A Titanic victory for the skeptics
I don’t know about you but I’ve been absolutely riveted by the recent release of records from a break-in at the White Star line. No really, it’s not just a stream of bilge from people who may not be experts but reckon something. Frankly I can’t get enough of hearing about the same claim that one memo by one of the workers on the Titanic project clearly confirms the ship was ‘unsinkable’. This should finally put to rest the biggest hoax of the 20th century, that the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic. Still there’s always someone who isn’t going to find a bit of a memo quoted out-of-context convincing so it’s worth recapping the clear evidence that the ‘sinking’ of the Titanic is a scam.
1) The data is contradictory
The officers of the Titanic claimed it went down in one piece, yet some passengers clearly saw it break up on the surface. How could this be? Either the ship broke or it didn’t. Obviously someone forgot to check everyone had their facts straight. If there’s disagreement on this one point then that’s enough to throw the whole sinking into doubt. This piece of evidence alone should be enough to convince you that the ship didn’t sink and arrived safely at New York, but there’s more.
2) The models don’t work
Sure, physicists will try and tell you that iron sinks in water. They can even try and claim they can tell you roughly how long it would take for the Titanic to reach the sea bed. But look closely at the details and the models fall apart. Can they explain how the ship is lying the way it is? Can they exactly explain the corrosion of the hull? The details of the currents through the shipwreck? The various models may all agree on the broad pattern, but disagreements over the small details show the entire basis of these models is flawed. If a physicist says that’s mad, look him in the eye and remind him Gravity is only a theory.
3) Ice is a natural part of the ocean
Some people will try and tell you that icebergs are bad things to have in shipping lanes. Really. It’s like they’ve never seen the sea. Ice is what you get in the North Atlantic. It’s perfectly natural. In fact there’s nothing that could possibly be bad about ice. As any chemist will tell you ice is H2O. Water is H2O. So really this is all about ‘scientists’ finding water in the ocean. Pwned!
4) The QE2 crossed the Atlantic without sinking
In fact there’s evidence that several ships have crossed the Atlantic, which mars the claim that ships sink in the ocean. Yes someone will always try and tell you that an entirely different ship on an entirely different course will have a different result. But I deal with facts, not baseless speculation.
5) Natural detritus far outweighs man-made wreckage
The bottom of the sea is a messy place. Whales die there and their skeletons become home for all sorts of stuff. Have you seen a whale? They’re huge, especially the huge ones. Imagine one of those possibly killed by one of those stealth CO2 emitting volcanoes that no-one’s found yet. Yet amongst all this there’s supposed to be a ‘shipwreck’. Against the vast majesty of nature, isn’t a tiny bit arrogant to assume that man could do anything noticeable on the sea-bed?
6) There’s nowhere the ‘iceberg’ could come from
Another thing is that there’s no ice in the Atlantic ocean. This is a fact. As Dr Fox would say it might not be true, but it is a fact. Sure western scientists will tell you there’s an ice cap in the north, but this is demonstrably false. Look at the independent evidence. A Chinese naval expedition found no ice at the north pole. No ice cap means no icebergs. No icebergs means no sinking.
7) Oceanographers need the Titanic to justify their huge grants
You’ve probably never been to an Oceanography department on campus. Have you ever seen a ‘scientist’ turn up in a Ferrari? No? That shows you how well hidden many of these departments are. They are massively rich from all the funding gouged out of the taxpayer in the form of ‘shipping regulations’ because of the supposed Titanic sinking. What do you think would happen to these departments if it wasn’t for the Titanic? Think they’d spend their time researching another interesting problem? Not a chance. Oceanography=Titanic and that’s that. Don’t forget all that grant money, it’s money in the pocket. It wouldn’t, for example, be used to fund a research project with 10 staff and a further 12 postgrads.
…and if that’s not enough then some of these researchers into the Titanic who’ve been a bit mean about us in their memos. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t be put off by a systematic politically-motivated campaign by a bunch of nutters free-market entrepreneurs.
I think that’s all pretty conclusive. You can take these arguments, mangle them and denounce anyone who supports the ‘Titanic Sinking Swindle’ as a corrupt liar who should be up on criminal charges. If anyone responds by saying your evidence is ludicrous or you use long debunked arguments then denounce that as an ad hominem attack. Follow that up with a sage pronouncement that there’s no place for that kind of smear in science.
