Friday
Jun152012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Geoff Chambers talks to Adam Corner
Jun 15, 2012 Climate: Sceptics BH regular Geoff Chambers chats to Cardiff University psychologist Adam Corner about being a sceptic.
There is a growing body of academic literature that seeks to understand, explain – and even overcome – climate change scepticism. But is it getting to grips with scepticism, or missing the point? In this unusual exchange (we hope the first of many) between Adam Corner (Talking Climate) and Geoff Chambers – (a regular and prominent commenter at several climate sceptic blogs), they discuss research on the psychology of scepticism.
Read it here.
Reader Comments (202)
There is no such thing as a sceptic. There are only people who are yet to be convinced - in response to a claim made about something in the outside world.
Pigeonholing a person as a 'sceptic' is lazy and self-defeating when viewing this response to a specific claim. Clearly, the person's doubt represents an obstacle to Corner getting his own way in the world. But the pathology belongs with Corner - faced with this obstacle, he in turn labours to find a way of doubting the doubt (as his only means of dismissing it). As we can see, he attempts this by trying to assign and fix the person's doubt with an ulterior motive.
The problem for Corner is that other people have continuously and openly stated that their doubt is only motivated by a lack of usable evidence supporting the claim being made (and, as such, it is easy to 'cure'). By refusing to take this statement at face value, Corner corners himself instead as the 'psychologist' furiously analysing apparitions inside his own head... mistaking the 'sceptics' he invents (and battles with) there for real people. Perhaps he should see a shrink.
All these psychologists busying themselves sticking "diseased + dysfunctional thinking" labels on folk is altogether pretty tiresome.
Foxgoose nails this odious creep - I bet he didn't even pay his own air fare to Copenhagen .. yeah, like he went by bicycle :-)
Straight out of the Trofim Denisovich Lysenko playbook.
To dignify this fellow by engaging dialog is just wrong - he feeds on it, because it panders to his conceit.
I do not think that anyone, psychologist or not, can understand the psychology of scepticism unless they also study the psychology of group think. I would recommend that they read Charles Mackay's classic:
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
http://robotics.caltech.edu/~mason/Delusions/epdatmoc.html
My very polite comment addressed the fact that many academic scientists appear to accept AGW beliefs and then gave my understanding of why this is the case. For reasons beyond my comprehension, my contribution seems to have been removed. I am astounded and I am now very sceptical about the honesty and claims of this initiative.
I can only conclude that an explanation of reasons for being sceptical are not welcome.
Posted this at Corner's blog. Copied here in case it doesn't survive moderation. Looks like I don't fit his preconceptions.
'To expand on Anteros’s comment about what makes people sceptical. I came to be a sceptic because iI had heard ‘The Science is Settled’ , had a career break and set myself the task of understanding what I naively imagined to be some really cool experiments that had been done to demonstrate AGW.
I’ve got a ‘hard science’ Masters way back when, so didn’t think that this would be too hard a task. Couple of days at most to while around on the Internet. Maybe soem maths a bit beyond my pay grade, but I can understand anything experimental pretty well. And after 30 years in professional IT, I know enough to find my way around code.
The contrast between what I was expecting to find and what is out there is absolutely staggering. There are no neat experiments. There are few experiments at all. There is a bit of lab wok about CO2 IR absoprtion and then immense leaps to high-sensistivity feedbacks and doomsday scenarios. It is all about as near to my conception of voodoo science as can be imagined. You can think of it as MSG science..it has a sort of sciency flavour, but without much actual science.
And tehn i learnt about the hiding of data, the inadequate to non-existent quality control. Finally I read Harry_Read_me, which convinced me that many practitioners were unfit to manage a whelk stall let alone be let loose on the most important data for the most important problem facing humanity.
Others will have their own stories of why they are sceptical. That’s mine. Sorry if it doesn’t fit your preconceptions.
And PS — I absolutely hate being told ‘Trust Me little insignificant person, I am An Expert and you are too stupid to have an opinion’ in any area of my life. Climatology seems to have attracted more than its fair share of those whose talent is way behind their self-regard.'
Dear Bish,
I detect heavy handed censorship on the Talking Climate Site.
