Brignell’s posting does refer to his self-published book. So I accept that his attempts to discredit modern epidemiology are ongoing, and not specifically focussed on the Iraq casualty figures. But in his bid to discredit the latter he certainly did wave away the entire notion of statistically significant relative risk on the strength of some meaningless numerical experiments he’d conducted. That is one reason why I believe he is an unreliable crank.

Oh, you’re absolutely right. Out with orthodox medicine and in with homeopathy, that’s what I say. I have no doubt those homeopaths are thinking for themselves, and why would they do anything else? And let’s ban that MMR vaccine: the Daily Mail said it was unsafe. Oh, and cold fusion is probably real — somebody said it was at a press conference. I can’t imagine why we bother with the peer review process at all — or qualifications, or universities. Why, I wonder, does anyone bother to study science at all?

So “positive feedback” entailing “chaotic behaviour” means peer review is unsound — another finding so far inexplicably confined to right-wing blog comments. I would ask for some proof of that claim, or at least a rigorous definition of the terms, but then what would be the point, given your evidential standards?

It seems obvious but perhaps I ought to point it out anyway. The ‘peer review system’ is vulnerable to the effects of positive feedback, i.e. aforementioned chaotic behaviour. (Who knows, perhaps someone somewhere even has bothered to compile rigorous proof of this daring assertion.) Why on earth one might rely on the peer review in preference to thinking for oneself is unclear. Unless one is incapable of thinking for oneself?

Yes — believe whatever you need to avoid addressing any arguments.

Even if this were so, it is a lame tu quoque, not a rebuttal. You have failed to defend what you wrote above about computer models and the $125000 prize, presumably because it was garbage.

The vast bulk of qualified people disagree with you about global warming. I have the choice of accepting the conclusions of numerous peer-reviewed scientists… or the unargued assertions of a pseudonymous blog poster. Why would I believe you?

And stop using insults and derogatory comments about a man you do not know.

I’ll do this when you stop making arrogant remarks about topics of which you are evidently entirely ignorant.

And who the heck is Melanie Phillips?

Find somebody under the age of 60 to show you Google.

I’m sure you don’t like hearing about Exxon. But the fact remains that this funding, quite apart from Milloy’s total lack of qualifications, means that a prize operated by him is an absurd means by which to judge evidence for global warming. That is why climate scientists have ignored it.

note how black your pot is compared to the kettle you’re having a go at.

It’s feeble. Utterly feeble conspiracy nonsense, and I think everyone knows it by now, even those still saying it.

On the one hand we have documentation of a variety of front groups funded by Exxon et al. for the purpose of promoting views financially agreeable to them. On the other, there are the “billions” of the nebulous “loony left community”, mysteriously directed towards destroying the economy, and all without a scintilla of proof.

To maintain your view one must believe that almost the entirety of mainstream climate science is a victim or product of a vast anti-capitalist conspiracy that has suborned thousands of ostensibly independent scientists without a single piece of concrete evidence ever emerging. And you have the lunatic gall to throw out accusations of “conspiracy nonsense” and talk of pots and kettles.

see the world through the warped filter of cultural marxism.

After the crank Brignell, half-witted claims about computer models, and pseudo-mathematical babble — all taken up and immediately discarded — we come to the random, meaningless insult of “cultural marxism”, based, as usual, on precisely no evidence. Your use of the term conveys no information except that you’re probably a fan of Melanie Phillips.

Really. Look at the billions swirling through the loony left community from governments, foundations, etc, directed by lobbying faux “charities”, then note how black your pot is compared to the kettle you’re having a go at.

It’s feeble. Utterly feeble conspiracy nonsense, and I think everyone knows it by now, even those still saying it.

I’ve pondered how strange it must be to see the world through the warped filter of cultural marxism. No wonder you’re all so paranoid all the time. Religion does that to you, you know.

Bring back Latin and hanging – that’s what I say.

someone with no sense of humour

Now that’s unfair. I read Melanie Phillips.

someone who has absolutely no idea that the only thing computer models show is what the modelers put into them.

Well then the thousands of scientists employing them in countless areas are evidently wasting their time – this man, for instance, with his “numerical general relativity” nonsense. His professorship is the result of a liberal conspiracy, I assume, as is the existence of this journal. But why is it, I wonder, that the truth is almost entirely confined to apparent idiots savants on right-wing blogs?

