Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Ed Begley Jr. Interviewed By Stuart Varney on Fox News

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Here is actor Ed Begley Jr. being interviewed by Stuart Varney on Fox News:

Ed Begley Jr. remarks “I don’t think geologists should write papers about being an actor or newscaster…nor should uh…Don’t get your information from me folks or any newscaster, get it from people with PhD after their name.”

So, if geologists cannot discuss acting, why should we listen to an actor discussing PhD scientists? Wouldn’t we have to listen to Ed Begley Jr. in order to know that we should only listen to PhD scientists? By his own admission we shouldn’t listen to him about who we should listen to because he is not a PhD scientist.

And secondly, notice how he keeps remarking that “peer review” is the gold standard of what should be considered legitimate in the Climate Change debate. But of course, the emails hacked recently from the University of East Anglia’s Climactic Research Unit (CRU) show that the “peer review” process is rigged, where scientists who do not agree with Anthropic Global Warming are shunned from publishing in the “peer review”. When the “peers” who do the “reviewing” are of the mindset that only one position, that of Anthropic Global Warming, should be considered valid, these peers shun the other scientists (just as much qualified PhD scientists as any other) who disagree out of the “review”. Thus the only effect that “peer review” has is to disqualify dissenting science.

Dr. David Berlinski, who does have a PhD after his name, has this to say about the “peer review” process and the “self-correcting” methods of science.

And now it appears that, in light of their embarrassing emails which admit to data manipulation and peer review suppression, the CRU has agreed to publish all of their data….eventually. The article published November 28th, 2009 at Telegraph: explains:

Leading British scientists at the University of East Anglia, who were accused of manipulating climate change data – dubbed Climategate – have agreed to publish their figures in full.

Among the leaked emails disclosed last week were an alleged note from Professor Phil Jones, 57, the director of the CRU and a leading target of climate change sceptics, to an American colleague describing the death of a sceptic as “cheering news”; and a suggestion from Prof Jones that a “trick” is used to “hide the decline” in temperature.

They even include threats of violence. One American academic wrote to Prof Jones: “Next time I see Pat Michaels [a climate sceptic] at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.”

Dr Michaels, tracked down by this newspaper to the Cato Institute in Washington DC where he is a senior fellow in environmental studies, said last night: “There were a lot of people who thought I was exaggerating when I kept insisting terrible things are going on here.

“This is business as usual for them. The world might be surprised but I am not. These guys have an attitude.”

Mr. David Holland, a skeptic of global warming, has a different philosophy than of Ed Begley Jr.’s.

A grandfather with a training in electrical engineering dating back more than 40 years emerged from the leaked emails as a leading climate sceptic trying to bring down the scientific establishment on global warming.

David Holland, who describes himself as a David taking on the Goliath that is the prevailing scientific consensus, is seeking prosecutions against some of Britain’s most eminent academics for allegedly holding back information in breach of disclosure laws.

Mr Holland, of Northampton, complained to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) last week after the leaked emails included several Freedom of Information requests he had submitted to the CRU, and scientists’ private responses to them.

Within hours, a senior complaints officer in the ICO wrote back by email: “I have started to examine the issues that you have raised in your letter and I am currently liaising with colleagues in our Enforcement and Data Protection teams as to what steps to take next.”

The official also promised to investigate other universities linked to the CRU, which is one of the world’s leading authorities on temperature levels and has helped to prove that man-made global warming not only exists but will have catastrophic consequences if not tackled urgently. Mr Holland is convinced the threat has been greatly exaggerated.

In one email dated May 28, 2008, one academic writes to a colleague having received Mr Holland’s request: “Oh MAN! Will this crap ever end??”

Mr Holland, who graduated with an external degree in electrical engineering from London University in 1966 before going on to run his own businesses, told The Sunday Telegraph: “It’s like David versus Goliath. Thanks to these leaked emails a lot of little people can begin to make some impact on this monolithic entity that is the climate change lobby.”

He added: “These guys called climate scientists have not done any more physics or chemistry than I did. A lifetime in engineering gives you a very good antenna. It also cures people of any self belief they cannot be wrong. You clear up a lot of messes during a lifetime in engineering. I could be wrong on global warming – I know that – but the guys on the other side don’t believe they can ever be wrong.”