It does not seem to be as concerned with understanding scepticism as was made out.
In fact, good reasons for sceptism seem to be very unwelcome.
I arrive at that conclusion because such reasons don't get published.
Sadly, another site concerned with AGW promotion masquerading as neutral.
Rhoda
This was the guy who set up Hansen's senate hearing in 1988. It has always been about the politicsThe science was, is, and always will be secondary.
To re-post from my reply (just below yours) to Richard Betts:
"There is no empirical evidence to support the more extreme claims and prognostications of the eco-warriors and their useful idiots and unless and until the climate science community cuts itself off totally from the likes of WWF, Greenpeace, FoE and the other anti-human eco-fascistic pressure groups and concentrates solely on open, honest, replicable science based on data and remembers that computer models are only as good as (a) the programmer, (b) the data, and (c) the integrity of the interpreter they can "communicate" with me till they're blue in the face. I'm not listening.
... regardless of what [Richard's] input is to AR5 all that will end up in the media and on the desks of the politicians is the Summary for Policymakers which is — in effect — written by those same anti-human eco-fascistic pressure groups who have not a cat in hell's chance of persuading other than their own acolytes to vote for their destructive agenda and can only get their own way through this, or some other, back door.
Whatever Corner might believe the eco-warriors have an agenda and climate change is only the current route they are using to pursue it. If we can persuade the politicians that the science is crap (to use my word) then we might succeed in stopping this juggernaut — but I'm not holding my breath; it's much more likely that the greenies will segue smoothly (as they are trying to do already) into bio-diversity or sustainability or whatever else they think the politicians will fall for next.
Trying to persuade them that sceptics are poor be-nighted souls that only need to have the science explained to them better and they will immediately cop for all the other lies, distortions and exaggerations is just a ploy.
But one that needs to be seriously addressed, as Latimer is doing in his 8.52 posting and as Corner has given us a reasonable opportunity to do if we care to take it. We accuse the "opposition" of double-dealing and then running off saying "you can't reason with these people"; why are we doing just that?
I used to debate global warming on a private members' forum some years ago.
The speed at which the warmists would "stampede for the (progressive) policy solution" (to paraphrase John Cleese) was always something to behold, and made it quite clear to me that climate science fiction was naught but a bridge to the promised land.
Geoff's experience demonstrates that projection is alive and well in the warmist community.
Adam, you suffer from a cognitive bias which taints both your question strategy and your hypothesis.
Here is the bottom line for me. The AGW “science” is garbage and I have independently reached this conclusion from examining the claims, the underlying physics and the data offered as evidence.
Many skeptics have advanced science educations and the climate science is not exactly quantum mechanics. Any undergrad with a thermodynamics course, a stats course and some critical thinking skills has all the skills and training needed to do some subject matter reading and then make an informed and independent assessment of the climate change hypothesis and its models. It does not take much investigation to realize that they have built a house of cards and their science would only make Lysenko proud.
Perhaps instead of questioning skeptics about their reaching reasonable conclusions based on their informed evaluation of the failed science, you should should be asking yourself why you are so sure that the “consensus” is correct and try evaluating this illogical faith that you and others have in AGW. I am pretty confident that my graduate degree in physics has better prepared me to make an informed judgement on this than does your background in psychology Adam. Maybe you are studying the wrong group of people. Your faith in AGW is more of a religion than a scientific certainty.
As for the entangling of politics with science, you have no further to look than the activist scientists and individuals like yourself who have conflated this discussion and refuse to listen to the serious scientific criticisms advanced about the AGW hypothesis. So stop trying to dismiss skepticism as being politics.
On a final note, your explanation of your own motivations for your research only point to your intent as being not entirely honest. It sounds more like you are looking for a way to further demonize skeptics. Skepticism does not require any further explanation if the skeptic can present a cogent scientific argument for being skeptical. On the other hand, your unreasoning faith without having critically assessed the AGW hypothesis does warrant some examination. Accepting the consensus may be a powerful behavioral trait but it has nothing to do with scientific inquiry.
