The Blackboard

Lucia, you keep up the good work, and maybe you too will soon be rewarded with humongous traffic and having your free time sucked down the bit bucket. Be careful what you wish for.

I think mosher was the first to use the term “lukewarmer” at CA. He was certainly the first to my knowledge to openly declare himself as categorically belonging to that group name. I had been working on characterizing people’s beliefs on AGW using numbers and when mosher self-identified as a “lukewarmer” I lumped everyone else with similar priors into that category. The “lukewarmers” thus defined themselves. So far no one has protested. Lukewarmers are half-believers in the GHG/AGW conjecture. On average they believe GHGs are responsible for 1/3 to 1/2 of what IPCC proclaims. Mind, this is based on a small sample. A large sample from across the globe might yield a more precise parameterization.
.
A subset of these – like Simon Evans – are lukewarmer alarmists, in that they are that concerned about *any* warming, and openly and regularly say so. So lukewarmers are by no means “deniers”.

hypocrisy

Martin– But this is a special class of hypocrisy. There are many other ways to be a hypocrite. We need the new word because this particular way is so widespread.

Hee hee! I’m not a lukewarmer, I’m a not-sure-how-much-how-soon-warmer!

Re the word, ‘duplicity’ is the closest existing I can think of, so I might have suggested ‘dupocrisy’ if we were starting from scratch.

Simon– I added yours. Fourteen people had voted, so you are starting from behind. Still.. it’s a good one so we might as well give people the opportunity to vote for this word.

Darn! Is the list closed? These words don’t have a “flow” to them.

I would suggest one of the following, all based on the same root:

flipflopflap – to describe the situation itself

flipflopfalsity – to describe the correctness of the argument

flipflopphoniness – to describe the position of a participant

These just roll of the tongue!

woot!

I am in the lead with my invention recipocrisy!

also its a thrill to the issue come up on two of my favorite blogs.

potters (as in the pot calling the kettle black).

All of them made me smile, but mind-toggling made me giggle.

Isn’t “apologist” an adequate word (suitably modified by “ideology-driven”, “unmoved-by-the-facts”, or any other appropriate adjective)?

However, it *is* cool to invent a word or a meme.

Bet the Greeks had a word for it. In Aristotelian logic would probably count as changing the subject. Any classicists read your blog?

Gary–
We need a single word. One can always come up with adjective-noun combination, but it’s just not the same. Imagine a language without schadenfreude or calipigeous?

Foz– Yours is a good suggestion. I haven’t voted yet because if I vote first, everyone knows my bet. We’ll see if Orin takes the suggestion based on the poll. If we can get enough people using a word, it will soon be a word.

Hilario

Any classicists read your blog?

Maybe we should consult Lord Monckton!

Lucia,

I’m not sure how civil he would be around these parts now. Mocking Monckton does not go down very well with him, historically.

Zeke–
Hmmm… so do you think adding the Leprechaun might have gone over the top?

(By the way, the Fightin’ Irishman is my brother.)

Well, the English gentry didn’t always have the best of relationships with the Irish… :-p

Well you have the list closed but I think you missed the most obvious one:
Minitruists – as in people who work at the Ministry of Truth f(rom 1984 by George Orwell. Minitrue being the Ministry of Truth in Newspeak).
They made a point of rewriting history and adopting new stances as if they had always had that stance.
Or ‘Inversionists’ I suppose

Zeke– Ehrm… no. Rumor has it, the reason the American flag was not dipped when passing the Royal box in 1908 was that the team captain, an Irish American, told the flag bearer he’d deck him if he dipped it. (This rumor is not mentioned at Wikipedia, the standard blog source for all rumors.)

Being related to a bunch of “nth” generation Irish-catholic Americans, I can testify that many would deck any flag bearer who dipped a flag to any member of the English gentry. The red-headed ones can be particularly virulent. (Heck, I know Scandinavian American’s who would do the same.)

I don’t understand. We have a word for the swich-sides-and-argue-the-opposite-side thing.

That is the very soul of the word “mariage”.