Comments
Berceuse @ 12
I work in the aerospace industry as well, and I’m wondering if this is one of the reasons why so many of the engineers I know are Christians. Not that they all think Darwinism is BS, but at the very least, their instincts tell them a materialistic worldview just isn’t right.
Actually, I find it quite alarming so many of them are Christians because when I get on an aircraft I'm hoping the aerospace engineers who designed and built it did a a lot more than pray they got it right. I'm hoping they used good old materialist science. As for engineers themselves, the only thing about them that is interesting scientifically is why on Earth so many of them think they think they know biology better than biologists or geology better then geologists or climate better than climatologists.Seversky
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
06:28 PM
6
06
28
PM
PDT
If the global-warming alarmists get their way (on the basis of fraudulent, junk "science"), it will mean the end of modern Western civilization and the destruction of countless innocent lives in the third world. Why would people want to do that? My answer is: They hate humanity (themselves excluded, of course). They are misanthropes.GilDodgen
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
04:39 PM
4
04
39
PM
PDT
waterbear,
we could actually read and try to understand the code and see how that ties up with published papers.
First, what evidence, if any, have you seen so far that even infers that we don't understand what is happening in the code? Second, are you referring to the papers that are only selectively published through an exclusive circle of 45 self-referring scientists?
Alternatively we could read comments in computer code written in a language we don’t understand
News flash: IT'S NOT HEIROGLYPHICS. You're simply projecting your own ignorance upon us. Just because you don't understand what's going on in the code doesn't mean everyone else shares your position. Once you have some programming experience with almost any modern code language, it's not hard to understand what's going on especially when functions that aren't specific to any one language are defined and outlined by the programmer, have notes to go along with them, and even a finished graph for explicit visual reference.PaulN
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
02:23 PM
2
02
23
PM
PDT
And now for something completely different... Ecology, evolution and global climate models in one experiment!!1! extra goodness - confirmatory data from Teh Real WorldNakashima
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
02:10 PM
2
02
10
PM
PDT
Oh sure, Zachriel @32, we could actually read and try to understand the code and see how that ties up with published papers. Alternatively we could read comments in computer code written in a language we don't understand, applying transforms we can speculate about the reasons for to data from sources we think we have an idea about and conclude that this is the biggest scientific fraud of modern times. Why else would anyone say "hide the decline" unless they meant "hide the worldwide decline in temperatures"? Just accept already that the smoking polar bear of truth has been exploded beneath the supposedly shrinking iceberg of deceit. As a British journalist with a solid track record on science has the guts to point out; the world is cooling, ice coverage is increasing and sea levels aren't rising any faster than normal.waterbear
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
01:57 PM
1
01
57
PM
PDT
Hmmm... day-to-day weather forecast vs. a millenia of fudged proxy data. Something just doesn't add up there.PaulN
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
01:44 PM
1
01
44
PM
PDT
The bottom line is that there is no way computer models of the earth’s climate can be trusted. The system is too poorly understood and there is no method of empirical validation except to wait and see what the climate does. In this regard, the climate over the last ten years has done the opposite of what the models predicted, which means they have been empirically invalidated. That’s how science works.
Right. Just look how they use computers to forecast weather. And to think they even trusted them to predict the D-day weather! Never trust a scientist. Engineers and computer hacks have a nose for the real facts.Cabal
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
01:41 PM
1
01
41
PM
PDT
Where are you getting the idea that the given block of code wasn't used for plotting the graph? And not to speak for Gil, but I'm sure he has better things to do with his time and obvious talents than to point out line for line what you've obviously overlooked. It's not hard to understand that "valadj" stands for value adjustment, which starts at "yrloc" which most likely stands for year location (1904). The incremental values provided within the next segment are obviously reflected by simply looking at the graph itself, as it follows a small decline and then inclines rapidly. There are no other values in the code that define such a pattern. As for the other two files, I'm sure it won't take you long to locate them and look at the source code for yourself to see if they contain the same code segments. Do you need anything else?PaulN