Great discussion. It is funny to me that one side of this debate thinks they are right, and that those that disagree are anti-science and wrong. One side is politically biased and the other is enlightened and is only concerned with the science. One side is intelligent and the other a bunch of baboons. This is typical of American politics (I won't comment on UK politics as I have only lived here a year) as the left thinks they are educated and informed and the right is a bunch of dumb red necks and greedy corporate old white people. Now my point if you don't already see it. Global warming is a political issue, always has been. I won't go so far as to say that all the science is biased but I think Donna Lafromboise pointed out much that is. We all have biases, figuring out what they are so we can think rationally is the key.
Gags aside..but this reads like a either Adam Corner is 100% clueless..or..he is not listening to the responses..or..he is some form of $CAGW$ Bot.
Take your pick
Well put Mike - I think you've nailed the problem.
Climate science has been infiltrated with green activism to the point where its credibility as a scientific discipline is near zero.
The only point I would add is that Corner is not misunderstanding the motives of the eco-warriors - he understands them full well because he's one of them himself -
http://t.co/Hdqz9Wbn
http://t.co/ezqsBusb
http://www.yournextmp.com/candidates/adam_corner
Just my 2p's worth - kudos to Geoff for engaging in dialogue with Adam Corner, and also with James Annan earlier. These can be seen as worthwhile experiments which have yielded interesting results; I feel that even without much in the way of a constructive outcome, this kind of exchange is valuable in that it always tells us something.
'the psychology of scepticism.'
Is that what they call accepting reality now?
Just found a photo of Adam at Copenhagen, (Green party campaigner) carrying Banner 'Act Now'
Yup.
Have a read of Adam's boss's university webpage - which gives a flavour of the vast academic industry which has grown out of the study of "climate denial".
http://psych.cf.ac.uk/contactsandpeople/academics/pidgeon.html
The really bizarre thing is that none of the psychologists and sociologists pontificating on "climate denial" have the scientific education to make any independent judgement on the subject for themselves.
They have to accept the holy writ of climatology handed down from on high - like a bunch of would-be priests in a seminary.
Their job is just to go out & preach the gospel.
Sean - First class post
Adam Corner bleats:
"Its a shame over at Bishop Hill there are people doing the usual name-calling (punching me on the nose as ‘direct engagement’; calling me a bigot) when clearly this is an attempt to have a civil conversation…"
If ever there was a case for piling on, this is it. Corner does not care about what the objective science actually says. His whole argument hinges on an elitist group-think assumption that the "consensus" CAGW view is unassailable, and that the weird deviant skeptics are worthy of study for that reason. Peter Lilley MP at a recent Conservative seminar attempted calmly and patiently to point out to Corner and other enthusiasts the flaws in their reasoning. Clearly to no avail.
(I shall post the link to Peter Lilley's speech when I find it.)
And here is the link to Peter Lilley's speech, mentioned above.
http://thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/5645-peter-lilley-mp-communicating-climate-realism.html
.... interesting..... I suppose this really is about cAGWarmists worried about "the psychological barriers to engaging in pro-environment behaviors" (see below, excerpt of "research summary" from Dr. Corner's univ. web page). I'm more concerned about the psychological traits of activists which work to push us all toward irrational "solutions" to unknown, under-analyzed, and/or misunderstood "problems"....
Dr. Adam Corner's research [emphasis added]
"....I am very interested in the application of psychological and social scientific research to practical questions such as the effective communication of climate change, and the psychological barriers to engaging in pro-environmental behaviours."
I submitted the below comment on the site.
I note it wasn't passed by a moderator so with your permission I re-post it here instead.
Can anyone please tell me why this wouldn't be deemed fit? This not a leading question I honestly cannot work out why.
skel June 15, 2012 at 10:21 pm
Where to start?..
I am a self-confessed former ardent supporter of the CAGW belief system. I am also educated in a science-based field (but not ‘climate science’) to post-graduate level. However, I had the rather naive perspective that I took as an article of faith what I was being told in the MSM (VERY naive as it transpired but there you go…one learns).
My conversion to the dark side had, as it’s beginning, the so-called ‘climategate’ issue which prompted me to begin to read up from a wider information base such as WUWT/BH/EU Ref etc etc„„„,
It was from those beginnings allied to a detailed examination of the personalities in this whole show that I began to feel a distinct unease at the MARKED difference between the public statements of those who are our (self-confessed) saviours and their own private behaviour.