As a field engineer…Warning maybe snippable… We called it fiddlef***. “You fiddle on the left and then you fiddle on the right.” The act is someone is fiddle….ing you. They are fiddle….ers. And if they win the argument, you have been fiddle….ed. If you win, they are fiddle….ing losers. Field engineers get to be a bit cranky when you were arguing sometime before it was constructed; and after it didn’t work, they start using your position as though their old position was actually yours; and your old position was actually theirs. So, we came up with a colorful term for this switching “when things go wrong.” Many books and references available in engineering texts and courses about “when things go wrong.”

Lucia-the reason why the American flag is not supposed to be dipped to any Monarch/Aristocrat/whatever is because, being a Republic, we recognize the authority of no earthly King! Yeah, I know, this reason is probably not at the top of people’s heads nowadays, but they are the historical reasons.

Andrew_FL: That was the reason given by the Irish American Olympic team captain when answering questions by the puzzled press in 1908. Prior to 1980, there was no such historical precedent.

Surely, you wouldn’t be thinking an Irish-American would be failin’ to think up a prettier reason than “I woulda’ decked him”?

Flipnesia?

A word already exists for this. Its called blogging.

Sean–
So you think blogging means precisely “when advocates on both sides of an ongoing debate switch rhetorical positions, and yet they insist on decrying the inconsistency of their opponents while overlooking their own inconsistency.”, nothing more and nothing less?

So, do journalists never do it in non-blog articles? Congressmen on the floor? Battling spouses about to get divorced?

JohnPittman– We need a pg word.

About the fighting Irish leprechaun…

Site Wide Disclosure: This blog contains some plaid content.

There darn well should have been a precedent. Well, I suppose threats of violence are good to. Oh well, I might as well add that I went in for recipocracy-and I would hope if anyone ever catches me doing it unconsciously (I would never consciously act so irrational, IMO) I would hope everyone here would do me the courtesy of telling me off as politely as possible.

inconstituency?

Shouldn’t it be “reciprocrisy”?

Let’s ask Simon, he does it all the time!

Lucia,

I think you are engaging in false equivalence on the hurricane–AGW argument. We saw a similar thing with Clinton and sexual harassment. Clinton and his liberal friends push hard for more laws on harassment. Conservatives said it was a bad idea. Debate won by liberals. Laws were enacted. Absolutely nothing hypocritical about conservatives insisting that Clinton be held accountable under the same laws he had pushed for.

There is nothing hypocritical about skeptics arguing to alarmists (as lawyers do all the time in legal cases) that: a) increases in hurricanes don’t prove AGW, and b) even pursuant to your own crazy claim, you STILL lose — because hurricanes haven’t increased.

AGW alarmists have the burden of proof.

Boris, isn’t that just when you say one thing to woo a constituency, and then do something entirely different? I can think of one person to which this of late applies, but I won’t say for fear of offending you or anyone else. Allow me the protective umbrella of PCness this once, Okay?

Stan-you misread lucia. She was talking about using declining Hurricanes as cooling proof when you say that the previous increase was not due to temperature. AFAIK no one has said both those things-but it would hypothetically fulfill the requirements of recipocracy. Similarly, one can’t say: “Hurricanes up, proof of warming!” Then “Well, fewer hurricanes doesn’t mean cooling, its just variability”. Something similar is at play with the cause of warming itself. Trend up? Alarmists cry “Catastrophic AGW!” Deniers say “cycle…”, skeptics say “huh, that’s interesting, lets investigate it”, lukewarmers say “Looks like AGW to me-but probably not justifying the shrill reaction of some.”. Now, when the trend goes down Alarmists say “variability…”, Deniers say “Cooling!” skeptics say “huh, that’s interesting, lets investigate it” and lukewarmers say “huh, that’s interesting-might mean that I was right to question high end projections”.

I suggest we give the mental disorder a scientific name.

hypocrita circumventus

Okay, Andrew, but I’ve had way too many SoCo and Dr. Peppers to know what the hell you’re talking about. Hey, somebody has to drink on blackboard now that TCO is banned. Free TCO!!!!

