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« More from the "you're a poo-head" school of science | Main | McKitrick explains the models »
Tuesday
Sep172013

Abraham's Nuccitello

Writing at WUWT, Matt Ridley is taking John Abraham to task for his extensive use of Nuccitello in a Matt-bashing article at DeSmog. I thought this bit was very funny:

It’s a poor response, characterized by inaccurate representation of what I said, even down to actual misquoting. In the whole article, he puts just four words in quotation marks as written by me, yet in doing so he misses out a whole word: 20% of the quotation. Remarkable. If I did that, I would be very embarrassed.

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Reader Comments (19)

To state the catastrophist argument without ambiguation, obfuscation or misrepresentation would be to state no argument at all. Consciously or otherwise, the catastrophist movement is well aware of this and acts accordingly, though not honestly.

Sep 17, 2013 at 10:25 PM | Unregistered Commenteracronymous b.o.s.c.h.

I think a need is arising for a Nuccitello/English dictionary.

Perhaps it could be a collaborative effort.

Here are a few words for starters:-

Factoid - fact that conflicts with our narrative

Consensus - people we agree with

Data - computer model outputs we like

Noise - observations we don't like

Trend - series of data we like

Outlier - everything else

Climate scientist - anybody on our side really (cartoonists, handbag designers, whatever….)

Non - scientist - anybody on the other side really (tenured professors, statisticians, meteorologists, whatever…)

Record - number supplied to a friendly journalist

Sep 17, 2013 at 10:58 PM | Registered CommenterFoxgoose

@ Foxgoose

Nice one, Centurion, like it, like it.

Sep 17, 2013 at 11:42 PM | Unregistered CommenterDocBud

My first and last impression of John Abraham was formed when I watched his so-called Monckton take-down video. It was so full of misrepresentations and sleight of hand that I resolved never to listen to anything he ever said again.

It was so bad that Abraham actually replaced his first version with a revised one, but all you needed to do to work out it (the first one) was junk was just watch the bits that Monckton had said something and then compare that with what Abraham said he said.

I watched Abraham's because I wanted to see how Monckton's arguments stood up to a careful warmist debunking, but this was so blatant that I concluded Abraham just didn't care about accuracy. I was annoyed at the time, thinking I'd wasted time comparing the two side by side, but the decision that I'll never listen to what Abraham had to say again has saved me lots since then.

Sep 18, 2013 at 1:16 AM | Unregistered CommenterHK

There must be a statistically significant increase in traffic at Nutty's blog every time he is mentioned here. Really, I wonder why he gets paid so much attention given his obvious irrelevance.

Mark

Sep 18, 2013 at 1:50 AM | Unregistered CommenterMark T

Matt doesn't really think that Abraham would be embarassed by such a measly oversight as a misquote.

Sep 18, 2013 at 4:38 AM | Unregistered CommenterNoblesse Oblige

misinformation = scientific observation
cherry picking = pointing out outliers (see above)

Sep 18, 2013 at 7:22 AM | Unregistered CommenterRick Bradford

scientific method = outdated approach to advancing mankind's knowledge and understanding whose rigorous application is not required in modern climate science.

Sep 18, 2013 at 7:56 AM | Unregistered CommenterSteve Jones

"The science" - guesses which often get proved wrong

Sep 18, 2013 at 8:08 AM | Unregistered CommenterFarleyR

Aaargh. Please do not devote any more attention to the antics of these propaganda clowns. They will wither away quite naturally quite soon.

Sep 18, 2013 at 8:13 AM | Unregistered CommenterJack Savage

What we are now witnessing is the meltdown of Climate Alchemy. Thus the recent outburst of Connie Hedegaard, specifically the science may be wrong but the game (and my job) must go on is actually quite honest for a politician.

Indeed, we are seeing it in UK government where Davey set out in May 2012 to disregard the warnings of his Chief Scientist that only pump storage would allow any CO2 and fuel savings from the 15 GW windmill plan, and is now issuing threats to anyone else who threatens that political decision to punish the poor and increase emissions because to reverse course would mean end of political career.

As for the heartlands of this corrupt science we have the unedifying sight of Germany's Climate Nazi in Chief, Schellnhuber, who, having claimed in 2009 that there is a simple linear relationship between temperature and [CO2] has this year caimed that the present lack of warming is due to non-linearity.

Give me relatively honest (defined as sticking to their guns despite acknowledging they were deceived) politicians any time than the corrupt scientists who did that deceiving.

http://notrickszone.com/2013/09/17/schellnhuber-entire-complexity-of-climate-system-can-be-reduced-to-a-simple-linear-relationship/

Sep 18, 2013 at 8:50 AM | Unregistered CommenterAlecM

Abraham writes:

"The basic facts are clear: humans are causing climate change and there are already economic costs. We scientists have known this for over one hundred years"

Wow has it been that long? Does he work in dog years?

Sep 18, 2013 at 9:09 AM | Unregistered CommenterAndy Scrase

To repeat (and amend) myself on a more apposite thread:

The sooner the truth gets out, the better: catastrophic global warming/climate change alarm is not caused by emissions from fossil fuels, it is created by emissions from futile fools.

Sep 18, 2013 at 9:23 AM | Unregistered CommenterRadical Rodent

Abraham's comment is on Desmogblog, so it will have been read by about 15 people worldwide (~13 of them sent from SkS) until Ridley's response went onto WUWT.

Sep 18, 2013 at 9:34 AM | Unregistered CommenterMorph

@Andy Scase: humans have probably caused climate change, specifically the temperature rise above natural in the 1980s and 1990s. However, it was probably from the burst of Asian aerosols decreasing cloud albedo.

This appears to have saturated in 2000 when the concentration became so high as to be visible; 'the Asian Brown Cloud'. There is also substantial experimental evidence from Ramanathan's group of its effect but they apparently can't do the right interpretation because that would prove the aerosol optical physics is wrong! There may be some CO2-AGW but in the low fractions of a degree climate sensitivity.

Sep 18, 2013 at 9:35 AM | Unregistered CommenterAlecM

@AlexM I take your point. I think Abaham was trying to make the point that we have known about the greenhouse theory for over 100 years, but the language is very sloppy, or Nutticellesque, perhaps.

Sep 18, 2013 at 9:47 AM | Unregistered CommenterAndy Scrase

The Abraham's/Nuccitello intellectual approach is utterly suffused with this patronising bad faith. They must clearly feel their every utterance is gospel and whatever flashes of insight they deign to offer on their oppositions’ argument is all one needs to know, and any extensive original quotes must be avoided.

I think they regularly make a mistake when they take this stance, it is a cargo cult projection of "science" authority. It will certainly work with the incurious choir; and I think they rely too much on that narrow feedback; but I think anyone else even slightly curious to see the meat of the real dispute can easily see all they are offered by them is pre-digested pap.

Sep 18, 2013 at 9:48 AM | Registered CommenterThe Leopard In The Basement

If the climate changed, and nobody was here.....

Sep 18, 2013 at 9:49 AM | Unregistered CommenterJimmy Haigh

@Andy Scase: correct statistical thermodynamics and optical physics show Tyndall's experiment has been misinterpreted. What pops out is the control system which maintains temperature equilibrium, very different to the 'consensus'.

Sep 18, 2013 at 9:54 AM | Unregistered CommenterAlecM

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