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william5331 at 05:10 AM on 6 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
If China does impose a carbon tax, both for domestic and imported fossil fuel, and returns this money equally to each of its citizens (Hansen solution) and taxes goods from countries which do not have a carbon tax, other countries will pretty much have to follow suit or be left at an economic disadvantage. A tax on carbon is determined by legislation, not by the market as is cap and trade so it can be slowly ramped up year after year. Long before renewable energy is equal in price to coal generated energy, capital will flee from fossil fuel, speeding up our transition to renewables and research into ways of coping with pulsating souces of energy. China, with her command economy is the one country that could set this up rapidly and basically save our sorry selves from ourselves.
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DSL at 05:05 AM on 6 March 2013Carbon Dioxide the Dominant Control on Global Temperature and Sea Level Over the Last 40 Million Years
Depends on how you look at it, Kevin. Certainly the sun is the almost exclusive source of energy. However, forcing from solar variation is not that strong (except in the very, very long range -- faint sun hypothesis, etc.). It's just persistent. Consider Milankovitch forcing. It seems strong: it is responsible for major swings in global temp. However, it's a pretty weak forcing. It's just long-lasting enough to trigger a powerful, long-term ice-albedo process and a powerful, long-term change in ocean temp (leading to outgasing of CO2). Because CO2 is not exclusively a feedback, it can and should be considered a powerful forcing--certainly enough to overwhelm orbital forcing (see Tzedakis et al. 2012). As for CO2's dominance as a greenhouse gas, see Lacis et al. (2010).
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Eclectikus at 05:01 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
DSL #95 says: "When you point to your scientific credentials, you gain authority in the eyes of (some) readers, readers who don't have enough of a basis in scientific training and/or the existing literature to "do the math" and/or put things in context, respectively, and who are thus forced to use other means to assign validity to a proposition."
While I understand your position and I think you're right, it is something that can not be fixed and now could say I'm an astronaut. Simply, believe or not, I have experience enough in hydrography, marine geophysics, bathymetry, GPS positioning, GIS, DTM, data acquisition and processing... Well, experience enough to leave out of the room all the emotional aspects or at least minimize its influence.
98# Rob Honeycutt.- Okay, is your view, but that is exactly the method used on all west democracies including (or even starting by) USA. Is not a scientific prize, but is a prize given directly for the readers. I for one am delighted to have reached finalist and humbly ask my readers vote.
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Kevin8233 at 04:52 AM on 6 March 2013Carbon Dioxide the Dominant Control on Global Temperature and Sea Level Over the Last 40 Million Years
Is fig 1a trying to show a cause and effect relationship between CO2 and sea level? Or do they just happen to go up and down together, perhaps each caused by something else, temperature perhaps?
Because of this behaviour, renowned glaciologist, Richard Alley, has dubbed carbon dioxide Earth's biggest temperature control knob.
Isn't this somewhat over-reaching? There have been several ice-ages (as shown in above figure), none of these ice-ages was caused by CO2 levels, nor was the ending of these ages. Clearly, something other than CO2 is the big control knob!
Moderator Response: (Rob P) Figure 1 shows what happened to sea level and atmospheric CO2. You have actually read the post you're commenting on right? -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:40 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus @ 78... If SkS tried to rally it's readers to vote, then it would be contributing to the very problem the award has. That it can be gamed. That means if SkS won the award it would not be a measure of the quality of posts or information on SkS, it would just be a measure of SkS's ability to get it's readers to vote.
What's the merit in that? None, as far as I can see. It's certainly not any kind of badge of honor.
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Eclectikus at 04:35 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Compare99 I commented here in order to note that the word pseudoscience does not necessarily have negative connotations, and I put the example of Feynman talking about respectables Sciences as sociology, economics and Psychology as pseudoscience. Also I explained my position about the awards. Everything else has been a bonus.
Purposely I have not entered into a war of links about who is closer to orthodoxy (absolutely you are), and by principle I do not like to treat Science as a Bible (it's not), or a contest to see who has a longer "penis" (surely you have prepared all the "official science" in the breech). So, sorry, but I will not do it now. Not worth it, you can save your links, a lot of them probably I already have read them.
But briefly (I am alone "against" many people), some notes.
93.- doug_bostrom, some of them only support a reading diagonal, maybe, but "WUWT" is not specifically a divulgative blog like this, and this has to be in the reader's mind.
94.- Philippe Chantreau. Please, do not compare Quantum Mechanics with Climatology, no from a epistemology point of view, and still less speaking of precision in results. Since we talked about Feynman, please just take a look at this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED
Philippe says "From fake skeptics we've seen everything and anything on the spectrum: "it's not happening", "it's happening but just a little" "it's not really happening, plus it has happened before anyway" "it's happening but it's not us" "it's happening and it's us but it's a good thing" and innumerable variations."
Well, that could be an endemic problem, we have also seen passing "global warming" to "climate change" and hence to "climate disruption", also we heard "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past", and innumerable variations.... the relevance of this is purely rhetoric and point us more a problem of comunication that anything else.
In short I think it is an endless debate. Suppose that I throw away Mr Watss, Curry, Roy Spencer, etc ... Could someone be so kind to tell me where could have a more or less continuous view of the debate? (from a critical position I mean)... or simply it does not exist, everything is closed, and I should read SKS and SoD only.
