I’m sure you’ve heard of Poe’s Law. And if you’re anything like me, you’ve got a little pedant inside you who waggles an index finger every time, like clockwork, and tuts: teeeeechnically, Brad, it’s more of a proverb than a law… sure, it’s an attractive enough little aphorism, adage or apophthegm, nobody’s disputing that, but we just don’t have enough confirmatory data to exalt it to the same status as—like—heheh, the Laws of Thermodynamics, which are fundamental and inviolable truths about the very fabric of the universe! Heheh, sheesh. Too much hyperbole, much?

Well, today I say to my psychic homunculus: you can take your index finger and shove it up somebody else’s mind’s ass. For today is the day Poe’s Theory dons the toga virilis and becomes a Law.

36107-la-bella-vita-mantua
It’s said that Edward de Bono, when asked to name Italy’s longest river [above], po-facedly declined to say yes or no. For locals, cruise ships like this are a symptom of the slo-mo ‘Po-mo’ that is gradually eroding the history of this ancient waterway.

The evidentiary threshold was crossed just before seven o’clock (GMT) this morning, according to sources in the evidentiology community (formerly known as the science world). CliScep would like to congratulate WUWT for hosting the lucky 10,000,000,000th data point: an unbroken string of facetious comments by yours truly, whose cheesiness was matched only by their impatience to be unmasked. I hope you’re as appalled as I was by how long it took my interlocutors to catch on.

This was the Stimulus Text, as our English teachers used to say…

Quote of the week: “crazy stuff in the Arctic”

The overly excitable director of that National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is at it again. Previously, we’ve heard him declare “death spiral” and “the Arctic is screaming” to convey his alarmed viewpoint on Arctic Sea Ice. Now, he’s got a new one, courtesy of Seth Borenstein at The Associated Press:

“It’s just crazy, crazy stuff,” said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado […]

…and this is how far I managed to abvagate into the realms of illiterality before the penny dropped:

True arctic craziness would be a major embarrassment for those invested in vocally denying the science of Anthropogenic Global Weirding. How many record-breakingly weird years in a row do we need to have before the hardcore skeptics admit that our activities are literally weirding the very climate we breathe?

Our understanding of the radiative physics of the carbon-pollution molecule—which absorbs and scatters IR-range weirdness, preventing that weirdness from escaping back to the Sun—has been understood since Arrhenius.

Literally nothing important has changed in climate science for 150 years.

And still you people, not naming any names, scoff that it’s “not a real science.”

“Stagnated science is so much easier to study than that which experiences continued advancements. Of course, distinguishing a stagnated theory from a failed theory becomes tedious.”

it goes without saying that highly conjectural, volatile, immature sciences like medical research are continually “learning” things at a rate that would make most climate scientists reach for the Travacalm. But so is my 10-week-old girl. That doesn’t make her smarter than me—au contraire, she’s a bit of an ignoramus (if an adorable one).

Climate science, on the other hand, is a mature, stable, dare I say “settled” science. And it has to be. You couldn’t very well ask entire nations to enter into long-term industrial/economic treaties predicated on the shifting sands of (say) chemistry, could you? No. If we’re to build a climate policy that will vouchsafe the planet’s future for my children’s children’s children lifetimes, we have to build it on the ossified, sclerotic, monolithic bedrock of a science that doesn’t change its mind every time the facts change.

“So far you have only presented your opinions and propaganda.”

Well I’d be happy to propagate someone else’s opinions if you like, but that would be a bit disingenuous, n’est-ce pas?

“Given the fact that thunderstorms move massive amounts of heat…”

How much mass is “massive”? A few kilograms of heat? A metric ton of heat? And what equipment do you rely on to accurately weigh these “thunderstorms” you speak of?

“That is called Climate Science De-Jour.”

Du jour. Not de jour. Is your science any more croyable than your French?

The 2000s were the craziest decade since records began, with many countries experiencing mad-waves in areas that have been mentally healthy for centuries. And guess what? Scientists say the 2010s are on track to be even crazier.

Yet still we pretend we can spew teraton after teraton of carbon pollution into an already-saturated climate without threatening the planet’s fragile veneer of sanity.

As a longtime advocate for better access to mental health for our climate, it just makes me so mad.

It’s not often I say this, but after reading this post I’m literally ineloquent with angerness.

