Heretics Corner

Climate skeptics rewrite Sagan. Can they sink any lower ?

Carl Sagan was one of the greats of science communication. Often remembered for his epic Cosmos (well worth revisiting, available on You Tube) he was also the instigator of the Pioneer 10 plaque which carries humanity's message across the galaxy. Thus long after you and I have turned to dust Carl Sagan's work will still be on it's interstelllar voyage .

Vloggers have divided up much of Carl Sagan's work into bite sized chunks like 'pale blue dot' which gives an astrophyscist's perspective on our environment . Tear to the eye stuff.

Hat tip to Climate Crocks for finding this film which directly addresses the question of anthropogenic global warming .

Sagan died in 1996 at the age of 62.

2012 and a guest blogger on the Bishop Hill blog lifts a passage from chapter IV of Dr Sagan's book Cosmos and posits that Sagan would have opposed the AGW consensus and the IPCC. A staggeringly cynical use of a widely respected dead scientist to attack the IPCC and make a partisan point. Does make one wonder what next for the Bishop Hill blog , Charles Darwin blogs on Dark Matter perhaps or Euclid's thoughts on the PIP implant scandal?

Book Review : The Self Illusion

Another Book Review for Amazon this time I've read The Self Illusion by Professor Bruce Hood which is free ! Five Stars :

Fascinating look at how the brain works and what the 'self' is inside it (or otherwise). Hood puts forward the view that the 'self' is really just a construct of the brain. This might be controversial and whilst still science his work takes the reader to the edge of philosophy.

Hood reveals plenty along the way such as "We now know that the unborn baby can learn the sound of their mother’s voice, develop a preference for the food she eats while pregnant and even remember the theme tune to the TV soap operas she watches while waiting for the big day to arrive."

Fans of The Matrix will be delighted to learn that it is 'not that far off the mark when it comes to understanding the nature of the human mind' according to the Professor. Indeed Hood is very excited about the internet "I tell my own children that they are living during one of the major transitions in human civilization, that humankind is currently in the midst of the next great evolutionary leap." Probably he didn't mean to sound Maoist there. This inspiring work is well worth a read, as Hood observes 'It is one of most exciting times to be alive in the history of humankind.'

No prior knowledge of neuroscience is required, you will learn a bit about dopamine and how it makes the anticipation of reward more satisfying than reward itself. Just as well , Professor Hood promises us a fuller version of this free ebook later in the year.

Powerful video of Schneider on AGW impacts and denial

Hat tip Wild Weather Dan for this. Must see.

Michael Buerk what a berk

Michael Buerk enters the fray on the climate debate showing just how conservative and ill-informed you have to be to make it as a newsreader. My two cents worth is :

It's a bit rich for a BBC newsreader to spout "I don’t want the media to make up my mind up for me." Where does Buerk get "... the issues beyond doubt and the steps to be taken beyond dispute" from ? Mr Buerk posits that there probably are answers to all his quibbles and if he researched properly he would find that is so. On the whole Buerk is ruminating on tedious canards.

One statement in particular indicates that Buerk's polemic is biased towards misinforming the public "I would like to hear a clash of informed opinion about what would actually be better if it got warmer as well as worse." The trouble with that is whilst it would get better for a small few , the aggregate effect on humanity would be negative. There is no informed opinion that disputes that ergo Mr Buerk's desire to hear such a clash of opinions is on the face of it misleading.

Another completely unsupportable claim from Monty

Once again Andrew Montford brilliantly demonstrates why his narrative cannot be trusted . Montford scrambles a post by contrarian activist (and WGII author) Richard Tol over the IPCC nexus with national FOI laws. Tol isn't actually reporting anything new, but Montford headlines it "IPCC declares itself above the law" and thus another contrarian canard is born. It is however easily debunked. If the IPCC declares something there must by definition be a declaration. However Monty ignores requests to point us to the IPCC declaration he refers to. Come on now Monty, you're making it up as you go along.

Ivor Ichikowitz Not a very nice man

Despite never being elected to public office Ivor Ichikowitz boasts that he is part of the inner circle of the President of South Africa. Indeed he flew the President to both Azerbaijan and the U.S. in his private Boeing 727 piloted by a mercenary. So what did they talk about on their travels? We can only guess but it wasn't world peace since Ichikowitz is an arms dealer and he's also known as 'a peddler of influence' .

Unlike most arms dealers Ichikowitz does give a fuck about what you think about him because he hired Bell Pottinger here in the UK to give his reputation a whitewash, that's the mob who've been caught red handed rewriting wikipedia entries on behalf of their corporate clients (not to mention pitching for the child labour business of the Uzbeki Cotton Industry).

Ichikowitz: Not just an arms dealer and warmonger but a sock puppeteer too

Last week blogger Tim Ireland exposed a number of fake wikipedia accounts run from computers registered to the disgraced PR firm. One of those 'Biggleswiki' contributed to the now deleted WP entries for Ichikowitz and his company Paramount Group.

So on the one hand Ichikowitz pays professionals to astroturf his public profile, cravenly removing any criticism from his wikipedia entry. And on the other hand he's schmoozing with politicians at the very top of the decision making process to sell his weapons to kill people. Ivor Ichikowitz is playing both ends against the middle.

Mankind is yet to invent a more inefficient method of making collective decisions than warfare. And because of people like Ivor Ichikowitz we can see why warfare is still so widely used.

Laframboise's reviews on Amazon falsely inflated

The new IPCC bashing tome by Donna Laframboise continues to garner positive reviews on Amazon, perhaps because she has implored her followers to do so. Alas some of Donna's shills have taken her bleating "These reviews really do matter" to heart and left multiple reviews. Naughty.

Amazon.co.uk say "We only allow each customer to write one review of each product set."

Update: The above just looks at Amazon .co.uk But theres also the Amazon.com site in the U.S. Foxgoose has managed to post five star reviews on both (October 16, 2011on the US site 14 Oct 2011 on the UK site) Martin A from Normandy posts a third five star review on the US site October 19, 2011 .

Update 20:21 pm : Andrew Montford's Hockey Stick Illusion has also seen it's positive reviews inflated by multiple postings on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk MPHELPS posts five star reviews January 25, 2010 on the US site and 24 Jan 2010 on the UK site.