By the way, here's Skeptoid's "Top 10 Worst Anti-Science Websites." HuffPo makes the list:
HuffPo aggressively promotes worthless alternative medicine such as homeopathy, detoxification, and the thoroughly debunked vaccine-autism link. In 2009, Salon.com published a lengthy critique of HuffPo's unscientific (and often exactly wrong) health advice, subtitled Why bogus treatments and crackpot medical theories dominate "The Internet Newspaper". HuffPo's tradition is neither new nor just a once-in-a-while thing.People who read HuffPo's medical coverage know more than people who read other news sites. The problem is that so much of that extra stuff they know is a total crap. And, unlike confusion about whether protesters in Syria and Egypt have taken down their governments, believing that crap can lead to death.
Science journalists have repeatedly taken HuffPo to task for this, and repeatedly been rebuffed or not allowed to submit fact-based rebuttals. HuffPo's anti-science stance on health and medicine appears to be deliberately systematic and is unquestionably pervasive.
Posts
181 comments:
I am shocked that a tv station that primarily exists as a combination of propaganda and therapy for the bitter culturally revanchist rightwing might mislead people.
My experience with most of these "studies" is that they come down to opinion. I've also learned that if stick to plain facts, most people world wide don't know much (and, for the most part, who cares?)
Intelligence? Has anyone listened to Zsa Zsa Huffington lately?
I hate the construction "Top 10 Worst..."
They're the Ten Worst... How hard is that for people to figure out?
If liberals are so smart, why are they always coming up with "studies" to prove how smart they are?
Oh, they're not smart (see Andy R's comment as an example).
Never mind.
A limited study, involving a limited area and limited topics. Can only be viewed as fishing for a certain answer.
Invalid as a "study"
As long as they're into redundant superlatives, why not "Top 10 Most Worstest?"
I don't typically read Huffington Post, and I'm surprised they would promote such obvious frauds as homeopathy, etc., but as regards this story, one must consider that it is not Huffington Post which makes the provocative (and not new) assertion, but Fairleigh Dickinson University. Huffington Post merely reports on the university's study.
It remains for others than I to establish whether the university's study is accurate and valid or flawed and invalid, (though I suspect it could be valid, if for no other reason that Fox News' viewers are a self-selecting audience of ignorami), but one cannot dismiss the reported findings on the basis that they originate with Huffington Post.
You know - gifted kids sometimes don't score well on tests, because they can see the possibilities in each answer. LOL.
Can anyone really say they KNOW what is going on in Egypt? Libya? right now - seem to me there is a state of flux, and the info we are getting from the MSM is highly skewed.
FOX may have its faults, but right now they are the only ones asking the alternate questions, and pointing out that, umm, there are no rainbows and unicorns here.
Until the MSNBCalphabetsoupers start OBJECTIVELY covering the news, who knows if the people conducting this study even know whether they're right or wrong on this issue - they THINK the people who watch FOX are wrong, but maybe they're not.
Are these the same pundit-types who don't like it when Beck plays actual recordings to show what a Van Jones stands for, in his own words, for example.
Sideways hat guy lowers the results of any study group he's in. Smart goes average, dumb goes dumber, funny goes unfunny, sharp goes dull, optimism about the human condition gets pessimistic.
though I suspect it could be valid, if for no other reason that Fox News' viewers are a self-selecting audience of ignorami),
As opposed to you, silly, ignorant, Internet commenter.
612 adults? That's certainly a representative sample of a nation of 310 million people.
Andy R. said...
I am shocked that a tv station that primarily exists as a combination of propaganda and therapy for the bitter culturally revanchist rightwing might mislead people.
Hatman is shocked by a lot since the Atlanta PD told him to hit the bricks. He can't tell the difference between a cable network and a single station.
rick said...
Intelligence? Has anyone listened to Zsa Zsa Huffington lately?
Apparently, all her top writers are bailing
Andy R.: I am shocked that a tv station that primarily exists as a combination of propaganda and therapy for the bitter culturally revanchist rightwing might mislead people.
And I am shocked that libtards like you require yet another "study" proclaiming how much more intelligent you are.
Breaking News: Sally Struthers Institute Releases Study That Proves Liberals Are Smarter.
"And I am shocked that libtards like you require yet another "study" proclaiming how much more intelligent you are."
Such studies do not purport to measure intelligence, but knowledge, a very different thing.
though I suspect it could be valid, if for no other reason that Fox News' viewers are a self-selecting audience of ignorami),
As opposed to the good idiots at Huffington Post who believe in "global warming" despite the fact that the globe isn't warming, there is no evidence it is warming, and there will be no evidence it is warming.
As opposed to the good idiots at Huffington Post who believe that government spending creates jobs (and economic demand) despite the fact that there is no evidence of this in recorded human history.
Right?
Wrong.
Nice try guys. This has already been exposed as bullshit.
"Viewers of at least one show on Fox scored quite well -- The O’Reilly Factor, of whom 51 percent made it into the high knowledge group. That made it equal to National Public Radio -- a longtime target of conservative complaints about liberal media bias -- and only three percentage points behind Stewart’s own show, at 54 percent."
The bombshell finding breathlessly being reported is that Fox viewers are less likely to believe that "Egyptians were successful in overthrowing the government of Hosni Mubarak." Who knows, maybe they thought the withdrawal of US/NATO support had something to do with it.
Unreported by HuffPo is that MSNBC viewers are much more likely than others to believe that the OWSers were Republicans. Now, that's being misinformed.
