Hi there, folks. This post should have been a tweet in response to Roger Pielke Jr (@RogerPielkeJr), professor of political science at the University of Colorado Boulder, the guy who got fired by Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight for, as I understand it, his anti-science positions on climate change. This is a response for a tweet by Junior designed to offend, nay, attack, both Professor Michael Mann and moi. But Roger blocks me (and everybody else) on twitter, so this has to be a blog post.
Roger is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I suppose I can't blame him for getting every single thing that he gets wrong wrong. When someone gets a specific thing wrong it is sometimes hard to say if it is because of base ignorance, nefarious intent (willful ignorance), or just one of those things someone didn't happen to know. Since I am an anthropologist as well as a self-described expert (sub guru level, class II) on The West Wing, and Roger is neither, I will assume that he is not likely to get a West Wing reference even when it bites him in the face, even when West Wing references are dernier cri.
Refer to this post for background.
Having read the post, you understand that Judith (and Roger, but more Judith, because she is an actual climate scientists) rogered themselves -- screwed themselves over -- by leading Congress to the edge of the cliff, the metaphorical cliff you push federal funding programs off of, then asking to get pushed off the cliff before realizing what they were doing. I think that is clear.
Now, have a look at this brief scene from the West Wing.
See how the dairy farmer got rogered by President Bartlet back before he was running for president?
Now, have a look at some of Roger's latest twittering.
https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/850825672792711172
https://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/850826653186105345
So, Roger is accusing me of making a rape joke. I forgive you, Roger, because you are not up to this conversation and I understand that.
Now, I'm off to be interviewed for a local show on Minnesota's Science March, coming up, then we've got a birthday in the family and gotta get ready for that!
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Why does anyone give Pielke Jr any authority in climate science anyway when he's not even a climate scientist?
Because he's the least nuts. He got into VERY hot water with his blogfollowers when he tried to tell them that, yes, there IS a greenhouse effect, it is definitely real.
They definitely did not like him then.
So he's given credence because if you want false balance, your "best bet" to not tread in the dipshit is to take RPJr against one of the thousands of more qualified but accept AGW as reality scientists.
It's either him or the potty peer chinlessing his way onto the screen.
"So, Roger is accusing me of making a rape joke."
Certainly, he knows you didn't and don't like being accused of it, though he doesn't give a shit over it himself, he's fine with rape jokes he makes.
So he accuses you of what he hopes will get you off the topic of how he's screwed and onto ontology where he can lose you in the bushes.
It is pertinent, I feel, that with the massive use of "Screwed", "rogered" or "fucked" in the USA as a non-sex metaphor for having been utterly pwned that he's decided to white knight and turn you into a villain *by having sexual thoughts of Judith*.
Oh, so it's deliberately (and wrongly) picking one of the definitions of a word with the intent to make the speaker seem awful. Kind of like "Mike's Nature Trick". So I guess you're in good company.
Yeah, it's the same BS that deniers did with "mike's nature trick" == mike is tricking you.
Which as with this current "Oh, you make rape jokes" bollocks from RPJr is another attempt to lead off into the bushes and lose people because actual discussion never leads anywhere deniers want to be.
You want to be more careful with the word "you", though, since I'm not a denier and it was and is only the deniers who deliberately misrepresented the words in both cases.
Political “science”. Gee. I never had a course in political “science”. Is that anything like astrological “science”? Ronald Reagan used astrological science to help him make decisions.. And he was a much beloved conservative politician. Is representative Snuffy Smiff a much beloved conservative politician too? He is a Christian scientist. So much science!
There is a good word for this: lysenkoism. That occurs when rulers think they know more about science than scientists, and rogue scientists feed rulers phony ideas.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
The term refers to Stalin’s believe that he could tell that Lysenko’s crazy theories of genetics are more accurate than the scientific consensus, which led to famine.
There are other examples – Ceausescu, Mbeki – and the consequences are very bad.
It’s always nice to have a neat derogatory term for things one is combating. Such as “death taxes” for inheritance taxes, and “mass incarceration” for prison populations. We should persistently label Curry, Pielke, and the like as “lysenkos.” "The lysenko Pielke," rather than "The political scientist Pielke."
Wow@5: The person who said "Mike's Nature Trick" wasn't a denier either. The deniers were the one who took that use of the word "trick" and assumed it meant something like "pulling the wool over their eyes", when in reality it meant something like "mathematical trick", i.e., a clever technique for properly figuring out (and validly adjusting) the calibration data.
I remember Roger denying vehemently he had threatened anyone with legal action, even though he called certain things that were said "libelous" (a legal term), and the he would pursue further action if no apology was forthcoming.
Roger is just being Roger: extremely sensitive to any perceived insult aimed at himself, and in complete denial when he himself hurls insults. And yes, Roger, your oft-used "Thanks!" is an insult, too.
"Wow@5: The person who said “Mike’s Nature Trick” wasn’t a denier either. "
Yes, but as you point out, the getting the meaning wrong was deniers. Deliberately. The one using the word cannot, by definition, get it wrong, they can deliberately obscure the meaning to imply something they don't then have to defend.
And do you know how deniers got the meme out it was a deception? By saying "Mann's Nature Trick, that means they're tricking you!".
So, they did say it. Then add their interpretation, which was incorrect.