My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
Butt wiggling and the science of uncertainty.
Being a climate realist, I’m used to a certain underdog status. I’ve learnt that it’s our advantage. We don’t have many of those, so you learn to work them hard. While they yap a lot, we get told to shut up but we watch them carefully while they’re yapping. We don’t carry much in the way of baggage and we see things with a simple clarity. I sniff around the edges of the big green killing machine and it reeks of something. That something is corruption. Reek is probably too mild a word. Stench would probably be better.
I know that because I’ve worked in finance, and if you’ve done that for a few years, you know that where there’s big money, there’ll always be big thieves. Bees and honey, bears and woods, night follows day, simple as. They’re white-collar thieves but they’re still basically thieves and they’re stealing from us. When the world flings something like 89 billion dollars of research money at a problem, then believe me, the thieves are in the thick of it and salting away their own fair share of the booty. They’re carving out their steaks and living high off the hog. I look at group photos of them, and all I see is the happy smile of people thinking, I’m finally making some serious dough now.
Certainly, if I was designing a scam, the cover is perfect. They’re highly respected academics or beautiful people, just trying to save the planet from us lower types, but to my mind, they’re still just thieves. It made them invulnerable. It would be nearly immoral to accuse them of something as venial as theft. Even when you point out the obvious malfeasance, the authorities do nothing about it. The authorities report to the powers that be, who’ll never admit they were taken in by the thieves as well. Every well constructed confidence trick has that brilliant final phase. They call it the “blow off.” It makes sure nobody will ever come looking for you, not even the victim, never mind the bulls.
There is an essential dishonesty about the whole thing. It starts with the science but that’s impossible to communicate to the ordinary Joe or Jolene. As an aside, I love the culture collision inherent in that name Jolene and songwriters as talented as Miss Dolly, but that’s a topic for another day. I look at some of the papers and know whoever put their name to it, is a liar. Sure, they hide behind their idea of Heisenberg’s uncertainty and academically, they’re clean, but they’re just plain old liars. I know that and they know that too. On that one, I’m certain.
They’re the whores of science and they know exactly how to sell themselves. Wiggle your butt in the right way and in the right direction, and they give you money. The harder you wiggle, the more lolly you get. The more lolly you get, the harder you wiggle. Wiggle it baby, wiggle that big fat ass. Show ’em how it’s done. If you’ll excuse the pun, I suppose that’s the bottom line, scientists being reduced to nothing better than butt wigglers. It pays well but that’s what it actually amounts to.
It’s just a big money trough and everyone’s elbowing each other aside, to get their very own piece of it. Greed is always at the front and any sort of integrity is at the arse end, and it starves.
They play on uncertainty and they do it very well. It’s as if they’re saying science isn’t hard. It actually does have this soft side and I need your help with it. It’s squeezy and cuddly, fluffy and friendly, caring, a bit sexy but also a little bit ditzy, and all of it at the same time. It don’t have success and failure, man. Hey, don’t hog the roach, pass it. Nothing is certain and if you actually come to a definite conclusion, always attach a probability to it. Yeah man, that’s people’s science. Yeah. I’m not sure what the answer is, so let’s just take a vote on it. Consensus science is born.
Sorry, but that’s just bullshit. Nicely dressed up and everything, but it’s just your common or garden bullshit. It’s not even interesting bullshit. C’est merde ordinaire. I find it nearly un-fucking-believable that supposedly “scientific” people think science is about guessing at the amount of uncertainty. Newsflash, lads and lassies, science is all about banishing uncertainty, not enshrining it. It actually does come down to hard uncompromising things, like those squiggly things called equations and those boring old farts called the laws of nature. If you can’t hack that, then off you pop to the humanity faculties, where anything arguable goes. Don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends are in the humanities. Should one of my sprogs wish to marry one of them, I don’t think that’d be a problem. Sorta. Mebbe. Well, depends on the person …
Doing science well is hard. Unbelievably hard. When it comes to it, the old saying that it’s 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration is so true. It’s about believing there is an order in the universe. Somewhere, underneath whatever it is you’re looking at, there is an order. You believe that and that’s your bit of truth, which you know just isn’t good enough; you’ve got to find the proof. Wanting it to be true just doesn’t cut it, you’ve got to make the case. Connect up those simple dots; A equals B, B equals C, therefore A equals C. There is a structure, a causality and therefore a predictability about the thing. It just needs you to mine through the bedrock to find that bit of certainty and it’s always the worst, hardest and loneliest act of faith.
The compulsion is, you’ll prove that or crash and burn in the attempt. There is no middle ground. That’s why all the great original thinkers in science are veterans of several mental breakdowns. They simply go off-line for a while or it kills them. That’s just the way the thing works. Great science is cruel and it’ll break your heart in the end, because there’s always another problem to be cracked, and one day, somewhere down the road, there’ll be the biggie bastard you’ll never crack.
I listen to so-called scientific types bleating about quantifying uncertainty, and I know I’m looking at mediocrity. They embrace each other and get published. They make a living. People think they’re very erudite but it’s just FUD, ye olde Fear Uncertainty and Doubt. They’re the play it safers of the world. They make sounds and noises. Marks on bits of paper. Lots of graphs and squiggles and the noise to signal ratio is off the scale. Big words abound and the acronyms take on a specious life of their own. Everyone is playing dice these days and magically, every roll is either snake eyes or boxcars. Seven has become the rare event.
That sort of science is an open wound that now has to be cauterised to save the whole body. We’re slapping hot iron. Don’t get in the way.
