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Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Amendment. I am impressed by his imperious style. Obviously everyone should bow down before him.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Didn't you ever read http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/?

Wikipedia is perfect for him. It can be bent to the will of even the worst bastard.....

Posted by: SB_Johnny

More power to him. The guy pretty much got banned for being a bit harsh on people who deserved it, from what I understand.

Posted by: RMHED

Nah, he got topic banned for being a mega arsehole. Only one person on Wikipedia can get away with that and Jimmy don't like competition.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

I'm with RMHED on this one.

Posted by: Guido den Broeder

Really? When he was an administrator, the guy banned me from Wikipedia when I asked him not to editwar with another user over spelling. Others were treated in a similar fashion.

Posted by: Cla68

Fortunately for WMC, Wikipedia doesn't have a "Child of Privilege-big-ego, artificially affected misanthropic, jaded, high-falooting" activist rule, or he would have been sent on his way long ago.

Here's the thing, I truly don't belive that WMC, Stephan Schulz, Kim Dabelstein Peterson, or Short Brigade Harvester Boris are really scientists, because I can't belive that true scientists would act as deceitfully, dishonestly, or as insecurely and cowardly as they act. If they are really scientists, I would like to know which universities they teach at to ensure that I don't send my kids to those bush league institutions. To be clear, I respect scientists who truly believe in man-made global warming but recognize that they might be wrong. The ones who don't are the ones who try to use Wikipedia to artificially socialize their positions.

Posted by: Peter Damian

You clearly haven't been in a seminar room-full of philosophers.

Posted by: Cla68

Actually, I have. The scientists and philosophers who are the most humble in their advocacy are the ones I hope my kids have the good fortune to encounter. You want me to name some names? The Japanese ones probably won't have en.wikipediai entries.

Posted by: iii

Wow.

It's amazing that Wikipedia makes Randies in Boisie like Cla68 so confident in their abilities to determine who is and is not a true expert/academic/scientist/philosopher. It is the height of irony that such an arrogant prick as this thinks that humility is the hallmark of a good educator/researcher/writer.

Wikipedia is bad precisely because it makes know-nothing idiots like Cla68 think that they're hot shit.

Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

Were you cloned from William Connelley's droppings? I'm just asking.

Posted by: iii

I personally think William M. Connolley is a fool for wasting gobs of time engaging with the dregs of internet society that constitute the Wikipedia editing class. But at least the guy has a certain amount of intellect and a decent education that would qualify him to be an expert on certain academic subjects. Unlike his half-witted detractors.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

It would be better for all concerned if Connolley would stick to his areas of expertise, then, and stay away from articles on Climate Change.

Posted by: iii

Rich. And you got your PhD where? In what field?

Posted by: Ottava

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittgenstein%27s_Poker.

I never understood when scientists and philosophers some how gained a reputation for civility, when they were always a rather hostile and competitive bunch.

Posted by: radek

Here's the thing:

"scientists who truly believe in man-made global warming" = something like 90% of them. You gonna be generous, let's say 85%.

scientists that "recognize that they might be wrong" = this one's more of a guess. There really isn't much of a reason to doubt it, evidence wise. So, as a scientist, you'd really have to be an ultra-skeptic (and really, "recognizing you might be wrong" to a scientist would mean something like assessing the probability that one might be mistaken but nm). So out of that 85%, 90% probably don't see a need to doubt that they're wrong (not in any significant sense).

.8*.1=.085 so basically you're saying that you only respect about 8.5% of scientists (plus presumably some fraction of the remaining 15%). If that's the case then it's probably not a good idea to get involved in the editing of science-related articles.

(D'oh! Sloppy math corrected)

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Any real scientist knows, from the history of science, that most theory will eventually be superseded by better theory. And any real scientist knows that this is not a typical scientific controversy -- there is a lot of political pressure, big bucks are involved, and there is a kind of McCarthyism afoot that demonizes the "deniers." Competent climatologists will tell you, in private, that all the theorizing is based on an extremely selective array of data, and that major factors, such as the influence of solar activity and cosmic radiation, are excluded from consideration, because that might undercut "the message."

Posted by: Milton Roe

Baloney, they'll tell you no such thing. Unless you are going to characterize them as "competent" according to that particular criterion, ala No true Scotsman.

Solar activity goes through an 11 year cycle. So does cosmic radation (due to the influence of the Sun on it in various ways). It's not the Sun.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

http://www.durangobill.com/Swindle_Swindle.html

Lastly, why there should be a vast winning-conglomerate of "business interests" in favor of the man-made global warming hypothesis, is hardly obvious. It's very inconvenient truth for the entire fossil fuel industry, which is not a small one! Plus the other energy-using industries dependent on it.

I wonder how the conspiracy theorists manage to hold two conflicting conspiracy theories in their minds at the same time. In one of them, the fossil fuel, transportation, and power industry control the governments and are raping the environment. In the other, some other pro-global warming people control the government, and are set to start raping the fossil fuel, auto and power industries, who will be forced to cut emissions and bear high taxes that will force lower consumption of their products, and a mass exodus to alternative green industries that are owned by others.

Say what?

Posted by: Milton Roe

The "better theory" is usually merely one with more bells and whistles and refinements, though. Rarely does it flatly contradict the old theory. Einstein's theories reduce to Newton's in the limit of slow speeds and weak gravity; they don't say Newton was wrong. Quite obviously, to first order, Newton continues to be right. Which is why he's still taught.

Posted by: radek

"most theory will eventually be superseded by better theory" - that's actually almost a definition of science, except I'd replace the "most" with "all". That doesn't make existing theory "bad" or "useless" or even "wrong"

"big bucks are involved" - yes, but pretty much on the "denier" side. The "yes, it's happening, and yes it's human caused" side on the other hand is coming out pretty much from all quarters, even from, or even mostly from, people's who's financial rewards are not in any way tied to finding the "right result" - the same thing is not true for the "denier side", to the extent that it even still exists (15, maybe 10 years ago, there was still some question here, but not so much anymore).

"Competent climatologists will tell you, in private" - here we get into personal experience and anecdotes. In my experience what the "competent climatologists" say in private, over some drinks, is that yeah, sure, we don't know everything, but that all the data that exists points in one direction. You can always try to argue that since we don't know 100% for sure, we don't know. But in the real world, that's not a very good argument.

Posted by: Detective

Hmmm - maybe they only seemed hostile because of whom they were dealing with?

Seriously, plenty of scientists have been noted for their charming and courteous behaviour. People who come to mind include William Herschel, Michael Faraday and Robert Bunsen.