Btw, O'Reilly has a much larger and broader audience than the Daily Show (x2)
Hey SmartGuy, talk to us about the CRU data hack and what it meant...
When you're done, tell us why you still believe the CBS Memo hoax was "fake but accurate".
And then, explain to us how Clinton's sexual predation in the workplace (discrimination, harassment, assault) and perjury that violating civil rights of the plantiff were "just about sex"
Three swings to prove you and your ilk are "more informed" thans us ignorant rubes who prefer FOX News to MiniTruth
The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so.
- Reagan
Do you think that's still accurate today? Or are conservatives of today the Liberals of the 80s?
Boy, that's a lot of word fisting Professor Althouse, even for you.
Notice how aggressive and defensive conservatives get when another study comes out that proves once again liberals are smarter.
Boy, that's a lot of word fisting Professor Althouse, even for you.
She's upset that conservatives have been shown to be dunces again and is furiously trying to denounce a valid study.
I'm convinced that if it one were to conduct a blind experiment analyzing news transcripts, the majority of Americans probably wouldn't be able to tell Fox from CNN.
the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t.
There's that nasty fallacy that correlation implies causation. Question is, how well do these scientists know their statistics and study design if they're saying stuff like that?
Second question: If you watch FoxNews and read HuffPo, do you end up dumber than a rock and/or dead?
"(though I suspect it could be valid, if for no other reason that Fox News' viewers are a self-selecting audience of ignorami)"
You mean the Fox News viewers aren't sure the "Arab Spring" thing is a good thing. It's interesting to me to see the effort expended by the clueless media to slander Fox viewers. MSNBC viewers are much smarter because they know that OWS is a good thing.
Ignorance can sometimes be better than knowing stuff that is not so.
Not to pile on--oh, why not?--here's Tom Maguire's takedown of the same "study."
612 adults?
All in New Joisey.
Alex: Notice how aggressive and defensive conservatives get when another study comes out that proves once again liberals are smarter.
Hey Alex, you're more than welcome to take your three swings too:
1) talk to us about the CRU data hack and what it meant...
2) tell us why you still believe the CBS Memo hoax was "fake but accurate".
3) explain to us how Clinton's sexual predation in the workplace (discrimination, harassment, assault) and perjury that violated civil rights of the plantiff were "just about sex"
Three swings to prove you and your ilk are "more informed" thans us ignorant rubes who prefer FOX News to MiniTruth.
Please don't bravely run away
I see. By not watching you learn more than by watching. Is it possible that the political "scientists" can also demonstrate that those who do not attend their lectures know more about the subject of their lectures than those who do not?
I particularly like the "scientific" observation that there is "something" that makes people who watch the network know less by watching.
Is it possible the people who did not "watch any news" instead read the NYT and WSJ and Times of London and Jerusalem Post and Der Spiegel instead?
And I would make a very large wager that I could assemble a group of Fox News watchers who would outscore a group of those I assemble who "don't watch any news."
"...explain to us how Clinton's sexual predation in the workplace (discrimination, harassment, assault) and perjury that violating civil rights of the plantiff were 'just about sex'"
The syntax here is a bit jumbled; I assume you meant to reiterate for rhetorical purposes the often repeated claim by Clinton partisans that his impeachment was "just about sex."
No, it was about perjury; Clinton perjured himself and his impeachment was warranted.
However, the long road of investigations of the Clintons that led--unexpectedly to the investigators--to the Monica Lewinsky affair was driven by an attempt by a "vast, right-wing conspiracy" to impede and undo the Clinton presidency. Silly right-wingers...they didn't anticipate that, as with Obama after him, Clinton is one of the best friends of the oligarchs our country has ever had.
The number of topics surveyed was minuscule. Not much of a study.
Meanwhile, Megyn Kelly calls pepper spray a "food product":
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/11/megyn-kelly-calls-pepper-spray-a-food-product.html
I wonder if Kelly would like to chug a bottle of Tabasco sauce?
1) talk to us about the CRU data hack and what it meant...
More emails have come out and these researchers are admitting in them that the "hockey stick" is, well, fiction.
The problem is that so much of that extra stuff they know is a total crap. And, unlike confusion about whether protesters in Syria and Egypt have taken down their governments, believing that crap can lead to death.
So liberals believe stupid shit and it kills them. Why is that a "problem"?
I assume you meant to reiterate for rhetorical purposes the often repeated claim by Clinton partisans that his impeachment was "just about sex."
No. Clinton partisans repeatedly claimed that it was his *misconduct* that was just about sex, not his impeachment.
Sexual discrimination. Sexual harassment. Sexual assualt. For the "informed" Left, just about sex.
Rather than "Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News," it should read, "Fox News Viewers Know Less About the Outcomes of Protests in Egypt and Syria Than People Who Don't Watch Any News."
I guess that doesn't sound as exciting though.
36fsfiend: But what Megyn Kelly says is of no importance since it immediately is forgotten by the viewers. Political "science" has shown this to be true.
Sorry rightwing skeptards but Penn State cleared Michael Mann of wrongdoing. PENN STATE.
Michael said...
"36fsfiend: But what Megyn Kelly says is of no importance since it immediately is forgotten by the viewers. Political "science" has shown this to be true."
It's just indicative of the level of discourse on Fox News.
"So, Cook, is your advice to 'silly right-wingers' to vote for Obama in the next election?"
I don't think it makes a difference; I think Obama or Romney will provide essentially the same results for their constituents.