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Philippe Chantreau at 04:31 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
The competence displayed at Watts' site leadsme to believe that good articles on WUWT are akin to these Gettier JTBs that are entirely owed to randomness.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/02/25/fact-check-for-andrew-glickson-ocean-heat-has-paused-too/
Just use your eyecrometer to draw a yellow line across the data, et voila. Even at that, one needs a eyecrometer calibrated by Smokey. My eyecrometer sees the upward trend in these data even without analysis. Of course, real analysis is the only way to go:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/fact-checking-the-cherry-pickers-anthony-watts-edition/
I'm sure Dana will follow up soon. This was used as an illustration of why anti science blogs are not sources to be considered. If it is deemed off-topic by mods, feel free to move it to a better thread.
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DSL at 04:28 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus, do you note how people keep asking you for the evidence that forms the basis of your position? What posted at WUWT do you consider high-quality? Or is it that WUWT allows you an opinion without demanding a basis in evidence (i.e. the opposite of skepticism)? What did you learn at Curry's? Why do you assume that WUWT is even a piece in the same puzzle that forms "the big picture"? (I think of WUWT as taking pieces of the the "big picture" and trying to paint in their view of, not the rest of the puzzle--I've never seen a comprehensive alternative theory offered by blog science or published science--, but of just the context surrounding that piece.) Why have you made the blanket statement about the ONU, a large and complex organization? You dismiss the entire organization in a sentence. That does not recommend your critical thinking skill. It strongly suggests that you test every porposition against rigid ideology.
Note that no one here is dismissing you; they simply want to know why you believe what you believe. What a great opportunity to shape opinions.
By the way, your experience is highly relevant in this thread. This is a public forum. When you point to your scientific credentials, you gain authority in the eyes of (some) readers, readers who don't have enough of a basis in scientific training and/or the existing literature to "do the math" and/or put things in context, respectively, and who are thus forced to use other means to assign validity to a proposition. As long as you refrain from actually revealing your understanding of climate science, you get to ride the fence and enjoy your assumed authority. As soon as you start engaging the science and providing the basis of your stated positions, you start to come down off the fence--on one side or the other.
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Philippe Chantreau at 03:44 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eklektikus, a few points that came to my mind while reading your post:
Quantum theory is about the same age as climate science, does that make it any weaker?
Any area of science, even the very well established or "older" ones have thousands of papers that say very little. These papers have their usefulness too. Medical science has innumerable papers saying very little, is also very complex and full of poorly understood mechanisms. Try to open a pharmacology guide and see what proportion of these molecules come with "mechanism of action unknown."
Everything is a matter of degree. We're far from having a working model of the Human body. That doesn't prevent us from achieving some remarkable success. Yet I don't see "skepticism" about this science akin to what is seen with climate science. When it does happen, it is marginal BS like the anti vaccine nonsense or the occasional fruitcake denying the link between HIV and AIDS. That is not to say that nobody has a skeptical attitude in medicine. People still question and re-examine knowledge all the time, but they do it with sincerity, research and hard work, not blanket ad-homs like we hear against climate scientists.
In fact, most everybody I work with has a healthy dose of skepticism, which, for instance, prevents them from using expensive new drugs instead of the older ones that work just as good.
The politicization of climate science is exclusively a production of fake skeptics. Sure, there are activists pushing for CO2 regulations. These people have not politicized the science. They are elaborating what they see as political solutions to the problems that the science reveals. They may be sometimes, misguided, mistaken, have a distorted view, whatever. But they don't attack the science and scientists like fake skeptics do.
The fake skeptics of climate science have a different take. They try to make the problem to sop being a problem by pretending it does not exist, it's not so bad, it's not something we can do anything about, it's fake because the evil scientists showing it's there are all in a cabal to extract money from us, etc, etc. If you really read "skeptic" blogs, you'll see endless ramblings that amount to just that. When one is truly skeptical about the science, you get a Mueller/BEST type of situation.
I find it ironic that you ask about a coherent position. From fake skeptics we've seen everything and anything on the spectrum: "it's not happening", "it's happening but just a little" "it's not really happening, plus it has happened before anyway" "it's happening but it's not us" "it's happening and it's us but it's a good thing" and innumerable variations. For more specialized incoherence, check out our home grown comedians on the 2nd law thread, Damorbel is the master.
You've seen the ridicule and incoherent nonsense that gets out of Watt's blog on a daily basis right? Thermodynamics confusion beyond belief, carbonic snow, averaging ratios without weighing, complete incomprehension of scientific papers to the point that the authors have to step in to clarify. Where is the value there ?How am I to take seriously someone who endorses this pile of manure as having high standards of "scientific robustness" like Pielke Sr. has done on SkS?
The true critics of the science are not the ones whose names are all over the blogs. They are the people doing research and producing results. When was the last time Curry published something of interest? She finds it acceptable to let appear on her blog a post advocating the summary execution of climate scientists, because it's all in good fun. That's conributing to a debate, really? Roy Spencer had to have major errors in his program pointed to him by others, then still let some politically motivated commenters use the erroneous data to try to score points in the press. Talk about politicizing the science. He has produced some of the most grotesque ideas about the carbon cycle that have ever been uttered. Stuff so bad it's not even wrong. Where is the skepticism toward the so-called "critics" ? These people are not critics, they are fake skeptics. They do not provide any balance in a debate. Their contribution is not valuable, it is in fact adverse to true progress.
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Physicist-retired at 03:16 AM on 6 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Thanks, Dana.
