"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Willard Being Clear

Willard keeps the mystery and poetry out of his writing for a change, and ends up with a very clear and cogent critique of Judith Curry's claim of bridge-building in a salient instance.

11 comments:

Dol said...

Just went and read the comments over at Judith's blog. I'm not sure I understood a single thing anyone was talking about.

Steve Bloom said...

As Michael has discussed in the past, a career oriented toward obs means that Judy herself is unqualified with respect to not just D+A (modeling) but paleo, probably the two critical pillars of the science. I exclude obs since while it's the most important of the three it offers much less to argue about. Judy is in a policy backwater, seems to resent it, and has responded by engaging in the policy debate outside of scientific channels.

It would be interesting to know the basis of that resentment. I will simply observe that she and PW started up a climate consulting business more or less contemporaneously with her emergence as a denialist star. Presumably the competition is modelers. Some, not I but perhaps Eli, would say that this is no coincidence.

Steve Bloom said...

Just to note that there's an interesting parallel with the abstract discussed in the last post ("Inspiration"), Judy very much being stuck in an old paradigm.

John said...

The word "elitist" is an unmistakeable signal that NO useful discussion is happening or intended.

John Puma

EliRabett said...

She's never been lead author or such. Neither has Webster. Eli gets the sense of noticed but not respected.

King of the Road said...

Why is elite a high compliment when applied to athletes and bordering on a slur when applied to scholars?

Michael Tobis said...

It's the damnedest thing, ain't it?

Anonymous said...

Your new quote at the top of the blog reminds me of one Kevin Anderson uses to close many of his presentations:

“at every level the greatest obstacle to transforming the world is that we lack the clarity and imagination to conceive that it could be different.” - Roberto Unger

Dol said...

Keeping a focus on the idea of elitism manages to hide a key point. In Schneider's example of oncologists and cardiologists, it's hardly just their 'elite status' or expertise that determines whether they're listened to. If either of them were making basic, repeated errors of logic, failing to understand cause and effect or not responding properly to valid criticism, people would be dying more often. They get to be experts only on top of a foundation of competence. Without that, they'd be struck off.

EliRabett said...

Dan, wanna bet?

mike roddy said...

Curry has become a sad case, and the late Dr. Schneider did her a favor by even responding to her.

Judith's championing of people like McIntyre and Watts tells us all we need to know about what has become of her intellect. People like them need to be referenced only in the context of humiliating them, not in a doomed attempt at actual discourse.