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AmericaIsGreat

(630 posts)
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:27 PM Jan 2012

Absolutely stunned. A good friend with an advanced degree in physics just posted this on his FB:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2093264/Forget-global-warming--Cycle-25-need-worry-NASA-scientists-right-Thames-freezing-again.html

To spare you the bullshit: it claims that the Met Office and the Univ of East Anglia Research Team just concluded, based on readings from "30,000 observing stations" that there has been "no warming for 15 years." Anyone with half a brain should immediately recognize two things: The Daily Mail is a tabloid, well known for peddling their AGW-denying crap with fabricated information and misinterpretations of peer reviewed science, and that if this was really the conclusion made it would have been everywhere.

That he could post this utter CRAP without doing a simple search is horrifying to me.

A quick search for the claims in this article yields plenty of results which all lead back to the same article EXCEPT one. And what do you guys think it is? That's right - a direct response from the Met Office themselves:

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/

Guess what it says? That's right: that the Daily Mail's article is complete bullshit; that it contains numerous errors reporting peer reviewed science, that it fabricated the claim about "no warming in 15 years" and left out TWO PARAGRAPHS worth of answer from the Met Office to one of the Daily Mail's question, conveniently the part that says there is no denying a warming trend and 2000-2009 being the warmest decade on record.

I almost sent him a nasty response because he's a Ron Paul supporter and has posted complete non-sense from a political perspective but I rewrote the message to be as nice (but as firm) as possible.

This really upsets me more than anything else. How someone with so much scientific integrity is duped by a tabloid article and fails to look any of it up is simply staggering to me. It proves that you can be well educated and yet completely uninformed.
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Absolutely stunned. A good friend with an advanced degree in physics just posted this on his FB: (Original Post) AmericaIsGreat Jan 2012 OP
This message was self-deleted by its author valerief Jan 2012 #1
reminds me of a tenured political science professor I knew. provis99 Jan 2012 #2
Of course AmericaIsGreat Jan 2012 #5
Well... that certainly trumps my math teacher who believed in Atlantis. eShirl Jan 2012 #6
I'd argue that having a degree in physics PROVES you're insane... truebrit71 Jan 2012 #17
how old is he mzteris Jan 2012 #3
??????? TheMastersNemesis Jan 2012 #4
Soviet Union Scam syndrome comes into play. napoleon_in_rags Jan 2012 #7
one pyramid scheme brought down Albania in 1997 MisterP Jan 2012 #10
There are plenty of folks with physics PhDs who buy into various flavors of denial caraher Jan 2012 #8
The ability to manipulate physics equations has little to do with one's understanding of the world saras Jan 2012 #9
maybe he's having a go? or baiting people? Schema Thing Jan 2012 #11
Is he a geophysicist? wtmusic Jan 2012 #12
More evidence that physics does not equate with climatology. He kestrel91316 Jan 2012 #13
I wouldn't go THAT far... caraher Jan 2012 #14
There's a difference customerserviceguy Jan 2012 #15
Having a physics degree doesn't make you an expert in climate. TheWraith Jan 2012 #16
It's not that I expected him to know about climatology AmericaIsGreat Jan 2012 #18

Response to AmericaIsGreat (Original post)

 

provis99

(13,062 posts)
2. reminds me of a tenured political science professor I knew.
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:29 PM
Jan 2012

Did some interesting work in political methodology, but once he got tenure, started showing up on late night talk radio to talk about the device he was building to talk to Jesus.

I think his colleagues put his office in the basement of the political science building at Emory.

also, keep in mind that William Luther Pierce had a PhD in physics from the University of Colorado, and taught at Oregon State. He is most famour for writing the Turner Diaries that inspired mass-murderer Timothy McVeigh, and for being an icon of the neo-Nazi movement.

Just because you have a physics degree doesn't mean you're sane.