If you see any follow-up research regarding methane leaks from fracked wells, I'd be very interested in seeing them. The Cornell study was the only in-depth analysis I've read to date - and it certainly caught my attention:
The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil
when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years.Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years.
A very serious concern, in my opinion - and one that doesn't seem to be accounted for in our emissions estimates (yet).
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Doug Bostrom at 03:12 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus: ...I've also read good articles at WUWT...
As an exercise, Eclecitkus and in order to make this conversation somewhat more specific as to cases, would you mind saying quickly saying whether each of the WUWT's last twenty articles related to climate science strike you as good?
To make this easier, here's a list of the most recent twenty climate science related WUWT articles:
- Irony Hypocrisy on steroids–UVa plugs new “Open Science Center” while simultaneously keeping Michael Mann’s science notes away from the public
- Categorical Thinking and The Climate Debate
- Keystone Pipeline: Housecats Have More Emissions Impact
- Big drop in global surface temperature in February, ocean temps flat
- Global Warming causing biblical plagues – like locusts
- A Conspiracy of One
- Blog Memo to Lead Authors of NCADAC Climate Assessment Report
- The Coldest Journey Gets Colder
- Impractical Proposal: Dry Ice Sequestration on Antarctic Ice Sheets
- A note about temperatures
- Michael Mann’s new ‘trick’, pulled off at the American Geophysical Union Convention – exposed by McIntyre
- Aerosols from Moderate Volcanos Now Blamed for Global Warming Hiatus
- Keystone pipeline passes environmental review – ‘little impact on climate’ – ecos outraged
- The 1970′s Global Cooling Compilation – looks much like today
- February 2013 global surface temperature – at normal
- Study suggests ‘snowball Earth’ was real and was reversed by ‘An ultra-high carbon dioxide atmosphere’
- Al Gore’s Reality Drop – Climate Change to Destroy Music?
- CMIP5 Model-Data Comparison: Satellite-Era Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies
- Blockheaded thinking on well known weather patterns and ‘extreme weather’
- Germany Weathers Darkest Winter in 43 Years
For those articles that strike you as "good" can you briefly say why?
What's the proportion of good articles to those that are not good, in your estimation?
Moderator Response: [RH] Unsuccessfully tried removing the span span span span span, span! the glorious span! Only to end up with more span span span span span eggs bacon and span.
Fixed garbage... I think I have to fix the copy/paste mechanism that's mucking stuff up. -
Composer99 at 03:04 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus:
What I think people have been trying to emphasize to you in this thread (to say nothing of trying to emphasize to other people, over and over and over and over, elsewhere on Skeptical Science or other fora) is that claims such as
In Feynman's sense, theories that are unable to explain empirical values, and in this sense (and only in this sense) Climatology could be tagged as pseudoscientific. [Emphasis mine.]
are plainly and unambiguously false. They are also usually made (as in your case here) with nothing approaching reasonable evidentiary support. If I recall correctly, your sole line of support on this thread has been snide comments made about climate modelling (with no specific criticisms of methodology, data, etc. that could actually support your position).
Your claims following (in the same comment or later) such as
I'm aware of many achievements of Climatology lately, but that does not stop me from seeing their weaknesses and the long way still remaining to talk face to face to other areas as meteorology, geophysics, astrophysics. [Emphasis mine.]
or
I tell you what I see: thousands of papers saying very little, and one big truth: we're far to have a working model of the earth climate.
all appear to suffer from the same problems: being incorrect (particularly if applied generally to climatology as a whole rather to specific areas of active reasearch) and being made without any sort of substantiation.
Contrary to such sets of claims as those that you make, we have the summaries of the science made in the IPCC assessment reports, or on websites such as Skeptical Science, Science of Doom, Real Climate, and the like, we have the formal opinions of large scientific bodies (such as the US National Academy of Sciences) or of agencies with a vested interest in ensuring their policies & procedures match with reality (such as the US armed forces).
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Eclectikus at 02:52 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Albatross #89. Sorry if I jumped off topic, but I'm talking here in several sub-thread at the same time.
And, yeah, of course, anyone can fall in a mistake, or in a chain of them, but that is not enough to bury people in the desert of Las Vegas. I can say that I learned a bunch of thing reading her blog, and even more in some of its threads.
Coming back the thread, yeah, withdrawing now is an option, a legitimate option. I gave you mi opinion, and still I think that the better option was withdrawing after winning the award, think in the impact of the message. But, well, you know, opinion is free.
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Eclectikus at 02:32 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
#87 Sphaerica says "...And what do you see?"
I tell you what I see: thousands of papers saying very little, and one big truth: we're far to have a working model of the earth climate. There are some mechanisms still not well understood (clouds, aerosols, ocean variability...) something pretty normal in a multidisciplinary science, new, highly complex, and therefore immature. And to make matters worse, politicized as hell.
And that is the point Sphaerica, in this state of the things, for people not directly involved in the guts of Climatology, is better (for all of us) see the full picture: the mainstream (SkS for example) and also a good sample of the critics. I really do not understand why it is so hard to accept this position... is there any other coherent position?
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dana1981 at 02:30 AM on 6 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Physicist @12 - unfortunately the methane leakage during natural gas drilling remains a pretty big question mark. I doubt that it makes overall natural gas emissions exceed coal GHG emissions, but natural gas also probably isn't as low emissions as it gets credit for. This is an area of ongoing research.