My advice to silly left-wingers in 2004 would have been to vote for Ralph Nader. I would never advise anyone, ever to vote for George W. Bush.
36sfiend: You watch Fox News? I think I now understand.
Michael said...
"36sfiend: You watch Fox News? I think I now understand."
No.
Fairleigh Dickinson... the school for kids who couldn't make it into Towson State.
X said...
Sorry rightwing skeptards but Penn State cleared Michael Mann of wrongdoing. PENN STATE.
Hilarious.
Penn State also had no problem with Jerry Sandusky coaching kids at football camps at 9 of their branch campuses after it was reported he raped a 10 year old boy on their main campus.
I think you should hang your hat on that, idiot.
X said...
Sorry rightwing skeptards but Penn State cleared Michael Mann of wrongdoing. PENN STATE.
Um, and that like makes his little hockey stick all true and stuff, right?!
If I drag the world kicking and screaming back to 1788 by dictatorial fiat, does that make me culturally revanchist?
I want to look into becoming a Bourbonist. Is there a network I can watch for that?
I am shocked that a website that primarily exists as a combination of propaganda and therapy for the bitter culturally revanchist leftwing might mislead people.
Robert said: Such studies do not purport to measure intelligence, but knowledge, a very different thing.
True, as such.
In practice, all the reporting (and such studies are always all about reporting, I find) conflates the two.
(See, well, this entire comment thread with the idiot namecalling.)
Rose said...
Can anyone really say they know what is going on in Egypt?
Excellent point. Especially since the Fairly Ridiculous poll asked whether you knew that the "Egyptian people" had overthrown the government of Egypt. Anyone remotely knowledgeable about the extremely fluid situation in Egypt has to be confused about who overthrew the Mubarak government (Muslim Brotherhood? Army? Communists?) or in fact whether the Mubarak government was in fact overthrown, in that the country is now apparently being governed by the Army in a seeming attempt to maintain Mubarak's anti-Islamist stance. Ergo still more Tahrir Square turmoil.
But it's good to know that the man on the street "knows" the Egyptian people have overthrown the Egyptian government and those Fox viewing dummies don't.
sorepaw said...
"You watch Fox News? I think I now understand.
What do you understand, 36fs?"
I don't regularly watch Fox News.
Interesting that in their tables, they don't include the responses for the "no news at all" group. At least, not that I can find. What is the definition of that group? It's not newspaper readers. Is it NPR listeners?
Otherwise, the generalizations that HuffPo wants out of this study are way beyond the study's scope. People who watch Fox may be more interested in national events than international events. Fox may have covered those events less than other events. Do they really think people only watch one news source?
Even the title of the study "Some News Leaves People Knowing Less" isn't supported by the study, unless you want to limit the knowledge to just the events asked about and the assumption that everyone should pay equal attention to the same news events.
I tend to watch certain channels and shows more than others because they have subjects that interest me more. It'd be easy to compare me to a group that is interested in different subjects using those subjects and try to claim the shows I watch make me stupid.
As Tom McGuire points out at the link Kurt supplied, viewers of other networks didn't do that great on the OWS questions.
This just seems to be the continuing left wing effort to label anyone who opposes them as stupid idiots and deserving of what ever maltreatment the left can dish out on HuffPo's part.
Btw, O'Reilly has a much larger and broader audience than the Daily Show (x2)
Maybe they should diet. (rimshot)
Please, tip your waitstaff!
All y'all complaining about 612 and hockey sticks don't understand statistics, and you don't even realize it.
"The problem is that so much of that extra stuff they know is a total crap."
Spoken like a Reagan prodigy.
Libtard: Sorry rightwing skeptards but Penn State cleared Michael Mann of wrongdoing. PENN STATE.
So did the National Science Foundation. As if that means anything.
Oh, and CBS "cleared" Mapes and Rather too.
It must be hard knowing just enough to make you stupid.
Thread goes to Rose.
36sfiend: Too late to backtrack, friend. You are a Fox News watcher. Moron.
Part of the nightmare of modern living is that nobody on the Left, however tempered by technocratic centrism, can hear the word "revolution" without creaming their pants.
I can never forget hearing the BBC on NPR reporting from the 'revolution' in Egypt in Feb. When the announcer said, "We are now going to read to you a statement from the Egyptian Army"-- the one sheepishly 'guaranteeing' blah blah about no extralegal activities to stop protesters,-- you'd think the radio people thought this was the storming of the Bastille.
Or the landing of a benign alien Mother Ship.
Or the second coming of Christ. "Revolution"!! Turn that U2 up to 11!! Now gang-grope Lara-- oh wait a minute? . . .
sorepaw said...
"What do understand about those who do watch Fox News?"
I like to get my news from an unbiased source or at least compare left and right sources on a topic.
If I want to know what the right wing talking point is for the day, I can always listen to Fox.
hockey sticks don't understand statistics
I know that I can put white noise into his model and get the same result.
I know that he corrupted his data to make it fit.
I don't need to undertand stats to know how that makes his product bullshit.
In the tables that show how ignorant FOX viewers are they left out the question:
K4. Some countries in Europe are deeply in debt, and have had to be bailed out by other countries. To
the best of your knowledge, which country has had to spend the most money to bail out European
countries?
That seems odd that they would compare answers on all the other questions but omit that one.
jimspice said...
All y'all complaining about 612 and hockey sticks don't understand statistics, and you don't even realize it.
I realize you can provide no facts or data to support your assertion.
