Amy Ridenour reports being taken to task by a reader, pen-named Antiochus the First, who feels she does not read Nature magazine with appropriate diligence.
After wandering into equating the theory of evolution with speculation about anthropogenic global warming, he closes with this argument:
Either get a brain or get the [expletive deleted] out of politics!
I wonder if he learned his debating techniques from reading Nature?
If Mr. First had been reading Nature lately himself, he might have noticed the demise of a piece of, as he puts it, “liberal claptrap.”
World Climate Report notes that that venerable icon of the climate panic industry, the dreaded “hockey stick” curve, has been demolished.
The saga of the “hockey stick” will be remembered as a remarkable lesson in how fanaticism can temporarily blind a large part of the scientific community and allow unproven results to become “mainstream” thought overnight.
It is safe to say that a significant number of the articles Antiochus the First wants others to read dealt with this “proof” that global warming is man-made.
Reading Nature would expose you to other interesting articles as well, where conclusions are reached that seem to be unscientific because they are not falsifiable. This article is an example.
If the match between these observations and these model runs is strong enough to prove a human influence then…well, then anything can be proven to be related to global warming…which, is probably the main point here. If some aspect of the weather irks you, just blame it on pernicious industrial activity…you can’t be proven wrong.
Ridenour notes that “the real Antiochus I [sic] reportedly was a believer in astrology.” This is fitting, since astrology equates coincidence with causality in much the same was as do anthropogenic global warming enthusiasts. Astrology, being slightly less tied to the demands of scientific method, does enjoy one advantage – its models can predict the past.