Apparently not only do you have the right to an opinion, you also have the right to be taken seriously even if you’re making a career from being ignorant, mistaken or just downright barking.
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With your shiny new PhD (congratulations), you want to be regarded as a scientist, yet in this and other postings you are commenting on “climate change” matters not in scientific terms but by belittling people who disagree with the position that you have evidently subscribed to (even though you are neither a physical scientist nor a mathematician). Some of those (e.g. Lindzen, Pielke Sr., and Wegman) are serious and well qualified scientists who have raised questions concerning (a) lack of observational evidence supporting significant CO2-based greenhouse warming, (b) improper application of statistical methods, and © apparent attempts to conceal data and rig peer review by a small clique of researchers. In view of the multi-trillion dollar implications of the economic measures being considered on the basis of claims of CO2-related global warming, it would seem that a sober and open scientific debate would be more appropriate than partisan slanging. There is an opportunity here for you to exercise some professional discretion and provide an example to those readers who look up to you as a well-educated professional.
Great stuff, Alun, Doctor of Philosophy, I presume,the only thing that it lacks is some good cartoons, a picture can tell a thousand words.
Truth is a movable feast. We live in a world were children are conditioned, quite legally, to believe, for example, that a divine anthropomorphic personification knobbed a virgin, and their offspring died and got better again; this type of belief being typical of many carried in adulthood in many cultures. Clearly, such ideas can reside in a mind, which in all aspects of its intellectual life, is governed by rational thinking processes.
Belief, like faith, is a dangerous phenomenon that cuts both ways.
I was planning a similar broadside on how about the all pervasive intellectual culture of structuralism in academic departments, and its misapplication to archaeological interpretation, has set British Prehistory back by 20 years, leading, [ironically], to much structurally illiterate thinking being accepted in peer reviewed archaeology.
It’s a lot of words, and I would save a lot of time if I could draw cartoons.
I’ll cheerfully admit I don’t have the intellectual stature of Sarah Palin when it comes to science. Thankfully I can rely on carefully honed arguments of some of the top skeptical minds when tackling the Titanic. I’d like to thank you for your considered responses to the points above. The complete lack of effort in addressing them means I can be similarly lazy in rebutting them.
You are certainly too modest regarding your scientific background, which probably exceeds that of most minor US or British politicians, and your rhetorical skill is at least on a par with the one you mention.
If you had actually read my comment, you would have noticed that it is a general response to your Titanic piece (and at least one other) in the form of a non-partisan urging to set an example of reasoned scientific discourse. There is nothing there to rebut, unless you are opposed to civilized discourse, which from the tone of your response appears to be the case.
Scientific discourse happens when there’s a scientific debate. I happen to have received a few emails, including a bizarre rant from my local MEP based on the ramblings of Christopher Monckton. Now, if someone is pulling out an imaginary Chinese fleet, I think there’s reason to question if the discourse is scientific. Nonetheless if you look at the points above the most offensive thing I’ve done is taken them seriously.
Let’s be honest there’s probably reason to question if the Competitive Enterprise Institute has a financial interest in downplaying the effects of pollution. However, I haven’t said they’re in for the money. Instead I’ve shown that the argument ‘natural=good’ is nonsense. The ‘Mars is warming’ argument is also bizarre. Readers in the UK may not know that the Heartland Institute is a right-wing think tank, I didn’t think it was relevant so I didn’t mention it. Still, they’ll know I thought the argument about Mars is inane, because of the way I drew an analogy.
The analogies are not all equally strong. The Chinese navy makes me despair because that’s a direct lift, but the model analogy could be a lot weaker. The climate models are extremely complex because the climate is extremely complex. There is no single forcing mechanism so there must be a variety models and it would be extraordinary that if there wasn’t one somewhere that gave a result counter to the typical results. If you want to go with a hardline logical positivist position, that things cannot be proved but one negative result can disprove everything then I think you can knock down that analogy and following the same position the failure of one analogy would make all of them valueless. That would open an interesting debate because while I think positivism is an interesting description of science, it’s a bit out of date. I’d take a more post-positivist approach. It’s something I was to expand more on when I get the time because I’ve got a general interest in the nature of pseudoscience which I think is not simply bad science. But you’d like to talk about tone, so lets talk about tone.
