Get Carter!
March 4th, 2010 by Phil | Published in Activism, Blogging, Climate change, Environment, Ethics, Markets, Media, Science | 77 Comments
All sorts of dark conspiracies are alleged at Quadrant.
Quadrant Online previously reported that the ABC had invited Bob Carter to contribute to an online debate on The Drum following their publication of a series of five articles by Clive Hamilton.
Left internet newsletters and blog sites were outraged that sceptics were to be allowed to comment on their ABC.
Professor Carter submitted his article, on James Hansen and the Hansenism cult, and the ABC has rejected his article – which Quadrant Online is privileged to publish.
James Hansen is visiting Australia. We can only guess at the pressures which have been exerted on the ABC to close down criticism of Hansen – and the cowardice which saw them conform. So much for Australia’s brave freedom fighters of the press.
You can read the entire text of the voiceless Carters spiked piece at Quadrant.
Added commentary on the ABC’s ‘balancing act’ supplied by Media Watch’s Jonathan Holmes.
*All links added to the Quadrant pull quote are mine.
Frist!
That is all.
Do you think it may have been dropped because it’s libellous?
Probably Brett because it is a moronic rather than libellous article.
Actually I think it got rejected on account of being very very dull, and too long by half. I waded through the turgid piece as it loped towards its desultory climax:
Translation: Come back Joe McCarthy, the trogs at Quadrant miss you.
To be fair, the email that Carter received from the ABC was
The silly old duffer just got the message a bit confused thats all.
Mercurius @4: “…independent and authoritative investigation to be carried out into the matter before an experienced judge assisted by scientifically expert counsellors.”
Right there we can see that the guy is totally not on planet Earth.
IF he thinks the entire scientific community is collectively up the garden path, THEN where is he going to get an “independent” person, exclusing his good self of course?
What is “authoritative” on the environment, if not our most senior scientists, professors and the like?
Where is he getting the “scientifically expert counsellors”, if he thinks the current mob are all in on some global scheme?
Basically, Carter is calling for delay, hoping to bury the issue in a long investigation. But his proposal for how to achieve the investigation is nonsensical.
Must be time for a Spanish Inquisition into Climate Change, wouldn’t you say, Carter??? :)
WTF would a judge know about assessing scientific evidence (any more than any other layman, and as compared to a real scientist).
The thing that is most remarkable about the whole climate change argument is the extent to which academics have so cheerfully and comprehensively destroyed public confidence in integrity of their own profession. People like Plimer and Carter and Davidson have shattered any notion that being a professor means you adhere to any particular set of intellectual principles.
It’s staggering that people would cause their own profession’s loss of community respect in such cavalier fashion.
Ken Lovell @7: “People like Plimer and Carter and Davidson have shattered any notion that being a professor means you adhere to any particular set of intellectual principles.”
Agree! It is truely amazing.
I guess one might wonder why their universities allow them to run amok? Are they untouchable, for some reason?
Perhaps it is the same as the problem of CEO’s behaving badly, the finance sector behaving badly, etc. When ratbags reach high places, they do as they damn well please, and our systems are apparently unable to reign them in.
Greenspan had too much faith that the finance sector would not allow rogue behaviour to cause self-destruction. Maybe the academic sector has too much misplaced faith in the academic integrity of all professors?
But it’s not Plimer, Carter and Davidson (and why not mention Merv Bendle, while we’re at it) who are the problem here, is it?
Quadrant translated: one of our mates writes an article that would have been published by our scientifically ignorant editor, can’t get it past an editor at the ABC. Never mind the abysmal quality of the writing, it’s obviously a conspiracy!
Plimer has just declined an offer from Newcastle University to head up a new geo-physical research entity, offered some time ago (2009) – before the book. Huge sigh of relief? Don’t know, hope so.
Good point Ken@7.
Elise @ 8
Perhaps it’s that old idea of “academic freedom”?
