Message to Anthony Watts: Anthony, it’s some science deniers who are proneto skating too close to defamation. Not so much people who accept mainstream science.
Update
Anthony Watts has had second thoughts, probably after reading the WUWT comments – or maybe HotWhopper – and has decided to hedge his bets. He’s added some more words to the bottom ofhis original article:
Of course it could also be a rah-rah application, where each of the silhouettes is a “real climate scientist”, and the popup text message is all about how they “feel” about climate change…like these clowns.
“These clowns” being scientists who were describing how they feel about global warming. Anthony is a tough antihero for whom feelings are a sign of weakness. Except when he’s feelingbrave but trepidatious and when he doesn’t like feeling ignored.
Anthony doesn’t want to look like a wimp, so he belatedly back-backtracked and added this further bit of speculation:
Whatever it is, it will likely be the caliber of sort of lowbrow stuff we’ve seen before, like the “designed to be funny but actually horrifying” 10:10 video which blows up children who don’t want to go along with climate change in school.
From the WUWT comments
There aren’t any yet. I’ll update as they accrue. We’ve got a few, but none are as paranoid as Anthony’s own article. Remember that nobody has seen what the teaser is about yet, so all comments are based on nothing but greyed out shadows of people.
jmichna doesn’t have a clue but decides whatever it is, it’s bound to be childish.
September 5, 2014 at 10:16 pm
High school antics… sophomoric at that. Ought to be cute.
omnologos has quite an imagination
September 5, 2014 at 10:35 pm
First 100 victims of the climate holocaust?
We should play a guessing game. Winner to be hospitalized as mentally unwell since he or she reasons like Cookie
Nik actually counted all the figures in the image and said:
September 6, 2014 at 12:02 am
There are 99 figures there. I’ll bet they’re going to do something on the 99.99999% scientists believe in agw paper.
leftturnandre implores Anthony to leave off the conspiracy theories and mudslinging and be daring enough to write about science instead. But it’s clear he doesn’t want Anthony to go overboard in that regard. He doesn’t want WUWT to go as far as writing about real science, because he also thinks that WUWT shouldn’t be promoting SkepticalScience.com. Probably he just wants some pseudo-science served up occasionally. SkS is way too sciency for the denier crowd.
September 6, 2014 at 1:06 am
Antony,
I don’t know if it’s wise to do this variation of feeding the trolls. WUWT gets a huge amount of traffic and ranks around 9800 in Alexa. SKS is a mere borderline phenomenon ranking in the 88,000 region. If you feed them with links they may grow. Also articles like these may be counter productively strengthen their adepts in the believe of the demonic character of sceptics. Don’t accept their war. Also maybe recognise that this type of polarisation is just early “stage 1 classification” in the accumulation to genocide.
Take the high ground. Ignore them and stay friendly.
A better alterative is concentrating on the science. Maybe my first blog could be inspiration.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
September 6, 2014 at 12:00 pm
🙂
September 6, 2014 at 1:34 pm
Actually the DIV tag that has the timer had id “whatsupinner” 🙂
As for the amount, the page actually contains 100 unique images of people. No doubt I think SkS will turn 97 of these into AGW confirmers and 3 to naysayers when the clock is 0.
Looking forward to see when its revealed. 🙂
September 6, 2014 at 2:19 pm
The author really needs a real job. I suggest a job writing for the Democrats, Obama, Bloomberg or any Republican as they all need writers who can smear without going to jail. Not a word about the science. As for the 97 percent number here is an interesting study on confidence and its reliability.
Physicians’ Diagnostic Accuracy, Confidence, and Resource Requests A Vignette Study
Ashley N. D. Meyer, PhD1,2,3; Velma L. Payne, PhD, MBA1,2,3; Derek W. Meeks, MD1,2,3; Radha Rao, MD2,3; Hardeep Singh, MD, MPH1,2,3 , 2013
If you read this the next time some expert reels out a string of math and says they have high confidence you might check your wallet to see how much they stole.
September 6, 2014 at 3:20 pm
Micheal Fellion is the one who needs a “real job”, as opposed to his present pastime of wandering around spewing inane horsepucky. If memory serves, does he not periodically appear on Crock around the same time as Mobeeleven does, as part of a “lemming pack” of denier trolls that go off the cliff together?
Speaking about not a word on CLIMATE science, MF wastes our time with a citation to an “UN-interesting” study on doctors’ diagnostic accuracy, which has NO relation to climate science and is more of a psychological study than anything else.