Personally I think you need to be careful with this sort of logic:
“Hurricanes up, proof of warming!” Then “Well, fewer hurricanes doesn’t mean cooling, its just variability”

For example if the “hurricanes up” was an increase of 300% of ‘normal’ and the “fewer hurricanes” was a return to ‘normal’ then I don’t think that’s confliperation or whatever. You don’t need to get increased hurricanes for every warm year for hurricanes to be influenced by GMT. The conditions required for Hurricane formation may not be determined solely by temp, but can be affected by temp. So the increase could be evidence of the effects of warming, and a return to normal levels not be evidence of cooling.

I don’t know what a ‘normal’ level of hurricane activity is btw, but I expect most will understand what I am talking about.

I would be against unbanning TCO. He’s generally unpleasant. And he is also very difficult to talk to (he won’t listen or be civil). So I say “Keep TCO locked away!” I only wish some other blogs would have the sense to shut him up.

Fair enough, Nathan, but I was just trying to convey what Lucia was saying. But I think that not acknowledging at least the possibility that trends themselves are due in part to variability then using variability to cover your behind is wrong. I have often wondered why people who say “recent temperature trends (say, 2001 to now) are just varibility” can get away with saying variability can cool the Earth, then act as if it can’t warm it also. I know that if you think the sources of variability are well defined and removable, you may reach the conclusion that your source of variability doesn’t significantly add to the trend, which is Okay (so, I have no problem with someone who says, “recent trends are due to sources of variability which I can show don’t significant affect the long term trend”) but it is bad when people jump on spats of warming and cooling due to variability as proof of “acceleration” or “stoppage/cooling”.

Andrew_FL
I agree it is bad to say this or that event is genuine proof of AGW. I don’t think it serves the AGW hypothesis to use particular events as proof either. I don’t like the way Al Gore does this, but he’s a politician and that’s how they operate sadly.
The best that could be said is that AGW may be a contributing factor to the event.

Free TCO!!!!

Currently, if TCO posts, he is moderated. I’ll approve if it’s ok. But he can be… tiring?

It seems to me he’s vanished from all the blogs I read recently. So, the moderation may be unnecessary.

For me the key is this.

Scientists in general do not prove that a thing is true.

The sometimes fail for years to prove that it is false, during which time, as the failures to prove false pile up, they accept the thing as a reasonable explanation for what is going on.

Newton got away with that for years.

Nathan, I’d be iffy on that too, especially if evidence against it could easily be presented. But, of course, you are free to say what ever you wish (as is Gore, unfortunately) and no matter how right or wrong it is, I won’t stop you.

Larry, yes, Newton’s theories did “get away with” being believe for a long time despite being “wrong”-even though there was sort of a cult of Newton (among some, there still is, though it isn’t so bad because it is about how brilliant he was even in light of what he was wrong about) the scientific method showed he was wrong (although he was approximately correct) and everyone came to accept it pretty quickly (except for maybe the 200 “Consensus” against Einstein)-There is also a cult of Einstein, which despite him being wrong about Quantum Mechanics and the static nature of the universe (that is, it isn’t, it can expand and contract) is very much elevating him to the pinnacle of genius (he was no Newton-I blame the media). The question I have is, will the “sides” of the AGW debate accept falsification of their position? I’m not sure. Skeptics backed down from saying there might not be warming at all when the satellite data was revised, which gives me some hope-I have yet to see any “warmer” modify their opinion-maybe they don’t need to, but in my biased opinion, they do. I’m sure they think I’m like some sinister Inquisitor calling for them to recant-I would never go that far, they are entitled to disagree with me. The trouble is, many “warmers” don’t see it the same way-no one is entitled to disagree with them. Sigh.

Well I ought to perfect for the role–I am, by most measures, a “skeptic”, and I am not in any official case a scientist.

But I do think (and have pretty much for the duration argued that the earth is warming–almost by definition–since the bottom of the last ice age aqnd it will continue (or did continue) to warm until we (or we did) “turn the corner” down into the next ice age. (We might have done the turn this century, but it is too early to say for sure, I think.)

I disagree with the “AGW” folks in three places. One, in their assertion that warming is bad. Warming has always bee associated with health, wealth, comfort and prosperity, while cold has been associated with gloom, doom, pestilence, sickness, and despair.

I disagree completely that man has had or can have much to do with it.