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
01:12 PM
1
01
12
PM
PDT
There is a followup to that blog. Graham-Cumming: The 'very artificial correction' flap looks like much ado about nothing to me.Zachriel
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
01:06 PM
1
01
06
PM
PDT
Here is some analysis of the code: http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/crus_source_code_climategate_r.html Page down.GilDodgen
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
01:05 PM
1
01
05
PM
PDT
Ah, so can we examine the actual contents of briffa_sep98_decline1.pro and briffa_sep98_decline2.pro? I haven't seen their contents. As the ‘valadj’ thing which you said was the source of the hockey stick turned out not to be, perhaps these other programs aren't quite what you think they are either. If only there was a software engineer on this thread.waterbear
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
12:58 PM
12
12
58
PM
PDT
Waterbear, In the very comments section of your post it is revealed that the block of code in question was used in a later rendition of the same file. From Dave Scotese:
Perhaps you could do the world a favor and point out that briffa_sep98_d.pro's name suggests it's an earlier version than briffa_sep98_e.pro, and that while the artificial correction is rendered impotent in the former, it is apparently used in the latter.
Also from Pete:
Have a look at these. briffa_sep98_decline1.pro briffa_sep98_decline2.pro It looks like the artificial correction was a placeholder until they'd worked out how to do their rotated PCA correction for the decline.
And something added in to the original post that you seem to have missed blatantly:
Update: Read the comments below. It's been pointed out to me that there's a later version of code in the archive in which similar correction code is not commented out. Details and link below.
PaulN
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
12:51 PM
12
12
51
PM
PDT
@PaulN #25:
They just made the program write a hockey stick regardless of the data?
Indeed, hence the programmer’s note above the block of code stating “Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline”
But the valadj thing isn't actually used in the rest of the program so cannot affect any result, according to this post written by someone who knows the programming language used. From where do you learn that it is "magnifying the curve by 2.6 for the last years" and was the trick referred to in other e-mails and produced the hockey stick? Gil, who is a software engineer with a nose for BS, could perhaps help with this.waterbear
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
12:39 PM
12
12
39
PM
PDT
Or people who are confident enough that their code won't be seen by outsiders. [sarcasm]I mean obviously these guys are completely compliant with the freedom of information act, haven't deleted any data after the big leak, or hidden behind an absurd amount of deceptive tactics. [/sarcasm] It's as if they're reacting like any honest group of innocent scientific researchers.PaulN
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
12:38 PM
12
12
38
PM
PDT
They admitted using tricks. Are they that dishonest? Rather like unfairly using a laplace transform to solve a differential equation. Dog eats homework!jitsak
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
12:32 PM
12
12
32
PM
PDT
Because people who want to hide fakery always make a point of doing so with all-caps and double-exclamation points.Zachriel
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
12:23 PM
12
12
23
PM
PDT
waterbear,
They just made the program write a hockey stick regardless of the data?
Indeed, hence the programmer's note above the block of code stating "Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline" that serves to denote the fake incline quite explicitly. The numbers give you the exact magnitude to which the graph curve is being periodically increased after 1904 .PaulN
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
11:57 AM
11
11
57
AM
PDT
@PaulN #20:
They just programmed the climate curve (hockey stick) into the application which draws the curve – no matter what data it uses.
They just made the program write a hockey stick regardless of the data? Is that the 'valadj' thing with the increasing numbers? Why, the slimy little critters.waterbear
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
11:43 AM
11
11
43
AM
PDT
I don't understand you people. Man-caused global warming has to be true.Mung
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
11:31 AM
11
11
31
AM
PDT
Begley is right: no one should pay any attention to what he says about global warming. Actors get their lines from scripts. Who gave him his "global warming" script, I wonder. I have a real issue with the media treating Hollywood elites as if there were experts on this or that issue. Best example was several years ago the House invited Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek to testify on farm related issues. Why? Because they played farmers wives in popular films! Wow, there's credentials for you. What's Begley's credentials on global warming, meteorology or climatology?DonaldM
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
11:29 AM
11
11
29
AM
PDT