“’Mad’ as in ‘craxy’?.. Thought so.”

No, I was thinking more along the lines of “crazy.”

[…] Ask yourself: have you ever known me, in my commenting history, to be craxy? What crax have I ever indicated I suffered from? Absent any evidence of crax, your duty is clear: you must find me crazy, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

“belief is for religion, not science.”

Well, you may like to believe that (which is not very scientific of you, is it?), but I believe belief DOES have a valid role in science. You probably don’t believe me, because that would be too religious for your taste, but I’m sure you don’t believe I’m wrong either (since you’re a man of science, and believing is for religion). But if you don’t believe I’m wrong, does that mean we both agree I’m right, or should we just agree to disagree (assuming you’re agreeable to such an arrangement)?

Anyway, what would a Nobel laureate like Richard Feynman know about the scientific method? Remember, science is the belief in the ignorance of experts [source: R. P. Feynman], and they don’t get much more expert than Feynman. So as a person of science, I don’t believe he has the slightest clue what he’s talking about.

“ROFL!! That’s some good crazy parody right there!”

Thanks __________! Glad you enjoyed it.

I was groaning in anticipation of yet another long and humorless rebuttal from a Poe-faced American. No offense to our fellow denihilati in the Home of the Brave—I generally enjoy being schooled, and find it enlightening even when it’s not strictly necessary—but there’s only so much point-missing umbrage one can take before getting bored.

“What alternate universe are you living in? Also, hate to break it to you my dear, but your body is composed of about 19% of…”

Oh.

*awkward…* ◼︎

Tags:

70 Comments

  1. We have for a long time speculated that Len was an assemblage rather than an individual, but how many voices can we recognize in this latest Bradian epistle? I am beginning to suspect that “Brad” also is an amalgam, but of dictionary purveyors anxious to boost sales.
    My poor spellchecker is so embarrassed by its multiple failures.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Brad have you been digging heffalump traps for us sceptics to fall into again? Stop it, we’re too easy to catch and we’re already on the endangered species list. The only consolation is “But so is my 10-week-old girl.” Ha, ha! Now you’re in for it. Somebody with your brains but with no respect for your grasp of language. She’ll see right through you and pull your strings better than you pull ours. Congratulations!

    It will be interesting to see how Brad’s posts will be ranged on the index running from scatty to scatological. Babies cause both. The warning signs for Brad will not be when his posts stop making sense to us but when they start. Remember insanity is hereditary – you get it from your children.

    Liked by 4 people

  4. “Can you guys actually read the post or does the skiwiff formatting make some parts of it invisible?”
    NOT ENOUGH

    Liked by 3 people

  7. Oh gosh. I find I’m only intervening these days to defend xenophobes and Zenophiles, (those who understand that not every arrow will hit the mark.) Unlike Cliscep regulars, the 2 million monthly visitors to WUWT are folks in a hurry. They have to get their word in before it disappears half way up a thread that nobody will ever read from beginning to end.

    Does one have to be of a certain age, (like about three times Brad’s) to understand that a thread on a blog on the internet, like the smartphone and the phonograph, is not the real world?

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Geoff

    Unlike Cliscep regulars, the 2 million monthly visitors to WUWT are folks in a hurry. They have to get their word in before it disappears half way up a thread that nobody will ever read from beginning to end.

    Time-poverty is a pretty good excuse, but it would be even more convincing if the same people who are too busy to notice my tone of voice didn’t proceed to spend 2 pages “rebutting” my one-liners, n’est-ce pas?

    Like

  9. Brad
    Yes, I saw that one, though I didn’t read it. Do they have them ready, primed to go at a second’s notice? You’d have to read a thousand WUWT threads to find out.

    I used to be heavily ironic on climate threads at the Guardian. Then i thought: What would some future historian (call him Monbiot the Younger) make of this? And I started saying what I really thought. Then they banned me.

    Like

  10. Poe’s law applies not only to the absurdity of beliefs, but also to the absurdity of the arguments that are used on behalf of those beliefs. Arguments on behalf of young-Earth creationism and theodicy are especially known for their absurdity. The quintessential Poe’s law argument is an argument on behalf of theodicy, which goes: “Who are we/you [mere humans] to question the motives of the almighty?”. The absurd simple and obvious non-sequitur and circular logic therein (that God is good because he is the god) gives one the impression that that argument is intended as a humorous parody of Christians, but in fact that argument was made by a few actual insane Christians.