PS, here is what the people working with Mann had to say about his hockey stick:
Wilson:
I thought I’d play around with some randomly generated time-series and see if I
could ‘reconstruct’ northern hemisphere temperatures.
[...] The reconstructions clearly show a ‘hockey-stick’ trend. I guess this is precisely the phenomenon that Macintyre has been going on about.
Bradley:
I’m sure you agree–the Mann/Jones GRL paper was truly pathetic and should never have been published. I don’t want to be associated with that 2000 year “reconstruction”.
OOPS.
"But you might have advised someone to vote for Al Gore or John Kerry?"
No.
In 2000, I voted for Ralph Nader, (as I had in 1996), not Al Gore.
In 2004 I intended to vote for Nader, but I let myself be swayed by dread at another term by the awful Dubya--and he was awful--and I switched at the polling booth for Kerry, an embarrassing waver on my part that strengthened my resolve after the fact never again to vote for merely "the lesser of two evils" but only for a candidate I could sincerely support. (I still believe Kerry would have been, not good, but less awful than Bush, if for no other reason than that it would have got Dick Cheney out of government.)
I like to get my news from an unbiased source or at least compare left and right sources on a topic.
There is no unbiased source. So where do you get if from?
[watch, he'll say CNN]
I like to get my news from an unbiased source or at least compare left and right sources on a topic.
But mysteriously you post left wing talking points.
Oh, that's because you're lying.
Never mind.
X - you probably need to get to work denying this.
ClimateGate 2: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/11/22/breaking-climategate-two/
Climate researchers, bringing a new meaning to the word "denier."
sidebet that he's a Bubble Lib who thinks he's really a centrist.
And that he believes Che was a moderate.
I don't need to undertand stats to know how that makes his product bullshit.
Forgot to add: Anyone like Penn State or the National Science Foundation that "clears" him of wrongdoing only damages their own credibility.
Althouse lefties,
Just because some study says that some liberals may be smart, don't assume that you are one of those liberals. (MM excepted, he is definately one of the smart ones)
jimspice said...
All y'all complaining about 612 and hockey sticks don't understand statistics, and you don't even realize it.
Whatever gets your silly, liberal assumptions through the day:
Cook:
I am afraid that Mike is defending something that increasingly can not be defended. He is investing too much personal stuff in this and not letting the science move ahead.
Cook:
One problem is that he [Mann] will be using the RegEM method, which provides no better diagnostics (e.g. betas) than his original method. So we will still not
know where his estimates are coming from.
By the way, I could wade through a 5th grade classroom and find someone who knows more about statistics than you do.
Another gem right along with a paraphrase that, "Fox news is a stupid man's idea of what a smart network sounds like."
Fox can be as biased as MSNBC on some shows, but they mostly admit other points of view without screaming and fainting when they are told on the air.
Intelligence is not displayed by heresy hunting and personal defamation. Ergo, the MSNBC's are the dumbest.
I expect people who don't watch any news to do better against every channel.
TV makes you stupid.
* * *
The comparison of group a) People who watch Fox News and group b) People who watch no news is very odd. What about people who watch ABC? CBS? NBC? What is the control?
See what I'm getting at?
X: PENN STATE!
X wins the thread for unrecognized satire. I hope.
WV: prefi. This word would be cromulent but is missing its uffix.
Wow. I don't watch any TV news at all, and haven't in more than a decade, and I know more than people that watch Fox News?
Hmm. Well maybe.
I'd like to see a similar study - that is, one self-selecting a relatively obscure overseas event(s) as broadly representative - on MSNBC viewers in, say, Virginia.
Wow, talk about oversimplification. In the reality distortion field that is leftard land, conservatives = dumb, leftards = smart. Oh gosh, I guess they learned me. Reality distortion field restored.
There have been multiple, separate, independent investigations that have found "Climategate" to be much ado about less than nothing:
1. Pennsylvania State
2. UK government's House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
3. University of East Anglia International Scientific Assessment Panel, in consultation with the Royal Society
4. U.S. Department of Commerce Inspector General
5. National Science Foundation
"I know that I can put white noise into his model and get the same result."
Prove it. With VERIFIABLE sources.
"I know that he corrupted his data to make it fit."
No. He didn't.
"I don't need to undertand stats to know how that makes his product bullshit."
Yes. You do.
I took X to be engaging in deliberate satire. (Suggest reading that closing "PENN STATE" in the exact same tone of voice you'd use to say "Top. Men.")
Hey HeeHaw, I don't read Watts since he reneged on his promise to stand behind the findings of the Berkeley study.
And (Jay this goes for you too) I've TWICE presented my credentials at your request, and asked for yours in return. Never heard back. Care to share now?
jimspice said...
There have been multiple, separate, independent investigations that have found "Climategate" to be much ado about less than nothing:
Laugh out loud funny.
You do understand there still is no evidence the globe is warming, right?
You do understand that what you posted "less than nothing" is not what the investigations actually, examined, right?
For example:
However, a culture of withholding information””from those perceived by CRU to be hostile to global warming””appears to have pervaded CRU’s approach to FOIA requests from the outset. We consider this to be unacceptable.
from the British House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
Is not what you said. And, Phil Jones no longer having his job, is not what you said.
Now want to take a guess why you're lying?
And (Jay this goes for you too) I've TWICE presented my credentials at your request
You should call someone who cares.
jimspice said...
There have been multiple, separate, independent investigations that have found "Climategate" to be much ado about less than nothing:
And the number of organizations on your list having a financial interest in there being "less than nothing" found is 80%.