Although I will be the first to confess that the next bit is hardly a scientific stance the final nail in my belief coffin with CAGW and full conversion to a firmly held scepticism was the discovery of Mr Pachauri having flown from a UN climate meeting in New York to India for the weekend (first class of course) to watch a favoured local cricket team playing a game. As for Gore, there isn’t enough data storage capacity on the internet to list his hipocrisy! Harrison Ford is another who conducts his own activism presumably whilst flying in one of his numerous aeroplanes up the Californian coast to his favourite burger bar.….
Now, I am very aware that the above would lay me wide open to the charge of ‘envy politics’ but I will not accept that I do not have a point when I observe those who tell me that there is a crisis acting personally like there is no such thing.
Yes, not very scientific of me.…..but do I have a point?
As to some of the science.…
Polar bears dying out etc etc.……this is simply patently untrue.
Ice caps melting?.….…Predictions not holding and some rather anomalous patterns in the south pole which diverge from the ever more fevered announcements of disaster therein.
Wind generation.….….I have trouble writing anything about that especially in the context of the Climate Change Act without a rising fury so will stop.….
Anyhow I’m feeling a descent to utter rant mode so will wind up but with a last point.…
It was to my horror that I found that when I simply began to question (genuinely in an innocent way) just a few of the assertions of the CAGW hypothesis with fellow believers that I got a response equivalent to that as if I shouted ‘fu*k you’ in public or was a kiddie fiddler (didn’t Monbiot himself equate scepticism to such or travel in aeroplanes perhaps, not sure?). The level of psychological blocking was quite bizarre.
Now, none of the above is to say, in any way, that ‘environmentalism’ is a busted flush because it most certainly isn’t but the vast resources that are being diverted to dealing with CAGW are denuding resources from other far worthier and productive causes.
For the record, if one was to assume, purely for the sake of argument, that rising CO2 WAS causing a problem it occurs to me that there are fewer better carbon capture storage devices than trees.….……
Sorry for the rant.…it’s a little inchoate and I apologise. I guess many will get my ‘drift’ in any case.
Ta.
Looks like I was wise to post a copy of my remarks at Corner's blog here (8:52pm).
They are still 'awaiting moderation', but others timed later have been published. Including one from Hengist.
Not sure what my thought crime is...having a Masters in a hard science? understanding IT? or not mentioning anything to do with politics?
It may be early to definitely conclude that Corner has been flying under a false flag, but the indications aren't looking good.
@Skel.
Did a similar trip to the dark side. It wasn't us that changed, but them.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/how-environmentalism-turned-to-the-dark-side/
Pointman
Adam Corner is just another lying AGW promoter.
Who cares what he says?
Just left my two cents...seems to be stuck in moderation...
It was:
"One of the first books on science was Robert Boyle’s ‘the sceptical chemist’. Scientists are sceptical and look for proof. Is this not the case in psychology?"
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
Yes indeed I started out thinking there might be some mileage in this seemingly academic discussion.
But it turns out to be just another instance of a bloke doing his job.
If there’s a weakness in the blogosphere it’s that you don’t generally know the background of contributors. Re: the thread on real names in the Discussion forum, names miss the point. Who is this chap? What was he educated in? What’s he done since? What style of language will he understand? If I mention the coefficient of this or that will he understand? Answers would surely avoid much of the unhelpful misunderstandings that are so common.
So if cognoscenti Geoff had ensured that Adam’s background was available at the beginning of the discussion, I would have embarked upon it without great expectations and read it with much greater comprehension. As it turns out and entirely as I would have expected, the ships in which Adam and Geoff sailed passed in the night but missed each other so completely that not even the washes were felt.
Maurizio Morabito is a switched on guy,
It's a notable differentiation. If they really wanted to study skeptics -- as it's come to be defined -- they might include the people over at SkS who privately convey that Mann's hockeysticks are a load of tosh.
I've watched a few videos from George Marshall, Corners offsider in COIN, and after about 2 mins I start to lose the will to live.
