@Siliggy,

I was mad at the way Velikovsky was treated by the establishment over ‘Worlds in Collision’ including the attempted banning of his book by learned professors who proudly boasted they had not read it. Why? If it was nonsense, what were they scared of? I had to study the book with care. V raised the “Lamentations of Ipuwer” as an Egyptian account of planetary disasters that he hypothesised as described in Exodus, of which I was sceptical.


I see that O’Rielly is at it again although I stopped reading his tirades of irrelevance about half way through Dr Marohasy’s earlier article on Professor Brian Cox. Well done for spotting his belief that infrared causes visible light to exhibit Rayleigh scattering; that’s quite amusing!

Coming back to learned professors, I’m reminded that an equivalent today is rather like those of the CONcestuous group-think today, who preach apparently without having digested what the various IPCC FULL REPORTS actually say, helped along by the new religion of “Science Communication”. The colourful TV personality Prof Cox got away with misinformation and errors on Q&A; John Cook, Dr of cognitive psychology together with his official media boss Prof Hoegh-Guldberg of GBR death fame; and Prof David Karoly, expert in the phonology of the common brown butterfly, and…..and…..are all darlings of Oz media.

By coincidence, there is a new article well worth reading by Dr Tim Ball at WUWT which discusses the same group-think biases, including corruption of the IPCC SPM by Dr Ben Santer of ‘Climategate’ fame, quote; “As lead author of Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC Report, he took wording agreed to by fellow chapter authors and modified it considerably...[details followed]”:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/24/old-tactics-revived-as-anthropogenic-global-warming-agw-deception-fails-an-open-letter-to-an-open-letter/

Continued below

@Siliggy Contin,

A while ago I helped a woman escape from an extreme Christadelphian schism that formed a community in the Adelaide Hills to avoid the coming wrath of God on 1/Jan/2000 when the evil city below would be destroyed. Even the moderate family members (doing very well amongst the sinners) believed that the Earth was only ~6000 years old, despite when I showed and explained to them the plastically folded sedimentary rocks exposed in road cuttings. The moderates even insisted that the Book of Daniel which pretends to be written in the time of one of the five* Nebuchadnezzar kings of Babylon, accurately forecasts a coming Armageddon. Actually, the book is recognised by scholars as written some five centuries later, precisely in 164 or 165 BC after lunching on Greek history.

I showed them it was simply colourful literature written by Hebrews who were resentful of the invading Greeks. For instance the warring ‘Kings of the North’ and ‘Kings of the South’ were unquestionably and in exquisite detail a clever disguise for the progeny of generals-turned-Kings/Pharaohs following the death of Alexander the Great. As for the legends of Daniel himself, which take place in four (or Five ?) different royal courts and are impossibly contradictory, well, apparently most Jews treat it as literature. No matter, these Christadelphians (and some extreme Christians) look forward to the rapture, which is to be preceded by the building of a third Temple and its destruction. (Look-out Mosque on the Mount?)

*Nebby III probably (?), in separate histories he was the destroyer of ‘The First Temple’.

Bob and J F Aus thanks gotta run will look at it all soon.
I think the cult deprogramming required for global warmists to return to sanity may be a lot worse than your Christadelphians Bob.

Actually Bob Fernley-Jones, J F Aus, and Siliggy, you are more than welcome to believe, opine and conclude whatever you wish to about climate science and AGW/CC.

I can't see why anything I (or others have to say) would make a difference to any of you. So go for it! :-)

Deny it all and criticise the science and label all the scientists doing the work as members of some crazed religious cult, if you wish.

You may even imagine the globe isn't really warming up at all and the whole thing is a big fat lie.

It really does not bother me, nor anyone else that I can think of.

Rule #1 - Read the Scientific Literature
Rule #2 - If you Know better then: Get it Published
Rule #3 - If Rule #2 is out of the question, see Rule #1

Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

<smile>
-

@Siliggy
Yes, and of course the point of my example in Christadelphian religion is that in group-think consensus, the radicalized members totally deny any inconvenient truths. Similarly, in the CAGW industry there is the added complication of ‘follow the money’ in such things as that good scare stories generate funding for research. It’s much the same in the media where bad news and scare stories are most popular.

Oh, and on The Media and “Science Communication”, I hope that the darlings of the ABC et al such as Professor David Karoly don’t read the above! They might be inspired to peer review publish a study showing that God has initiated a slow Armageddon via a gradual increase in CO2 in the atmosphere to somewhere above 0.04 %.

There was a recent scare story on ABC online: “Sea ice record retreat has Antarctic experts worried for wildlife, climate.” And a similar online story here in The Australian in National Affairs, both citing Dr Jan Lieser:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/antarctic-sea-ice-at-record-lows-two-years-after-record-high/news-story/19e63cf9b569bc930287550155b27103

Talk about absolute nonsense! I submitted four separate comments to the Oz with linked graphics showing the recent bizarre sudden dip in ice cover was simply BAD DATA. All four comments were disappeared (I’ve archived the pending status screenshots). I also wrote to the author of the Oz story and to Dr Lieser and to ‘Letters to the Editor’ with no response to date.

NSIDC has since removed the faulty graphic used by the Oz.

How are you getting on with those cost/benefit estimates Bob? Surely they can't be too hard for someone who is capable of understanding long-term climate with so little room for doubt?