©Pointman
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Dear Pointman,
I take your point about the likes of Gore and Strong at the top of the pyramid raking in the dough but the utterly inexcusable truth is that they could not have pulled off this scam without the connivance of the rent boys of cake science at all levels from Mann down.
I think that Hansen may well be a special case (i.e. actually mad) but these vile scum are the ones who have perpetrated the worse crime – they have sodomised science in their pursuit of a dollar and a rub of the ego.
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Bravo! Excellent rant. As an oceanographer once told my dad, “Global warming is bullshit but it’s where the money is.”
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Pointman,
While we can be scathing of the scientific ‘rent boyz’ who, devoid of integrity, are happy to grab the main chance (or their ankles), the question remains …… exactly who are the ‘Johns’ splashing all the cash around? Who is it that has access to all those taxpayer funds? Who has enlisted the services of the butt-wigglers of a journalistic bent for their PR expertise?
AGW has always been a matter of Politics – Science has simply been ‘collateral damage’ in this battle of wealth redistribution and de-industrialisation.
While the loony toon science boffins increasingly leave themselves open to ridicule and scorn with their witless hypotheses and outright lies, ‘somebody’ is having a field-day destroying western economies and driving the masses into penury.
AGW ‘scientists’, the MSM and bureaucrats are mere functionaries in the process, all jostling for prime positions on the Climate Gravy Train. I want to know who is the engineer on that train? Who is stoking the boilers (as well as the whores) or do you think that the entire charade has now become a self-perpetuating mechanism, fuelled by the sheer greed of the players?
I really think enough people have done enough work already to discredit the ‘science’ of AGW, and if the Train is still chugging along unabated, then only the collapse of our economies will turn off the cash spigot.
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Maurice Strong and George Soros spring immediately to mind.
There’s a wealth of the sort of information you are looking for at http://www.green-agenda.com.
One doesn’t have to be a scientist to understand what’s going on.
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Thanks for your link – a reminder of exactly who/what is ultimately responsible for Climate Fraud.
Shall we say, my questions were of a rhetorical nature, seeking to bring the focus back to the actual source of this charade and the reasons for it.
The butt-wigglers are such an easy target as whipping boys. Besides, I think they probably enjoy their new-found ‘victim’ status. I’d rather see the blame laid squarely where it belongs – the engineers have hidden in the shadows for too long.
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maybe this will help . . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Services_Administration
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I am not a great believer in conspiracy theories per se. My experience with governments and large corporates has shown me the factual proof of the Peter Principle many times over. Most businesses (and Governments) seem to muddle through despite the best efforts of their management. To orchestrate something as massive as the current global movement is beyond a single entity.
I feel “Global Warming”, “Climate Change”, AGW, (call it what you will) was a cause looking for a home and in our current western cultures, where we seem to have lost sense of wonder, confidence and faith, it found a natural resonance for those who are “seeking”, whether that be a higher purpose, the meaning of life or simply something (anything) to believe in.
It is a church with many rooms.
Look at who can be accommodated.
– Those of the green persuation as they can save the world.
– Those not of the green persuasion, who feel we should be doing something to save the planet. (not sure what or why, just want to do something)
– Academics, who can be published to gain their 15 minutes of fame through extreme predictions
– Media, who have killed forests in print writing about it, fried the airways with TV coverage and added untold web content.
– Politicians, who are able to say, with hand on heart, it’s for your own good (or “it’s the right thing to do”)
Then there is the money (old adage – Follow the money);
– Greens (politicians and Green groups), seeking and receiving more money
– Academics – funding is tied to being on the right side
– Media, someone has to tell the story, and be paid for doing so
– Politicians, where to start; Taxes, taxes, taxes. Then new laws, more control…
– Business – Manufacturers are provided with Green grants and funding
– Business – Financiers are to be the managers of these elaborate, global ponzi schemes.
It is a cause for all people and has so many players with so much invested it will not simply go away. There is money, power and altruism, a very robust combination.
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Point.
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5 nil to Fulham and counting. It’s a disaster …
Pointman
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Absolutely. A shocker. (Hector, out of Narfolk/UEA/ENV) 😦
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The biggest problem, yeah the money and the lies and lies and BS ‘research’.
It’s the bastards behind the glitzy mirrored facades in posh offices, the blood suckers lobbying and inveigling the ministers and playing both ends against the middle funding bogus research in order to ‘prove’ their outrageous claims:
AON Benfield…………………………….”Through our investment and coordination, our goal is to enable insurers and reinsurers, their clients, governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to protect and grow their organizations in the face of natural hazards and socio-economic risks.
Aon Benfield was the first company in the (re)insurance industry to support and invest in academic research, recognizing how academia can work hand in hand with business to improve risk awareness and understanding. Since 1996 we have built strong links with leading institutions and organizations.”
How sinister sounding is that?
Then, there is this lot – these sanctimonious divs:
“…the efforts of leading research organisations like the Grantham Institute are vitally important to understand and respond to the scale, pace and potential implications of climate change”
– Jeremy and Hannelore Grantham
and we all know this prat………………..Jes Grantham’s sidekick and enforcer
When one observes, only in a cursory way and minor scrutiny – the enormous networks of ‘interested parties’ the mind is simply boggled but then, if one is investigative it comes down the most basic question; what is in it for them?
Can you guess and it ain’t ‘saving mankind’.
Finally, here’s a larf……. how’s that for filling yer boots, a case of in the ‘public interest’: is been taken too literally!
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Pointman,
I tend to agree with with what you are saying, particularly with regard to the way thieves are attracted to vast boatloads of money being poured into the ‘climate’ problem; however, it seems to me that in general it is ‘certainty’ that is being oversold to the public by both scientists, advocates and politicians, not uncertainty.
~W^3
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