Discussion > Skeptical Groupthink about ATTP
TO start you off on your stories of woe at ATTP, I will note that I have tried to comment on various "skeptical" blogs under various names and, to its credit, BH is the only blog on which I have not been blocked (comments not appearing). But that may be because I don't comment on the main pages as I can't abide reading a daily portion of accusation and conspiracy theorizing.
My most recent failure was now some time back at Euan Mearns' place for no more than suggesting an obvious truth about the GWPF. So the general idea that warmist blogs block comments and "skeptical" ones don't does not hold up (in my experience anyway).
Raff
Vanity thread.
TheBigYinJames
Martin A says that ATTP "regularly deletes ..." Raff, it's not "groupthink" to say what attp gets up to in 'moderating' as he calls it. If you fish around you'll find that attp himself has made no secret that he deletes stuff, saying that he does it because he does not wish to provide a platform for incorrect ideas or something like that.
Martin A
Another irrelevant thread for Raffs climate science homework assignment.
Attempted engagement does show more initiative than Lewandowsky et al.
golf charlie
Martin, would you say that the Bishop regularly deletes comments that do not toe the line? He certainly deletes stuff (e.g. on the greens and fascism thread last week) that he doesn't want on his blog. I don't read enough of the main blog to know how 'regular' that is, but I imagine the same can be said of you (even all combined) and ATTP. What distinction do you draw between the Bishop and ATTP?
Raff
Roll up, roll up, Raff is organising another show trial...
The verdict is already decided, the noose already spliced, the stake primed with firewood. Thankfully, as of 2016, attendance is not compulsory.
Media Hoar
Raff, as Louis Armstrong said, if you have to ask, you'll never know.
Martin A
Martin, I'm asking your opinion. I know mine - that both BH and ATTP moderate as they see fit and in a reasonable manner. Both control what appears in their comments while allowing people to express contrary views. ATTP gives people plenty of warning before moderating. From what I have seen, I don't think the Bishop does, but I may just not have seen enough. In my experience, Mearns moderates much more strongly than either, especially when protecting GWPF.
Raff
He really needs this vanity thread, I wish Martin would stop feeding it.
TheBigYinJames
Does Martin answer to you? I don't 'need' this thread, but I do want to understand the justification of the idea, prevalent here, that "skeptic" blogs are virtuous and open while non-"skeptic" blogs are sinful and closed. The Bishop deletes at his will. It is difficult at comment critically at Mearns blog without being moderated out and other minor blogs are the same. Many people who have tried to express non-conspiratorial opinions on WUWT will have gotten short shrift. Blogs such as ATTP or Science of Doom are patient with dick-heads. They may not be as patient as some of the biggest DHs would like, but they are not fundamentally different from your preferred blogs.
Raff
People who call themselves skeptics seem to believe as one that official organizations and climate scientists are pathological liars, yet they are unable to identify any lies.
I've never seen an accusation of "pathological" lying on these pages, but if you want some instances where it's difficult to believe the person saying them isn't lying because they should know better then how about Sir Brian Hoskins on the BBC.
The first was during an interview with Nigel Lawson, Sir Brian said that the “missing” heat, (there has been no significant rise in atmospheric temperatures since 1998) was going into the Oceans. Lord Lawson said that that was “Pure speculation”, which indeed it was, but resulted in Lord Lawson being banned from the BBC sine die.
Second, again on the BBC Sir Brian said that the was plenty of evidence of the effects of global warming and specifically mentioned the flood in Northern England as a manifestation. They are no such thing, and it's difficult to believe climate scientist and FRS doesn't know what's in the IPCC reports.
“In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale”
IPCC AR5 2013
On the same programme he went on to give another example of proof of climate change as a drop in food production.
Again it’s surprising that a scientist so immersed in the climate change cause should not be up to date on the claims he is making, but that fact is that he is completely wrong. According to the latest data from the FAO of the UN, the number of undernourished people on the planet fell by 17% since 1990-92. (http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3458e/i3458e.pdf).
Note I don't say he's lying but cold quite see how someone conversant with the facts would say that he was.
Anyway bye raft.
geronimo
Geronimo,
Here is the transcript of the interview. Here's what was said at the end.
Sir Brian Hoskins: It hasn’t risen very much over the last 10-15 years. If you measure the climate from the globally averaged surface temperature, during that time the excess energy has still been absorbed by the climate system and is being absorbed by the oceans.Justin Webb: So it’s there somewhere?
