Wednesday 26 February 2014

THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: I am ostridge practitioner of the CAGW religion


Maybe this is the right background music to the name calling orgy the climate ostriches are throwing this month.

My comment below was not published by the Hockey Schtick (THS), which has a post about the new manuscripts of the Connelly family, below which I wrote a comment to point the readers to my post about these manuscripts.

In my post I wrote that I did not think it was a good idea that the authors of the manuscripts are also the editors and the owners of the journal. I think that at the very least, this should be made very clear on their homepage. The Hockey Schtick does not see any problems with such a pal review and praised the reviews for being open. When I explained that the editor has to make an impartial decision on whether to publish or not, THS no longer replied.

And in my post, I summarized the long discussion at the blog And Then There's Physics about one of the manuscripts about the greenhouse effect. The discussion suggests that the Connolly's do not believe in the greenhouse effect, but cannot explain for what other reason the surface temperature is 33°C higher as it would be without greenhouse effect.

In this respect the Connolly's are much more moderate as THS, who thinks that greenhouse gasses cool the atmosphere. No typo (the webcite for history).

The argument of THS uses the dry adiabatic lapse rate, would thus only work for the greenhouse gas water vapor and not for the others. And it uses the current effective radiative height as natural constant, not determined by the concentration of greenhouse gases. The result is also physically impossible, for the radiative transfer of heat radiation (cooling of the Earth), an atmosphere without greenhouse gasses is the same as no atmosphere. Whereas the theory of THS claims that in the first case, the surface is 49°C warmer and would consequently radiate stronger toward space.

My comment

For full transparency, I thought it would be a good idea to post my forbidden comment here. I am curious whether my readers also feel that I misbehaved. Feel free to be honest. (You can also comment anonymously.)

Here is my comment, with a little commentary for a better understanding:
MS is the host of the Hockey Schtick? I am sure that is clearly written somewhere.
THS does not have an about page, I normally do not read THS and the name MS does not link to THS, but warns "The Blogger Profile you requested cannot be displayed". Thus I was a little surprised to notice that the person I was discussing with (MS) was the host of the blog. It would be nice if the name of the comment writer were Hockey Schtick or Admin or something like that. Then everyone would know that the blogger, who wrote the post, is the person writing the comments. I felt a little sock puppet-ed.

In the previous comment, had THS accused me of making Ad Homins, whereas I was just not very friendly and I tried to explain why:
Feel free to have a very liberal definition of an ad homin. For me an ad homin is: argument X is wrong because Y is an Z.

I am sorry to have to say, that since I started blogging and came into contact with climate ostriches, I have lost all respect for them. The continual stream of misquotations and misinformation has left its traces. The linked examples are not scientifically important, but can be checked without much scientific understanding. Even in such clear cases, there is a nearly complete lack over ever admitting being wrong among climate ostriches, this has made me very cynical about your crowd.

To me, it would be dishonest to act as if I still still had some respect for climate ostriches. Feel free to interpret that as ad homin, I do not.
In the previous comment THS asked my opinion on a post of his on the greenhouse effect.
No I do not want to discus your post on the greenhouse effect with you. I have seen smart people put in a lot of effort to try to make you understand it in the comments on Global Warming Solved. I do not expect that I would be more successful.

And another reason not to start a new topic is that it is a general strategy of climate ostriches to start a new topic before they have to admit being wrong on a previous topic. Do you agree that a lack of independence of the editorial decisions in a journal where the owner, editor and authors are the same is a problem for the credibility of the journal? You did not respond to that.
In the rejection comment of THS, he again did not say what the thinks of pal review.

The Hockey Schtick rejection

MS wrote:
Victor, Your latest comment will not be published as it is full of ad homs,
It was not a very friendly comment, I admit, but ad homs is something different to me.
and frankly, you should be ashamed of your hostile and derogatory comments towards the Connolly family and their scientific method, made PRIOR to even reading their paper!
I did not mention the Connolly family in my comment, nor their papers, only THS himself and climate ostriches in general. My personal impression is thus that THS did not publish it because my comment did not put him and his political movement in a very good light, but I am likely biased.
That is pathetic, arrogant, anti-scientific and evidence that you are an ostridge [sic] practitioner of the CAGW religion. Bye
Because he gave a reason why I am pathetic, arrogant and anti-scientific and he did not claim I am wrong because I am pathetic, arrogant and anti-scientific, I will be generous and not call this an ad hominem.

However, if the emotional state of THS necessitates calling me a “pathetic”, would it then be too much to ask to refer to me by my last name? It does not look like we are friends or colleagues. That is inappropriate false friendliness, as William M. Connolley (with e) rightly stated. (I wish I could write real English.)