Also, if you're really interested in spending some time investigating the methods used to generate much of the climate data, Jeff Id from "The Air Vent" has replicated most of the process on his blog that can be found here (code and all): Part One Part TwoPaulN
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
10:06 AM
10
10
06
AM
PDT
Gil, Speaking of manipulating parameters, how's this? Taken directly from source code used in one of the hockey-stick reconstructions:
original code (..FOIA..documents..osborn-tree6..briffa_sep98_d.pro) ; ; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!! ; yrloc=[1400,findgen(19)*5.+1904] valadj=[0.,0.,0.,0.,0.,-0.1,-0.25,-0.3,0.,-0.1,0.3,0.8,1.2,1.7,2.5,2.6,2.6,$ 2.6,2.6,2.6]*0.75 ; fudge factor if n_elements(yrloc) ne n_elements(valadj) then message,’Oooops!’ ; yearlyadj=interpol(valadj,yrloc,timey)
They just programmed the climate curve (hockey stick) into the application which draws the curve – no matter what data it uses. This is the ‘trick’ they talk about in the emails. Here is the portion of the code, which manipulates the curve. It creates a mask, which manipulates the data from 1904 on, dealing with the decline and then artificially magnifying the curve by 2.6 for the last years So basically no matter what temperature data is used, whether it be real, proxy, or artificially derived, it will always follow the curve defined by the mask employed in this code. Granted the frequency/period of the highs and lows might vary given different collection methods, it will always produce the same general shape on the graph regardless, ultimately creating an artificial incline beginning at 1904 onwards.PaulN
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
10:01 AM
10
10
01
AM
PDT
11 GilDodgen 11/30/2009 12:45 am A lifetime in engineering gives you a very good antenna. It also cures people of any self belief they cannot be wrong. You clear up a lot of messes during a lifetime in engineering. I can offer an “amen” to that. Engineers of all varieties — electrical, mechanical, software, structural, or aeronautical, and I am involved in all five in the aerospace R&D biz — quickly learn what works and what doesn’t, and which assumptions are correct and which are not. Reality quickly disposes of one’s ego, self-assurance and “peer review” when computer programs and aircraft crash.
My experience is that this doesn't help engineers when they enter the field of designing life aka genetic engineering.osteonectin
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
09:22 AM
9
09
22
AM
PDT
Seversky: They can also smell strongly of bullshit when pontificating about disciplines outside their areas of expertise. Information-processing systems are not outside the area of expertise of a software engineer, and living systems are based on such systems. It is the typical Darwinist who is outside his area of expertise in this regard. On the subject of climate computer models: One of my engineering specialties is creating computer models with a program called LS-DYNA, which was originally developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the early 1970's for nuclear weapons research by some of the most brilliant people who have ever lived. It has been under continuous development and refinement for more than a third of a century, and has been used and evaluated by countless scientists and engineers. It is arguably the most sophisticated and powerful finite-element analysis program ever created for the modeling of transient, nonlinear, dynamic systems. It has been used for many years in the automotive industry for modeling car crashes. All the laws of physics involved in these simulations are thoroughly understood, and material properties are well characterized and documented. Even with all of this, and all the experience of the people who create these models, they still crash a real car to validate the simulations. One learns very quickly that a single erroneous assumption or a single programming oversight can completely invalidate a model. The worst part is that the result can be wrong but it may not be obvious that it is. Only empirical testing can finally validate a model. One also learns that he can get whatever result he wants by manipulating the parameters. The bottom line is that there is no way computer models of the earth's climate can be trusted. The system is too poorly understood and there is no method of empirical validation except to wait and see what the climate does. In this regard, the climate over the last ten years has done the opposite of what the models predicted, which means they have been empirically invalidated. That's how science works.GilDodgen
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
07:53 AM
7
07
53
AM
PDT
Hi everyone. Well, the reason why I listen to engineers when they talk about global warming is that they know the limits of computers models - i.e. where they can be trusted and where they cannot. Here's a quote by Robert A. Perkins, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alaska, and a registered civil engineer, who has 30 years' experience working in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions: Read more: http://www.c3headlines.com/global-warming-quotes-climate-change-quotes.html and http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Presence-of-Mind-Blue-Sky-Thinking.html#ixzz0YLq2dy02