And most of all, I disagree that we must completely destroy our word just in case. Or at all.

Larry, I would say we ‘turned the corner’ between 6000 and 10000 years ago, after the Holcene Optimum.

Nathan-does that mean you think that AGW will stop the next ice age? Just asking. Some have, you know, argued that a) The Holocene optimum has been overstated (guess who? ) or b) that we are in an “exceptionally long interglacial”-both would probably mean that we haven’t “turned the corner” just yet. Also, I would hardly call 10,000 years ago the end of the Holocene Optimum-that’s when the Holocene began! Maybe more like 8000 to 5000 years ago.

A Wobbler?

I think he’s posting under the handles EJ and DJ these days. Same style but avoiding the claim to be able to “disambiguate”.

Well yes Lucia, I believe even C Monckton would have a hard time getting away with using a field engineer’s language in public. For those who wonder what we call them, especially to our bosses or the money counters “when things go wrong”, we call them ff…ing liars. Of course.

rephelan–
Interesting. I know he became something like “apolt…” and “TCOisbanned” at different times. We’ll know for sure about the other handles when they decree their love for Sarah Palin!

JohFPittman–
As an engineer with a “Pile it Higher and Deeper”, and am familiar with the language of the field.

It’s not dissimilar to the language heard in locker rooms at your more expensive All Girl Catholic Schools, like the one I attended.

Well, as far as classics go there is

sophistry: 1 : subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation 2 : sophism

and sophism: 1: an argument apparently correct in form but actually invalid ; especially : such an argument used to deceive2: sophistry

How about “spinocrisy” (or maybe spinochrisy)? Someone using it would be a spinocrist, and a government official would be a spinocrat.

what about “spinsophism”,
or “spunsophism”

one could sprout spinsophistry,

pure greek roots: helicosophism ( spinsophism)

Yeah, but what’s the word for somebody who can’t think up anything to say, so he decides to create a useless new word, instead? Then he starts a poll to hornswoggle others into writing his post for him. Not that I know such a person. In fact, there probably isn’t anyone who would waste the time and effort to do that. It’s a null set, as any real scientist can tell you. There are many pee-er reviewed papers that agree with me, but you have to find them yourself. Why should I waste my time telling you where to find them?

Hey, wait! I just thought of a word! Contratrollomorphism.

I am concerned that any constrution with “spin” in it will be conflated with “spine” which is clearly not a part of this picture.

lucia (Comment#12258) March 20th, 2009 at 9:37 am

hypocrisy

Martin– But this is a special class of hypocrisy. There are many other ways to be a hypocrite. We need the new word because this particular way is so widespread.

hypocrisy is so widespread because it’s the tool of the politically vacuous martinet. Why invent words when with a little searching one can contrive a fulsome exposition of the nefarious foundation on which the charlatan would build his empire?

Hypocrisy, thy name is Gore.

anna v (Comment#12348) March 21st, 2009 at 7:56 am

sophistry: 1 : subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation 2 : sophism

and sophism: 1: an argument apparently correct in form but actually invalid ; especially : such an argument used to deceive2: sophistry

Nice one.:) So when two people use the same tactic we can call them Sophists.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/sophists.htm

Nice link MartinG,

“The most popular career of a Greek of ability at the time was politics; hence the sophists largely concentrated on teaching rhetoric. The aims of the young politicians whom they trained were to persuade the multitude of whatever they wished them to believed. The search for truth was not top priority.”

Sounds like a very familar theme.

“bender (Comment#12300) March 20th, 2009 at 6:57 pm

Shouldn’t it be “reciprocrisy”?”

Yup…

reciprocity + hypocrisy = recipocrisy*

pronounced: re-sə-ˈpä-krə-sē

*as spelled in the original post at The Volokh Conspiracy and in the poll here… Andrew_FL just misspelled tit – a critical step in the evolution of a new word – eh what? So thanks for taking my proposed new word to that level of consideration Andrew!

:-]

anna v (Comment#12348)

Great word… but I don’t think “sophism” will of itself cover the territory. You have to include the meaning of the party accused of the act defined by the new word to have used in his own argument the very logical flaws that he claims to apply to his counterpart.