And of course they never said less than nothing and there still is no actual evidence the globe is warming in the manner idiots like you say it is.
You goof.
Jay, it's funny. If I had five bucks, I bet you I could identify the site you get your unsourced talking points from.
"
You do understand there still is no evidence the globe is warming, right?"
Wrong. There is plenty. I could point to thousands of peer-review journal articles and it would make no difference to you, so why even try?
"You should call someone who cares."
Sorry. Lost your mom's number.
Fox News Viewers Know Less Than People Who Don't Watch Any News."
Define "news," first. And I guarantee you the dimmest of Fox viewers know there are 50 states. And that Hawaii is not in Asia. And how to pronounce 'corpsman.' At the very least.
"bitter culturally revanchist rightwing."
I see somebody got their new "Highlights" magazine today. Tell me, Andy, what hijinks are Goofus and Gallant up to?
Who the F watches the news?
I'm guessing that people who watch TV news don't know as much as people who get their news from the Web, for various reasons.
I saw that Huffpo article earlier today, but didn't have time to investigate the study. This may be out there, but could it be just that people who don't watch news get their news from things like newspapers and magazines which through the very process of reading make them more likely to remember important aspects of stories? Was Fox News the only channel or were other channels involved as well? Was there a control for having tv on in the background vs. actively watching? What portions of Fox News were watched, just the talking heads (much more concerned with domestic policy than anything else) or the actual news segments?
It was interesting that they asked just the sort of questions that would be covered by NPR, and skipped those that NPR and the MSM would gloss over, such as:
- Fast and Furious, etc.
- Who got the "green" energy loan guarantees
- Whose company apparently misappropriated over a billion dollars of customer monies, and his connection to the Obama Administration (ok, New Jerseyites probably know that one).
- Which politicians supported the occupiers
- What sort of anti-social activities the occupiers have engaged in
It is likely that, even if the poll is somewhat accurate, it is accurate because NPR, MSM, etc. are actively hiding much of what is going on in this country, and esp. with this Administration, by dwelling on what is going on elsewhere.
After all, what is more important, whether the regime actually changed in Egypt? Or that our government was effectively shipping arms to one of the most violent cartels in Mexico, and the resulting death toll, all apparently to strengthen our gun laws?
What's your opinion about the peer-reviewed article by Spencer and Braswell? The one in Remote Sensing, whose editor was forced to resign after S and B's article was published?
Why was he forced to resign? Because he oversaw a flawed peer review that called into question the reliability of the journal he oversaw. I think Judy Curry sounds sensible when she talks about it: Link
HuffPo at times features a few..."new agey" writers such as Chopra (tho' many forget that DC is a real MD) but the writing quite above the Fox news level of yokelness. Senora Adrianna's a health nut reportedly, and ..she fights the Power.
"Did you read Watts before this distressing event occurred?"
Yes.
"And should Watts have stood behind the findings of the Berkeley study?"
He should have never made the promise in the first place. But having given his word, yes, he should have. Or else reliquish the soap box.
"But if Watts offends your delicate sensibilities, go read about Climategate Part Deux somewhere else."
Didn't this just surface yesterday? I'll give it some time, then read reactions from both sides. I'm not going to wade through thousands of boring emails.
"Are all articles cited in the IPCC reports peer-reviewed?"
No.
"What's your opinion about the peer-reviewed article by Spencer and Braswell? The one in Remote Sensing, whose editor was forced to resign after S and B's article was published?"
Good Lord! Didn't we beat that one to death already? http://althouse.blogspot.com/2011/07/global-warming-consensus-is-cracking-up.html
"All right, Jimspice, let's hear your explanation of what 'hide the decline' means."
It's not even about temperature: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm
A tangential problem, it seems to me, is the proliliferation of "journals." This phenmonena, I suspect, if probably because of the need for academicians to publish. It doesnt mean much if the journal you publish in has any merit--it only means that you have published something you can take to your tenure committee.
And to believe that "scholars" dont embark on publishing and research without some political point of view is naive. All scholars have political points of view that always influence the questions asked and the studies done. The honest researchers address these up front.
The "studies" business keeps the journals in which they publish in business. And this criticism of mine is applicable to both the left and right of the political spectrum.
Finally, the authority of journals rests on the innumeracy of the American public. They simply get away with a lot of shit, because we are, as a body politic, innumerate, and dont understand research methods.
Anyway--thats the way I see it. And along with other commenters, I do not watch TV--havent watched for 5 years, and do not regret giving up my TV (except for the NFL playoffs)
The notion that there is some non-partisan, ideologically free researcher is just bull shit.
I just read the polling questions. It's terrible. As in, "if I was a professor grading a student exercise in developing a useful poll, I would grade it an F" terrible.
The questions are effectively:
We’d like to ask about a few things
that have been in the news recently, to see how well the news media has been doing its job.To the best of your knowledge, have the opposition groups protesting in Egypt been successful in bringing down the regime there?
And
How about the opposition groups in Syria? Have they been successful in bring down the regime there.
First, given that this poll is taking in late october... the fact that they don't specifically idenitfy Mubarak is key. Which regime, exactly, are they talking about? There are protests going on in Egypt right now... which have done nothing. Heck, you can make a good argument that the intial protests didn't really change the regime, because Mubarak ruled via the military, and the military is still in charge.
Similarly, in Syria... why not just say: has the opposition succeeded in deposing President Bashar Assad?
Also, there is a strong correlation/causation issue (self selecting pools).
