially disproportionate amount of negative response), can you provide me with some sort of reasonable guarantee that ya’ll gonna stop acting like assholes when I scientifically prove to you that it is counterproductive?
Or am I just going to go off and bust my ass off and have everyone just say, “Megh. We like it here”, which seems to be the prevailing defense (and which is not much subject to being countered via science, is it?)
Raise your hand, palm facing the guy, part your fingers between the second and third finger, and say “live long and prosper” while backing away slowly?
WTF?! Why is SteveB arguing any position on climate change when this is his level of understanding?
Nice work flushing that turd, AJ.
We didn’t come up with that comparison, an editor of Nature did.
Nonsense, rough bars are nice safe places to relax after field trips. Ever seen a professor pull a knife on a student?
Better than pulling out his cock and asking the same question.
Posted by: Emmet Caulfield, OM | January 13, 2009 5:49 PM [kill][hide comment]
Thus spake Janine, BF:
Can I call you Rincewind The Wizzard?
Not being a Pratchett devotee, I had to look it up — I think his beard is more like E.V.’s than mine, don’t you?
Not for the beard, for the running.
My my Michael you do get into some persnickety parsing don’t you?
How about addressing the data collection from heat islands and admitting why 1991 is a magic baseline for ghg emissions?
How about admitting computer models can’t explain past “climate changes” like the “little ice age” or the “medieval warming”?
Water vapor and clouds and solar influence can’t be accurately modeled and it’s obvious from the divergence of IPCC predictions and the reality of the last 10 years.
Do go on playing with yourself over semantics though.
My beard’s birthday was September 30, 1991, the day I stopped working for a boss who hated beards.
I’m perfectly willing to be civil to you if you’re civil to me. As has been discussed several times before on this thread, one can be quite uncivil without using profanity. I consider repeated use of logical fallacies to be uncivil, especially if you’ve been warned that you are using them. If you’re uncivil, I’ll be uncivil back.
Pat: Or am I just going to go off and bust my ass off and have everyone just say, “Megh. We like it here”, which seems to be the prevailing defense (and which is not much subject to being countered via science, is it?)
It’s perfectly amenable to scientific analysis — just show evidence we don’t like it here.
Maybe you meant that we shouldn’t like it here? Or that we should spend time where we don’t like it? Or that it shouldn’t matter what we like?
I’m starting to smell a smug puritan ethic — it’s not a pleasant odor.
On a more serious not, you seem to be assuming that a manifold of approaches is wrong — that there is one right approach, rather than an alliance of approaches which work in concert. Ah, there’s that stench again!
amazing how “bipartizanship” changes meanings depending on whether the Republicans are in power or not: when they are on top, it means “we won, so you have to support us for the sake of unity!” when they are on the bottom, it’s “forcing your ideas on the almost-half of the country who disagrees with you is unfair and dividing! it’s OUR country, too!”
grrrness.
Thus spake Janine:
Yeah, I know, but when I saw the full white beard of David Jason on the Wikepedia page, it reminded me of E.V.’s description earlier on and I couldn’t resist.
Absolutely correct. I spotted your post when after I posted mine. Laugh away. (Bows head in shame for a minute).
lol.
I was the “good with computers” guy growing up so Mum would try to get me to help her friends with computer trouble.
Ah, a question I imagined was going to be asked of me quite a way back, but it took a while for someone to get it.
Perhaps I am a masochist. I do pick scabs because I prefer the pain to the itching. Perhaps I just seek lively debate, and you don’t get that from a cheering squad. I don’t mind a few battle scars because, as the saying goes, “I give as good as I get.”
If you didn’t have dissenters here and you all got your wish, you’d soon abandon the blog. Know why? Know what another place is where you only talk to people who agree with you? A church. Do you really want to think of PZ as a preacher and you only want other parishioners in the pew beside you? That doesn’t sound like half the party, saloon, or rough bar you want it to be. It just sounds like a place to go to sleep where nobody will notice to me.
But, it’s my contention that we can have a lively, educational, intelligent debate without the jeers and bottles. Throwing a bottle and being cheered on by your friends for doing it is not the equivalent of being clever, incisive, or witty. It’s being a cretin, nothing less.
Well, in my defense, I shouldn’t have to repeat things that I’ve already said (in great length) elsewhere and I had been previously accused of being a thread-jacking troll. Because the general topic of “health care” is not the same as the specific “anti-vaccine religious exemptions bug me,” I felt that it was too far off-topic.
