Tuesday 18 October 2011

Shifting Sun-Earth-Moon Harmonies.... WTF!

There's an, ahem, interesting page and paper at What The F**K's Up With That? Never was a humorous acronym so apt.
...to ask the community to start thinking carefully about what can be learned from rotating multivariate lunisolar spatiotemporal phase relations shared by Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP) and terrestrial climate records, while seizing the same opportunity to highlight critical omissions in “classic” works on alleged solar-barycentric terrestrial influences (section II).
The material reads like it was put together using SciGen. A site that allows you to compose gibberish of an equal order, like this.

I've skipped through the document and it seems to be a extreme case of Gerlich and Tscheuschner's leaving the disproof of the Greenhouse effect as an exercise for the reader. Von Neuman once said "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk." From the graphs this appears at face value to be an extreme example of that. But frankly I can't be sure as it's hard to discern a structured argument.

Have WTFUWT been had by a practical joke?

7 comments:

Lazarus said...

I agree, it must be a joke - surely?

Even if somehow it actually makes sense to some boffin somewhere what is clear from the comments is that Watts certainly hasn't got a clue any more than his commenter's. He must have been told it was something that supported the 'skeptic' position and cast doubt on 'the consensus' and just went with it.

It also confirms that he doesn't have a clue about science in general and just posts things that he assumes confirm is biases.

Chris Reynolds said...

I get in general what it's getting at: It's claiming that the GW signal is the outcome of various cyclical processes that happen to be adding together.

The 'elephant it's fitting to' doesn't include mid-stratospheric (and higher) cooling, winter warming, changes of the diurnal range. At least I've not seen reference to those other observations that the enhanced greenhouse effect does explain.

The reaction from Watt's peanut gallery is indeed amusing.

Lazarus said...

I could not resist commenting suggesting that Watts got well and truly Pawned with this. I'm impressed that you have fathomed out what it is alluding to. I can make no sense of it whatsoever, clearly neither can Watts and his posse fair no better. They are actually discussing it with apparent seriousness and equal gibberish.

The current last post is a prime example;
"So, my thought now, is how would you, if space/time permitted escape from a Grossmann-Morlet wavelet, slow down to re-enter a world ?"

WTF indeed!

arcticio said...

Lol. Although it might be a successful strategy to keep the unilluminated busy with nonsense papers. Just start with impressive and colorful pictures and charts.

An approach proven successful for centuries, example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

Chris Reynolds said...

Ahh yes, the Voynich manuscript! Intriguing!

I recently read a Lovecraftian novel by Colin Wilson that used it as a plot device. It's odd how including references to real things in fiction aids the willing suspension of disbelief.

Lazarus said...

Chris I have been giving this some thought and I think you could be right about this paper being randomly generated nonsense.

Using the SCIgen tool or similar you will get a paper with real science related words but combined in a way to confound. Any graphs or charts would then have to be vague with poor or non existent captions.

Wit a bit of touching up, this is exactly what Watts has allowed to be published. But the real clincher for me is the lack of introduction. How could someone write one about randomly generated sciency sounding rubbish without giving the game away? What better to do than just ask 'the community to think about'?

I also cannot find any record of the alleged author and their academic record - who is this guy?

Perhaps I'm wrong and I'm just too stupid to understand these things, it wouldn't be the first time, but my suspicion is that there is more going on here than a tentative attempt to publish real research.

Chris Reynolds said...

To be fair Lazarus I did say it 'reads like', not that it was written by SciGen (or similar). The author's excuse for the lack of structure is work pressures - call me hardline but that's not a reasonable excuse at all.

Maybe I'm being too generous but I think it's written by someone who believes he has a point. I disagree.

On the subject of my being too generous, I gave D'Aleo the benefit of the doubt but recently came across something he'd written that was so bizarre the only explanation I can see is deliberate mendacity. Now I just have to try to remember what it was in case I'm called on it.

Maybe I still have a bias from my days as a sceptic (i.e. deluded mug who'd swallow any crap that supported my errant position).