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Son of Krypton at 02:26 AM on 6 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Albatross@14
While I would love to see Harper take something of a change in course from his tar-sands-development-at-all-costs approach, I very much doubt we can count on the current Canadian government to implement a price on carbon. In 2009, prior to his majority government, Harper used the appointed Senate to kill the elected House of Commons passed climate change bill, which included carbon pricing. This was the first occurrance of the Senate killing a House bill since the 30s, which kind of shows his resolve to ensure no price is implemented. If Canada's emissions are to fall, I think it will be a result of Keystone being killed, public opposition being just far too high to proceed with the Northern Gateway and other pipelines not being economically feasible.
Good could be done on the provincial level though. BC has a carbon tax, Quebec is moving towards Cap-and-Trade, there is the possibility Ontario will do likewise so long as the Conservatives aren't elected, Manitoba has a modest price on coal and I've heard mullings that they're looking to increase it, the Maritime provinces are looking at further developing hydroelectric. So, while overarching ferderal support seems to be about nil under Harper, there is the possibility that certain conditions may lend themselves to a reduction in Canada's GHG emissions
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Albatross at 02:14 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus,
Could you please try and stay on topic? You seem to have forgotten the topic of this thread. Just one comment on something that you said, that is relevant to the OP.
"I have a great respect for Curry."
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, no matter how misguided. The fact is that several of her eminent colleagues and peers, you know people who are qualified to speak to the scientific integrity of her musings, no longer respect Curry. They are embarressed for her, and that inlcudes me, another of her peers. Our response to Curry's behaviour is not becasue she is painting herself as a heretic (an easy card to play), or a contrarian, it has very much to do with the fact that Curry is taking a machete to the science.
Have you already forgotten her saying "Wow" in repsonse to the pseudo science of Salby on the CO2 cycle? Or Curry saying "If Salby’s analysis holds up, this could revolutionize AGW science". The egregious problems with Salby's analysis are also addressed in Cawley's (2012) response to some similar musings by Essenhigh. That is but one of several examples of "skeptics" and contrarians endorsing and promoting pseudo science, while also attacking scientists.
It is for this, and other reasons, that owners of respected science sites, who take science seriously and who do their very best to get the science right are distancing themselves from the Bloggies. It does not help that charlatans like Delingpole are asking their readers to "Vote Delingpole! Vote often!" The Bloggies system has been gamed by none other than the "Interpreter of interpretations" . So someone who admits to not even bothering to read the science is in the running for "best" science blog!
End of story.
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Bob Lacatena at 02:12 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
#86 Eclectikus,
So if a site publishes half of its articles puporting that the CIA was behind the Kennedy and King assassinations, and that Israel was behind 9/11, and that there is a Star Chamber in charge of the entire world... but also publishes half of its articles by reposting reputable material... then that site is all fine and dandy?
WUWT is crawling with complete crap. The fact that it has a very, very rare article worth reading — usually a cut-and-paste repost of some non-climate related scientific study — does not save it from the ravages of blind stupidity.
The fact that there are a lot of people who like WUWT says nothing about its validity. A lot of people love the Kardashians, too. A lot of people are alcoholics. Popularity is not a gauge of value, validity or clarity.
Anyone, regardless of their position on the subject, should be ashamed and embarrassed by WUWT.
The fact that you are not speaks volumes.
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Bob Lacatena at 02:04 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
#85 Eclectikus,
But all the IPCC does is to quote the science. If you don't trust the AR reports, fine, then look at the body of the published, peer-reviewed science itself. And what do you see?
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Eclectikus at 02:00 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
#83 Sphaerica, sorry, but I've also read good articles at WUWT, and many people thinks in a similar way.
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Eclectikus at 01:55 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Yes Sphaerica, IPCC belongs to ONU, I haven't any respect for ONU. At least scientific respect.
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Bob Lacatena at 01:46 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus,
...consorting with the IPCC...
This phrasing says it all. You start from the position that the IPCC is a corrupt body with an agenda. Once you do that, you are no longer an unbiased judge. Everything you consider is tainted with this emotional (and unfounded) accusation.
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Bob Lacatena at 01:43 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus,
...to tag WUWT as psudoscience for a single article seems at least inflated
Tom explicitly said (emphasis mine):
Clearly then, by any reasonable measure, Coleman's article is pseudo-science. As it is not unusually bad for the diet served up at WUWT, it is reasonable to classify WUWT as a pseudo-science site.
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Eclectikus at 01:42 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
No, DSL (#80), please don't mix things, the reference to my experience was answer to Sphoerica (#68) trying to teach me what I have to read to have a vison of the "actual" science. Also, my experience is irrelevant in this context (in this thread), I guess you'll agree with me on that.
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Albatross at 01:36 AM on 6 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
A very informative post Dana. There is a glimmer of cautious hope here. These are small steps and governments need to do much more, but things seem to be moving. Thank goodness too, because the science is very clear on what we need to do here.
This will place those (e.g., USA, Canada) who are advocating doing very little to reduce emissions because China is doing "nothing" in an awkward position.
Will the USA and Canada now finally implement a price on carbon emissions, or will they double down? I suspect that Harper (Canadian PM) will double down, but not if Obama moves first.
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Eclectikus at 01:31 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
More:
After reading the Popper's criticism by Martin Gardner, a very good reading by the way, I was thinking that one thinker is so great as great are their critics. Internet let us to find out many thoughtful criticisms of each and every one philosopher across the history. Again, is this bad? Quite the contrary, it is the essence of knowledge, and I don't see that you may convince me otherwise in something as clearly self-evident.
