Fractelle, I haven't retracted my claims against Williams. The article stands. Lambert is in the article as well, and he has been arguing with me on the thread. In fact, he's just come in a few comments before this and misrepresented what is in Peiser's letter. Like you, I only get two posts a day, so I'm going to use them economically.

Williams isn't the only bully, there's a number, and I highlighted 4. Happy to discuss any of them. And I'm at a loss to see how making a statement backed up by argument is bias just because you disagree with me!

Ginx, I know about the bias in online surveys because I conduct more online surveys on politics than anyone else in the country. Opinion polling is part of what I do for a living.

You also seem to be making a mistake in suggesting that the AGW issue is one of politics. I know a number of the prominent skeptics, and they're not traditional Liberal voters and may even be traditional Labor voters. I'll chance my arm here and suggest that Don Aitkin is probably not a traditional Liberal voter either. Margaret Thatcher was the first major politician to run on this issue. Arnie Schwarzenneger is another proponent, as is John McCain. On the other side you'll find that Michael Costa and Gary Gray are skeptical.

It's also not a rebuttal that Don disagrees with me. The behaviour is behaviour that affects more than him, and we all have a right to make our own judgement of it. As I said in the article, rather than being aimed at dissuading him, it is aimed at dissuading others.

<i>Can anyone think of a better word to describe this behaviour than bullying?</i>

Yea. It’s called lamberting. John Humphreys originally coined the phrase and it’s become part of web’s lexicon.

Wadard and others

Does Lambert (UNSW) run a hate site? Judging by some of his supporters he sure does. This is one of his admirers at Catallaxy defending Lambert’s DDT position over the issue of DDT/ Carson.

“Mr.Hanky “ commenting in support of Lambert’s position loses the argument and breaks into the worst anti-Semitic diatribe i've ever seen. In fact it is worthy or any anti-Jewish sites on the web.

Catallaxy has libertarian instincts when it comes to comments policy. The site is a libertarian that believes people will be judged on their own comments and what they say. In other words bad ideas and/or bad comments will be killed by the light of day.

Here’s what one of Lambert’s defenders “ Mr Hanky” said to Prof. Sinclair Davidson when Sinclair linked and posted a Guardian article asserting that DDT had been banned.

“Mr.Hanky”<i>And of course Lambert is correct.</i>

“Mr.Hanky “<i>Put up or piss off, gas chamber boy.</i>

“Mr.Hanky”<i>Hey Gas Chamber Boy,</i>

“Mr Hanky”<i>Nope, I’m just anti-filth like you Davidson. I hope you’re wearing your Star of David badge, you creep</i>
http://catallaxyfiles.com/?p=3575#comment-95918

About as charming as Lambert, hey?

Lambert (UNSW) has accused the professor of academic misconduct, which Lambert later denied when challenged. Lambert to uses a dog whistle when attracting his followers and prize catches like this one.

So Graham’s right about bullies. Nice defenders Lambert has. If you’re a bully those are exactly the sorts of “people” you end up attracting.

This Mr. Hanky posts over Lambert’s site by the way. He goes by the name of Munn as he admitted who he finally who he was (he’s has had several name / moniker changes) This is “Mr. Hanky”/Munn over at Lambert’s site agreeing with Lambert.
http://timlambert.org/2005/11/ddt-spencer/

Nice company he keeps? So if you want to continue giving Lambert the benefit of any doubt, go right ahead but hold your nose and bring a bucket.

I can't help but notice that it is Graham Young who does the things that he falsely accuses me of doing.

I caught him misrepresenting Peiser's email, pretending that Peiser denied making errors, when in fact Peiser wrote:

"Yes, I have indeed retracted part of my criticism of the Oreskes study. I made a methodological mistake in my initial analysis of her abstracts and have conceded that much."

So what does Young do? He responds by asserting (without offering any arguments or evidence) that I misrepresented the email.

More incoherent Lamberting gibberish from this "ridiculous clown".

What was that about the " tick" simile again lol.

SusanP

To present a balance, is there any chance of procuring Professor Stephen Schneider's response to Professor Don Aitken's appearance on Ockham's Razor and running it as a separate article?

This article seems to have disintegrated into 'he said, he said' with ad hominems flying in both directions.

The link to the Schneider's comments can be found here:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2008/2245568.htm

but I feel will be lost in any further discussion on this thread.
Thanks.

I find the climate change debate infuriating because both sides refuse to accept the uncertainty of their positions. So here is my two pennyworth:

I studied climatology and geomorphology at Oxford in the 1970’s, but didn’t pursue an academic career, which makes me on of these much-reviled amateurs. Geomorphology tends to look at a shorter timescales than geology but still references millions of years. What is obvious is that climate change is neither greater or faster now than at many, times in the past, including in the period of human record keeping.

Waste of natural resources is stupid and short-sighted. Pollution is equally so, as we can’t evaluate its consequences. Any course of action that reduces these two problems is a good thing. I reserve my venom for heavy metals and long chain polycarbonates rather than carbon dioxide, but that’s a personal preference.

Climate modelling started in the 1970’s with the sudden availability of computing power. Initially most of them were aimed at using atmospheric CO2 and SO2 levels to predict the next ice age. All the models suffer from a serious lack of reliable, consistent long-term data, as well as an inadequate understanding of complex atmospheric processes. Some models are better than others. Some short-term models are getting quite good. Quoting forecasts without qualification discredits the debate.

AGW cannot explain the huge variations in past climate before man was industrially active. The only explanations for those are volcanism, solar activity, orbital variation, comets and meteors, and resonant/harmonic variations within the atmospheric system itself. And lets not forget fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field (or the reverse in its polarity which could happen any day soon). Those factors remain, so lets have some context.

So that’s what I want: context. Rising CO2 levels may be a bad thing just because it correlates the amount of PCB’s and cadmium being tipped into the oceans, but lets not forget that Yellowstone might blow next week and CO2 levels might be our saviour.