This is just a terrible study and both the university and HuffPo should be ashamed to be associated with it.
The Cal study of Mueller et al debunked Watts back in March:
If there is any news here it is that Watts has been demonstrated once and for all to be an “anti-scientist” — not just someone who routinely smears scientists, but someone who represents the negation of the scientific method. No facts can change his conclusions. He is a science rejectionist — and an uber-hypocritical one, as we’ll see.
Recent findings have shown large increases in GHGs as well. So,like the Fox denialist camp has been seriously wounded--but that doesn't stop them from brainfarting.
Wait, let's hear Nurse Byro-Sorepaw of Winslow JC take on Dr Mueller! Hit him with a ...phlebotomy test, dewd
jimspice said...
Jay, it's funny. If I had five bucks, I bet you I could identify the site you get your unsourced talking points from.
Um, I'm glad you admit you're poor and no you could not because I'm not posting "talking points" I'm posting facts.
Wrong. There is plenty. I could point to thousands of peer-review journal articles and it would make no difference to you, so why even try?
Laugh out loud funny.
Is is amusing to watch all you leftists take the "google it" defense when challenged.
There is no evidence the globe is warming.
None.
Zero.
You can provide none and your abject imbecilic response to these "peer reviewed papers proves that.
I'm not going to wade through thousands of boring emails.
Of course not. You're lazy and an intellectual coward.
Facts that don't fit your worldview must be disregarded after all.
I love this pattern:
I bet you I could identify
But you won't.
I could point to thousands
No, no you can't.
I'm not going to wade through
Of course not...
There is no evidence the globe is warming.
Wrongo, Byro-Jay the Dyslexic Mormon (probably following orders from his preacher/Elder/). Even the smarter skeptics agree that temp. data shows a substantial increase over last century (though some disagree with CO2 as culprit claim). And Mueller's study confirmed the temp. increase. Back to Winslow to finish that AA, hero
Romm then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1982 and a Ph.D. in 1987, both in physics.
A bit more impressive than one semester in theatre 101, failing Nursey courses at Winslow JC and the Billy Idol imitation, Byro-Sorepaw
"I don't know whether you are so gullible that you believe the misleading "explanations" on that site, or you are actively lying."
Everything on the site is referenced to original source material, and trust me, I wish had a big ol' juicy check from some spooky mysterious consortium of academic/government/greeny-business interests to spread lies on blogs, but I don't. Look. I'm NOT a climate scientist. And short of 6 years of full time bookwork, the most reasonable way to come to a conclusion is to assess the findings of those who HAVE done the research. With 97% of climate scientists in general agreement, it's a no-brainer. Why you pick the 3 is simply beyond me.
And still waiting on your credentials. You always slink away at this point.
Speaking of what we know or don't know... I read something the other day that mentioned the Tunisian fruit seller getting slapped, but I thought that what happened was the cop lady took his scale and he slapped her (instead of grovelling and paying a fee.)
Wrongo, Byro-Jay the Dyslexic Mormon (probably following orders from his preacher/Elder/). Even the smarter skeptics agree that temp. data shows a substantial increase over last century (though some disagree with CO2 as culprit claim). And Mueller's study confirmed the temp. increase. Back to Winslow to finish that AA, hero.
Yeh, and one big reason for that warming is that we are still coming out of the Little Ice Age.
So, always keep in mind that Global Warming =/= Anthropogenic (Man Made) Global Warming.
The problem all along has been that the climate warmist "scientists" have been trying to isolate the effects of CO2 on temperature from much greater factors on temperature, such as solar radiation, level of ionization, cloud cover, humidity, etc. And, I think that it is becoming more obvious by the month, that they aren't really able to separate out the effects of CO2 from all the other, much more major, factors.
J said...
Wrongo, Byro-Jay the Dyslexic Mormon (probably following orders from his preacher/Elder/). Even the smarter skeptics agree that temp. data shows a substantial increase over last century
Um, that would be news to the actual temperature data.
jimspice said...
And still waiting on your credentials. You always slink away at this point
I'm still waiting for you to provide evidence the globe is warming.
Um, Jay-Okie, maybe try looking at the temp. chart on Dr Romm's page (NOAA, NCAR, and the Cal studies)--tho it will be a bit much for yr
'roids and crack-addled mind, little man.
J said...
Um, Jay-Okie, maybe try looking at the temp. chart on Dr Romm's page
What for?
There has been no statistically significant warming for the last 15 years.
Even Phil Jones said this.
Um, Jay, did you even bother to read your own link ... a newpaper article ... from 1989 ... quoting a meteorologist ... beyond the headline?
"Dr. Kirby Hanson, the meteorologist who led the study, said in a telephone interview that the findings concerning the United States do not necessarily ''cast doubt'' on previous findings of a worldwide trend toward warmer temperatures, nor do they have a bearing one way or another on the theory that a buildup of pollutants is acting like a greenhouse and causing global warming. He said that the United States occupies only a small percentage of Earth's surface and that the new findings may be the result of regional variations."
Great research there bud.
With 97% of climate scientists in general agreement,
Your "credentials" are a silly joke.
Nobody with a modicum of knowledge on the topic says such idiotic things.
Herr Doktor Hayden--I would agree tentatively that GoreCo/IPCC may have jumped the gun on the CO2 claims(looks like combination of GHG, not only CO2) but the temp data appears to be incontrovertible, and shows the temp. increase to be anomalous
OK--point of order: who or what is byro?
J? Bueller? anybody?
jimspice said...