So – to constrain ourselves to classical references we might sum the words solipsism [using its connotation of extreme egotism] and sophist to get “solipsophist”.

ˈsō-ləp-ˈsä-fist.

I still prefer “rescipocrisy” as I suspect the meaning is more readily perceived [but maybe that's just me]. But hey… if we are just trying to insult someone “solipsophist” is hard to beat – eh what?

Foz-I thought I ~had~ spelled it that way? Well, I guess I have to go back to the drawing board on this one.

Andrew_FL
Yes, I do think we’ll avoid the next ice age.
I don’t think they have overstated the Holocene Optimum, it was hotter than now (I think you may be confusing this with the medieval warm period). And yes it was between around 6 and 8 ka.

Nathan, I have heard people down play the Holocene Optimum to. See also this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....ations.png
Wikipedia, which is controlled by a certain British Green on these matters, seems to suggest that globally, the Holocene Optimum may not have been so high as recent temps. See this, also:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1026
If you still think there was a global Holocene optimum year-round and warmer than now, your out of lock step with the “consensus”

Foz, Andrew_FL: now I’m confused. Are you agreeing or disagreeing that “reciprocrisy” should have THREE “r”s?

Bender-I don’t think it should be spelled that way, sounds too much like reciprocracy-and really doesn’t roll of my tongue.

oops – missed that third “r”.

“proc” as in proctology?

Andrew_FL, perhaps you are confusing one year (2004) with the long term trend. So during the Holocene Optimum the temp was generally higher, than during the last few hundred years.

“We now know that conditions at this time were probably warmer than today, but only in summer and only in the extratropics of the Northern Hemisphere.”

Oops, seems I am wrong. That happens from time to time. Or maybe I am not – for this argument it doesn’t really matter whether the last 30 years were warmer than the Holocene Optimum. If you look at the way temps trend over the glacial cycles they reach a max fairly soon after the glacial min (that is a few thousand years) – then there is a slow downward trend. Remember this topic started because Larry claimed we hadn’t ‘turned the corner’ yet. It would seem we should have by now give the ice age ended over 10 ka.

lucia (Comment#12337)

I’ll watch for the pug marks. Two points:

1. What the heck does TCO mean? Google Search shows two: “Total Cost of Ownership” which was a lucrative buzz word in the IT Consulting industry some time back, and it’s also an acronym for a device called a “Thermal Cut Off”;

2. We know Dr. Hansen is out of the country this week, but has anyone seen Dr. Schmidt since March 15?

Lucia, I know you wouldn’t give out anyones e-mail address, but I’d surely love to know if the IP registers to someplace in the North East.

“Remember this topic started because Larry claimed we hadn’t ‘turned the corner’ yet.”

I didn’t realize there were two “Larrys”s on the thread, but just to be ,sure we are clear and factual (a novel idea for some folk), this Larry said (some typos corrected):

Larry Sheldon (Comment#12321) March 20th, 2009 at 9:03 pm

Well I ought to perfect for the role–I am, by most measures, a “skeptic”,
and I am not in any official case a scientist.

But I do think (and have pretty much for the duration argued) that the
earth is warming–almost by definition–since the bottom of the last ice age
and it will continue (or did continue) to warm until we (or we did) “turn
the corner” down into the next ice age. (We might have done the turn
this century, but it is too early to say for sure, I think.)

I disagree with the “AGW” folks in three places. One, in their assertion
that warming is bad. Warming has always bee associated with health,
wealth, comfort and prosperity, while cold has been associated with
gloom, doom, pestilence, sickness, and despair.

I disagree completely that man has had or can have much to do with it.

And most of all, I disagree that we must completely destroy our world just
in case. Or at all.

And I believe the topic started with a search for a word for people that argue in such a ways to attempt to persuade other people that they have been consistent in their position, when in fact they have been inconsistent and obfuscating.

rephelan

What the heck does TCO mean?

I don’t know what it means to “the” TCO.

I know you wouldn’t give out anyones e-mail address, but I’d surely love to know if the IP registers to someplace in the North East.

It doesn’t. If you are indirectly asking if TCO is a NASA employee– nope!

