Because he loves me too, of course.
Also, he’s just really cool.
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About Bad Astronomy
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
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April 6th, 2007 at 10:05 am
So where do we send the money again?
April 6th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Phil,
You are definitely part of the Randiverse.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:39 am
On another forum there was a thread about psychics, so I referenced Randi’s website.
It was great playing the part of the sceptic for once.
April 6th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Over at Skeptic Friends they’re a bit concerned about Randi’s doubts concerning Global Warming. If I read him correctly, his doubts might really be with what he sees as anecdotal claims being applied to a subject that is a real threat but not fully understood.
http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7803
April 6th, 2007 at 11:26 am
In today’s SWIFT he says that he has come to the conclusion that global warming is real and at least “substantially augmented” by humans, An Inconvenient Truth is mostly correct although there may be a few errors, and that “The Great Global Warming Swindle” was a load of crock.
April 6th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
For reference, mainstream climate science states that the sun contributes something between 10% and 30% of the total observed warming (with 30% being a very liberal estimate, 10% somewhat conservative). Humans cause the remaining 70%-90% of it, and there is some evidence that the ratio of natural-to-anthropogenic warming has decreased over the past century.
Also, in BA’s comments of global warming, I can’t help but note that technically it is the greenhouse effect that keeps Earth from freezing over, not global warming. Related concepts, of course, but not exactly equivalent.
April 6th, 2007 at 3:46 pm
And one of the great things about Randi is that when he is wrong he admits it.
Just like a real scientist would. Just like you would.
He may not be a “real scientist”, but he’s about as good a friend as science and rationality could have and we’re all the better off for Randi.
April 7th, 2007 at 1:25 am
I also love James Randi, It was he that convinced me there was no such thing as the supernatural all them years ago. I hope he is well in health, there was a bit of a scare last year I think.
April 7th, 2007 at 3:41 am
I saw “The Great Global Warming Swindle†and the graphs showing that CO2 lagged the temperature and the graphs correlating solar activity seemed quite convincing, so what was wrong with that?
April 7th, 2007 at 6:57 am
They are grossly oversimplifying the issues in order to support their position. They are not looking just for correlation, that is not good enough, they are trying to determine causation. Looking at how much energy the sun is contributing has made it clear to climatologists that it is insufficient to cause the warming we are seeing. It is contributing, but it is not the only or even the primary cause. Their interpretation of the plots regarding CO2 and warming neglect other influences such as aerosols, feedback, and other issues that legitimate climate analysis takes into account and is fully able to account for the data seen.
On one hand you have the denialists saying the climate is way too complicated to model (which it isn’t) in order to reject the mainstream climatologist position. On the other hand they use these inordinately oversimplified analyses (even they can even be called that) to support their own position. It is a standard antiscience tactic, they demand unfeasibly high standards of scientific evidence for their opponents but for themselves are content with extremely lax standards, if any standards at all, for themselves.
It is like the Discovery Institute berating biologists for not being able to explain every stage of evolution of every molecule in every organism on the planet. However, they are content for themselves with vague and unusable pseudo-mathematical conjectures and arguments from ignorance, saying they don’t have to explain anything about how their process works, when it happened, where it happened, or to what parts of what organism. It is the same here, they demand unattainable levels of detail for the climatologists, but for themselves a mere glance at a plot and their own intuition is enough to prove their position.
April 7th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Sticks - go to http://www.randi.org/jr/2007-04/040607mi.html#i8 to see randi’s reasons for his conclusion.
A short quote from there, regarding the graphs:
“…It turns out that producer Martin Durkin also “edited†his graph material, to produce a spurious conclusion by disregarding all information obtained after 1980 and “stretching out†the remaining results to fill up the graph space! If you’re still unconvinced that the UK/Channel 4 film was a purposeful sham, go to portal.campaigncc.org/node/1820.It turns out that producer Martin Durkin also “edited†his graph material, to produce a spurious conclusion by disregarding all information obtained after 1980 and “stretching out†the remaining results to fill up the graph space! If you’re still unconvinced that the UK/Channel 4 film was a purposeful sham, go to portal.campaigncc.org/node/1820…”
There was apparently a lot of “creative” editing involved in the making of this piece of propaganda.
April 7th, 2007 at 6:58 am
Oops, vague pronouns. The first “They” is denialists, the second is climatologists.
April 7th, 2007 at 7:00 am
Oops… pasted that quote twise accidentally. Sorry about that. I thought it looked substantially longer than on Randi’s site…
April 7th, 2007 at 7:26 am
I agree, Randi is just great. It was while reading his weekly commentaries that I discovered just how STUPID homeopathy is. (what’s the matter with people, anyways?)
April 7th, 2007 at 8:28 am
So would you consider it more worse / dishonest than that Fox programme?
April 7th, 2007 at 8:33 am
” OMYGOD! The eyes! They follow me EVERYWHERE,,,”
Hey, that looks like me,,,oh, wait, no, the beard’s too small.
Definition of a scientist: One who looks at empirical evidence and formulates hypotheses to explain that data,,,
Sounds like Randi to me,,,
Now for a bit of whimsy:
As one Randy old goat said to another,
“I stink, therefore,,,
I ram,,,”
Gary 7
April 7th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
<sob> He loves you, and he doesn’t even know I exist!!!
<cue junior high school level of angst and jealousy>
April 7th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
He knows, Grasshopper,,,he sees EVERYTHING,,,Ah, Hah, hah ,hah,,, hah!
(Hard to be sardonic w/o sound effects,,,)
Gary 7
April 8th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Oh, PZ. He knows you exist. I made fun of you in front of everyone at TAM 5.
But you’ll have to wait for the DVD to know for sure…
April 9th, 2007 at 1:32 am
Wow, a DVD? About TAM5 or about your work, Phil?
April 9th, 2007 at 7:15 am
I question whether DVDs actually exist.
As for Randi - I think he’s an electronic construct from Pixar (Disney lacks the sense of humor). No sane individual could be so rational and survive in the modern world.
Now, I’m going to go buy a 14 billion jars of peanut butter…
April 10th, 2007 at 5:40 am
Phil writes:
“Why I love Randi, part n
Because he loves me too, of course.”
For goodness’ sake, just get a room, would you?!!!
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April 10th, 2007 at 7:12 am
Sticks: I saw “The Great Global Warming Swindle†and the graphs showing that CO2 lagged the temperature and the graphs correlating solar activity seemed quite convincing, so what was wrong with that?
Well, on formal logical grounds, proof that A causes B does not tell you anything at all about whether B causes A, and it definitely doesn’t tell you that B cannot cause A. If it did, fire wouldn’t work.
Also, the situation where CO2 rises smoothly over a period of a century or more, without any geological or climate driver, can only (as far as we know) be produced by a global industrial civilisation. So unless you think that there was such a civilisation at some point in pre-history, it shouldn’t be a surprise that you don’t see its fingerprints in the paleo-climate record. No-one thinks the last ice-age ended because the neanderthals were burning too many fossil fuels.
Knowledge of climateology is not required to refute most of the claims made in TGGWS - just basic logic. And if that’s the best the denialists have got, well, I’m even more convinced now than I was before.