These folks can't understand why anyone can't see their point of view. You are either stupid, mad or greedy, in their minds.
Just posted this on Talking climate.
If a psychologist is asking questions, watch for the pea under the double meaning. Having said that, he may want to know this layman’s journey to climate science skepticism. I like reading history. With this new internet thing, one does not have to travel to faraway places, like London, UK. in order to peruse a book that may strike one’s fancy. Imagine therefore my surprise when, flipping through the IPPC ar3 a “hockey stick” appears purporting to show the temperatures going way back. Obviously this “scientist” does not read history, nor do the peer reviewers, nor do all the other CAFW folk. Asking these people to reconcile the following statement with their hockey stick elicits a response of: “not relevant”.
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817, Minutes of Council, Volume 8. Pp.149-153, Royal Society, London. 20th November, 1817.
“The ice which has this year surrounded the northern coast of Ireland in unusual quantity and remained there unthawed till the middle of August, with the floods which have during the whole summer ………
Perhaps the psychologist can answer a more interesting question: Why have the accredited history professors not noticed this glaring inconsistency and written about it?
Just asking.
As an addendum: I wonder how many prof's had to ask questions in order to make sure one could meet the payroll?
Jun 15, 2012 at 8:52 PM | Latimer Alder
Latimer,
you have summed up why the sceptic demographic is how it is. I too have an old school science degree. When the UK stopped making stuff I moved into IT. I am now approaching retirement age.
When I was at school, for the most part boys were taught science (physics/chemistry) and engineering and girls biology,domestic science and secretarial skills. It cannot surprise anyone why sceptism is strongest in "our" group.
I see my comment over at Talking Climate is still awaiting moderation, so I thought I might as well post it here:
Adam, the chief obstacle to your attempt to understand climate scepticism is your inability to believe in the remotest possibility that it may be scientifically correct. Until you can accomplish that modest feat of the imagination, you will always be talking in ravens, while they listen in writing desks.
To pick but one of your many remarks that shed far more light on the psychology of believers than of sceptics:
“That suggests to me that if there were other policy options on the table – that didn’t involve rising energy prices – your doubts about the legitimacy of the underlying science would not be as strong.”
Only to a True Believer, it does. Try looking through the other end of the telescope, Adam. If there truly were no cost associated with mitigation policies (do you have any examples, by the way, or is your point entirely hypothetical?), there would be no point in anyone, sceptic or believer, picking arguments – the point about the science would be moot. We could go about our lives untroubled by needless acrimony.
As a 60 year-old sceptic, I have become used to seeing a percentage of each generation grow to what passes for maturity gripped by the belief that it would be the last to walk the face of the earth unless everybody listened up and did as it told them. They do a lot of damage (Eugenics, DDT demonization come to mind) and waste a lot of money, but they seem to provide psychic diversion for a rather larger group of my fellow citizens, and their fads have generally been forgotten after a few years. A lot of wasteful, growth-inhibiting legislation remained festering on the statute books – but overall I have come to see this as a sort of tithe – an irksome but limited impost on the right to live a quiet life. People do not like being told that they are gullible, and the social cost of voicing scepticism over their pet scares outweighed the benefits. Quiescence, through gritted teeth, prevailed. This may have been a mistake, as Voltaire observed: “ Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
When CAGW came along, I assumed that, coming almost comically soon after, and on the lips of the same ‘scientists’, as global cooling, it would enjoy a brief period of earnest hand-wringing, soak up a few $m in grants, and move on. My high school Physics master had predicted, c1969, that climate, a nonlinear, chaotic system, could never be skilfully predicted by computer modelling.
But AGW struck it lucky in the real world, which warmed for 25 years. And I had underestimated the appetite among supposedly educated westerners for catastrophe narratives.
It is precisely because I saw CAGW generate sufficient traction to occasion real and enduring wealth-destruction, particularly to the undeveloped world, that I decided to endure the pitying scorn or outright condemnation that, in 2009, came with expressing climate-scepticism anywhere that mattered.
From your end of the telescope, I ‘became’ a sceptic. From my end, I was always one, but a mostly silent one.