“Oxycritic/oxycrite” gets close…

And to think, I sent my children here to learn not to do as I do! http://www.stjosdevine.com/ Of course my wife doesn’t allow kids to speak as I do in her classes at St Joe’s.

Larry Sheldon,
I still disagree about the turning the corner bit. Going on past ice age and interglacials the max temp in an interglacial seems to happen very early on in the interglacials. This interglacial has been going on for other 10 000 years, the max temp should probably have been during the holocene optimum. I am not sure why you would think the interglacial would continue to warm more than 10 000 years after the end of the last glacial maximum.

I suppose if you did a detailed analysis of Milankovitch cycles you may find the answer.

“Warming has always been associated with health, wealth, comfort and prosperity”
Only in climates that are cold. Here in Australia, warming is not something we want. It’s also a very big generalization you make.

“And I believe the topic started with a search for a word for people that argue in such a ways to attempt to persuade other people that they have been consistent in their position, when in fact they have been inconsistent and obfuscating.”
Yes, that was the topic of the original post. Andrew_Fl were discussing your statement, however. So the ‘topic’ for us was indeed your statement.

The “turning the corner remark is relevant at most to current events.

Some years ago it seemed to stop getting warmer and all the experts strated screeching that the next ice age was upon us.

The it started getting warmer again and now recently it seems to have cooled a bit. I am reluctant to, make any pronouncements at all about that cooling trend (e3xcept to point out that it seems to be running counter to the Cee ohh two trend).

Comparing a chunk (say a square mile) of the hottest part of Australia with a similar sized chunk of Antarctica (you pick the chunks), which will support the larger number of human beings?

Larry Sheldon,
I think you are missing the point somewhat. There does seem to be a consistency that the relative max temp coming out of a glacial max occurs soon after the glacial max. Why do you think this interglacial is so much different from all the previous ones. Why do you think the temps are still rising?

“Comparing a chunk (say a square mile) of the hottest part of Australia with a similar sized chunk of Antarctica (you pick the chunks), which will support the larger number of human beings?”

Well I’d say currently they’d both support none. You would die quicker in Antarctica, but you’d still die in any of the hottest parts of Australia (lets call it the Simpson Desert).

Larry do you have any ACTUAL details you want to discuss? I think I’ll just leave you to your well thought out opinions.

Nathan, where do you get all this folderol?? The temp max DID occur at the beginning of this interglacial. Even the Roman Optimum was probably higher than now!! You aren’t starting to BELIEVE Michael Mann and Al Gore are you??

Kuhnkat
This is what I am trying to tell Larry Sheldon. Larry Sheldon thinks we haven’t reached Temp max – or may have reached it last century.

Lucia,

we might finally be ending our volcano-less period that gave such a nice base-line. The Alaskan eruption apparently pushed to about 60,000 feet this morning and they aren’t talking about it being over!!

http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php

Kuhnkat– I read that at WUWT. Looks big! But it’s also pretty far north. Equatorial eruptions are supposed to matter “more”. I guess we’ll see what it does.

I see a way to get Lucia’s blog-hits up:
a) Before this thread meanders from the original topic there should be a closing point for the poll and a formal definition, spelling and must include the fancy phonetic pronunciation (eg Foz #12364). Crack open the OED for examples.
b) From there on, spice your cocktail party conversations and other blog postings with the bon mot. Any inquiries as to meaning are url’d back to the final definition on this fair blog -can a weblog award be far behind?

nvw–
Like many bloggers, I like visitors. But… I was sort of gesting when I made the comment about my mega-blog popularity relative to Anthony’s blog. Basically… I don’t really think I have the sort of popularity sufficient to coin words and cause them to enter the dictionary!

“I was sort of gesting when I made the comment about my mega-blog popularity…”

Power to bend the minds of men!

Lucia gots it but she don’t even know.

===

Nathan,

ooops. Sorry, need to read more before engaging lip.

Lucia:

Please be confident in what you know. I’ve learned a lot from your blog, including about environmental haiku and knitting and making made-to-order-coffee-mugs (if they’ll ever deliver the damn things!)…

Keep going, Girl!