Um, Jay, did you even bother to read your own link ... a newpaper article ... from 1989 ... quoting a meteorologist
Um, moron you realize that since there has been no warming since 1995, and since that article demonstrates there has been no warming since 1895, that there has been no warming for over 100 years, right?
Again, your "credentials" don't seem to involve critical thinking.
jimspice said...
Um, Jay, did you even bother to read your own link ... a newpaper article ... from 1989 ... quoting a meteorologist
So are you saying Dr. Kirby Hanson knows less about the climate than you, silly, dipshit Internet commenter?
That is what you're going with?
Really?
PS, you, because you're an abject imbecile, missed this part of the article:
Dr. Hansen of NASA said today that he had ''no quarrel'' with the findings in the new study.
OOPS!
The study, which controlled for demographic factors like education and partisanship, found that "people who watch Fox News are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government"
If someone asked me “did the Egyptian people overthrow their government” I would probably say “no, the Egyptian military forced the previous president to resign and established a military ruling council which has effectively become the new government. It’s too early to tell whether this will ultimately transition into something democratic but the history of militaries that overthrown civilian governments makes it questionable at best.”
Byro-sorepaw-Jaytard---.how many compaqs you got open at the Sac sweatshop today? Probably the Nokia too!
Dr. Romm's a genuine climate expert, as is Dr Mueller (at least the physics aspects). Yr like what, an expert in ..the Book of Mormon, and ...tee-shirts sales. (jimspsce--this twisted moron "sorepaw" has probably 12+ names on here, ranting away 24-7--at times, he'll even pretend to a "liberal" (and female, gay, ethnic, etc)/. Search around Ive posted more on the freak)
J--who is this byro dude/dudette you keep referencing
Judith Curry's post doesn't actually support your conclusion, which reads like something that Gabriel Hanna or Jimspice would come up with.
By it, I meant the article in Remote Sensing, not my conclusion, which I stand by -- that the guy resigned because he thought the article he published should not have been published, Trenberthian boastings notwithstanding.
Sorry for the non-sequitur final sentence @ 253.
it is not normal for the editor of a journal that publishes a flawed article, even a highly controversial, flawed article to be fired, or forced to resign.
To which I would ask, why not? If you're letting in questionable articles, and you work for a Journal trying to establish itself as a source for something other than questionable material, and you fail, why shouldn't you leave? If the chatter is all about the review process, and not about the articles themselves, then something is wrong. Get out and let in someone who can get do the job right, getting the conversation back to the actual science.
And I'll reject before it's suggested that doing the job right requires toeing a particular line that is judged by an individual. Sorry, but there just isn't such an all-powerful person.
J--who is this byro dude/dudette you keep referencing
it's the dude he's playing chess with, Death himself.
but the temp data appears to be incontrovertible, and shows the temp. increase to be anomalous
Byro,
Assume for a second that the global temperature* has actually increased 1 degree over the last 100 years.
Then what?
You do realize there is no evidence mankind influenced the change, right? You do realize it could be an anomaly, right? You do realize that it could be part of a trend that we know nothing about, right?
*As the whole CRU email leak shows, there is no accurate way to measure "global temperature" since in fact they fed fake data into the computers.
First of all, you have to design the test.
Is this a test where you're judging opinion?
Is there another test taken at airports, where CNN is running constantly.
Is there a comparison test ... let's say during the Superbowl, where you compare women to men. And, you ask them "what's the score?" Or "what inning?"
And, in football. Who are the guys in the green uniforms? Or, "when you see a name on the back of someone's shirt, do you also recognize the fella?"
Did anyone on Fox ever see Joe Paterno being knocked down in the game against Wisconsin, in 1979? What's it worth to know real news can be hidden?
Don't people, today, get news over their iPhones?
Maybe, you can test for results?
You want to call this a "test?" I call it phony, with phony results.
"... silly, ignorant ... idiots ... idiot ... goof ... idiots like you ... abject imbecilic ... lazy intellectual coward ... silly joke ... idiotic ... moron ... abject imbecile."
I was just wondering if you realized how over the top your debating style is. You really seem to have some issues.
And by the way, the Phil Jones thing? Not so much.
Yeah my far left librul sister claimed there is a male breast cancer epidemic centered around the Marine base in SC. Later, I googled it and only found 2-3 cites so I figured it was something she heard and believed frop one of her homeopathic zealots.
As a point of fact regarding "global temperature" Hansen (who "forgot" to report $1.6 million in income but of course there is absolutely no financial incentive to keep this Global Warming scam going) said:
"The different groups have cooperated in a very friendly way to try to understand different conclusions when they arise"
Guess what we know about East Anglia?
Since the 1980s, we have merged the data we have received into existing series or begun new ones, so it is impossible to say if all stations within a particular country or if all of an individual record should be freely available. Data storage availability in the 1980s meant that we were not able to keep the multiple sources for some sites, only the station series after adjustment for homogeneity issues. We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e., quality controlled and homogenized) data.
And what did NASA also do?
when a USA Today reporter asked if NASA's data "was more accurate" than other climate-change data sets, NASA's Dr. Reto A. Ruedy replied with an unequivocal no. He said "the National Climatic Data Center's procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate," admitting that some of his own procedures led to less accurate readings.
OOPSIE!
And by the way, the Phil Jones thing? Not so much.
Er, here is the interview.
Dr. Romm's a genuine climate expert, as is Dr Mueller (at least the physics aspects)
So, I greatly look forward to all the evidence they have that mankind is making the earth warm up.