Last month I got an email from my MEP calling a few of my colleagues criminals. No problem. I have very low expectations of that MEP, so it’s not worth responding to. Then something odd happened. I got one or two more emails and a few tweets from historians quoting an out of context email as if it’s something special. Now you really don’t need to be a historian to know that there’s context around all these messages and you won’t have all of it. But historians should be particularly aware because their job is taking the written record and examining its context. The idea that a historian, archaeologist or classicist will uncritically parrot material like that is actually pretty amusing. After a while every time I got a reference in my inbox or on my twitter account I took an argument and applied it in a different historical context with the same kind of reasoning. After a while it gets a bit tedious so I top ‘n’ tailed it and put it up. What I haven’t done is gone out and named individuals to humiliate them. I’ve just stuck it up on an inconsequential website. Now let’s talk about your tone.
You come on to a site, don’t bother addressing any of the points in a post but instead decide to make personal comments. You can perhaps see why I doubt your sincerity about tone. I’m afraid if I were really serious about wanting ‘to be regarded as a scientist’ I probably wouldn’t have chosen to specialise in ancient history and archaeology. On the other hand a quick smear as seeking desire for acclaim would be consistent with Lindzen, who you cite an example of serious science. I’m not sure that discussing ulterior motives is really helpful for setting a dispassionate tone.
Suppose, for example, you were responsible for a product related to the analysis of petroleum-based mineral oil for used in the insulation of transformers, and that this form of insulation is criticised for the environment harm it causes. It could hypothetically suggest that you have an undeclared a financial interest in attacking green policy whilst attacking mine. Would it really help to know that? My guess is no. It would clearly about the person rather than the arguments and I think if there were the case it would probably miff you slightly that I raised it. Instead it would be better to tackle facts.
You’re not interested in the ‘facts’ I’ve put up so to move the discussion forward I’ll talk about yours starting with (a) lack of observational evidence supporting significant CO2-based greenhouse warming. I’ve shown why I’m not eager to follow Lindzen so I’ll take your other two examples. For example Pielke Sr. I could type Pielke Sr CO2 warming click “I’m feeling lucky’ and you’ll get a page which includes:
There is no question, for course, that the human addition of carbon dioxide is a major climate forcing, both with respect to its warming influence but also its biogeochemical effect. However, there are other equally or more important climate forcings in terms of altering climate patterns such as droughts, floods and extreme weather. We discussed this broader view of the human role in the climate system in a recent article in EOS (where all of the authors are AGU Fellows)
…with Pielske Sr’s name first on the list. As it happens Pielske Sr has argued sea-levels have flattened, so there’s clearly a nuanced position to discuss, but not the one you’re arguing for. Nor any of the ones I was alluding to in the blog post. Let’s try Wegman.
For anyone else masochistic enough to be following this, Wegman is the guy who analysed the famous hockey stick graph for the US Congress. He found a basic error in the statistical analysis. There’s some huffing that this wasn’t a peer-reviewed analysis but I’m not convinced that counts for much. I don’t think anyone is claiming that the error wasn’t there, though when it’s corrected the hockey stick remains. Now Wegman is aware of this but he’s said: “I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn’t matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science.” That’s interesting. That’s something I wanted to work on with Alex Smith. Not exactly that but something similar.
The Antikythera Mechanism has got a huge amount of popular press and the response to the research has been overwhelmingly positive. Why? I’d like to think that it’s because it really is a very clever and stunningly impressive bit of work. That’s unlikely. How many people will have actually read the articles in Nature? Ok, maybe it’s success of the publicity and science communication. How do you measure that success? I suppose you could see how many people accept your research. Except people tend to express acceptance of facts rather than processes. If they think the Antikythera Mechanism Research Group is right simply because they believe its evidence of the reality of Atlantis then clearly there hasn’t successful communication. All you’ve done is reinforce people’s prejudices. If that’s the case there’s a communication problem which needs to be addressed. Likewise even if Mann has come to the right answer and Wegman says, the route he took to get there is a problem, so clearly there was a statistical problem which needed to be addressed.
Oh dear.
Wegman says Mann got the right answer by accident, so who is arguing for a lack of observational evidence supporting significant CO2-based greenhouse warming? It must be Lindzen. So I typed in Lindzen CO2 warming and clicked ‘I feel lucky’ and there it is. There’s contradictory evidence, and that’s point one in this post. That’s my own petard I’m looking at isn’t it? No it’s not.