 

AmericaIsGreat

(630 posts)
5. Of course
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:35 PM
Jan 2012

But I figured he at least has the sense to do a search when fed incredible claims like this. I guess it proves that he didn't know these claims were incredible which just shows he knows nothing about climate change. Very sad. That kid is a fucking math and physics genius.

eShirl

(18,466 posts)
6. Well... that certainly trumps my math teacher who believed in Atlantis.
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:39 PM
Jan 2012

He used to describe the ancient Atlanteans sometimes, and their flying machines powered by mercury (or was that Mercury? the planet?)...

 

truebrit71

(20,805 posts)
17. I'd argue that having a degree in physics PROVES you're insane...
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 12:39 PM
Jan 2012

There was a sign outside the physics lab at my old school it said "If it bleeds, it's biology, if it burns it's chemistry, and if it does fuck all, it's physics"...

My view on physics has softened over the years, but the theoretical stuff borders on lunacy...

mzteris

(16,232 posts)
3. how old is he
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:29 PM
Jan 2012

and when was the last time he had a checkup?

Mental degradation could be a sign of serious medical issues.

napoleon_in_rags

(3,991 posts)
7. Soviet Union Scam syndrome comes into play.
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 08:40 PM
Jan 2012

The good thing about living in the USSR was that people didn't know about a lot of scams, because many scams rely on presenting themselves as legitimate free market entities, which were banned because it was communist. As a result, when the wall came down, people fell for things Americans would just laugh at, in huge numbers.

The bottom line is that when you are exposed to BS all the time, your ability to detect it improves. Inversely, living in a world of peer reviewed journals with non-politicized content info for years impairs your BS detection.

Scientists should just download the data and come to their own conclusions. When I see graphs like these:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/
A warming trend is evident, and its correlation to industrialization is as well.

caraher

(6,276 posts)
8. There are plenty of folks with physics PhDs who buy into various flavors of denial
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 09:02 PM
Jan 2012

The one I know best has a picture of Ronald Reagan on the wall of his office....

 

saras

(6,670 posts)
9. The ability to manipulate physics equations has little to do with one's understanding of the world
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 10:15 PM
Jan 2012

On the first day of Physics 121, the first physics class for physics majors, they explained to the whole class I was in, in about this many words, that in the long run, it doesn't really matter how good you are as a physicist. There are plenty of skilled physicists. After college, you will be working in teams with hundreds of members, bidding as a team for corporate jobs. Anything you do that interferes with that process is a liability to you as a physicist.

wtmusic

(39,166 posts)
12. Is he a geophysicist?
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 11:03 PM
Jan 2012

Money pouring into that field from the petrochemical industry tends to have a poisonous effect on scientific method.

 

kestrel91316

(51,666 posts)
13. More evidence that physics does not equate with climatology. He
Sun Jan 29, 2012, 11:50 PM
Jan 2012

may as well have a PhD in Romanian Literature.

caraher

(6,276 posts)
14. I wouldn't go THAT far...
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 12:10 AM
Jan 2012

After all, there are climate scientists who buy into the trash (however rare they may be). With denier physicists, I think it's a combination of confirmation bias and a certain kind of arrogance that causes trouble. Frequently they don't bother to look beneath the surface and come to comfortable conclusions based on incorrect assumptions and inadequate information.

Physicists who apply their training have no trouble following the science; the same is not true of a PhD in Romanian Literature. The problem is that they're not applying the science they've learned, but following their politics.

TheWraith

(24,331 posts)
16. Having a physics degree doesn't make you an expert in climate.
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 03:36 AM
Jan 2012

Any more than being an ophthalmologist makes you particularly qualified to deliver a baby.

 

AmericaIsGreat

(630 posts)
18. It's not that I expected him to know about climatology
Mon Jan 30, 2012, 05:19 PM
Jan 2012

It's that I expected someone who has had that much science education to know about how to vet articles like this, especially when they make a claim like "scientists just found there has been no warming for 15 years." Maybe I can't blame him for not knowing that the Daily Mail is a tabloid with no credibility whatsoever, I just can't believe he read that one pile of shit and immediately posted it.

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