Tom Curtis #77. I can´t say that Coleman's article is pseudoscience, I might say it is biased, absolutely wrong, even that is more an opinion article. But to tag WUWT as psudoscience for a single article seems at least inflated. In Feynman's sense, theories that are unable to explain empirical values, and in this sense (and only in this sense) Climatology could be tagged as pseudoscientific. Coleman's article is nothing, not even pseudoscience, is just a critics to a particular data interpretation.
I'm aware of many achievements of Climatology lately, but that does not stop me from seeing their weaknesses and the long way still remaining to talk face to face to other areas as meteorology, geophysics, astrophysics. In the mean time, in all honesty I think all contributions by outlandish they may seem, should be welcomed: Science itself (the scientific method) be responsible for filtering waste. Always has been so.
I have a great respect for Curry. Doing what she does is not easy, it would have been really easy for her consorting with the IPCC while keeping the criticism in silence. I think that you'll have to recognize, that the easy posture, which has support (and therefore money) is that oscillating in phase with the IPCC, not in the absolutely opposite phase.
Needless to say that I also respect John Cook and his work, and am a regular reader of SkS, The Science of Doom... Am I schizophrenic? I don't think so, just I like comparison the one vision with others, to access all views and the underlying sources. I would think that my position is not uncommon and that many people do the same.
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DSL at 01:07 AM on 6 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
To further what Leto said, which I completely agree with, it should also be recognized that many of the people who lurk at WUWT and its analogues do not have the training to tell the difference between results that have been produced with shoddy (Eschenbach, Watts) or fraudulent (Coleman) methodology and those that have been produced by rigorous scientific method (inc. peer review). There are undoubtedly a handful who have, through constant contact, learned enough to sort of tell the difference, but they're now so invested in Tony's message that it's all but impossible to use reason and evidence to pry open the door to the mind.
And Eclectikus, you may call my earlier chain of reasoning ridiculous, but I didn't post it with the expectation that you would accept the responsibility. I posted it because I wanted to see the basis of your doubt. My hypothesis is that your doubt is politically motivated and has nothing to do with the science. Nothing you've said to this point has falsified that hypothesis. Your 17 years as a "geophysicist" (a rather broad category) is apparently not relevant.
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gws at 00:40 AM on 6 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Physicist-retired: note that the "38%" in the text is for CO2 emissions only, not total greenhouse gas emissions. The Cornell report sums greenhouse gas emissions, AFAIK. The crux is that fracking and other fossil fuel extraction activities are a source of methane, which is a strong greenhouse gas. If too many leaks occur during gas extraction, the fugitive emissions of methane can negate or even overwhelm the achieved savings from burning gas instead of coal.
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Physicist-retired at 23:35 PM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Dana,
Thanks for another good piece.
You raise an issue that's been bothering me for some time. Perhaps you can shed some light on it.
"38% of the 2012 emissions reduction was due to natural gas replacing coal"
Research from Cornell seems to show that NG from fracking is actually very dirty, and probably dirtier than even coal. (http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April11/GasDrillingDirtier.html).
In view of the fact that our NG is increasingly coming from fracking, are our emissions truly decreasing as we replace coal, or is there a flaw in our accounting methods (i.e., just looking at power plant emissions as opposed to complete lifecycle impacts)?
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Leto at 23:00 PM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus@43 wrote: "To say that blogs as WUWT, and many other in the same wave are pseudoscience crap, says nothing about these blogs and a lot about the people claiming that."
With this thread in mind, I had a quick look at WUWT, and immediately met the article Tom Curtis address @77. Thanks Tom pointing out some of the many errors in Coleman's article. I know you were spoiled for choice. It was a shoddy article from start to finish.
Eclectikus, may I suggest you have it backwards. To not notice that WUWT is full of pseudoscience crap takes a particular cognitive bias, or a surprising amount of scientific illiteracy, such that if someone told me they were impressed with WUWT it would immediately tell me a lot about that person - and nothing much about WUWT.
For scientists like Curry to allow themselves to be associated with WUWT, or to speak favourably of WUWT - to not run a mile from WUWT - tells me they are possibly more interested in propaganda than science, or perhaps more interested in the fame that comes from being a dissenter.
In these discussions, I often see traces of the romantic idea that the scientific consensus is wrong and a few brave voices resist the peer pressure... The history of science is full of examples of the consensus being wrong, and a genius bringing in the new paradigm, so it is a tempting notion. Especially because denialism is a soothing idea, telling us all is well, allowing us not to make any sacrifices. Unfortunately, a quick read of the WUWT site punctures the romantic idea of brave dissent immediately. The Coleman article is inconsistent, illogical, filled with half-truths, straw men and cherry picking. Worse, those faults are so obvious that the WUWT editors must know they are publishing rubbish. Note that WUWT is not wrong because it is a dissenting voice; it is wrong because it is transparently riddled with errors.
To award WUWT a science blog award when it promotes the antithesis of scientific thinking is farcical.
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MA Rodger at 20:52 PM on 5 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
The final link @97 should have been to www.oco.noaa.gov/resources/Annual_Meetings/ASR7_Oct2010/Day2/02_Session6_Johnson.pdf (see table on page 8).
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MA Rodger at 20:41 PM on 5 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Ken in Oz @96
Comparing the uncertainties of surface temperature records with OHC records does show OHC as now providing the more sensitive measure of AGW (although they do measue different things, ΔOHC being a function of the forcing imbalance while Δtemp is the outcome of forcings as they become balanced).