Sir Brian Hoskins: Oh yes, it’s there in the oceans.
Lord Lawson: That is pure speculation.
Sir Brian Hoskins: No, it’s a measurement.
Lord Lawson: No, it’s not. It’s speculation.
What Brian Hoskins said was true. What Nigel Lawson said was not. And yet you imply (possibly more than imply) that Brian Hoskins is a liar.
...and Then There's Physics
Travesty.
Alan Reed
"People who call themselves skeptics seem to believe as one that official organizations and climate scientists are pathological liars, yet they are unable to identify any lies."
To accuse someone of being a pathological liar requires some confidence that they know what they are doing!
What we have from the official organizations are pronouncements that lack credibility, to those who are knowledgeable because of the assumptions made, then fail to materialise. These assumptions cannot be proved to be false at the time because of a lack of knowledge by everyone. However, an awareness of this lack of knowledge should impact what is sensible to declare. Instead of full scale development, run a trial, or a prototype, for a couple of years. And spend more effort on improving experimental data collection and analysis as it will be more effective use of money.
Instead, we get: bio-fuels to REDUCE CO2 emissions (FAILED), windmills to REDUCE CO2 emissions (FAILED), windmills to provide a secure, economic, national electricity supply (FAILED). The proof is in the results. Here are a few projections/projects that were going to be a rip roaring success:
Catastrophic Turbine Failures, Targeted Blackouts Plague German Power As Wind, Solar Energy Increase
Engineering Fiasco…Spiegel On Offshore Wind Parks: “Does Not Fulfill The Hopes Of Reliable Energy”!
“Massively Altered” …German Professor Examines NASA GISS Temperature Datasets
These reports are from Germany, conveniently collated at NoTricksZone, but similar reports can be found across the world. And Germany is supposed to be good at technology!
Children weren't going to know what snow looked like! Our Environment Agency cannot look after our environment: we don't know what a winter without any flooded homes looks like. Our Government is going to close down our current coal fired power stations, because of the law, yet we don't have the capacity to replace it.
If this goes ahead, we will have surprised 'official organizations' yet again, with people at home dying of cold!
That is what Sceptics are tired of experiencing. It's not just déjà vu, it's déjà vu, all over again!
Robert Christopher
I'm sure you needed to get that off your chest, but it is largely off topic. Please identify any real lies told by scientists or scientific organizations or, failing that, show where you or someone else has been unjustly moderated by ATTP.
Raff
well. the only way to show that, is for ATTP, to provide a list of all the people he longer allows to post at ATTP.
and all the comments that he and other moderators have deleted...?
so that we can decide for ourselves (being sceptics) if they 'unjustly' moderatd. unless we have to take his word for that.
thus we are dependent on ATTP, being honest enough to do that.
LOL
Barry Woods
I earlier said of ATTP and SoD that
they are not fundamentally different from your preferred blogs.I meant it in the sense that they are not obviously any more closed to readers who want to make sensible comments than "skeptic" blogs. But they are clearly different from "skeptic" blogs in that they can use science as a principle on which to moderate. The Bishop just removes things he doesn't want with no clear rules; Mearns moderates when hubris and bluster cannot cover his embarrassment or, like other similar minor blogs, when he loses an argument.
Barry Woods, ever original, drops another accusation of dishonesty. Wow, I'm shocked! People on this blog have such trouble with honesty in their own arguments and pronouncements that I'm not surprised that you too are confused by the concept. I suppose it is pointless to ask you to provide an example of ATTP being "dishonest" - one that a normal person would understand as dishonesty. Similarly, I doubt you can find any example of someone being warned about moderation where it is not obvious why their words would be out of order on a blog that is interested in science (just pretend you know what such a blog is). But go on, surprise me.
Raff
Raff,
I'll give you an example of Ken Rice's "honest" behavior.
One of his regular tactics is to make a comment, have someone call him on it and then claim her didn't actually say of mean that. When he subsequently gets pinned down on that excuse, he then shifts the argument to a different track, saying it wasn't about his original topic at all. I've called him out for this on several occasions. He usually goes away.
In my opinion that is not honest discourse. If you can't stand by your comments or apologize when you get something wrong (or at least acknowledge you were in error) you should insert yourself into the debate. (Ken Rice is not the only one guilty of this - not by a long shot - but guilty he is.
timg56
I wonder if ATTP or RealClimate or SkepticalScience or Desmogblog or, come to that, The Guardian would have allowed this thread to run for 24 minutes, let alone 24 hours?