IMO we have to retain that, and defend it, because the benefits outweigh any embarrassment caused by the public statements of some professors.
Ambigulous @ 12:
I agree. Even when said academics are using their academic freedom to demand that other academics lose theirs, I’ll still agree.
Of course it helps if you’ve got tenure or a nice little “emeritus” stipend to fall back on.
Exactly what set of unearthly intellectual principles were academics- oh look a Professor! supposed to be operating under?
If you are disappointed you haven’t been dealing with academia.
“Unfortunately, even with the best will in the world, peer reviewing is rarely an entirely disinterested process. All too often the system of peer review is infused with vested interests. As many of my colleagues in academia know, peer reviewing is frequently carried out through a kind of mates’ club, between friends and acquaintances, and all too often the question of who gets published and who gets rejected is determined by who you know and where you stand in a particular academic debate.
Peer reviewing cannot remain immune to the preoccupations, agenda and interests of the individuals who carry it out. Even when they have the best intentions, academics and scientists can overlook errors and become blind to the importance of a new but maverick contribution. They are ordinary mortals who have their fair share of prejudices, and are often no less petty or self-centred than other people can sometimes be. Nevertheless, peer reviewing has traditionally, at least, been the most effective way of exercising quality control over the proposals and output of the scholarly and scientific communities.”
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/8227/
So if a sizable percentage of Australians believed the Earth was hollow, the ABC would feel obliged to give great swathes of airtime to proponents of that belief, regardless that geologists and rational folk laughed and mocked their imbecility.
That might be “reflecting Australia’s culture” but it sure as hell wouldn’t be educational (in a factual sense) or very edifying.
Rx, you’re quite right. That was a fairly extraordinary piece by Holmes.
According to a report linked to on this thread, 41% of Australians “believe in astrology”.
Does that mean that Lateline Business should routinely be interviewing Mystic Meg for her stock market predictions?
I think the Carter article should have been published by the ABC. It certainly doesn’t help his claim to be a credible scientist.
From Jonathan Holmes’ article:
So where does this growing number of people get its information from about climate change? It can’t have been from the scientists, because over the last four years the scientists have become even more convinced of the reality of anthropogenic climate change. It must be from the media that gives too much representation to the denialist side of the climate change debate. All this talk about ABC (and other media) imbalance is just so much right-wing guff.
Ambigulous @13: “Perhaps it’s that old idea of “academic freedom”? IMO we have to retain that, and defend it…”
Perhaps you are confusing academic freedom with telling lies?
I wrote: “Maybe the academic sector has too much misplaced faith in the academic integrity of all professors?”
The key words were “academic integrity”. I think it could be reasonably argued that some of the main figureheads of the anti-AGW camp show serious lack of academic integrity. Put more simply, they tell blatant lies. They do things to the data that are absolutely indefensible, in scientific or academic terms.
To extend the quote from Holmes provided by silkworm @ 18:
Holmes points out that the ABC has no obligation to provide ‘balance’ to the interviews it is now conducting with Richard Dawkins on his new book on evolution by interviewing creationists or intelligent designers because (and only because) such views are not widely represented in the community. Contrast that with the US where 44% of people believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old.
Holmes then asks whether, if you are running a science program, as the ABC does, you should have the same obligation towards balance. He says this is almost certain to become an issue within the ABC.
Frankly, the situation has become absurd. If the significant minority of the public is misinformed, the national broadcaster has an obligation to reinforce their misinformation, and misinform everyone else as well, not only in general programs but perhaps also in science programs.
What unmitigated garbage!
I don’t see many comments, funnily enough, engaging with what Carter actually says.
“Moronic” “turgid” “very dull” “silly old duffer” “totally not on planet Earth” “unmitigated garbage” and the rest don’t, believe it or not, constitute reasoned or evidence-based analysis.
I agree that there is a fair amount in the article that is disputable, but you guys are really your own worst enemies when it comes to making a proper case, as opposed to a me too love-in. Which is not unrelated to why the PR war is rapidly being lost, in my view, but that is a larger topic.