(And of course, MF closes with a typical non sequitur as seems to be so in vogue among the logic-impaired deniers. He must read the same Troll Manual as Mobeeleven).
September 6, 2014 at 6:19 pm
This is the same guy who copy/pasted this claim in an earlier discussion thread here:
You might note the NOAA ice measurements in the arctic show a return to average levels in 2013 and as of august much higher levels…
A quick look at the current Arctic sea-ice extent (http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png) show how disconnected from reality Fellion is.
September 6, 2014 at 6:34 pm
Typo correction:
A quick look at the current Arctic sea-ice extent (…) *will* show how…
September 6, 2014 at 2:55 pm
Here is another interesting study on consensus and how it can be wrong.
HAC-Robust Trend Comparisons Among Climate Series With Possible Level Shifts.” It was published in Environmetrics, July 2014. Apparently all those climate models, the 97 percent rely on are wrong at least on the temperature trends in the mid and lower troposphere. The study concludes there is no trend aside from a one time upward shift do to the pacific oscillations in the late 1970’s. While this study may be faulty unless that is shown the faulty people are the 97 percenters.
September 6, 2014 at 3:01 pm
the history of climate denier’s citation of “studies” suggests that, unless you are providing a link to the actual paper, we can safely assume that you have not read it, would not understand it if you had, do not know what it says, but instead are cutting and pasting a bogus “reference” you found at a denialist website.
simply asserting something does not make it so.
We’re all ready to discuss here, but you have to cite something real and checkable.
September 6, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Peter’s first paragraph says it all. I’ve looked at the “actual paper”, and it is the work of (guess who?) Ross McKitrick—-and another economist cum amateur climate scientist named Tim Vogelsang. They seem to claim that errors made in documenting temperatures in the tropical troposphere as measured by weather balloons over 55 years pretty much invalidate the ENTIRE body of evidence for AGW.
It’s “checkable” but doesn’t appear to be very “real”. It’s probably easier to look at McIntyre’s recap on climateaudit and Watts’ on WUWT—-they are both actually “guest columns” by McKitrick—just google McKitrick-Vogelsang-McIntyre. Many citations to other bits of denier horsepucky are included.
And MF closes with yet ANOTHER non sequitur—-“While this study may be faulty unless that is shown the faulty people are the 97 percenters”, he says. Has he no shame? McKitrick, McIntyre, and Watts apparently don’t.
September 6, 2014 at 4:28 pm
Is Environmetrics one of those up and coming predatory journals that threaten to do away with what is good about peer review? Just curious.
September 6, 2014 at 5:01 pm
The quick answer is that it has been around for 25 years, seems legit and “serious”, and is concerned mainly with statistics and math in narrow areas of “environmental science”, which is not the same as “climate change science”.
McKitrick and Vogelsang may have used some interesting (and even correct) math in their analysis, but it’s meaningless in the big picture. I would suspect that they published in Econometrics because the big journals said “so what” if they submitted it to them first.
September 6, 2014 at 3:04 pm
“it will give a whole bunch of people a reason to sue the pants off that whole team of creepy playtime Nazi cross dressers.”
Fascinating opportunity. Maybe WUTW would like a photo of John and Dana wearing Mariachi hats. Make me an offer Anthony.
September 6, 2014 at 4:25 pm
I thought it looked like the outline of an ostrich with a particularly thick neck…
🙂
And on to this: “Also maybe recognise that this type of polarisation is just early “stage 1 classification” in the accumulation to genocide.” Only on a site like WTFUWT would you find so much of this sort of drivel.
September 6, 2014 at 6:57 pm
While it is O.K to be sceptical and challenge issues, instrumentation and measurements, Watts language is highly emotive, unnecessary and unscientific and reads like a poorly written comic book from the 60s. “team of creepy playtime Nazi cross dressers. Bring it.” “like these clowns.” – whilst Skeptical Science respectifully names him thus:
Climate Myth:
97% consensus on human-caused global warming has been disproven
Cooks ’97% consensus’ disproven by a new peer reviewed paper showing major math errors (Anthony Watts)
NOT that idiot hairbrained crossdresser clown Watts.
What sort of audience is WUWT aimed at
September 6, 2014 at 8:07 pm
that becomes quickly obvious at the site. just take my word for it, you don’t have to actually go there.
September 7, 2014 at 2:18 am
And please do not link his pages from any of yours either as that will increase the search ratings to that anti-science propaganda site.