What I did not write in my comment is that THS fits in the not very flattering category of people calling mainstream scientists child molesters, whores or Nazi's as he recently twittered: "When will @MichaelEMann be prosecuted for Climate War Crimes? ..." Kill the messenger. I had expected that such a comment would not pass moderation.

Gotta love the family values of those US conservatives, evangelicals and libertarians.

[UPDATE. In reply to the recent name calling orgy, Michael Mann tweeted:]


Related posts

No trend in global water vapor, another WUWT fail

Anthony Watts calls inhomogeneity in his web traffic a success

Investigation of methods for hydroclimatic data homogenization

Readership of all major "sceptic" blogs is going down

WUWT not interested in my slanted opinion

WUWT and Co. not interested in my slanted opinion, part II

Christians on the climate consensus

The value of peer review for science and the press

7 comments:

  1. Victor,

    I think your comment is fine and your conclusion as to why it was rejected is similar to mine: he did not like what you were saying and also, the point you make about pal review is very relevant. He has to agree with that so rather than agree, he chose to delete your comment.

    His explanation for your deleted comment is extremely hypocritical. He accuses you of using ad homs while dishing out a string of them himself.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for the confirmation, Rachel. It is hard to judge oneself objectively. That is probably one reason why the overconfidence of the climate ostriches can be so effective.

    That makes it one more episode of Someone is mean on the internet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. In my latest exchange with HS on the global warming solved site, he/she has essentially just described the greenhouse effect perfectly, and then denied it exists. Okay, he/she does think that GHGs cool the surface, but - apart from that - his understanding of the greenhouse effect is pretty good. He/she just doesn't realise that what he/she is describing is what most people call the greenhouse effect. Maybe if we spread this around the blogosphere he/she would never live it down :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for the lovely complements ATTP!

    And Then Theres Physics said...
    In my latest exchange with HS on the global warming solved site, he/she has essentially just described the greenhouse effect perfectly, and then denied it exists. Okay, he/she does think that GHGs cool the surface, but - apart from that - his understanding of the greenhouse effect is pretty good.

    Yes, you are right! I've described the so-called 33K "greenhouse effect" perfectly without using any CO2 at all!
    Amazing isn't it, Occam would be proud!

    Unfortunately, you then dive back to the CAGW darkside with "He/she just doesn't realise that what he/she is describing is what most people call the greenhouse effect. Maybe if we spread this around the blogosphere he/she would never live it down :-)"

    Uh, no, I've already explained dozens of times, as has Ronan Connolley, that the 33K "greenhouse effect" is entirely explainable by the basic physics of gravity, atmospheric mass, pressure, heat capacity and has nothing whatsoever to do with CO2. So, have no fear, I will be "spread this around the blogosphere so you & Victor will never live it down :-)"

    BTW Victor, when will I receive your apology?

    http://globalwarmingsolved.com/2013/11/summary-the-physics-of-the-earths-atmosphere-papers-1-3/comment-page-1/#comment-108

    ReplyDelete
  5. HS

    Uh, no, I've already explained dozens of times, as has Ronan Connolley, that the 33K "greenhouse effect" is entirely explainable by the basic physics of gravity, atmospheric mass, pressure, heat capacity and has nothing whatsoever to do with CO2.

    No, you really, really haven't. You cannot determine the effective emission height. I know you claim you can, but you're mistaken. That is determined by the GHGs and can only really be determined by a radiative transfer calculation.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I would say that your comment is indeed is a little strong worded but acceptably so. Saying that you have no respect for the "ostriches" may be honest, but also is a little tactless.
    But when entering a debate, one must have at least some skin to accept that unkind words will be thrown around and -IMHO- it's a demonstration of intellectual honesty to try to ignore them and tackle the arguments.
    THS took the easy and disgraceful route of the concern troll and just ignored your valid argument on the basis of hurt sensibilities. That, I dare to say, "pathetic, anti-scientific" and he "should be ashamed of" it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the feedback!

    How about "little respect"? ;-)

    Maybe I am a little hard because I started too optimistic. Thinking that maybe these people were a little biased, but would be willing to listen to argument and could be convinced by evidence. Along the same route as AndThenTheresPhysics, I noticed that this is unfortunately not the rule, at least not for the people for whom being a climate ostriches is part of their identity.

    And I am a little hard because I know some parts of the science and thus see some parts that are weak (extremes, some impacts, solutions, etc.). When people then start about stuff that is solid and do so with bad arguments, it shows that they did not approach the problem from the science side, but started with their political ideology.

    When I am dealing with people I do not know, I will keep making an effort to assume good faith. With people like The Hockey Schtick, I am no longer able to do so. Unfortunately.

    ReplyDelete

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