Again with the concern trolling wozza.
Wozza, Carter believes that AGW science is akin to Lysenkoism. And then prescribes as a “cure” a set of judicial hearings and investigations into the practices of climate scientists. cf. McCarthy, Joseph.
I’m not engaging with that argument for the same reason I don’t engage with people who believe that aardvark poker ferris-wheel paramecium.
In other words, Carter (and the rest of the Quadrant crowd) are incapable of discerning scientific reality, because like little boys they get their jollies telling each other ooga-booga stories under the blankets with a torch under their chins, to see who will piss their jim-jams first.
And besides, while I could come up with a po-faced response to po-faced nonsense, it compounds the tedium. Your concern trolling will have to go unrequited I’m afraid.
If you’re unhappy, there’s always this complaints form.
Wozza, when I said “unmitigated garbage” I was referring to where the ABC stands and seems to be heading in its ill-advised “balance” policy.
Carter’s piece, IMHO, is not worth spending a lot of time on. It’s no advance on Senator Fielding. We’ve been there before, including the smear of James Hansen. That’s been done before too. Alan Thorpe is in a far better position than Carter to know about grand conspiracies, gravy trains and the state of climate science.
Oh, what the heck. Here’s some red meat for the concern trolls:
The reason Carter’s thesis fails is because he falsely equates official Soviet government support for Lysenkoism with official Australian government support for the findings of climate scientists.
In doing so, Carter ignores the facts that:
a) We don’t live in a Soviet state.
b) Western liberal democracies throughout the 20th century actually had a darn good track record for lending official support to correct scientific positions. Despite the best efforts of anti-vaxxers, tobacco lobbyists, and intelligent-design proponents, western liberal democracies did not give official support to their positions, and instead continued to rely upon the correct scientific evidence concerning vacinnation, tobacco-lung cancer links, and evolution.
Based on the historical record, western governments that today give official support to the findings of climate scientists deserve a pretty generous slice of the benefit of the “doubt”. Carter gives them none, and considers them to be acting in the same manner as the Soviets. The error is profound, and obvious.
Can we get back to hurling cream pies now?
I might also add that I can no better than to quote the Australian Skeptics position on this issue:
Okay, I’ll play.
a) We don’t live in a Soviet state.
Irrelevant to his central claim. You could just as easily refute him by pointing out that there are no kangaroos in Russia.
b) Western liberal democracies throughout the 20th century actually had a darn good track record for lending official support to correct scientific positions.
Again, irrelevant. Inductive fallacy.
So much for “red meat.” (*sigh*) the promise was greater than the delivery. Oh well, I’ll leave you to continue agreeing with each other in this content-free thread.
Surely the even more glaring error wwith the thesis of ‘politically motivated’ research is that for 11 years in Australia, and 8 years in the USA, there were governments that were strongly contrarian/denialist/skeptic/whatever in character. Scientific research in these countries continued to support the mainstream climatological viewpoint despite the political pressures brought to bear.
The more serious error is that the theory of greenhouse warming did not start in 1989 and is not based solely around the work of Hansen. It has been known about in principle for over a century; was speculated as significant (initially rejected) in the 30s; broadly accepted in the 60s with an unknown magnitude; was supported with more and more evidence through the 80s and 90s.
Note that the ‘conversion’ of the scientific community’s opinion happened in the 60s and 70s, not in the late 80s and 90s.
I have to admit, Mercuius, to being far from sure what a concern troll is, aside of course from being a label intended to facilitate the ad hominem attack and minimise the need for rational debate. Is it an accusation I should wear with pride?
I don’t actually disagree with your 25 much at all (not least in regard to the cream pies, the pleasure of hurling the odd one or two of which is of course the main reason for my own occasional forays into this territory).