In the spirit of disclosure, I do get additional traffic from here. It’s not that much though. I hardly feel lonely. Arguments give me good things to think about, research, collect my thoughts, and post about on my own blog. It allows me to hone my own arguments to a razor’s edge and tells me what I didn’t think about, what I missed.
You assume that I came to Libertarianism in a different way than I came to atheism. In reality, a search for a better way to do things led me to explore that path (and many others). Few people are born into Libertarian households. I certainly wasn’t. I wasn’t indoctrinated. It might surprise you (or not) that I was indoctrinated by the United States public education system into liberal thinking. It took a while (early adulthood) for me to recognize what had been done, but I can figure out things on my own with a rational, critical eye.
You should be able to see by my style and the content of my comments that I am no dummy and that I enjoy learning new things. It’s all of the intellectual rubbish that I’ve got to shovel before I find the true gems here that make me question coming back. The fact that there are the occasional gems and sometimes a bit of humor too (happy monkey!) is the only thing that does.
You can convince people of a point of view without turning a blog into an Al Qaeda training camp (and even there they are probably telling people a tiny bit of true, verifiable things about America). I get it already, you hate Libertarians, you hate AGW skeptics, and you really hate Creationists. Down with America, jihad! Right?
Stu,
I’m not making anything up. Positive feedback gets you a rapid transition to a maximum or minimum possible value. We are all familiar with the microphone and amplifier feedback loop. It takes considerable control to keep such a system in check. Is the implication that our climate system needs careful control to keep within optimum bounds? What was that control in the past? Do we have sufficient knowledge and suitable feedback measurements to control it ourselves? Are we going to be pushing on the rope or pulling it?
Oh man. PC. No one is going to change anything because you don’t like it or you can show that cursing and intolerance of trolls amd loons is counterproductive.
You’re arguing that the blog has a reason other than existing for the purpose of enjoyment and commerce. That’s what it does. And that’s productive. Ad views and a place for godless liberals with a respect for science and a love of cephalopods. Never forget the cephalopods.
If you don’t like it, change the channel.
Ward wrote:
This, from the guy who earlier equated a typed verbal insult to a punch in the face. I conclude that he does understand the concept of metaphor, therefore he has chosen to be inconsistent on this point.
Tony Byron
This place deserves some kind of award, that’s for sure.
Surely not science related though.
Thank you, O pseudoskeptical one, for that incisive, constructive and informative comment that really tells us a lot about why the apparently well-evidenced science of anthopogenic climate change is in reality a great crock of shit.
Now kindly insert a pair of your fingers knuckle-deep into your rectum, then insert them – again knuckle-deep – into your nostrils. You may remove them only once you justify your style of snide ramblings with some published papers and genuine evidence.
Also, Derd S. Wanker should realise that nobody gives a toss what he thinks, and that by the nature of the faeces-hurling apes that we all are, exposing some pathetically thin skin on the internet is as good as an invitation for those who think that you are an uninformed, mewling oaf to stub out their cigars in it.
Ward. You’re a tool. And really fucking long winded too.
Just as a pedantic nitpick, Clinton wasn’t impeached for Whitewater. He was impeached for lying about sex with a consenting adult. (Officially the charges were perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice.)
Now you are getting into the spirit of things. Who said that civility and comparing people to extremists couldn’t go hand in hand? Why use of such words like hate to characterise the opponent’s position as irrational is an eloquent way of beating the argument down. Very nice work, you’ll do well here.
Posted by: Ward S. Denker | January 13, 2009
You can convince people of a point of view without turning a blog into an Al Qaeda training camp (and even there they are probably telling people a tiny bit of true, verifiable things about America). I get it already, you hate Libertarians, you hate AGW skeptics, and you really hate Creationists. Down with America, jihad! Right?
What a tiresome dumb fuck. Killfile.
Colonel Sun @ #470: You do realize that graph starts in an El Nino and ends in a La Nina, both of which have substantial but short-term (i.e. NOISE) effects on temperature trends (i.e. SIGNAL), right?
Why not look at the entire record or the decadal rankings? (Or this if you’d rather complain about temperature records.)
Could it be that denialists like Watts consider the full record the way creationists consider transitional forms?
@ E.V. #311:
It’s usually more a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent. Even those creationists who have mustered some old-fashioned weapons haven’t mastered them – and typically they don’t know how to wield them at all.
Re: someone accusing us of not being able to survive a rough bar (probably from personal experience).
I’ve been in plenty of rough bars and never had a problem. Of course it really helps if you walk up to the biggest, meanest badass in the joint and say “Can I buy you a beer?”