If I were to say Lindzen says there’s no CO2 effect while Pielske Sr and Wegman say there is therefore there’s no one denying CO2 is a driver in climate then it would apply. What I can say is that the argument is incoherent. If two of your exemplars are saying there’s CO2 driving climate change and one person doesn’t, you could go with the one that says no. His data or methodology could be better. However if that’s the case you’ve knocked out the other two people as your experts because if Lindzen knows what he’s talking about then clearly Pielske Sr and Wegman don’t. I suppose you could arbitrarily pick and choose which bits of evidence you admit and which you don’t to advance a point but I don’t think that’s a viable methodology. If you were to do that you could spin a mad fantasy that the Titanic never sank.
So after about one and a half thousand words, we’re back where we came in.
Here’s how I see it. I put up a few observations laughing at some of the frankly ludicrous claims I’ve seen recently. I stick them on my own site rather than going out and picking a fight. What I get is a global warming militant who complains about tone by kicking off about my motives. He ignores the post and demands that the discussion should be about his own pet complaint that nonsense is entitled to respect without making any effort to show why that should be so. He chucks out a few names regardless of whether or not they support his position. Is he sincere in asking for reasoned discourse?
In social sciences discourse is not discussion. Discourse has limits, in the case of scientific discourse one of the basic assumptions is there has to be some sort of coherence to reality. What do you do if that doesn’t exist? How do you meaningfully have discourse with someone who argues that evolutionists are the tools of Satan, or someone who argues that “there has been rapid and significant cooling for nine years?” (a different post with graph). The notion that wild flights of fancy deserve the same respect as reasoned arguments isn’t just a bad idea. I think it’s an insult to researchers whose work might be rigorous but outside the mainstream to say their work is on a par with the ramblings of conspiracy theorists. It doesn’t promote discourse, it poisons it.
I’m now keenly aware I have a limited number of heartbeats left in my life. If you want to pick a fight and demand I join the personal aspersions – perhaps I could pretend you need to trained in social sciences to be able to spot when someone is blathering about academics becoming millionaires from €1m grants – feel free to do that on your own blog where I’m sure you’ll find a bigger audience. If you don’t have one I’d recommend wordpress.com or posterous.com. I’m happy to point and laugh when I find something funny, but I’m really not obligated to respond at length to every opinion. Especially those who aren’t interested in other opinions and just want to talk about their own. There’s better things to do, like Christmas shopping tomorrow.
Anyone else who slogged it down to here deserves some kind of medal.
> You come on to a site, don’t bother addressing any of the points in a post but instead
> decide to make personal comments.
For this I apologize unreservedly. No offence was intended. My comments were indeed unresponsive to the content of your piece, and the personal remarks were not as respectful as they should have been, given that we don’t know each other. I am not a global warming militant, and I don’t want to attack you or even argue about global warming, climategate, etc.
Here is my belated response to your Titanic posting (and related comments above). It is clear that you are greatly exercised by the torrent of noise, nonsense, abuse, and propaganda issued by the tinfoil helmet brigade, political activists, assorted amateur theoreticians, and even by people who should know better. It is apparent that this babble is a feature of the Internet and of the lazy, ignorant corporate mass media. It is not limited to the topic of global warming. (I have no solution). Reacting to the assorted celebrities, journalists on a mission, and fanatics is counterproductive. They aren’t listening anyway. It is a shouting contest. This is my specific criticism of your Titanic piece: you are tilting at windmills erected by assorted idiots. As you say above, “the most offensive thing I’ve done is taken them seriously.” As a satirical literary work, it may need polishing. But hey, it’s your blog, so poke fun and blow off steam if you want to.
I completely agree with your “discourse is not discussion” paragraph. With regard to the “I’m really not obligated to respond at length to every opinion” remark below that, I would say that indeed you are not obligated to respond to _any_ opinion. You have chosen to respond at heroic length to some imagined opinions of mine, and I appreciate that, although I may disappoint you by not defending most of those non-opinions.
As for my references to Lindzen, Pielke Sr., and Wegman, I did not intend to advocate their positions or even indicate agreement with them, but only to point out that there exist well-qualified, experienced, and respected academics who do not agree that a conclusive case has been made for catastrophic CO2-based global warming. The items (a)-© were meant not as debating points, but as examples of important issues which are being debated by qualified experts in the field and not “settled.” And forget about “climategate.” I am not talking about that at all.