I just think that if contributors to this blog have any objectives beyond the comfort of engaging in furious and predictable agreement with each other – such as, perhaps, exercising any influence at all on debate in the real, decision-making world – fewer cream pies and more evidence-based argument might sometimes help. Regard that as faux concern if you wish; given my acknowledged enjoyment of pie slinging, I am scarcely in a position to lead a campaign for reform.
That’s because there is precious little by way of argument in the piece, so it is hard to refute.
Being as generous as possible, Carter’s ‘argument’ is:
1. Thanks to Hansen in 1988, a lot of money became available for research
2. Funding can corrupt research
3. An example of research corruption is Lysenkoism
4. Climategate shows that greenhouse research was like Lysenkoism
5. Therefore we need an independent inquiry
1. is just factually wrong, as described above.
2. is arguable in principle but the basis of it seems anti-scientific – we might as well throw out all recent science. Although I’m sure Carter wouldn’t suggest that having to compete for ARC funding corrupts his research.
3. Is just argument by inappropriate metaphor. Clear fallacy.
4. Is an assertion. No actual evidence is provided to show fraudulant research practices.
5. Then does not follow from the argument, nor is it possible to see how it would be a useful process even if there was some basis to the argument.
I would have thought the literary quality stacked up fairly favourably with many recent Quadrant pieces.
It is, however, largely devoid of coherent argument.
Martin B @ 28 and 30.
Excellent!
Further to Martin B’s excellent critique of Carter’s piece.
Carter is thus exposed as deliberately misrepresenting and mischaracterising the evolution of the debate over climate science.
The facts that Martin B adduces are well-known and easily discovered.
It is quite clear that Carter has falsified the basic chronology of the rise of concern about AGW in order to make his entirely spurious charge of Lysenkoism.
These are not the actions of a trustworthy person.
Further to Martin B’s fine efforts, it is noteworthy that Carter does not mention the following key points in the emergence of global climate policymaking:
* The first 1st World Climate Conference in 1979, which defined climate as a “vital natural resource” and called on governments to foresee and prevent potential adverse human-made climate change.
* The UN-sponsored Villach Conference of scientists which concluded, based on scientific research, that climate change was a potentially severe problem requiring a policy response.
* The Toronto Conference on the Changing Atmosphere on 27-30 June 1988 (less than a week after James Hansen addressed the US Congress – what a fast-acting conspiracy!) which adopted a “Call For Action” calling on developed countries to hold GHG emissions to 1988 levels by 2000 and reduce them by 20% by 2005.
A comprehensive history of the development of climate science and policymaking (all of it ignored by Carter) is provided here.
Strangely enough, I think a Royal Commission wouldn’t actually do any harm, provided its terms of reference were broad enough – clearly, leading climate scientists and prominent skeptics would need to testify before the Commission. Yes, it’s a totally inappropriate method for resolving scientific controversy, but what’s actually happening is a political controversy dressed up as a scientific one.
I strongly suspect that a Royal Commission would have the opposite effect that Carter and Fielding suppose. In contrast to presentation of the scientific information, the methods generally employed by AGW ‘skeptics’ – misrespesentation and the repetition of errors in their written work, and rhetorical tricks and evasion in interviews and live debates – would not be effective in a scenario of forensic cross-examination where they are required to answer under oath.
A Royal Commission would be likely to severely damage the credibility of AGW ‘skeptics’ in Australia. Of course, the usual suspects would scream that it was ‘rigged’, but the punters wouldn’t buy it and the damage would be done.
Providing that the rubric was rigorously scientific and this was not held up as something needing to be resolved before we acted I’d be inclined to support this too Tim.
I’d like witnesses to be aptly credentialled with the sources of their claims to expertise made explicit. We would have rules of evidence suitable to scientific journals and any attempt to gish gallop would be stomped on heavily.
Tim and Fran, one possible difficulty would be finding a suitably qualified Commissioner who also has the bottle to endure the inevitable dirty attempts by the usual suspects to trawl through her/his backgruond to find, or beat up, and publish “evidence” of “bias”.