As of now, there is no, repeat, no scientific evidence that Anthropogenic Global Warming is an actual real effect, if there is, then tell me, then I can claim the $125,000 prize.

Oh, I’ve no doubt every climate scientist is scrambling to send work “produced specifically for the UGWC” for consideration by an unqualified, Exxon-funded Fox News commentator and tobacco shill. Why would they bother sending it to a peer-reviewed journal when for only a $15 fee they could reach this entirely neutral arbiter?

Fortunately I have a bottle of a rather fine red wine and I am trying very hard not to get too bitter about it all.

Thanks for the entertainingly blimpish parody.

It’s so simple, only an environmentalist would be credulous enough to believe in the ‘output’ of any model. Climate models are, as far as I can tell, the worst sort of models because they don’t even have any absolute facts to start with, let alone any observable outputs. Hansen revises his models every few minutes, but still expects governments to make long term decisions based upon short life calculations. I am being generous using the term calculations, of course.

It is because of my own career that I find Brignell to be a breath of fresh air. He is mostly right, and when he is not he is thought provoking. He is essential.

I despair at the sheer gullibility of mankind when it comes to the climate change charlatans, peddlers of doom with their chicken little intellects and Stalinistic tendencies.

Fortunately I have a bottle of a rather fine red wine and I am trying very hard not to get too bitter about it all.

TTFN.

A thought from another hero of mine , H L Mencken “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.”

PS, the 100 years war ended at Castillon la Bataille, 17th July 1453, where the English were blown to little pieces by the French cannon, still reliant on the longbow after a hundred and sixteen years of advancing weapons technology.

So London – well the City – is doing well. As a Londoner living in London I’m very glad. After all, without the City the UK would be toast. But then London isn’t England. And, frankly, London isn’t London.

My London – the one I inherited from my parents and the one they inherited from theirs and so on for generations – has disappeared. It has been buried under the detritus whose effect you commend in your celebratory comment that “nearly a third of London’s present population were born outside Britain”: part of the tide of immigration whose net economic contribution – measured in GDP/person – has been negligible.

Be careful how you’re throwing around the word “loon” will you? You might find it comes back to bite you on the arse.

The only reason I can imagine you wrote this is that you saw the term “elderly loon” and immediately assumed I was talking about you. While understandable, this assumption is false, as the record shows. I was referring to Brignell. He was the source of the irrelevant guff linked to by Ian Reid, not you.

Brignell explicitly referred (scroll through assorted ramblings) to the “hole” previously existing, albeit with the qualifier “probably”:

All because of a hole in the ozone layer that was probably always there and an unproven theory as to how it was caused.

“Ozone hole” (not thinning, or depletion in general) is the common term for a phenomenon distinct from what you refer to, and closely linked with CFC emissions. Brignell apparently believes CFCs weren’t involved, and that this hole was “probably always there”. It seems you have a different view. So what?

England met France yesterday at Agincourt and The Sun is proud to announce the result. England 10, 999 – France 29, and that’s official!

The sign off line was:

Can a kiss from Handsome Hal turn a frog into a true princess?

You really have got everything arse about tit, let’s destroy our economy unless we can disprove some dodgy computer models.

I’ll answer this when you tell me where I suggested we “destroy our economy”.

Tim adds: “some irrelevant, generic spew from an elderly loon who thinks the ozone hole always existed,”

But, Stuart. The thinning of the ozone layer (not hole, please) at the Antarctic has always existed: at least on any thing less than geological era amounts of time. It’s a function of the interaction of sunlight and extreme cold. It has been there every southern hemisphere spring. Now, that various things we pumped up into the atmosphere made it worse is also true: but we didn’t create the thinning, we just exacerbated it.

Be careful how you’re throwing around the word “loon” will you? You might find it comes back to bite you on the arse.

Professor Brignell has put together a short page on the dangers of computer modelling. You can view it here:-

http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/computer_modelling.htm

You really have got everything arse about tit, let’s destroy our economy unless we can disprove some dodgy computer models.

What say we have a re-enactment, with the current occupants of the House of Commons playing the French and, ooh, everybody else playing the English & Welsh?

Just to make sure we get it right, 600 years is a big anniversary, let’s hold a practice next year

S-E