Bertrand Russell explained every aspect of the behavior of climate alarmists.
If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based upon faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting or distorting the minds of the young in what is called ‘education.’
- Bertrand Russell
That is a great quote and why I don’t accept “Climate Science”
I’d accept Climate Science:
If the projections and predictions from climate science seemed to be true.
If climate scientists weren’t caught over and over again fudging the data.
If climate scientists agreed to debate the issue in a public forum.
If climate scientists didn’t resort to name-calling.
If climate scientists didn’t try to sue the opposition.
If climate scientists didn’t rig the peer preview process.
If climate scientists didn’t refuse to comply with
FOI requests.
re Steve’s comment: “What he said!”
Totally agree; well-put. And I might add, “If they exhibited even the slightest degree of intellectual humility and genuine, eager, open curiosity” (vs unbridled hubris/arrogance/condescension)
if climate scientists explain how their manufactured ice age scare
of the 70ies dissappeared in silence
just to be replaced by AGW a few years later by them
((and why there never was even a dispute between the ice age fearmongerers and the AGW apocalyptics-maybe because they were the same flip flopping guys feeding off tax payers))
Arn: Some of the hard core zealots are indeed the very same people at the heart of the coming ice age scare. Oddly enough their solution has not changed even though the feared outcome is diametrically apposed.
Hmmmn,
Speed
Faith-healing CO2ercion would bother me a lot less if Steve would quit calling it “Science”. Of all the many forms of collaborationism with the aims of looter ideologies, calling superstition “science” and calling totalitarianism “liberal” are the most self-destructive I have ever witnessed.
Hank Phillips at 10:31
Yes, allowing the other side to set the terminology is to be avoided. However there really should be science that actually studies climate. Climate does change and it would be good to know why that happens. I’d spend money on that before I’d spend money on a squabble over calling Pluto a planet or not. But I’m not willing to spend a dime on the current crew who claim to be climate scientists.
Climate Scientist
Nicely put.
If climate scientists still followed the scientific method…
Well, no, I won’t resort to force in matters of faith and I think that in his lifelong veneration of reason Russell overstated his case for rhetorical effect, again.
History has shown that the most dangerous and murderous men are “progressives” who believe they have reason on their side. Russell knew or should have known that it is absurd to equate these killers to a dogmatic vicar but who can ever be sure with these sophisticates?
I just hope he was not overly certain about what he wrote in the quoted passage because we know that would not be rational.
The only thing I seriously tried to read of Russell’s was his book explaining the Theory of Relativity. I came away more confused than when I started
On another blog I saw mention of an article yesterday which isn’t about climate science but is so apt that I saved it to my Climate Religion folder.
Well worth a read since it dovetails so closely with Russell’s observation:
The Psychology of Progressive Hostility
I recall when there were numerous pal (peer) reviewed papers that global warming would result in declining snow in the Northeast ski areas and declining Great Lake levels. Were these papers retracted, or do the “climate scientists” pretend they never wrote them.
quietly put down the memory hole of course
here’s one of my favorite quotes regarding these warmists and their followers
———–
“Arguing with leftists is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are at chess, the pigeon is going to knock over the pieces, crap on the board, and strut around like it is victorious.” – from RealSciene
…more like dogs who turn on you and try to tear you to pieces
Denying the right to free speech when falsely crying “fire” in a crowded theater, for example, is severely limited. Brandeis said it applied only to instantaneous emergencies, otherwise the answer to offensive speech was always more speech. There is, however, a remote frontier where tolerating speech must stop, and Karl Popper phrased it best.
In his notes to his “Open Society and Its Enemies,” he refers to the paradox of tolerance:
“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. ”
He continues,
“— In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.”
He summarized it: “We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”
I was particularly caught by the idea of beginning by “denouncing all argument.”
I was once engaged in a public discussion where one person stated racists should not be tolerated or allowed to spread their hate speech. This moratorium on hate speech would of course utilize the power of the state to the extent necessary to eliminate the dissemination, spread, or utterance of racist hate speech.
I wanted to turn that around so I replied as follows. Do you think racists might find your comments offensive? Would they consider you to be spreading and promoting hate speech? Do you understand when you propose using the power of the state to suppress anything you are asking for your ideas, your opinions, your concept of what is moral or right to be enforced by the threat or use of violence and incarceration? Do you really want to set that kind of precedent?
That may not have been my finest hour in attempting to get someone to examine their position critically. This guy’s response was to accuse me of being a racist. In fact, he claimed he “knew my type”, that I was a “closet racist”, and he had dealt with my kind many times before. He then established his claim to moral and intellectual authority by saying his wife was black.
At that point I knew I was wasting my time. Knowing that didn’t stop me from responding.
USCRN SUR_TEMP and SURFRAD uw_ir are surface upwelling infrared measurements from instruments that appear configured to apply ideal S-B BB equations, emissivity of about 1.0.
Consequently, in some cases the upwelling power flux readings produced from these instruments can be as much as twice the amount of the measured downwelling solar irradiation power flux delivered to the surface. Energy from thin air by a misapplied equation is a rather clear violation of thermodynamic conservation of energy.
An ideal S-B BB configuration works fine at the surface of the sun or earth’s ToA radiating out into the non-participating vacuum of space.
But at the surface of the earth, submerged under 32 km of molecules participating through the thermal processes of conduction, convection, advection and latent, is an entirely different scenario.
Applying an emissivity correction of 0.16 appears to bring these surface upwelling measurements into reasonable balance with the solar, convective and latent surface down and up welling power fluxes.
‘twould be more than a little bit disconcerting to discover that RGHE/GHG loop/CAGW are all based on a handful of improperly configured IR instruments.
This I think you like.