I’d like to add, Wozza, that the original post was about the conspiracy theorising at Quadrant, not the content of Carter’s post, so there’s no need for anyone here to distract themselves from the cream pie throwing just to go over the same old ground.
I am getting close to giving up on reading any threads to do with climate change because the trolls are so predictable and the content of the discussion always seems to end up being dominated by rebuttals of their stupid stupid talking points. This is not a criticism of LP, just a broad, general problem with the internet. Maybe we should just ban it.
As much as I’d support a Royal Commission, the denialists would describe it as a “greenwash” and wouldn’t give any credence to findings against them (of which there would be many) and would sneer “you don’t order an inquiry unless you know the outcome”.
No, what Carter wants is a cross between a Star Chamber and a McCarthyist podium from which to purge competent practicising scientists from the field, leaving only his ideologically-approved, debased (and tenured) academics like Plimer running the show. His accusation of Lysenkoism is pure projection (common to the authoritarians at Quadrant, the totalitarian boogeymen under their beds are their own shadows): he is obviously well-versed in the method and application of institutional, political and judicial power against sound science.
These guys are just implacably and ideologically opposed to the factual findings of AGW science, thus it is pointless to engage with them. They can howl and hurl faeces to their heart’s content, but all that demonstrates is that they’re a bunch of monkeys.
Unfortunately, Mercurius @ 39, the general public (who’ll decide the result of the next election among other things) can’t tell the difference between a pooh-flinging howler monkey and a scientist.
I don’t know what the answer is (and I agree it’s pointless – and deeply frustrating – to engage with them). It might be obvious to us that these blokes are crypto-fascists, but the general public takes them seriously.
I see what you did there. Heaven forfend people with similar outlooks and political aims should agree with each other. ‘Cos the causes of progressive politics in recent decades have flourished in proportion to the level of
vigourous policy debatesplitters, back-biters, factionalism, cross-argumentation and fence-sitting.There’s a reason political opponents try to wedge each other, you know. Because it’s damn effective. Nice try, ain’t gonna wash.
Fran and Paul, I’m not necessarily advocating a Royal Commission – just noting that if one were held it would probably not go well for the ‘skeptic’ agenda.
Of course, given the influence ‘skeptics’ have had in derailing climate change policy, and the sustained slander campaign against climate scientists, a Royal Commission might be regarded as an opportunity to counter the slander and misinformation campaign by addressing the issue in a forum where lies and FUD are difficult to deploy.
Tim, I think it’s probably true that a properly constituted Royal Commission could do what you think it could do. The problem then becomes how it gets reported in the media, as we are currently seeing with the Bushfires Royal Commission where the scientists have provided hours, and many pages, of information-dense, nuanced and by no means unanimous evidence, and the reportage has largely consisted of one-minute, or three hunderd word, selections of one sentence soundbites which fit whatever agenda the media outlet is running.
MartinB @ 28 ‘The more serious error is that the theory of greenhouse warming did not start in 1989 and is not based solely around the work of Hansen.’
Well no, it’s notorious that it started with a movie by Al Gore, who is fat and owns a house that uses lots of electricity.
More seriously – I have worked on the staff of a royal commission. They are most definitely NOT dispassionate seekers of truth. The last one I can remember that had a judge making findings about science was the Evatt Commission into the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam … does anyone think that is really a good precedent for an inquiry into global warming?
The people best qualified to extend the boundaries of scientific knowledge are scientists, not bloody lawyers and bureaucrats (who will infest a royal commission in their hundreds). Carter knows he’s got bugger-all support from scientists so he’s trying to take his rhetorical game to another venue, thus delaying any action for another few years. No doubt he fancies himself as one of the inquiry’s ‘scientific expert counsellors’, him being such an acknowledged expert and all.
I’ve got a new post specifically responding to Holmes.
Ken, I’ll bow to your superior experience of Royal Commissions.
And for the record, I didn’t mean to imply that it would be a Royal Commission type thing. I see it as something that could take place under the auspices of the CSIRO or similar.
