Cook Rice and Leaks – Secret Recipe

Posted on by Geoff ChambersIn Uncategorized1 Minute Read

Congratulations to our most frequent commenter ANDTHENTHERE’SPHYSICS for co-authoring this soon to be published paper

And congratulations to Brandon Shollenberger for rescuing it from obscurity in the back of the SkepticalScience Footlocker, behind the Nazi regalia, along with Cook’s PhD thesis

Brandon has more on this, together with a fascinating e-book on How the Consensus is Enforced. Read more about it at Brandon’s blog

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13 Comments

  1. Since ATTP is an author the article must have some physics in it… but no, a real discussion about physics has been side stepped yet again.

    I think the time has come for him to be formally renamed: ABTP – anything but the physics.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Here’s a fine demolition job entitled ‘And Then There’s Phys.org’. It begins

    A story headlined “Experts Assess the Impact of Climate Change on Public Health” should probably not start their article with so many flat-out wrong statements:

    “Climate change is already having a noticeable impact on the environment and global health. Around the world extreme weather events, increased temperatures, drought, and rising sea levels are all adversely affecting our ability to grow food, access clean water, and work safely outdoors.”

    And goes on to show just how wrong these statements are. The penultimate paragraph is:

    The title of this post comes as a sly reference to a climate weblog known as ‘And Then There’s Physics.’ I’m quite sure the proprietor would approve of the Phys.Org article and struggle to understand this response.

    But back to Brandon’s discovery linked to above. He also finds much nonsense there, and he notes towards the end of his post:

    Of course, its authors would never say so. They’ll try to spin everything they find to support their consensus message, even if that means trying to excuse what were basically lies about the methodology of papers. Cook’s PhD thesis is perhaps worse, with it repeating a number of falsehoods and even re-using at least one quote he knows fully well has been fabricated.

    Just how unimpressive are these apologists for, and promoters of, CO2 Alarmism!

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  4. Why would a proper scientist like ATTP (or at least in his day job) support a paper that completely reverses scientific method? That is, instead of a scientific hypothesis being accepted when it is verified by the data, an opinion poll is conducted through divining the opinions of the authors from the abstracts of their papers.
    One hypothesis is that Prof Richard Tol one of the persons that ATTP frequently attacks on his blog. A search will demonstrate the point. But Tol answers back in the comments quite forcefully.
    In February last year ATTP wrote on his blog

    So, as much as I’d be all for a reduction in hostilities, and a more reasoned approach to discussions about climate science, I see no reason to capitulate to those who appear to be using a few extreme examples to simply score points. I also think we all own our own behaviour. If people want to reduce hostilities, they can simply do so. People are not responsible for how someone responds to what they say, they’re only responsible for what they actually say.

    At WUWT as a Friday Funny there is a copy of a very hostile rejoinder to a Tol comment on that thread – and later edited.
    My hypothesis is that Ken Rice gives his name to this rubbish to attack someone he dislikes.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. From Michael Crichton’s Caltech Michelin Lecture, January 17, 2003, “Aliens Cause Global Warming”:
    ” I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be
    stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus
    of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.”
    “Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which
    means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.”
    “The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”
    “There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus: Period.”

    He then details a number of specific instances where a true scientist went against the consensus, and then he goes on to destroy the global warming consensus…in 2003, no less. If you have never read this paper, it’s a real treat for ‘skeptics’. There is even a hint of physics included.

    Click to access Crichton2003.pdf

    Liked by 1 person

  9. There’s a lot of fun things in these documents. For example, from Cook’s PhD thesis page iii after thanking effusively his thesis supervisor Lewandowsky:

    “It has also been a pleasure collaborating with my co-supervisor Ullrich Ecker. His advice, death threats, and friendship throughout the course of my PhD have been deeply appreciated, despite his research efforts to undermine most of the backfire effects listed in the Debunking Handbook.”

    I commented a couple of weeks ago about Oreskes and McCright gloating over the death of someone. These people are peculiar, in or out of Nazi uniform.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Geoff
    You are right to encourage people to have a look at John Cook’s PhD thesis.
    The word count is fairly low at 50,435 (according to Word). What is more, it consists of a number of articles tagged together, including the Cook et al 97% consensus survey and “Rational Irrationality: Modeling Climate Change Belief Polarization Using Bayesian Networks” co-written with the great Lew.
    However, insofar as a PhD is made for making an original contribution to the subject, then on a cursory reading it seems (even allowing for co-authorship of the papers) that Cook is more than deserving of an award. But if it awarded on the basis of advancing understanding of the subject, then it is highly negative.

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  11. I should substantiate the last comment about the impact of Cook being highly negative.
    Chapter 4 Neutralising misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading techniques
    reduces their influence
    The paper starts with a comment that I would agree with:-

    Misinformation undermines a well-functioning democracy

    But then goes on to say

    For example, public misconceptions about climate change can lead to lowered acceptance of the reality of climate change and lowered support for policies to mitigate global warming…..We found that misinformation that confuses people about the level of scientific agreement regarding anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has a polarizing effect, with political conservatives reducing belief in AGW whereas political liberals increase their belief in AGW.

    Cook’s reference point for “misinformation” is what the consensus of experts believe to be the consensus. But, as Cook has admitted, the 97% consensus paper only dealt with declared belief in the broadest, most banal, form of the global warming hypothesis. Further, that the included papers that were outside the realm of climate science, and quite possibly written by people without a science degree. There is no evidence presented to support the belief in catastrophic global warming, nor that actual mitigation policy will make a significant difference. The Cook/Lewandowsky hypothesis is that climate sceptics are a bunch of nutcases because they disagree that a dogmatic group with strong political views have any understanding of the real world.

    Liked by 1 person

  12. “…along with Cook’s PhD thesis”

    Sorry.

    This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.

    😦 Anyone have a spare copy?

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  13. Once you’ve been caught out
    cooking the books, as in cricket,
    ‘rules of the game,’ or scientific
    ‘tests’ ‘n falsifiability,’ -you hafta’
    walk… Hammurabi and Naychur’s
    rules, like-wise, (life-wise, ) rules –
    of -the – game.

    Like

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