    OTOH heu·ris·tic hyo͞oˈristik/ adjective: heuristic 1. enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves. “a “hands-on” or interactive heuristic approach to learning”
    Computing: proceeding to a solution by trial and error or by rules that are only loosely defined.

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Brad, I’m a bit hazy about this evidential threshold for Anthropocentric Global Weirding, I must admit. Firstly, there’s a problem with ‘weirding’, which, naturally enough, implies that something is being made weird. Weird comes from the word wyrd [couldn’t resist that], meaning ‘fate or destiny’. I’m guessing this doesn’t have an awful lot to do with funny (as in not haha) weather, so we’ll opt for the usual dictionary definition of something ‘highly strange or unusual’. This doesn’t appear to be very quantifiable, as in very sciencey. It appears to be more a subjective quality, as in ‘far out’, as in hippy, as in ‘hey man, this is good acid, I’m seeing some like, really groovy global weirding’ up here in the Arctic. So, yes, it’s weird, because you’ve only been alive for 40 years and they’ve only been monitoring the Arctic closely for 30 odd years . . . . and you’re high on global warming believialist drugs. Katherine Hayhoe is definitely a global warming hippy. Here she is, talking ever so slightly crazily about how ‘global weirding’ in the Arctic caused even weirder ‘global weirding’ in Europe, which sparked a frenzied outbreak of David Vinerisms from sceptics amused by the lack of the lack of snow for kids to play in.

    https://www.rewire.org/video/climate-scientist-katharine-hayhoe/

    Liked by 1 person

  13. pro·verb:,, a short pithy saying in general use, stating a general truth or piece of advice. Heheh, the proverbs of Thermodynamics, which are fundamental and inviolable considerations about the very fabric of this (local) universe! Please consider the image of Rudy Clausius! His second proverb of Thermodynamics ist ‘Stuff don spontaneously go uphill’! Observe again the image of Rudy. Still want to argue? Heuristically consider ‘his’ meaning.of each of those five words.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. Brad,
    I be stupid sarcastic, .you be clever satiric, Beth be wonderful poetic! None answers the fundamental No-mater (Mr. and Mrs.) nor (Mrs. and Mr.) da sandwich is not making.itself sweetheart! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  15. Brad,
    Is there a plural of wort, or do that remain an identity? Exists Wörterbuch :: collection of wort that uniquely identifies each wort! The Scammers collect ‘power’ into energie (Joules) then claim such: ist identical to “work” (force times distance) Claimed also as Joules!! What monumential deliberate corruption! Work is the verb used in the conversion of power into ‘action’ Joule-seconds (specific impulse), ( sometimes known as nice plowed field\acreage ready to grow crop)!

    Like

  16. Will, I think you’re asking me something. Which I will try to answer. Once I know what it is. Let me pay you the compliment, meanwhile, of saying this feels like a conversation with Salvatore from Der Name Der Rose, who’s said to speak all languages and none.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Some well-known worts include butterwort, woundwort and St John’s wort.

    Also, Hiroshimae are the preferred units for energy [work done]. (Not to be confused with Nagasakis, which measure power [wars won divided by time]).

    Liked by 1 person

  19. “Will, I think you’re asking me something. Which I will try to answer. Once I know what it is. Let me pay you the compliment, meanwhile, of saying this feels like a conversation with Salvatore from Der Name Der Rose, who’s said to speak all languages and none”
    Danka! The concept of word\wort in environment of Babylonia mit nicht kennen!
    “Also, Hiroshimae are the preferred units for energy [work done]. (Not to be confused with Nagasaki, which measure power [wars won divided by time]).”
    Can you please elaborate on any Hiroshima [work done]. or some Nagasaki measure of power? All ist the complete opposite, only wanton destruction! Was such required? Donno! Who was making da sammitch? 🙂
    All the best!-will-

    .

    Liked by 2 people

  20. Brad, Allan, Geof, Beth, My written expression must remain orthogonal to your consideration\thinking. . So sorry for being such a pain in your rear that remains (to me) so very orthogonal.