The fact that Andrew allows this sort of pointless drivel to clutter up his site says a lot for the man's tolerance and patience.
And I say again, raff, only two posters that I know of have been banned from this site (there may be a couple of dragons as well) and my only experience of moderation has been where posts have been seriously off-topic or OTT in language.
Even your perpetual bad manners are tolerated. They wouldn't be on my blog.
Mike Jackson
Raff, if you start of with a statement like 'People who call themselves skeptics seem to believe as one that official organizations and climate scientists are pathological liars, yet they are unable to identify any lies." any response that does not take you up on your ludicrous statement implicitly endorses it.
Here's a brief answer - discussing attp is something I find about as interesting as cleaning the grouting in a shower.
I know of one person banned at BH. They were explicit that their reason for posting their stuff was their hatred of other BH commenters which itself may give you the flavour of their comments. Eventually they were banned, after repeatedly making libellous statements about Andrew Montford.
I've no idea how many people have been banned from attp but, since, as someone who takes no interest in the question, I can immediately think of two BH commenters banned from commenting there (Shub Nugarath , Paul Matthews) it's fair to guess that the total number on the attp blacklist is significant. Ken Rice himself makes no secret of it.
Other than adverts for Nike shoes I've never seen anything snipped in BH discussion threads. BH has stated that he does not want discussions on homeopathy but I know of no other taboo subject.
We used to have main threads disrupted by someone with a bee in his bonnet about radiation theory and BH would ask such discussions to leave the main thread. Occasionally BH will snip rudeness or vulgarity in comments, leaving an indication it has been snipped. He'll also sometimes snip disruptive comments that are off topic, together with responses to them. He leaves a word to say that it's been removed.
That's all I'll say.
Martin A
Raff, is your climate science school homework assignment going to be turned into a science busting paper by Cook, Lewandowsky, and the Guardian finest science correspondents at the same time?
golf charlie
Martin said:
Raff, if you start of with a statement like 'People who call themselves skeptics seem to believe as one that official organizations and climate scientists are pathological liars, yet they are unable to identify any lies." any response that does not take you up on your ludicrous statement implicitly endorses it.How is that 'ludicrous'? How many "skeptic" arguments can you list that don't rely on scientists or scientific bodies lying? It is difficult to look anywhere in your little bubble without being assaulted by accusations of lying. ATTP is similarly accused, as am I. It is the core argument of bubble people. So if they are lying so comprehensively they must all be compulsive, obsessive, pathalogical liars.
I don't know how many are banned at ATTP, but being banned seems quite difficult. The moderators warn people quite clearly about inappropriate content or behaviour. If people are sensible (and don't want to be banned) they back off. I conclude that Shub/Matthews wanted to be banned - the better to be able to whinge about it.
Raff
Why are global warmongers so convinced they are right, when their track record is so dreadful?
Despite numerous assertive guesses, so far without success, when is the end of the world due next? I really ought to get my haircut, and I am wondering whether I should bother. It just seems so unfair that as I lose my hair there is no discount proportionate to the degree of baldness.
It seems that this thread is not going in the intended direction, so further accusations must be made, without admission of hypocrisy. See Raf @ 12:21AM. As a trainee climate scientist, he can conclude anything he likes, and demand it to be accepted as truth, and whinge all he likes. A true Mann of climate science.
golf charlie
golf charlie
As someone known to his family as Grandad Baldy we should celebrate hair loss. You can now wear eccentric hats in winter for warmth and in summer for protection. Woolen beanie hats and Panamas in my case. Less time and money is required to keep it clean. If you grow a beard, seemingly the current fashion, go to a hairdresser who'll do the beard and what's left of your hair for a reasonable price, win-win. I think us slapheads to a lot to keep our carbon footprint low in shampoo savings alone.
SandyS
People who call themselves skeptics seem to believe as one that official organizations and climate scientists are pathological liars, yet they are unable to identify any lies. Another common thread seems to be that blogs run by people who call those other people "skeptics" don't allow said "skeptics" to comment.
In particular it seems that ATTP is a prime example. Martin A says that ATTP "regularly deletes comments that do not toe the line". Now Martin has commented only once at ATTP and he received a perfectly polite reply, so I don't believe he is talking from personal experience. Rather, as with the "lies", this seems to be groupthink. But here's a chance for others to substantiate this accusation against ATTP.