Really. I can't wait!
Ann Althouse wonders why liberals don't see her posts as "yummy"?
why not addressing the study, not the dumb news aggregator site linking to it.
jesus christ, this blog is becoming so thoughtless and defensive, it's ridiculous.
"why not addressing the study, not the dumb news aggregator site linking to it."
Good question, TV. Why don't you?
With 97% of climate scientists in general agreement, it's a no-brainer. Why you pick the 3 is simply beyond me.
You need to look at that a bit more carefully - the consensus was self-selected.
the temp data appears to be incontrovertible, and shows the temp. increase to be the temp data appears to be incontrovertible, and shows the temp. increase to be anomalous
Neither is true.
Keep in mind that the data is heavily massaged - it has to be because temperature recording is not uniform across the land portion of the globe, and is mostly non-existent in the oceans, at least over any period of time longer than a decade or so. And, the accuracy over much of the world is also highly questionable, esp. over more than a decade or so. The primary data set (CRU), from which the other four major data sets were calibrated, turns out to be unreproducible. Also, the method utilized to handle urban heat effects is doubted, as was the methodology to take into account stations appearing and disappearing (and, esp. all the Russian/Siberian ones shut down after the fall of the Soviet Union).
Note, I am not saying that there hasn't been warming, but rather, that warming is incontrovertible.
I don't know what you mean by "anomalous", but suspect that this was cut and pasted from somewhere else, because I think that I have seen this sentence before.
In any case, whatever it is supposed to mean, it does not mean that these scientists have shown there to be any causation between the increase in CO2 and the (possible) rise in global temperature.
It cannot, for a number of reasons, the most notable being that the primary driving factors for global temperatures are not well enough understood yet to quantify them enough that they can be subtracted out to give the amount of effect that CO2 might have.
Think of it this way. 99+% of the global temperature is caused by other factors, notably solar radiation levels, cosmic rays, humidity, cloud cover, cloud types, ocean temperatures, etc. It may be 99.9%, 99.95%, 99.5%, etc. We just don't know. That total must be factored out, before the effect that CO2 might have can be determined. Worse, we find out every month or so how much we don't know about these other, much more major, factors. Long after all those nice AGW graphs were drawn.
Whoops.
Note, I am not saying that there hasn't been warming, but rather, that warming is not incontrovertible.
"Spoon feed me! Spoon feed me!"
(Thought I'd help.)
Several people did address the study. A few people seem actually have gone and read the thing and have made substantive comments about it. (O'Reilly viewers are the most informed of anyone... the questions are, unsurprisingly, ambiguous... and how were the controls actually applied?)
But instead of responding to any of those or presenting another viewpoint, instead of addressing the study, why not just complain about the blog news aggregation? After all, accidental recursiveness is entertaining.
"I'm a journal editor."
peer reviewed papers
You watch CNN and read the NYTs, so you may not have noticed: peer reviewed does not mean what it used to. Not after the way the CRU frauds gamed it.
With 97% of climate scientists in general agreement,
You watch CNN and read the NYTs, so you may not have noticed: climate "scientist" doesn't mean what it used to mean either. They can't even reproduce their findings because the dog ate their data.
Fair or not, the AGW "scientists" have destroyed their credibility. I'd pay more attention to the 97% of stoners releasing a peer reviewed study on the benefits of weed.
I don't watch any news.
I hope you all get this global warming thing sorted out by the time I come in in the morning.
I don't typically read Huffington Post, and I'm surprised they would promote such obvious frauds as homeopathy, etc., but as regards this story, one must consider that it is not Huffington Post which makes the provocative (and not new) assertion, but Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Right. Which is why you should be unsurprised when conservatives can spot academic junk science more easily than liberals.
MG?
I love Fox and Friends.
Gretchy is the best.
I'm a journal editor.
Ah. So you're one of those cursed people who send me things to review.
As I understand it (the peer review for S&B), the paper was sent to people (three) with similar points of view. It would be like sending the Democratic Budget (yeah, I know) to Pelosi, Reid, and Rangel for review. So the reviewers missed some incomplete/debateable statistics and the Editor did too.
This week, Mrakoplaz's witty space program/My Little Pony fanfic features a hilarious joke against the HuffPo. Normally, I don't like breaking the walls for snark, but in this case I'll make an exception.
Damn - sorry I'm late to this one but I had to work - this is old news to TMR readers, but for the umpteenth time about HuffPo:
What do you expect of a paper owned and run by a long-time cultist - who was in a cult that was involved in all kinds of crazy murders and shit - and that's had talent involved in all kinds ofcrazy murders and shit?
And how, with that background, have we allowed it/her to become kind of influential? I know that part of it is nobody's listened to me.
We exist in a world of media-mediated madness,,...
J,
HuffPo at times features a few..."new agey" writers such as Chopra (tho' many forget that DC is a real MD)...
Yeah, a real MD who was busted trying to defraud the Journal of the American Medical Association with his butt buddy, the Maharishi.
Again: how are they allowed to become influential in this country? And why does anyone look up to such people?
I suggest for the next study done by the people who do this one, they examine correlation between AGW belief and belief in ghosts, paranormal, psychics and New Age.
I know what I think they'd find, but it would be interesting to get real numbers.
Maybe I'm wrong.
(My best guess at an explanation is that the groups would over lap greatly due to a whole lot of "I'm open minded" people belonging to both.)
Believing in AGW at the same time as believing in ghosts or psychics ought to cancel out your data for "well informed".
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