Evidently I should have said all this in a different way without raising red flags and without derogatory personal references, for example: “There are experienced and respected academics in the field of climatology who do not agree that a strong empirical case has been made for catastrophic CO2-based global warming. Perhaps, then, it is not unreasonable to think that more scientific work needs to be done before the issue can be regarded as really settled enough to divert trillions of dollars into mitigation. I urge educated and serious people on both sides of the controversy to treat each other with respect and not feed the fanatics.”
As you say, on some points Lindzen and Pielke Sr. (and others) may disagree among themselves. But that is science, not incoherence. It happens in physics and chemistry, too. The final arbiter is experimental and observational fact. The “Wegman Report,” authored by statisticians Wegman, Scott, and Said, is not as narrow and misguided as indicated by the item in Realclimate that you link to. You can get the full report by Googling for it. It provides a clear and interesting summary of many of the important papers in paleoclimatology which is not at all one-sided and is a good introduction to the technical issues which the scientists are wrestling with. It also says unequivocally that Mann’s statistical methods were flawed and simplistic and did not support the results he claimed. The lukewarm “right result but wrong method” verdict you mention was in the NAS report, not Wegman’s. Of course, Mann is not the only one pursuing this line of research, so the Wegman report is not the last word.
Your sly paragraph on my hypothetical interest in petroleum-based transformer insulating fluid is witty and reinforces a point which we agree upon — that superficial work or economic connections do not always indicate one’s beliefs or motivations. The link you provided is hilarious. I did not know that there was a “coalition” devoted to exposing the evils of transformer oil. They don’t seem to say who has “coalesced,” but it is absolutely true that mineral oil insulating fluid and the associated environmental issues are a big concern in the electric power industry, and alternative insulating fluids are a hot topic. I am involved in the development of standards for the interpretation of diagnostic test results for both the mineral oil and the vegetable oil insulating fluids. Caution has to be exercised regarding the effects of the alternative fluids on the winding insulation, the behavior of the fluids under extreme conditions, and so on before mineral insulating oil can go away. Those things are being addressed by the industry quite expeditiously. I wonder if there is a coalition devoted to exposing the evils of sulfur hexafluoride gas, which is also used for high-voltage insulation and has its own environmental peccadillos.
Anyhow, I hope we can both go do our Christmas shopping now. Merry Christmas!
Alas, I’ve spotted another basic error above and I can’t let it go. I referred to falsifiability as logical positivism. It is in fact critical rationalism. It’s not just jargon, because I was thinking of Popper who was a critic of logical positivism.
Still, it’s a nice example that people should read me uncritically either. Merry Christmas.
Skeptics right! A titanic win . . . « Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub
[…] Alun Salt has the full story: I don’t know about you but I’ve been absolutely riveted by the recent release of records from a break-in at the White Star line. No really, it’s not just a stream of bilge from people who may not be experts but reckon something. Frankly I can’t get enough of hearing about the same claim that one memo by one of the workers on the Titanic project clearly confirms the ship was ‘unsinkable’. This should finally put to rest the biggest hoax of the 20th century, that the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic. Still there’s always someone who isn’t going to find a bit of a memo quoted out-of-context convincing so it’s worth recapping the clear evidence that the ’sinking’ of the Titanic is a scam. […]
Ha. This is HILARIOUS!! Alun Salt — you are a hoaxer right? This is for fun right? Brilliant. Why would the titanic sinking be a hoax, why would people make it up? And who cares?
I’d completely forgotten about this. The hacked emails thing from UEA was giving a lot of nutters free time on air, but they’re fairly dull people. I think the tipping point was that I had been sent a press release on climate change, which was amusingly mad. It got on to the front page of the Daily Express. Reason 13 is climate change isn’t happening because people don’t believe it. It might be happening, it might not, but I’m pretty sure Nature isn’t going to change based on the results of an opinion poll in the UK. Reason 79 is global warming is natural because it’s natural. Also around this time there was a popular claim CO2 is essential for life and so couldn’t possibly be harmful. So’s water, but try sitting on a lakebed for an hour and breathing naturally.
Evidence really wasn’t an issue, and a long blog post rebutting every point would be long, tedious and change no one’s mind. So what I did instead was take some of the popular ‘skeptical’ positions on climate change and wondered “What happens if we apply the same standard of evidence to the sinking of the Titanic?”
AAAAAAHHHHHH, this makes sense now!!!!! Sorry, taken out of context. Followed link from another site. I like this! Very clever.
What utter claptrap! The Titanic’s sinking definitely did happen! Witnesses and victims have proven this, alongisde evidence to show that the Sinking happened. You, are a moron!