As I suggested to Geoff in another forum, a better question to ask, and one it would be fascinating to see you tackle, is “why has a large segment of the least threatened population in the history of humanity AGREED to concoct a misanthropic narrative about its own kind?”
'Geoff's mischaracterization of Tea Party supporters is rather bizarre. Should we chalk it up to gross ignorance?'
Can't do that. He's an "educated leftie". Knows heaps more than us red neck Jeremy Clarkson fans, and if he doesn't then what little he does know is worth ever so much more than however much we know. (Jeremy who?)
He does, however, have the grace to concede that he might sound a bit "snotty", which is just as well because he's perfectly correct.
Can we lose the snotty stereotyping, please, Geoff? Some of us less-educated yobboes expect sceptics to be above that sort of thing.
In response to a polite request to Adam Corner to either publish my remarks or delete them, they have been summarily deleted.
I leave others to draw their own conclusions about the integrity of his supposed desire to 'engage with sceptics'.
Unlike others on this site I still believe in Corner's willingness to dialogue. The guy has done what few have done before, providing people an open platform to speak without being accused or derided. If he's an obsessed activist, he's got none of the relationship issues of a Connolley and little of the sciento-political religiosity of an Appell.
That said I wonder why he's missed all of Geoff's satire. For a person with the right attitude, Corner risks providing hours of unadulterated fun, as ironic remarks are taken fully seriously and improbable sociological theories published as New Truth.
I have written two main observations at Corner's blog (with my full real name "Maurizio Morabito"). Hopefully he'll show some interest and respond especially to the epistemological issues.
Adam Corner (Psychologist, Cardiff University): "While scepticism is healthy, non-belief in the face of overwhelming evidence is the antipathy of scepticism." "...few societal issues are as urgent as tackling climate change."
Nick Pidgeon (Psychologist, Cardiff University): "Avoiding dangerous climate change is one of the most urgent environmental policy issues, and it appears increasingly likely that societies must undergo major transformations to avoid the worst of its potential impacts."
Stephan Lewandowsky (Psychologist, UWA): "There is only one way to escape that uncertainty: Mitigation. Now."
Psychologists (or the ones we hear about, at any rate) seem remarkably uniform in their belief that vast, sweeping societal transformations are urgently needed, to cope with the theoretical worst-case scenarios arising from CAGW. There appear to be few (or no?) exceptions. Where, I wonder, are the freethinkers, the mavericks, the questioners, the sceptics?
Sometimes, the thought has crossed my mind that in the process of becoming a psychologist or other social scientist, there must always come a point where the sceptics are weeded out and can progress no further. Or is there some sort of initiation ceremony they all have to attend, like the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which enquiring minds are turned into compliant minds?
My Latin is just about non-existent but there's a phrase "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" which could be adapted to the equivalent of "Who will psychologise the psychologists?" or "Who will shrink the shrinks?" On the curious matter of psychologists' uniformity on the subject of climate change, the answer seems to be: no-one.
Ecclesiastical Uncle
That was my impression too. I felt it had some of the qualities of a Noel Coward Play.Maurizio Morabito
Actually, no. Corner studied a sample of 290 Welsh female psychology students, to whom he administered a battery of questions. He divided them into two groups down the middle, calling one group “sceptics” and the others “believers”. He then administered two sceptic editorials and two “believer” editorials to them, (documents which he had written himself) and measured the change in their opinions. This is a perfectly reasonable experiment in psychology, but has little to do with what goes on here. My problem is that he then wrote an article in the Guardian suggesting he’d found out something about people like us.Stan, Mique
Sorry if I mischaracterised the Tea Party. I was describing a certain kind of comment you often see from a certain kind of conservative conspiracy theorist.
I’ve defended the Tea Party on blogs from precisely the kind of snotty educated lefty-speak you accuse me of. One of my biggest hates at the Graun, after their treatment of climate science, was their Pravda-like treatment of Ron Paul in the last US elections.
Omnologos
Thanks. At last someone who’s spotted Corner’s admirable qualities. I didn’t realise you were a Noel Coward fan.
"Hey, lets have a 'civil conversation'. I'm genuinely interested in why you are such an f---ed up person. Let's have a cup of tea and we can discuss this pleasantly."
