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> Do you have any examples of reputable scientists doing this? Yes, and thank you for asking. Here is the most prominent example I have found: """“On the one

> Do you have any examples of reputable scientists doing this? Yes, and thank you for asking. Here is the most prominent example I have found: """“On the one hand, as scientists, we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means we must include all the doubts, caveats, and ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical blind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”""" – Stephen Schneider, quoted in Jonathan Schell, “Our Fragile Earth,” Discover Magazine, October 1989, p. 47. As far as him being a reputable scientist, according to Wikipedia: """Stephen Henry Schneider was Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University...the founder and editor of the journal Climatic Change and authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers and other publications. He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II IPCC TAR and was engaged as a co-anchor of the Key Vulnerabilities Cross-Cutting Theme for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) at the time of his death. An annual award for outstanding climate science communication was created in Schneider's honor after his death.""" Gee, that last bit isn't ironic at all... > We might "see stories" that claim this; but do you have an example of a reputable climate scientist making a claim like this? Respectfully, I feel you are verging into sea-lion territory here. One need not look far to find this. This is commonly stated in prominent scientific journals, such as Nature. If you are legitimately curious, I'll let you do this bit of homework yourself. But I have significant doubts about the legitimacy of your curiosity, because if you were really interested in finding the truth of what's going on in this quagmire, I think you'd have done enough of your own reading to have seen examples of these for yourself. Hopefully I'm wrong. :)

leephillips 10y ago
Your example quotes Schneider as recommending honesty, explicitly, while admitting the utility of simplifying the story for the public. Not really an example of what you were claiming. I'm not familiar with the term "sea-lion territory", sorry. "This is commonly stated in prominent scientific journals, such as Nature." I don't think so. And I'm not surprised that you can't come up with an example.
- alphapapa 10y ago
  Unsurprisingly, your reply has demonstrated typical leftist techniques, such as selective omission, dismissal, and strawman, complete with the standard condescending attitude. > Your example quotes Schneider as recommending honesty, explicitly, while admitting the utility of simplifying the story for the public. Not really an example of what you were claiming. False. This is an example of selective omission and dismissal. Let's look again at what Schneider actually said: "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have....Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest." The last sentence, speaking of a balance, implies that being honest is not effective, and being effective requires being dishonest. He says that each scientist has to decide for himself how dishonest he is justified in being in order to "get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination...getting loads of media coverage." You couch his words as "recommending honesty," while he actually recommended dishonesty, believing that it is justified by "the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change." You see, when it comes to honesty, it's a binary: you're either honest or you're not. Anything less than 1.0 is dishonest. A scientist ought to be ethically obligated to be completely, 100% honest--because this is what the public expects, and because, since he is a human with his own biases and flaws, real science requires it--yet here is Schneider encouraging the opposite. And by twisting his words as you have, you yourself are 0-for-1 in the honesty department. > I'm not familiar with the term "sea-lion territory", sorry. http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/ This isn't a pure example of it (depending on your definition, I suppose), but your attitude is in line with it, in principle, with your faux-reasonable requests for evidence, refusal to do your own research, and mischaracterization of my responses. > I don't think so. And I'm not surprised that you can't come up with an example. Nice try, but this is a typical example of a condescending, twisted strawman. To me, this is your strike-2 and strike-3 in the honesty department. In the interest of sharing the truth with other readers who happen by, I'll indulge you: http://www.nature.com/news/scientist-versus-activist-debates-mislead-the-public-1.14761 http://www.nature.com/news/scientist-versus-activist-debates... Choice quotes: """Certainly, the question posed by journalists in response to an extreme weather event — “Is this caused by climate change?” — is sensible and good news. Such questioning implicitly accepts the basic science that the climate is changing and that human activity has a central role. It moves the discussion on to the severity of the impacts, rather than the existence of a problem.... It is a promising question, but too often we hear that no single weather event can be attributed to climate change. Although that used to be the case, research has moved on. Last September, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society published analyses from 18 research groups examining 12 extreme weather events from 2012 (hurricanes, droughts, severe cold, floods and heatwaves) and concluded that anthropogenic climate change was a contributing factor to half of the extremes examined.""" Not dissimilar from your own techniques, this writer selectively omits those who point out that, for example, hurricanes have been less extreme in the past decade, that "extreme weather events" have happened for all of recorded history, and that it's physically impossible to prove any weather event was caused by human activity of any kind. Oh, and notice that, "the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society published analyses from 18 research groups examining 12 extreme weather events from 2012 (hurricanes, droughts, severe cold, floods and heatwaves) and concluded that anthropogenic climate change was a contributing factor to half of the extremes examined." Are they "reputable" enough climate scientists for you? Is that not Nature? But you "don't think so," and you refused to do your own googling. Well, readers can make up their own minds. But let's continue with a few more quotes: """By approaching questions about extreme weather and climate change in this way, scientists can avoid a common trap set by ‘climate sceptics’ and the media: drawing us into a refusal to say definitively whether a given event is caused by climate change. Furthermore, this approach separates scientists from such sceptics because focusing on past predictions and model projections — even if uncertain — highlights that climate contrarians have not produced alternative predictive models, and therefore have little to contribute.""" Here the author exposes his bias, referring to those with opposing viewpoints as "sceptics" and "contrarians" who "have little to contribute." They have little to contribute because they "have not produced alternative predictive models." But this, of course, begs the question, since such "contrarians" would point out that 1) such models cannot be accurate due to the impossibility of accounting for the number of variables and the numerous processes which are yet to be understood well enough to model, and 2) that the "non-contrarians" have yet to produce a model which can even match historical data. The writer reverses the burden of proof and begs the question. This is intellectually dishonest. Well, I think that's enough. I don't expect to change your mind, but any readers can examine the evidence and come to their own conclusions. And since you've shown you're not interested in the discovering the truth, but rather in making condescendingly taunting non-arguments, I will not be continuing this discussion with you. Good luck on your quest for the truth.

