Affirm, deny
Tyrannical monsters who forcibly impose insane lies on normal people like to call normal people "deniers".

Think about this in the specific context of science as described in textbooks, which has nothing to do with real science. You learn the following in a Research Methods class: Start by affirming the null hypothesis. You affirm that there's no difference between two situations, or no difference between Before and After. Then you run your experiment or gather your data and run stats. If there's something real going on, you have denied the null hypothesis and you can publish. If you can't massage the stats into denying the null, you have to affirm the null, and you can't publish.

The CO2 fraudsters are strictly academic, and strictly into publishing. Or more precisely they are strictly into censoring the publications of heretics. So we should use these academic terms in dealing with them. These criminals claim, as in homeopathic medicine, that a tiny quantity of magical potion is responsible for our current phase of the world's weather cycles, despite the fact that these cycles have been going on forever and the current phase is INDISTINGUISHABLE from many previous phases. They are denying the null hypothesis. They can publish.

The normal side claims correctly that the current phase is just another phase, no different from other repetitions of the same point on the long-running cycle. Thus the normal side affirms the null hypothesis. The normal side cannot publish.

= = = = =

Of course this academic crap has nothing to do with real science in the first fucking place. Real science is just a somewhat formalized version of real life. You notice something interesting or odd; you examine it closely and rigorously to see why it's interesting or odd; and with luck you find a way to use this phenomenon for a practical or commercial purpose.

Or in Carver's perfect formulation: Look about you. Take hold of the things that are here. Let them talk to you. Talk to them.

Labels: 20th century Dark Age, Blinded by Stats, Carbon Cult, Carver

  ¶ 2:58 AM