I posted on Adam's blog as follows:
Hi Adam
Really glad to see you are actually engaging in debate with climate skeptics. Sorry Bishop Hill comments have been rude. Scrolling down here shows me, however, that the length of comments indicates serious engagement, not rudeness.
I was a warmist myself, and an activist too — until I started looking more closely at the science, the whole science, and nothing but the science.
I was on sick leave at the time, so was able to devote all my time to studying the facts, as represented by both sides. Even so it too six weeks, during which time I ricocheted back and forth, not knowing who to “believe”. I ended up with a lot of dislike for anything to do with “believing”, and a lot of respect and enjoyment from digging deeper and deeper for “the truth”, the evidence. I believe, insofar as I now believe anything, that there is something in many of us that wants truth wherever it leads, for its own sake. This is in line with the Royal Society motto “Nullius In Verba” — “on the word of nobody” and also with the words of Jesus. From different corners of human reality, the same experience.
I ended by writing up not just the science but also my own journey of transformation. This is excellent material for your study IMHO. Click my name. From my account, you can see that even if you change “sides” in your own journey, you can still have an interesting story, a valuable psychological / social study, and a focus for your own future interests, at the end of the day.
Good luck.
Corner, whilst carrying a placard at Copenhagen.
@AJCorner
loving Brown calling people 'deniers' and 'luddites' on Cif. Tell it like it is Gordy! www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green
12:59 PM Dec 7th, 2009 from web
http://twitter.com/AJCorner/status/6429777167
Corner (2009) might not be the same as Corner (2012). Pity those who never move their minds.
Just to dispel any lingering doubts here, that Adam Corner might just be an honestly misled, or naive, serious academic researcher making a genuine effort to find middle ground with sceptics - here is a full list of links showing Adam in full-on eco-warrior mode:-
The pic of Adam demonstrating with his "Action Now" banner at Copenhagen -
http://t.co/Hdqz9Wbn
His write up in the Green Party mag it came from -
http://t.co/ezqsBusb
The site referencing his withdrawn Green Party Cardiff North parliamentary candidature -
http://www.yournextmp.com/candidates/adam_corner
Adam's Twitter comment on Gordon Brown's insulting "denier" comments :-
@AJCorner
loving Brown calling people 'deniers' and 'luddites' on Cif. Tell it like it is Gordy!
http://twitter.com/AJCorner/status/6429777167
Adam defending the 'climategate 'Nature Trick':-
@AJCorner
these are well worth watching re: 'climategate' emails, esp nice showing legitimate use of 'trick'
http://twitter.com/AJCorner/status/6464342690
A paper jointly authored with Alex Randall (activist who represented Kiribati at Copenhagen) with the revealing title "Selling Climate Change":-
http://www.mendeley.com/research/selling-climate-change-limitations-social-marketing-strategy-climate-change-public-engagement/
.......and finally, the personal website of George Marshall, Adam's partner in setting up the "Talking Climate" and his colleague at the COIN activist group ( where Adam is listed as "Policy Adviser").
http://climatedenial.org/
http://coinet.org.uk/about-us/staff-and-volunteers
Remember when reading all this that Adam & George took taxpayer's money from Cardiff and Nottingham universities to set up "Talking Climate" on the entirely spurious assertion that it was to be used (in Adam's words "to disseminate scientific research".
Apart from being proof of Adam's blatant activism - this strikes me as being a fraud on public funds.
So, for those who've given Adam Corner the benefit of the doubt here and tried to engage with him in an honest discussion on the climate debate - you've been had!
Adam is a long term, committed eco-warrior who is solely interested in garnering recruits to his cause and demeaning anyone who opposes it.
There are some great comments on this thread. But in the end, we are wasting our time. Corner is a professional investigator of the mental disorders that prevent us crazies from seeing the emperor's new clothes.
Whatever reasoned arguments Corner is presented with must be the products of diseased minds, because it is axiomatic that every sane person can see the beauties of the emperor's outfit.
Adam is still listed as "Policy Adviser" at the COIN climate activist group and has corresponded with me using that appellation within the last couple of weeks.
http://coinet.org.uk/about-us/staff-and-volunteers
He clearly hasn't moved his mind.
