Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Fighting The False “Consensus”

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Frank Tipler on the tendency of the global warm-mongers to argue from authority rather than from the science:

…why did Halsey believe the meteorologists against the evidence of his own eyes? The report of the Board of Inquiry on the disaster answers that question. Halsey simply accepted the authority of his chief meteorologist, against his own experience. The report listed the “qualifications of this “expert” — his degrees, the numerous courses on climate studies he had taken, his years flying over hurricanes. But in contrast to Bryson’s successful forecasts, two of which I have described above, not one correct forecast was mentioned by the Court of Inquiry! I find this extraordinary. Imagine picking an admiral on the basis of the prestige of an officer’s education. Halsey himself had two famous victories, the Battle of Guadalcanal and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. I admire Halsey immensely, but he was wrong to give any weight at all to mere academic credentials, rather than performance credentials like his own. For true scientists, one knows the achievements, not the academic credentials. Albert Einstein discovered relativity (everyone knows E = mc2), he discovered the photon, and he discovered gravitational waves. But where did Einstein go to school? Who cares?

Not me.

9 thoughts on “Fighting The False “Consensus””

  2. You must have read a different article than I did. The one I read said “ignore people without track records, or with lousy track records on their predictions.”

  4. Except the article doesn’t tell us how many good predictions the expert made. It says that the board of inquiry didn’t document how many good calls were made.

  5. It says that the board of inquiry didn’t document how many good calls were made.

    Do you not wonder why that might be? Hello, critical thinking?

  6. McGehee – I’m actually sorry I entered this discussion, since I’m not entirely sure what the track record of meteorologists working 60 years ago has to do with much of anything, let alone modern climate modeling.

    What irritates me more is that I actually think one should question the data on climate change, because that’s the only way to get good data.

    Alas, the problem in my view is that the data does in fact support the “consensus” view of man-made global warming. And before you say “snow in London” let me remind you that the recent snow there was the first in 18 years. In Dicken’s day, Londoners ice-skated on a frozen Thames. Even my native Chicago, although having a snowier then usual winter, has had two unusual bursts of 60 degree weather.

  7. > And before you say “snow in London” let me remind you that the recent snow there was the first in 18 years.

    Which makes it either an abberation or evidence of the start of cooling.

    > In Dicken’s day, Londoners ice-skated on a frozen Thames.

    Note that Gerrib doesn’t tell us that the Thames stopped freezing long before the supposed cause of AGW had any effect.

  9. > On the other hand, any mention of Dickens and ice skating on the Thames should also mention of the Little Ice Age.

    The point is that we’ve seen these sorts of variations without the causes cited by AGW proponents. The Little Ice Age wasn’t ended by burning coal/oil. The previous warm period, when grapes grew in much of the UK, wasn’t caused by burning coal/oil.

    If you’re going to argue that A causes B and B has happened without A, you can’t just show that A could cause B, you have to show that other things that previously caused B aren’t causing it now. Note that I’m assuming that B is happening, which is still the subject of dispute.

    I do note that the AGW folks are pushing out the effective deadline of their predictions. Maybe that’s from the science, or maybe that’s because they’ve read the story of Chicken Little.

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