The agnorati could be allowed to pose ten specific questions that they think are pertinent to the integrity of the science. They could also be required to respond in details to 10 specific challenges. All the matter could then become the subject of something comparable to a peer review. Findings could then be made.
Carter’s calling for a commission into the science will probably involve these kinds of hijinks.
And these critics of the CRU are now refusing to reveal who sat on their committee, because[drum roll]…….they would get “dragged into a very public and highly politicised debate”!
The irony writes itself.
Ken Lovell @ 44:
It may not be generally known that Carter was called as an expert witness in a court case Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills where an English truck driver, with the help of some wealthy friends, sought to prevent the educational use of An Inconvenient Truth in English state schools as a teaching aid.
The judge found nine errors in the film and ordered that guidance notes should address those errors, also that the film was political and that teachers should advise kids that there were other views. But distribution and use was not ruled unlawful.
It’s one of those cases where everyone claimed to have won.
From that site there is a link to a Wikipedia entry on Carter.
And from that site there is a link to an interesting interview with Robyn Williams. This interview in particular shows Carter’s views to be sincerely held.
I would suggest, however, that his scientific background as a marine geologist specialising in palaeontology, stratigraphy, and environmental science in that context, does not equip him any better than any other “rock chopper” (William’s term) to assess AGW in the industrial era.
Brian, I read that Robyn Williams interview with Carter you linked to. Carter comes across fairly well until the end, when he gives the game away with
Contrasting ‘science’ with ‘computer models’ is a breathtaking piece of intellectual dishonesty, surely. Modelling is as integral to science as bowling is to cricket. You make your observations, you come up with an hypothesis, you construct a model based on the hypothesis and then you test it against further observations. This, btw, is just what rock choppers do when they hypothesise about the likelihood of finding oil in a given location – they construct models about how oil deposits were formed. How else does a scientist make predictions, other than with models?
If the observations don’t match the model, the next step is to find out why – it may be that the hypothesis is wrong, or it may be that the model is flawed. As the philosopher Popper noted, special attention needs to be paid to finding data that can falsify the hypothesis, since there can be no deductively logical proof based merely on observations. The trouble is for Carter that the vast and increasing flood of observations are only serving to confirm the AGW hypothesis and the validity of the models. So Carter to maintain his position has to jettison the scientific method. I wonder how much airtime the ABC would give him if he recast his argument as ‘science is bunk’?
Hal9000, fair comment, and a good analysis. As I said here I had extended personal contact with Carter over an 18 hour period. My brother and Carter are pretty good mates so much of my role was as an observer of the two of them rattling on about anecdotes from their speaking tour which my brother and his wife organised, politics and everything.
I introduced myself as a socialist warmist from the leafy suburbs, to which he laughed and said he wasn’t trying to convince anyone, just call it as he sees it as an independent scientist.
My impression is that Carter’s politics and philosophy are highly conservative. His presentation is a spectacular tour de force of images, graphs, statistics and quotes. I think there is a deep emotional/ideological frame of reference that he is coming from which means he tends not to admit information which might disrupt this view. He’d probably say the same about me. I really don’t think that he is deliberately misleading or dishonest. It’s just that there are some raging flaws and inconsistencies in his position when you get down to it of which he seems totally unaware.
One huge alarm for me was his unconditional recommendation of Plimer’s book in answer to a question.
Incidentally I was reading Morgan and Crystal’s Poles Apart at the time, but left it out of my bag in favour something lighter. They cited Carter’s five tests which he says invalidate the AGW hypothesis. They dismantle them one by one and end with this conclusion:
Ouch!
Far from disowning his stuff Carter gave a plenary at the Heartland Institute conference Senator Fielding attended last year.