Maurizio
I have a lot of time for your analysis, normally - but I really think you have your rose-tinted specs on with Adam.
Other posters here have attested that, far from "providing an open platform" - he has ruthlessly deleted and suppressed dissenting opinions.
I think the fact that he doesn't "get" Geoff's satire tells you all you need to know.
Adam is a zealot - satire is to zealots what garlic is to vampires.
I do agree, though, that his earnest literalism and theorising can provide hours of harmless fun.
Has anyone here ever tried to play a game more complicated than dominoes?
Am with Geoff on this...even if he's flying way too high for me (eg I don't know Coward enough...but I should!).
We keep lamenting how AGW believers always want to "dialogue" only in their own terms, yet complain now that Corner doesn't register in our own terms? If a "dialogue" has to start somewhere, it is from whatever we have in common.
That's why, rather than waste time explaining him my skepticism, I would be more interested in figuring out what Corner believes to be studying.
Geoff
Subtlety may be more intellectually satisfying, but finely honed Cowardesque barbs ain't going to overturn the climate juggernaut - too many lucrative vested interests at stake.
Crude tabloid mockery, threatening politcos with the loss of their goodies, is the only hope.
The battle will eventually be fought with slogans in the Sun - not earnest handwringing in the Graun.
Remember "Up Yours Delors!"? - that's the sort sort of thing that will turn the tide (sadly).
Alex Cull (Jun 16, 2012 at 8:38 AM)
Beavering away quietly on things which don’t interest the media, we hope. (Though I wouldn’t bank on mavericks being any more sensible than the government-funded functionaries. WUWT is currently celebrating the fact that Lovelock has come out in favour of fracking. Lovelock is the kind of maverick the media love, and a bunch of critical articles around his pronouncements would help fuel discussion in the outside world. But the only thing that interests Hickman in the Guardian is whether he is for or against the official line).Your comment is a fine piece of social science in itself. Corner and his colleagues Pigeon and Whitmarsh are quite junior members of a large psychology department, working in a rather obscure corner of their subject, but one which currently brings in funding from government and charitable trusts, and publicity from Corner’s articles in the Guardian. Anyone who has ever worked in a large organisation can understand the delicacy of their position.
In thirty years’ time they can all hope to be senior members of their profession, if all goes well. Unfortunately, their prospects depend, not only on the quality of their work or their teaching ability, but also on such unknowns as the temperature in Cardiff in 2030, and the behaviour of people like us.
Jun 15, 2012 at 10:57 PM | Registered CommenterFoxgoose
Thanks for the compliment!
You're right but yesterday evening I was still prepared to give Corner the benefit of the doubt.
And to an extent I stand by my final comment. There have been enough instances of warmist spokesmen engaging (or pretending to engage) and then retreating behind the excuse that they can't hold a civilised discussion "with these people" and we rightly criticise them for that.
Even though we know Corner is a (self-proclaimed) environmental activist and probably not faintly interested in anything except shutting us up (or down!) behaving in the same way loses us the moral high ground.
I have just submitted the comment below but will assume it will not be put up. Integrity is somewhat lacking.
skel June 16, 2012 at 10:15 am
Adam. I know this won’t get put up as you have demonstrated your bias so this is a personal txt to you.
I think my comment was reasonable and given that you state an intent to understand the point of view of ‘sceptics’ why was my comment deemed unacceptable?
Do you seriously propose to win back the apostates like myself by your approach?.
Please be in no doubt that I very much understand the psychology of this entire debate but if one cannot accept a contrary viewpoint then what is the purpose of even trying to present a ‘reasonable’ stance?
You are being disingenuous by playing the wounded victim of ad-hominem/abuse/name-calling in the BH thread..etc.. in your comment above when it’s clear that you are operating under a false flag and stalinising contrary (and reasonably put) viewpoints.
You would earn greater respect by actually disabling the comments for this particular piece.
You could learn an awful lot by watching a few hours of Richard Feynman and his take on science. I did but only as a result of the factors I described in my comment. (I hope you at least retained a copy of it…it’s freely up on BH if you haven’t).
Ah well…I did try to engage in the debate anyway.