Posts by Kyle Matthews
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And yeah, not everyone on PA is a Mr. Bean fan.
Please. Let's not confuse the distinctly average comedy that is Mr Bean, with the masterful Blackadder series, particularly Goes Fourth. It should be compulsory to view Blackadder before you're allowed to watch Mr Bean.
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Kyle, I didn't say All Blacks should play club rugby but as someone who actually DOES watch club rugby from time to time I know that there are a lot of Super 14 players (or at least were) until recently pulling on the boots. And there have certainly been ANZ CUP players playing a lot of club football at least up until the moment.
Oh, super 14 players too.
I suspect you could find enough room in the season for the club season, and Air NZ Cup to not completely cross over, so that an amateur player on a professional retainer could do both.
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... and the fact that you can't get a basic Blackadder reference -- and the obvious kudos that implies -- also speaks volumes.
I think you need to work on your poncy German accents, when written in text. I've seen that Blackadder episode about a dozen times, and I didn't get until you referenced it.
Or "that's a lie, take my name off your list". People are, I think reasonably, still responding to the way it was originally presented.
I guess so. I still don't really see the amended title as a bald-faced lie, just bad use of science.
The original release was in September last year. I presume the story came up here today because the scientists made their release against it. Does anyone know why it took them 8 months to do that? Did they not know that they were on the list? Amazon lists the book coming out in February 2007, so I can't imagine it's the release of the book that has brought it to light.
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I maintain, the purpose of the exercise, and the way the "co-athor" list was presented was no scholarly, and it was not accidental.
Its specific purpose was to generate headlines like these:
Oh indeed.
But the first and fourth articles you've listed link to the Hudson institute media release, not the Heartland one (I'm not sure what the relationship is between the two organisations, but presumably pretty close). The second and third articles it's not clear where they've gotten their story from.
Take the first story for example. They've quoted the media release in the story, saying:
A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares.
And then entitled it:
500 Scientists Publish Peer-Reviewed Literature Refuting Man-Made Global Warming
The removal of the words 'at least one element' change the meaning between the text and the heading quite a bit. Sounds like the scientists don't believe in global warming now.
And the title of the last one? C'mon, I've seen more accurate titles on kiwiblog. If people are going to that place for their information...
I guess I find it strange that these guys are really worth the attention of our mainstream media. "Bunch of climate change denialists publish non-scientific book and misleading information online." Big surprise. If quacks are going to use scientific publications for their own warped purposes, up to them. There's plenty of tin foil hats to go around.
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And perhaps I'm wrong, but I took "co-authors" as a claim of authorship for Heartland's paper.
Well, I was looking at the first paragraph of their media release:
A new analysis of peer-reviewed scientific literature reveals that more than 500 climate scientists have appeared as authors or coauthors of peer-reviewed scientific articles confirming that climate change is a natural phenomenon.
That's pretty clear to me that they mean co-author in terms of the original articles. The pdf file that you've linked to, if seen out of context, could mean authorship of the book (I'm not sure what paper you're referring to). But since it's just a title 'Co-Authors: Alphabetical List', and then a list, out of context it could be the co-authors of an birthday letter.
Maybe that's sloppy and unclear, but given that the first para of the media release makes it very clear what the list is, I'd struggle to call that dishonest or deliberately misleading.
They're covering their tracks a bit now, but the link at the bottom of this page still refers to the list as "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares: Alphabetical List".
If you go here they say:
In response to the complaints, The Heartland Institute has changed the headlines that its PR department had chosen for some of the documents related to the lists, from “500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of Man-Made Global Warming Scares” to “500 Scientists Whose Research Contradicts Man-Made Global Warming Scares.”
The link you've found there links to the changed title in the actual page, someone hasn't changed the text in the 'related' link. I think that's more a case of out-of-date web page. Whether or not the changed title is better is I guess up to everyone, but it's now more a matter of opinion ("does XXX's research contradict man made global warming scare?") vs the old title where a scientist could easily say "umm, no I didn't document any doubts, because I have none".
Heartland institute and the authors of the original book should be allowed to interpret research how they will (after all, scientists who believe in global climate change will do that as well), even if they do a really bad job of it. Debating and interpreting the meaning of data and research is at the heart of scientific debate. If people want to set store in the conclusions that non-scientists come to in those debates, up to them.
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their original book is a pile of crap.
Oh I'm sure. I'm not defending it, I just think if that's where it starts from, that's what should be attacked. Not the bibliography that someone has ripped out of it.
As far as getting their names removed as co-authors goes, NZ copyright law provides for a moral right to not be misidentified as the author of a work.
As far as I'm aware the list is an entirely accurate list of what the authors have written. This isn't a case of misidentification, it's a case of being grouped together and put under a heading to support the work of climate change denalists that the authors aren't happy about.
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no we're not, we are just not. You and Jock need to admitt it to yourselves then maybe the game in this country can move forward.
Well, actually not at present, I think we're #2 and South Africa are number 1? But over the 13 years since professionalism came in, NZ would be ranked #1 in the world more than any other country. And certainly in the three years leading up to the world cup.
If you want to use other measures like - nz players in demand overseas for big money, marketing, branding, image, grassroots, age grade vs other countries, I think in most of them we'd still be top.
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The list calls them 'co-authors'. In light of this, surely they're entitled to ask for their names to be removed.
The first page of the media release says:
A new analysis of peer-reviewed scientific literature reveals that more than 500 climate scientists have appeared as authors or coauthors of peer-reviewed scientific articles confirming that climate change is a natural phenomenon.
Like it says, these 500 scientists are authors or co-authored articles. Whether or not those articles confirm that climate change is a natural phenomenon is the debate, as far as I'm aware, the list is entirely accurate in that those people did indeed write those articles.
It's a list taken from the footnotes of the book. If someone uses your research in their book, you can't ask for your name to be removed from the book, attack how they've used your research.
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Oh this is just sad. One of their experts is a dead astrologer...
There's some frothing on both sides on that page.
Just because people are dead now, doesn't mean that they didn't write good quality articles when they were alive. I'd like to think that just because you die, the world doesn't suddenly ignore everything you said when you were alive. Yes sure, such a person could not defend themselves and disassociate themselves from the book and the list, but I presume reading the actual article listed could give us a fairly good idea of the conclusions they reached on climate change.
The astrologer and "amateur climatologist" is indeed sad however. One suspects the list is littered with such 'experts'.
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All my other criticisms stand though. And, explain to me again, why we shouldn't be criticising the Heartland Institute? They're the ones with it on their website.
Well perhaps I shouldn't say "we shouldn't criticise them". If they were posting the list innocently, that might be the case, but obviously they're not.
But they're using a published book to push their own anti-climate change barrow. They might not be angels, but the main fault surely lies with the original book - if that's a pile of crap, then that's what needs to be attacked. What Heartland have done is taken the citations used to support that book and published it as a list. If it was entitled "scientific articles used in this book here" then you couldn't really complain. It's the heading "Research by Hundreds of Scientists Undermines Global Warming Alarmism" that is, one suspects, wrong. It might be an accurate reflection of what the books says too, who knows.
I just found the demands of scientists to be taken off a list strange. If you publish something people will use it. If they use it badly you debate that, you don't just demand that they not use your work. Surely that's at the essence of academic debate? What's next? Climate change denialists not allowed to use the scientific sections of libraries?