Brian @51
There are four possibilities, Brian, albeit not necessarily mutually eclusive: crook, liar, fool or madman. If we allow that his academic career is evidence ruling out the fool option, the only guilt-free option is madman. Come to think of it, why else would an academic spend his retirement lecturing, as 4 Corners showed, the Barnaby Joyce fan club in regional RSLs across regional Australia?
Hal9000, having met the guy, I’m reluctant to use labels, but think he’s sane enough.
My brother, or strictly the organisation he heads, organised four sessions with Carter as the star turn out of concern for the impact of the CPRS legislation on farmers, including one in Roma, where Carter met Barnaby and was quite impressed. You have to know that in person Barnaby is a bit different than what you see in the media and is said to have quite a comprehensive philosophy that is based on reading which doesn’t follow any given ism. Yeah, my bro knows him quite well too.
Hansen reckons Lindzen’s contrarianism, as he calls it, is emotionally based. He simply can’t accept that CO2 would have a significant role and looks for just about anything else he can find.
I suspect Carter is similar. As I said I don’t like labels, but self-delusion might come close. He might very well think the same about warmists. But I can assure you that he is a charming, personable man and good company.
As to why he spends his time on such activities, I don’t buy his statement that he isn’t trying to convince anyone. I think we wants to make a difference. Also he seems to enjoy it.
OK Brian, I’ll buy emotional issues as a member of the broad set of ‘mad’. I’m also happy to acknowledge that Barnaby is charming and even sincere. We must also sympathise with him at this very moment facing his home being flooded. It does astonish me, though, that science denialism has taken root among so many rural folk. I know and talk with lots of farmers* and all of them watch their crops and flocks with all the care and attention to detail of a research scientist. Earlier picking times, changes in weed and insect pest behaviour and distribution etc etc are all carefully noted. The reality of climate change is not questioned by any of them. The issues they talk about rather are concern about public policy responses that impact negatively upon them, and access to capital to invest in business adjustment measures.
One feature of Barnaby’s St George hometown community that may be relevant is the fact that its prosperity is tied up with the success of the environmentally irresponsible irrigation-based cotton industry. Perhaps it’s not surprising that for Barnaby the regional town good life and despoiling the environment are closely related.
Oh dear, the Quaddies have found this thread.
That quadrant piece is a perfect match for the stated position of righty-tighty bloggers like Andrew Norton, who apparently would believe all the science if people were just, y’know, polite, to skeptics. Apparently, being abusive is enough for the right to reject your 10+ year, carefully researched hypothesis.
They are just plain stupid but don’t like being told that. Sucks to be them.
I’m flattered, they quoted me twice! I’ve now been published in Quadrant! LOL, this is going straight to the pool room.
But sadly they left out my remarks about their McCarthy revivalist fetish. Must’ve touched a nerve.
Cripes, after they impugn the integrity and professionalism of every climate scientist on the planet, they blubber and sulk when the get a dose of their own medicine. And they’re insufferably pompous about it – Look how precious this Michael Connor is:
Crikey, I didn’t know “dissident” is spelt W-A-N-K-E-R
By the way, Michael Connor, if you’re reading this, pet, I’m not an “anonymous” blogger. Mercurius is my name, sweetie.
I get credit for an opinion I merely quoted – but not the remark about Quadrant’s editor being scientifically ignorant. And where are those all important footnotes?
Just. Not. Good. Enough.
BTW, so Quadrant is now reduced to quote-mining off-Broadway blogs (sorry Mark) to get its stories? And when it does it mis-attributes one contributer’s quote and incorrectly identified two quotes as ‘anonymous’ when they’re not. The article was only cut-and-pasting quotes, and he made errors in 3 out of 5 of them! If I were a subscriber I would not consider that to be value for money. (And these are the same people who reckon that two errors in a 3000-page scientific report invalidates climate science.) It must be tough now that nobody who matters will talk to them anymore.
Anyway Quaddies, what are you doing wasting time reading Larvatus Prodeo? Quick! Go and check! There could be Reds under your bed right now!
THEY’RE BEHIND YOU!!1!!!11!!!