    Liked by 1 person

  22. “Therefore is a Fukushima a measure of alcoholic strength?”
    Never! but consider a Laphroaig or Glenfiddich as the true and viable measurement of alcoholic enjoyment by Earthlinggemench! 🙂

    Like

  23. A fukushima would be a measurement scale for Fu… ups.

    By the way my dictionary has just spontaneously combusted.

    Liked by 2 people

  25. Fukushima cannot be a measure of “fu…ups” since the latter are compound measures to which Fukashimas are primary imputs. I believe a Paris is being considered for the compound measures alluding to its classical and more modern links. It is hotly contested by supporters of the Bruxelles.

    Liked by 1 person

  26. English is my second language. Dislex…. dylecs…. dyslexear…. bad spelling is my first. I’m also breaking in a new keyboard and my fingers are staggering about the keys like a drunk. Several words have come out with so few of the necessary letters that I haven’t been able to work out what I originally meant to type.

    Liked by 2 people

  27. Akcherly, a 90-minute TV special narrated by James Randi found zero evidence for the accuracy of “spontaneous combustion” claims, which is why scientists tend not to believe in it any more. In 58 of 58 cases for which data was available, it was found that the combustee had in fact been contemplating, threatening and/or making concrete preparations for combusting an average of 12 days prior to the act. In an astonishing 80% of cases, the combustee had made one or more combustion attempts in the past, either with inflammatory intent (59%) and/or as a “cry for help” (44%).

    We like to think combustion is spontaneous, but this is just a rationalization for our own failure to stop it. The fact is, if someone or something you know combusts, you almost certainly could have stopped them if you were a better person. That’s now become the consistent message of combustion-awareness educators: dear everyone, combustion is always your fault.

    Like

  28. Brad,
    Can you please attempt to satirize the engineering distinction of mistook, mistake, mistreake? A mistreake ist da Hubble error! (now measured in milli-Hubbles). If such is Yours, you can only bend way over and kiss your young ass goodbye! I know noting! 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

  29. So Brad, those browned pages weren’t sun aging, they were evidence of self harm? Hmmm. When it came off the bookshelf it… umm jumped? No, I can’t believe it. I think it just fell asleep near a lit candle or was smoking in bed. Though I have to admit it was probably feeling neglected.

    Mistook – I was going to take that jumper but chickened out.
    Mistake – I got caught taking the jumper.
    Mistreake – I lost my clothes running away from shop security (ok I know there’s an extra e but it works if you say it out loud).

    Liked by 1 person

  30. Mistook. I couldn’t find Frodo either.
    Mistake. That bit of meat’s mine.
    Mistreake. Gosh that fog stinks.

    Liked by 1 person

  32. Would any of the CliScep crew be interested in receiving a guest article from me?

    I have adjectives and I am not afraid to use them.

    Liked by 3 people

  33. John,

    this thread is dead, so if you don’t hear a chorus of affirmatives, don’t worry, just email us what you’ve got. I (or someone else) can then forward it to the rest of the group. It is more blessed to give than to receive. Do you have an address to submit it to? If not, I think I gave you my gmail address at WUWT, no?

    Like

  34. Brad,

    No, I don’t have any email addresses to use (if yours was provided at WUWT then it passed me by). I posted a comment here because I thought it would be a discreet method by which I could pass on my contact details to the moderator. I presume publically declared email addresses are to be avoided at all costs.

    Like

  35. I’ve really liked the articles you’ve had published on WUWT John; looking forward to seeing
    something here – where the pace of commentary is more manageable 😉

    Liked by 3 people

  36. I’m willing to vouchsafe the planet’s future for the sake of my children, but not for my children’s children, because I don’t think children should be having sex.

    Like

  38. Are these latest posts zombies, since you declared this thread dead (“it is no more”, “has ceased to be”, “bereft of life, it rests in peace”, and “this is an ex-thread”)?

    Liked by 1 person

  40. I don’t consider my post to be a tiny daisy meekly poking its flower above the turf. It’s a bloody great gladiolus. All we need now is the participation of a hoard of flower enthusiasts and this thread will burst asunder into a bouquet of sensibility. Some of us are pretty desperate to discover if tiny recovers from the experience of the self-immolating dictionary.

