[Dean's World] Dave Price: Debunking DailyKos' DarkSyde

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dave Price:
Debunking DailyKos' DarkSyde
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1204232052.shtml


   Can you spot the fairly obvious logical fallacy [1]here?
   Here's a hint: the passages DarkSyde amusingly claims constitute a
   contradiction (and a "right-wing zombie lie!" Horrors!):

     All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's
     GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the
     past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
     ...
     The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental
     data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute
     for Space Studies (GISS) analysis.

   Yes, that's right: this alleged "science blogger" can't tell the
   difference between a comparison of different years and a temperature
   trend within a single year.
   The farce of the DarkSyde is indeed strong.
   Also amusing is this appeal to authority:

     There are thousands of scientists all over the world who spend
     their entire professional lives examining that data.

   You would think so, but no; the lowly task of actually [2]analyzing
   the data and [3]where it comes from has often fallen to [4]amateurs
   and [5]volunteers -- and what they've found isn't pretty.

References

   1. http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/2/27/71536/7689/2/464761
   2. http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/1998_no_longer_the_hottest_yea.html
   3. http://surfacestations.org/
   4. http://www.climateaudit.org/
   5. http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/