Woohoo! I got quoted too! I’m thrilled. Published in Quadrant! Fuck me, that goes in the autobiography.
Even worse, former Quadrant editor, Robert Manne – or one of his academic minions – could be hiding under there!
I have long been disgusted by the hypocrisy of those who seem to think it “polite” to enter into a discussion using lies, misrepresentation and slander as their main “debating” tactics.
That this same mob then throw hissy fits when their dishonesty is exposed, and retreat from the debate citing “abuse”, when they receive their well-deserved ridicule and contempt, merely demonstrates the emptiness of their rhetoric, and the complete lack of substance to their so called “arguments”.
That they then have the cheek to term themselves as “dissidents” betrays further the collective arrogance of the accurately described DENIALISTS.
I’m pretty chuffed to be categorised as a Left academic and intellectual, too. (I’m certainly not the first, and I’m not sure about the second, but if Quadrant says it, it must be true.)
But I didn’t get a mention. What did I do wrong???
The ridiculous Michael Connor needs a reality check:
Yairs. One gets a much better quality of abuse from Quadders, subsidised as it is by Australian taxpayers.
The Quadders Claque: government-funded dissidents who risk their very expense accounts for freedom of expression.
You probably didn’t write anything that really annoyed the Quaddies, Martin B. You have to compare them with nazis before they pay any attention, I guess, as nothing else is close enough to the bone to make them twitch.
Basically, you’re too kind.
The really funny thing is, Katz, that this forum is actually generally pretty civil (unlike, say, Quadrant). I except myself, of course. I have no problem at all being rude to people who deserve it.
It’s … um … interesting that there’s no possibility of feedback at the Quadrant site.
But credit where credit is due, DI(nr).
The CIA, the previous paymasters of Quadders, is no longer complaining about the poor quality of their literary offerings.
That has to count as progress, doesn’t it?
It bears repeating:
A very, very, very, low price. What a cut-price commissariat we are.
I’m actually pretty boiled about the fact that this lot of fusty wormtongued fogeys (I’m not ageist, some of them are young fogeys) want to claim the title dissident.
Real dissidents in repressive regimes around the world have lost digits, lost limbs, lost years of their lives in political prisons, had family disappeared or tortured and raped in front of them; while this lot of puling bloated wretches want to use dissident as a vanity epitaph for their taxpayer-subsidised masturbation. Puke.
You hear that, Quadders? You don’t get to call yourselves dissidents. You haven’t earnt it. You are just common garden-variety whingers.
Their choice of Czeck president as pin-up boy is instructive as well, Mercurius. When you consider they could have used Vaclav Havel, a genuine dissident, instead they’ve chosen Vaclav Klaus.
I would like to know how much of my hard earned tax dollars goes towards funding these proud dissident intellectuals, fighting at the very cutting edge of truth, justice and the Australian way.
Whatever it is, I’d like to see it increased. Either that or the ABC could offer them their own show, called of course The Outsiders.
Or maybe The Othersiders, or The InsideOutsiders.
Undersiders?
@71 Yes Adrian! Double Quadrant‘s funding right now. Give ‘em a TV show! It would be comedy gold, and vastly more entertaining than First Tuesday Book Club (sorry Marieke).
You’ve set the bar very low there, Mercurius, but it could be called The Second Tuesday Sook Club.
Adrian, during the Howard years Quadders got $50,000 p.a. from the Australia Council.
Since Ratty’s demise that grant has been reduced to $30,000 p.a.
The very dungeon stones weep for these victims of reduced largess. I don’t know how flesh and blood can endure such treatment.
But perhaps that funding reduction formula was based on the proportional decrease in the number of murders of Aborigines, as counted in Windschuttle’s oeuvre.
If so, then Windy may be under some pressure to revise his numbers upwards.
What a moral dilemma!
$30,000! Is that all these guys are worth? I’m sure the Chaser ‘boys’ got a lot more than that and they aren’t nearly as funny.