    Like

  45. Does not compute!!
    But I think my point made. Although thread on last legs and expiring, may not be entirely defunct (no more, ceased to be, bereft of life, rests in peace, and an ex-thread).

    Like

  49. It’s all ok. My internal pedant stopped wagging its finger at me and put the burning dictionary out with a theoretical poe… or do I mean po? I can’t look the spelling up, my dictionary is now singed and soggy. Of course that makes the thread even more mad… or do I mean potty?

    Liked by 2 people

  51. Having been a poor speller all my life I never understood the reason for some English spelling (especially after living in North America for many years). But with incomprehensible efforts, like “wuckaz”, I begin to understand.
    I never thought I would sympathize with a spellchecker but mine has suffered overmuch.

    Like

  55. Brad. you have brought back very old memories. Eons ago at school, I was called “gunner” because my initials (ACK) were (repeated) those of the British anti aircraft gun.

    This still does not explain “wuckaz”, “Fully sick”, and now ‘wuckin furries” (= fairies, theories?) or “gnome”.

    I need a non exploding Bradlian dictionary, but I doubt I could operate it.

    Liked by 1 person

  56. I’ve tried putting wuckaz”, “Fully sick”, ‘wuckin furries” and “gnome” into Google Translate, and they’re going to be sending the repair bill.

    Like

  59. Yo, 47-dog, my negro, you gotta get in what white Americans euphemistically call an “urban” frame of mind to hear the syllables elided in “Gnome sayin’?”

    Like

  62. Brad Keyes says: 14 Mar 18 at 1:52 pm

    “I’ma call you 47, AK. That your name from now on.”
    Da AK-74 ist one fine rifle! Bettern dan any Swiss oder Krautz craft!

    Like

  63. Alan Kendall says: 14 Mar 18 at 2:53 pm
    “I need a non exploding Bradlian dictionary, but I doubt I could operate it.”
    Consider the Philosophical “concept”; which must be ‘real’ but never ‘physical’! Such as “time” that mathematically must have a ‘conjugate’ (-1/t = frequency)! Once you symbolically confuse normalization, with division, with conjugation; (as in post modern ‘science’)’ all ‘concept’ must asplode in your face (also called learning)! Assignment symbols in place of ‘equality’ would be so helpful!

    Liked by 1 person

  64. ‘Mad thread, TINYCO2?’
    Not just the thread. Why, we’re
    down
    the
    rabbit
    hOle
    entirely.
    Just change the names…

    “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
    “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
    “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
    “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

    Liked by 1 person

  65. “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
    “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
    Consider that this carefully constructed but lonely planet Earth; is but GOD’s cloistered reserve for all bipeds, perhaps all nice critters; that ‘assume’ they have some understanding of GOD’s knowledge? HA HA ho ho. No possible way to get out of here alive! GOD has ‘his’ universe protected from such vile concept!
    All the best!-will-

    Like

  66. GOD remains Omnipresent (knows all that is known ) and Omnipotent (more powerful than all else)
    None of that means that GOD is ‘limited’, (unable to wonder “what if”) nor (recruit more critters to increase potential! We have greedy damnable Earthling theologians, that have so SCAMED my wonderful flock of Earthlings that learn! BEGONE SATAN!
    All the best!-will-

    Like

  67. Jeez, Will, I am but a serf in the turnip field, gazin,’up, up,up,
    at the starry firmament, what do I understand of yer above!!
    )

    Like

  68. Jeez, Beth, I am but a decrepit geologist in the same turnip field peering down, down, down, through the Miocene, but no reason do I now find for doing so. Woe is me.

    Liked by 1 person

  69. Alan Kendall says: 27 Mar 18 at 8:55 am
    “Jeez, Beth, I am but a decrepit geologist in the same turnip field peering down, down, down, through the Miocene, but no reason do I now find for doing so. Woe is me.”
    Even in my ‘doter-age, why not peer about” with wondering?! Is anything ‘wrong’ with chasing Lusious Beth all over da turnip field; with result “likely dependent on your decrepit”! Both of you can still grinn at each other!

    Liked by 1 person

  70. Only someone with the chin dimensions of a Bruce Forsyth can effect a “grinn”. Unfortunately the Earth’s core and two tectonic plates physically separate the ever playful Beth from decrepit ol’me, so we cannot grin at each other. But in the turnip fields of our minds….

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.