Surface temperature records (HadCRUT3 monthly data for instance) has measurement uncertainty of about +/- 0.2º C, the same order of magnitude as a decade of temperature increase. And wobbles in the monthly averages can be 0.5º C, equal to a multi-decadal rise.
The recent 0-2000m OHC ARGO measurement uncertainty is shown as +/- 0.5 e22 J, the order of magnitude of an annual increase, with big wobbles in quarterly data of 3 e22 J, far less than a decadal increase.
Of course the ocean extends below 2000m but figures quoted for the abyssal annual ΔOHC (=0.15 +/- 0.10 e22 J) show there would be little difference to that OHC/ST relative accuracy.So OHC should be able to show variations in the forcing imbalance over period far shorter than a decade. Less than 5 years? Probably yes.
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Paul D at 19:39 PM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
China has been copying the past bad ways of the Western economies.
It's a bit stupid to actually say that the US, Europe et al should continue along the lines of fossil fuels etc and then criticise China for having dirty rivers, underground coal fires, thousands of coal fired power stations etc.If you are criticising China, then you can't support the same unrestricted use of resources elsewhere.
As always with political ideology, it throws out evidence in order to stay on the ideology track.China is a mess and it should never have gone down the route it has. We can not excuse it because there is no doubt that carbon emissions were much lower in China before it decided to 'compete' with the West. That doesn't justify communism either.
The reality is that to cut carbon emissions, you can't purely rely on technology and assume that it will compensate for economic growth. People have to use less energy and materials, that is something that neither capitalists or socialsists are able to cope with, as such they don't have much of a future IMO.
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Eclectikus at 18:17 PM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Wow, a lot of info, I will read it with interest. Thank you all!
Some quick impressions:
Tom Dayton (#73) and Tom Curtis (#75, 76): It is important to realize that I was referring to the consensus that Popper is one of the great philosophers of the twentieth century, not about all his disquisitions. As stated Tom Curtis (#76) there is no consensus in philosophy. However, the philosophy (and science in general) advances thanks to there are people who are out of the consensus, thanks to the discussions that take place inside and outside of this consensus, and from my point of view it makes fascinating the history of thought: the not remain standing with a theory however much it may seem correct at first glance.
Rob Honeycutt (#74), even accepting the motivations that you point out, I think withdrawing would have been more effective after winning the contest. I do not think that a powerful site like SkS is not able to mobilize its readers and overcome the awards, I think mobilizing it's totally legitimate and works exactly as Western democracy: advertising and mobilizing supporters. I myself am a finalist in another category (Best Education Blog / Science is Beauty) and ask my readers vote without any shame... Should I be ashamed?
Tom Curtis (#77): Interesting, thanks. But I have to leave now, let me think about before to say anything.
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BillEverett at 17:38 PM on 5 March 2013‘Frozen Dirt’ and Methane … ‘We Cannot Go There’
Regarding the 1.5 degree tipping point, my recollection is that the 1.5 degree temperature increase corresponds to no permafrost at 60 degrees North latitude in a part of Siberia.
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BillEverett at 17:33 PM on 5 March 2013‘Frozen Dirt’ and Methane … ‘We Cannot Go There’
The only statement arousing dissonance with my mental model is "much of the carbon stored in permafrost — in frozen dirt — could be released into the carbon cycle." I usually consider permafrost a subsubcompartment of the soil subcompartment of the lithosphere compartment in my four-compartment model of the carbon cycle. The permafrost carbon is already in the carbon cycle in my understanding. From my view of the carbon cycle, the point here is a change in one component of the flow of carbon from the lithosphere to the atmosphere. I recall some suggestions from work in Alaska that a significant part of the current surface methane releases to the atmosphere in some places in Alaska is in fact deep methane (very old ex-biomass carbon, aka fossil fuel). One of the ideas in that paper was that fracturing resulting from crustal stress changes due to melting glaciers allows the deep methane to migrate toward the surface where it may be trapped for a while under an impenetrable layer of permafrost. Local thawing of the permafrost produces holes in the permafrost layer through which the trapped old methane continues its migration to the surface.
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brent at 15:14 PM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Dana, thanks for the most objective and unbiased account of China's pollution and emmissions I've come across. Good news indeed. It's very easy for our western governments to put out propaganda presenting the Chinese as a scapegoat for their own inaction, conveniently forgetting that we had exactly the same problems when we were industrialising - and learned that the only solution to them is state regulation. We also manage to forget that on a historical basis our emissions have been much higher.
As Rob Honeycutt points out we have in a very real sense exported a lot of our industry and emissions to China. It's almost a cliche to to warn about underestimating the Chinese, but I think their government will inevitably have to take into account the opinions of their very large, newly educated class. Just twenty years ago we coudn't have imagined their present achievements
A few weeks ago when Al Gore was in Britain promoting his new book he said only the USA has the "moral authority" to lead the world in tackling climate change. Given the strength of the US fossil fuel lobby, I think it's quite conceivable that in another twenty years we'll find that the Chinese have assumed this role.
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dana1981 at 14:44 PM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Agnostic @8 - I think you're suffering from the same mistake as Habilus @3, which is looking at past and current conditions as opposed to the future plans discussed in this post. Doug @4 makes the important point that until we started implementing serious environmental regulations in the USA (circa 1970), we also had major pollution problems. That's where China is right now - at a turning point where pollution has become too bad to ignore, and they're now implementing important regulations to remedy the problem.