All the ‘science’ that you read about global warming is based on models, not observed facts. Here are some reasons to doubt the models: Expert statistician Akaike proved that the more parameters a model needs to fit the historical data, the less certain the model will predict the future....All the climate models are incredibly complex, hence ‘over-parameterized.’ The climate models, however, do not even fit the present data, at least in the Arctic....Finally, none of the published models that ‘blame’ human activity for the warming trend account for the known historical variations in global climate.
Here's one engineer with a pretty good BS detector: Professor John Brignell . Readers might be interested in this post, by Professor John Brignell , entitled How we know they know they are lying. It lists no less than ten criteria which serve as useful warning signs to laypeople that the science behind the hypothesis of dangerous Anthropogenic Global Warming is bogus, and that society is being hoodwinked by an orchestrated scaremongering campaign. Well worth reading. Readers might also ike to have a look at his articles, Global Warming as Religion and not Science and Computer modelling and Feedback . Another paper I would recommend to readers is A Climate of Belief by Dr. Patrick Frank. In The Skeptic, vol. 14 no. 1. (Here is a link to the Supporting Information for Frank's paper.) Patrick Frank is a Ph.D. chemist with more than 50 peer-reviewed articles. In his paper, he argues that the claim that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for the current warming of Earth climate is scientifically insupportable because climate models are unreliable.
The limits of resolution of the GCMs [general circulation models] - their pixel size - is huge compared to what they are trying to project. In each new projection year of a century-scale calculation, the growing uncertainty in the climate impact of clouds alone makes the view of a GCM become progressively fuzzier... It is well-known among climatologists that large swaths of the physics in GCMs are not well understood. Where the uncertainty is significant GCMs have "parameters," which are best judgments for how certain climate processes work. General Circulation Models have dozens of parameters and possibly a million variables, and all of them have some sort of error or uncertainty... So the bottom line is this: When it comes to future climate, no one knows what they're talking about. No one. Not the IPCC nor its scientists, not the US National Academy of Sciences, not the NRDC or National Geographic, not the US Congressional House leadership, not me, not you, and certainly not Mr. Albert Gore. Earth's climate is warming and no one knows exactly why.
vjtorley
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
06:18 AM
6
06
18
AM
PDT
Seversky, thank you for the link to the link to the Nov. 2003 article regarding mass resignations at Climate Research Here is some new information as to why such a think might have happened And I love your sense of irony!!tribune7
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
05:19 AM
5
05
19
AM
PDT
GilDodgen @ 11
Experienced engineers have highly trained noses. They can smell BS from a mile away, even when the wind is blowing in the opposite direction.
They can also smell strongly of bullshit when pontificating about disciplines outside their areas of expertise.Seversky
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
03:23 AM
3
03
23
AM
PDT
Nakashima @ 3
Mr Tribune7, What happens when the peer review is rigged? Ask Richard Sternberg!
Not only Richard Sternberg, it would appear, according to accounts, Nakajima-san. Seversky
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
03:17 AM
3
03
17
AM
PDT
Sorry that this post isn't relevant to the topic but I'm not sure how to flag things up that the authors of this website might be interested in. Stephen Law is the head of the Centre for Inwuiry in London England. He's asking for comments on an excerpt for a forthcoming book, some of which is about intelligent design. I'm fairly sure from previous comments he's made that he hasn't even looked into the arguments in much depth at all. Perhaps some more competent critics than I could enlighten him a little http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/fandango1
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
02:59 AM
2
02
59
AM
PDT
If you want to get the goods on religion then talk only to priests and theologians not to Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hithchens. Makes sense. Btw in Oz a guy named Tim Flannery is a "man made climate change" guru with strong influence on government policy. Guess what he is - a zoologist turned palaeontologist turned expert on weather and climate. He's not a research climatologist. Unlike Lindzen who is and locally a skeptic named Bill Kinninmonth who is a metereologist. Begley needs to catch up with these guys rather than rely on corrupted peer review processes and scientists/experts who fiddle the data to fit an agenda. Add Pat Michaels to the above skeptics list. He is also climatologist.deric davidson
November 30, 2009
November
11
Nov
30
30
2009
01:38 AM
1
01
38
AM
PDT
1 2 3

Leave a Reply