leephillips 10y ago

Your example quotes Schneider as recommending honesty, explicitly, while admitting the utility of simplifying the story for the public. Not really an example of what you were claiming. I'm not familiar with the term "sea-lion territory", sorry. "This is commonly stated in prominent scientific journals, such as Nature." I don't think so. And I'm not surprised that you can't come up with an example.

alphapapa 10y ago
Unsurprisingly, your reply has demonstrated typical leftist techniques, such as selective omission, dismissal, and strawman, complete with the standard condescending attitude. > Your example quotes Schneider as recommending honesty, explicitly, while admitting the utility of simplifying the story for the public. Not really an example of what you were claiming. False. This is an example of selective omission and dismissal. Let's look again at what Schneider actually said: "We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have....Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective and being honest." The last sentence, speaking of a balance, implies that being honest is not effective, and being effective requires being dishonest. He says that each scientist has to decide for himself how dishonest he is justified in being in order to "get some broad-based support, to capture the public’s imagination...getting loads of media coverage." You couch his words as "recommending honesty," while he actually recommended dishonesty, believing that it is justified by "the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change." You see, when it comes to honesty, it's a binary: you're either honest or you're not. Anything less than 1.0 is dishonest. A scientist ought to be ethically obligated to be completely, 100% honest--because this is what the public expects, and because, since he is a human with his own biases and flaws, real science requires it--yet here is Schneider encouraging the opposite. And by twisting his words as you have, you yourself are 0-for-1 in the honesty department. > I'm not familiar with the term "sea-lion territory", sorry. http://wondermark.com/1k62/ http://wondermark.com/1k62/ This isn't a pure example of it (depending on your definition, I suppose), but your attitude is in line with it, in principle, with your faux-reasonable requests for evidence, refusal to do your own research, and mischaracterization of my responses. > I don't think so. And I'm not surprised that you can't come up with an example. Nice try, but this is a typical example of a condescending, twisted strawman. To me, this is your strike-2 and strike-3 in the honesty department. In the interest of sharing the truth with other readers who happen by, I'll indulge you: http://www.nature.com/news/scientist-versus-activist-debates-mislead-the-public-1.14761 http://www.nature.com/news/scientist-versus-activist-debates... Choice quotes: """Certainly, the question posed by journalists in response to an extreme weather event — “Is this caused by climate change?” — is sensible and good news. Such questioning implicitly accepts the basic science that the climate is changing and that human activity has a central role. It moves the discussion on to the severity of the impacts, rather than the existence of a problem.... It is a promising question, but too often we hear that no single weather event can be attributed to climate change. Although that used to be the case, research has moved on. Last September, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society published analyses from 18 research groups examining 12 extreme weather events from 2012 (hurricanes, droughts, severe cold, floods and heatwaves) and concluded that anthropogenic climate change was a contributing factor to half of the extremes examined.""" Not dissimilar from your own techniques, this writer selectively omits those who point out that, for example, hurricanes have been less extreme in the past decade, that "extreme weather events" have happened for all of recorded history, and that it's physically impossible to prove any weather event was caused by human activity of any kind. Oh, and notice that, "the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society published analyses from 18 research groups examining 12 extreme weather events from 2012 (hurricanes, droughts, severe cold, floods and heatwaves) and concluded that anthropogenic climate change was a contributing factor to half of the extremes examined." Are they "reputable" enough climate scientists for you? Is that not Nature? But you "don't think so," and you refused to do your own googling. Well, readers can make up their own minds. But let's continue with a few more quotes: """By approaching questions about extreme weather and climate change in this way, scientists can avoid a common trap set by ‘climate sceptics’ and the media: drawing us into a refusal to say definitively whether a given event is caused by climate change. Furthermore, this approach separates scientists from such sceptics because focusing on past predictions and model projections — even if uncertain — highlights that climate contrarians have not produced alternative predictive models, and therefore have little to contribute.""" Here the author exposes his bias, referring to those with opposing viewpoints as "sceptics" and "contrarians" who "have little to contribute." They have little to contribute because they "have not produced alternative predictive models." But this, of course, begs the question, since such "contrarians" would point out that 1) such models cannot be accurate due to the impossibility of accounting for the number of variables and the numerous processes which are yet to be understood well enough to model, and 2) that the "non-contrarians" have yet to produce a model which can even match historical data. The writer reverses the burden of proof and begs the question. This is intellectually dishonest. Well, I think that's enough. I don't expect to change your mind, but any readers can examine the evidence and come to their own conclusions. And since you've shown you're not interested in the discovering the truth, but rather in making condescendingly taunting non-arguments, I will not be continuing this discussion with you. Good luck on your quest for the truth.