Note your link to the 350 coal power plants are planned plants. If the Chinese goverment decides not to proceed with those plans, they can scrap them. It sounds to me like that's the plan.
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brent at 14:27 PM on 5 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Alces @ 15, my ideology is that I had a scientific education, have long been deeply concerned about global warming and that I value SkS very highly as one of the best sources of information on the subject. I don't, however, believe it should be beyond criticism.
Tom Curitis @ 16, thanks for your courteous reply. Yes, I was being tongue in cheek, perhaps inappropriately. I'm English and have lived in this country most of my life without ever having heard of Spurgeon, and my impression is that very few people today are aware of his existence. But I quite accept that your attribution of the quotation to him is correct - it's interesting it was an old proverb even when he was writing.
I considered the matter for a couple of days before making my comment @12. My point, possibly a trivial one, is that John attributing the quotation to Churchill made me wonder if he's read Mike Mann's book. If not I thoroughly recommend it. Mann turns out to be a fine author and gives an eloquent personal account of the astonishingly unscrupulous methods contrarians use, and of the lengths to which they go to try to discredit science with ad hominem attacks.
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JohnB6223 at 13:24 PM on 5 March 201310 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
i suggest the inclusion of this link to help explain proportion of CO2 accumulating in the atmosphere from Human/nature.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/outreach/isotopes/index.html
The latest increasingly popular ploy used by politicians and industrialists during media interviews to avoid directly addressing the issue of the increasing threat from accumulating CO2 from fossil fuel use is : "... yes we accept that climate change is occurring, but are not sure as to how much of that change is due to human activity".
It seems to have become the standard 'do nothing' cop out, when confronted with the undeniable physical evidence of increasing cyclone/flood/fire disasters.
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Tom Curtis at 13:10 PM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus, I draw your attention to the recent post of an article by John Coleman on WUWT. It begins by calling the attention drawn to the fact that July 2012, and the twelve months ending in July 2012 were the hottest ever. To rebut that, he draws attention to "skeptical" studies purportedly showing a recent cooling trend in US temperatures. The problem is, in order to show the cooling trend, Coleman has to cherry pick the start year, and exclude 2012 from the analysis. If you include 2012, the trend is 0.824 C per century, ie, greater than the trend from the start of the data (0.713 C per century) which even Coleman acknowledges as showing warming.
Now, even by Feynman's inadequate definition, if you want to practise science rather than pseudo-science, you have to keep proper score of the successes and failures of your theory. Cherry picking data to avoid unpleasant consequences is not keeping proper score. Ergo, Coleman's article is an example fo pseudo-science.
My chief concern with Coleman's article if found later, where he says:
"I don’t doubt that there has been a general slow increase in atmosphere temperatures. You must understand this is a natural warming trend, a natural result of the continuing interglacial period that began with the melting of the great ice sheets 12,000 years ago. This warming trend has nothing to do with mankind’s use of fossil fuels."
and again:
"For now, however, forty years is too short-term to be hugely significant. What is does show, for now, the satellite data shows a rather steady, gradual increase in global temperatures in line with the long-term increase over the last 12,000 years. It does not support the dramatic increases predicted by the global warming advocates models."
Prior to this, he had spent some time ridiculing our knowledge of the temperature record (based on false claims), so you have to wonder how he knows what "... the long-term increase over the last 12,000 years" is. Leave that aside, however.
The key point is that the centenial trend in CONtiguous United States (CONUS) temperatures was 0.713 C per century; or 85.56 C per 12 thousand years. If that is "in line with the long-term increase over the last 12,000 years", then the means surface temperature of the CONUS 12 thousand years ago was around -74 C.
The trend from UAH over the lifetime of the satellite record is 1.39 +/- 0.73 C per century, or 166.8 +/- 87.6 C per 12 thousand years. So, if that trend is in line with the warming over the last 12,000 years, then 12,000 years ago the GMST was somewhere between -64 and -239 C.
Clearly claims that these trends are "inline" with the warming over the last 12,000 years are absurdly false. Most importantly, however, to make them (and to publish them) Coleman (Watts) must not even have bothered checking. It is crucial to science and neglected by pseudoscience, that you draw out the empirical consequences of your theories. Doing so is the sin qua non of science.
Clearly then, by any reasonable measure, Coleman's article is pseudo-science. As it is not unusually bad for the diet served up at WUWT, it is reasonable to classify WUWT as a pseudo-science site.
Given the OP, so much is on topic, but you wish to switch the discussion to Pielke Snr, Judith Curry and Roy Spencer. The problem is that all three have endorsed Watts 's site in various ways. If they are endorsing pseudo-science, what they are doing in their blogs in not science. Indeed, Judith Curry as explicitly argued in favour of cherry picking, and all three have cherry picked in the past.
Curry, in particular, has been so divorced from science as to argue:
"Is the first decade+ of the 21st century the warmest in the past 100 years (as per Peter Gleick’s argument)? Yes, but the very small positive trend is not consistent with the expectation of 0.2C/decade provided by the IPCC AR4. In terms of anticipating temperature change in the coming decades, the AGW dominated prediction of 0.2C/decade does not seem like a good bet, particularly with the prospect of reduced solar radiation."
(My emphasis)
Of course, the small twenty first century trend of 0.69 +/- 0.171 C/decade (Gistemp, from Jan 2000) is precisely consistent with a trend of 0.2 C/decade because it is included in the error bars. Even if the expected trend was outside the error bars, the data would be consistent with the trend provided only that it was outside the error bars no more than 1 in 20 years on average. That is the meaning of statistical significance.