September 7, 2014 at 7:25 am
JCL asks “What sort of audience is WUWT aimed at?” and Peter replies “That becomes quickly obvious at the site”.
It does indeed become “quickly obvious” when one visits the site and reads the smug and self-deluded comments. The WUWT crowd are the “motivated reasoners” and cognitively dissonant in the climate change discussion. They live in the circular firing squad of climate change denial, parrot horsepucky, and do not seek real understanding. They are the WIFI’s—-the willfully ignorant and functionally illiterate, and Peter nailed them with another comment here—-“the history of climate deniers….suggests that….we can safely assume that you have not read it (climate science), would not understand it if you had, do not know what it says, but instead are cutting and pasting a bogus “reference” you found at a denialist website…..simply asserting something does not make it so”.
They exist merely to pool their ignorance and shore up each others’ deep-seated fear of the truth, which is deeply rooted in their amygdalas. Read The Republican Brain to understand why they are the way they are.
JCL says “And please do not link his pages from any of yours either as that will increase the search ratings to that anti-science propaganda site”. LOL That’s like saying don’t mention Rush Limbaugh or Faux News in the hopes that will cause them to wither away. I myself never go to WUWT to seek any kind of “wisdom”, but I DO appreciate it when someone else occasionally points out their crazier antics, as Peter has done here. Although exposure to WUWT is stomach-turning, it’s funny in a dark way, and we all need a good laugh.
September 7, 2014 at 9:00 am
Well, lol all you like, but my concern is a real one. Try googling for any term within climate science, and very likely a WTFUWT page will show up on the first page there. When sending articles to friends and family, I sometimes get a “rebuttal” back which basically consisted of them googling the term and finding a WTFUWT page.
For many it really stops there already, if they can find confirmation bias within the first page of a search – that really stops us from moving forward. The anti-science propaganda has been very effective at this, and Watts is very likely the loudest of them all.
The main reason for the high search ranking is because even real science sites link to his page to make a point about WTFUWT being wrong about something (which they practically always are, so why point it out anymore?). It would be more effective if we choose to ignore this clown so he doesn’t get free advertising all the time.
September 7, 2014 at 10:55 am
My LOL was made in the sardonic and ironic sense.
Your concern IS real because there are so many conservative WIFI’s in the world that simply do not want to admit that AGW is a problem. You need to keep fighting the good fight, and when you get “rebuttals” citing WUWT horsepucky, you need to double down and tell them that WUWT is simply a propaganda site and try to redirect them to truth on sires like SKS or ClimateProgress or Crock.
If it “stops there”, so be it—you tried—and do beware of the “backfire effect”—–pushing truth too hard on a WIFI often causes them to dig in their heels and resist even more. Some of the folks I have attempted to “educate” simply resort to saying “you only cite liberal sites”, and WILL NOT accept that AGW is a science issue, not a political issue to any but those who see everything as a liberal-conservative dichotomy.
Watts is effective like Rush and Faux News are effective—-they all reinforce the views of those who seek them out, and ignorant people will continue to seek them out because they will hear there what they WANT to believe. I see little danger in exposing Crockers or SKS visitors to WUWT—-we all know better than to believe his BS, and it’s good to “know thy enemy” and see what trash he’s spouting. IMO, If the intelligent climate science world were to boycott Watts, it would hardly make a difference in any way
September 7, 2014 at 10:12 am
I think I’ve avoided any direct links.
September 6, 2014 at 8:39 pm
O/T but deliciously juicy.
Editor fired for plagiarizing the National Review has been hired by the National Review.
(This is probably Michael Mann’s favorite retweet to date: https://twitter.com/TPM/status/508332144826281984)
Juicy details at http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/former-buzzfeed-editor-benny-johnson-gets-job-at-national-review-after-plagiarism-scandal
September 7, 2014 at 8:53 am
The threats of lawsuits look pretty stupid now, don’t they? It’s a cartoon of Michael Mann! I hope Watts gets DUMPED ON by people laughing at his conspiracy mind.
September 7, 2014 at 10:11 am
these folks are not notable for their ability to learn.
The SkS crew was hoping that by teasing the rollout, they could elicit exactly this kind of crazed, over the top response, and pump up the anticipation.
Psych 101 is all you need to pull the strings on the denial crew.
September 7, 2014 at 4:53 pm
Trouble is some of them look after countries (not to harper on abbott it.)
September 7, 2014 at 9:47 am
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