Curry has joined a long line of falsely self named "skeptics" who argue that:
1) The temperature trend is statistically indistinguishable from zero {if you cherry pick a short enough time period}
2) {The temperature trend is statistically indistinguishable from the IPCC prediction}; Therefore
3) The temperature trend falsifies (or is inconsistent with) the IPCC prediction.
Of course, the truths in curly brackets are passed over without mention when the argument is made.
Being polite, this is not keeping track of successes and failures of their theories. That brings us back to Feynman's comments again, and it follows that from Feynman's definition, Curry and Pielke Snr, and often Roy Spencer do not practise science on their blogs, but pseudo-science.
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scaddenp at 12:42 PM on 5 March 20132nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
There are numerous thought experiments on 2nd law argued in this thread. Here is an actual experiment for those who think the 2nd law is broken to chew on.
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Riduna at 12:35 PM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
The problem with China is that its actions speak louder than its words: What is China doing?
It is increasing coal imports from Mongolia.
Opening new coal mines so as to increase national production.
Continuing to build 350 new coal fired power stations.
Burning over 47% of worlds coal production.
It emits over 23% of the world’s annual CO2-e. and
Lags UK in offshore wind power 10:1.
Is this taking a leading role in solving climate change - or contributing significantly to its cause?
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Rob Honeycutt at 12:19 PM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Habilus... I have been to China many times. My wife is Chinese and I speak Cantonese. It is a response to exactly what you're describing that the Chinese government is implementing a carbon tax, along with a long list of other regulations.
I always find if fascnating how many people in the US think that regulations are the problem, when they only have to look toward China's development over the past 30 years to see what happens with a lack of enforced regulation.
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Tom Curtis at 12:10 PM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Habilus is more than mistaken about the purpose of the Carbon Tax. No money from the carbon tax is intended for general revenue; the entire amount being used to fund compensation, reduction in emissions, and research into emissions reductions. Further, the projected shortfall represents just 7.5% of expected revenues, and just 0.08% of Australian Government expenditure.
Despite this, Habilus does his best chicken little impersonation.
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Tom Curtis at 11:57 AM on 5 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Alces @15, you may find this link more convenient (it is just the single sermon). The sermon is clearly dated to April 1, 1855, at which time Clemens was working on riverboats.
Your criticism of Brent, however, is not justified. He has merely expressed disinterest in the source of the quote, in a tongue in cheek (I presume) dismissal of Spurgeon. My dismissal of Clemens (Twain) was equally tongue in cheek, of course.
Why, however, he finds it interesting that Michael Mann used the quote (and misattributed it to Twain) is beyond me. The last I looked Mann was not claiming to be a literary scholar, so his acceptance of a common (though mistaken) attribution is, I would think, quite irrelevant.
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Composer99 at 11:46 AM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Habilus:
Finding themselves in such dire straits, environmentally speaking, is the sort of thing that might - just might - have inspired Chinese policymakers, entrepreneurs & established magnates, farmers and factory workers, and so on, to make the decisions being discussed here.
Your assessment of the shortfall in carbon revenue in Australia also appears to entirely miss the point. If Australia is facing reduced carbon tax revenue, it is because Australians are reducing their carbon emissions. Last I checked, that, rather than making money, was the point of a price on carbon.
So I'm not certain that it is Dana who needs to take a trip down "reality lane" here.
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Phil L at 11:19 AM on 5 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Tom Curtis @13, Thanks for that link. A bit of further digging revealed that the snippet in that 1858 book is actually from a sermon preached in 1855 ... Sermon 17 in this PDF.
brent @ 14, your argument appears to be that empirical evidence (citation provided by Tom Curtis) is trumped by your ideology. Given the subject of the quote (truth), I find that somewhat ironic.
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Doug Bostrom at 11:15 AM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Further to (away from) Habilus, here in the US we used to have a general problem characterized by something called "Love Canal." We've moved to substantially repair the defect. Would restoring Love Canal to its former filthy state and returning to the general fecklessness it represented make no difference? Would that choice be equally "good news" as was correcting the problem of Love Canal? I think not.
So the China of today is not the China of tomorrow, if the Chinese choose to plan their future differently to how they run things today. They're doing so, apparently. Unless we believe the Chinese are uniquely unable to transcend their current problems it seems that China's decisions are indeed "good news."
Moderator Response: {PW] In addition to your points, there was--was, being the operative word--the time when the Cuyahoga River caught *fire*, and we addressed that, and fixed the issue. Through regulation. -
Tom Curtis at 11:14 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclecktikus @72, first year philosophy students are taught the sobering lesson of Gettier. The one thing, we are told, that all philosopher's agreed on, was that Knowledge was justified, true belief. Then one day, the Dean looked at the publication record of Edmund Gettier, an apparently undistinguished philosopher, and told him he needed to publish or perish. Gettier responded by publishing a short article that shattered the one consensus in philosophy that had lasted since Plato. He was not asked to publish again.
The point is, there is no consensus in philosophy, and there is certainly no concensus in philosophy of science. Picking out two people whose opinion you find agreeable and asserting "concensus" without bothering to demonstrate that there is almost universal agreement among philosophers and/or scientists about that opinion is using false authority as a substitute for thought. This is particularly the case as it is not even evident that your two authorities even agree with each other.
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