Talking about pseudoscience does not always bore me, but it often does. Not because it begs a far from obvious question, but because of its unsexiness. This kind of talk belongs to what I shall call, in honor of the famous WPM International, SpeedoScience:
SpeedoScience. N. An activity where its proponents exhibit too much of themselves, oblivious of the potency of their epistemic appararus.
SpeedoScience connotes the posturing we often see in the “but pseudoscience” crap, but it also encompasses a more general phenomenon. To substantiate this tentative definition, let’s try to build a good stock of examples.
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Nassim Taleb‘s online swag sweaths SpeedoScience. Consider this semi-random swipe:
That tweet triggers SpeedoScience with knowledge claims about the location of Aleppo, Nocera, and skinless pundits in general. Our swan-like windbag‘s mythology extends from skin to balls and brains: not enough balls maketh the mathematician, too much the mafioso, too little of both the economist or worse the journalist. With plenty of both traders win, bombasts our ex-hedge-fund manager.
Salon scientists sport Speedos to parade, proclaim and provoke. What better way to display mano a mano bravado than a debate: :
As if macho always meant mucho or that swayed audiences Gish-style signified anything sciency. One sneaky side-effect is that staging jousts favors the one who shrinks from sourcing stuff:
(Michael Brown should soon storify this specific ClimateBall exchange which involved a debate challenge.)
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Chest thumps may sound like SpeedoScience, but shading or showboating comes in all tones. Take for instance how Hunton & Williams lawyers wonder about What Is Science over the tweeter:
Since nobody really equate science with consensus and the decisive bit is a myth, this contrarian line of counterargument is empty. Thus the hallmark of SpeedoScience seems to be that it leaves out too much to show too little. While Pseudoscience rests on the demarcation problem, SpeedoScience flourishes when what’s outside the Speedo and what is in becomes blurry.
There are of course many other indicators. Boxologizing quadrants. Bathing in pathos. Patiently parsing phrases. Raising concerns about people’s perception of words. (It may not be science, but it’s important.) Driving-by to peddle one’s ebook. Recycling the same graph over and over again instead of making an explicit argument. Blowing kisses, like Dimitris does just about every time someone mentions his work. Erecting a strawman to fire down a whole discipline, like Paul did a few months ago. Going emeritus to leave a riskier life with Mr. T, like Judy just did. I’m sure I’m missing more than a few huffs and puffs, but let’s end with SteveF’s Galileo gambit:
https://twitter.com/nevaudit/status/810571162963087360
The most general version of SpeedoScience could be formulated by the acronym CRAP: using claptraps C from some region R of knowledge to make self-serving assertions A for one’s position P.
According to Jennifer Egan, it is technically impossible for a man to look better in a Speedo than in swim trunks. Our man in Australia tells me Ian Thorpe may disagree, or not. The aesthetic canons underlined by Egan’s theorem still apply to SpeedoScience. With the proviso that contrary to swimming garment, it is quite possible to indulge into SpeedoScience while being the greatest scientist ever.
...and Then There's Physics 
Just wondering how we can insert the phrase ‘budgie smugglers’ into the matter…
Some could argue that journalists evolved to be attracted by SpeedoScience:
The other SteveF once stood and delivered me this memorable episode of SpeedoScience. The preening, strutting, shirt-ripping and muscle-flexing wind up to this bit of self-fulfilling prophesy:
I called it apathy at the time, but that was me being polite. It’s more like aggressively impotent and proud of it.
Surely even Rud Istvan himself sees the humour of pointing to Enfamil as an “illustrative example” with his e-book hit-and-run marketing.
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SpeedoScience may even be a suit and tie affair. Here’s the unsinkable John Christy grandstanding the ineffectuality meme for US House Reps Like a Boss:
It’s all there. Strawman scenarios, Game Theory, Uncertainty Monsters (save for cherry-picked ECS estimates <= 1.8 °C), conflating projection and prediction when bashing teh Stoopid Modulz, the Grijalva witch hunt, hand-wringing about "murky and wicked science" in the best interests of a naive and vulnerable public who "will ultimately pay the cost of any legislation alleged to deal with climate" — we must save them at any cost from the consensus of climate gatekeepers and "experts" ("scare quotes" in original) because it's *obvious* that what we assert cannot be perceived must therefore not be worth worrying about!
Fortunately, an unspecified but well-credentialed Red Team could come to the public rescue by writing an "assessment report" which "expresses legitimate, alternative hypotheses" for the paltry sum of 5-10% of the ~$2 bn/yr US climate science expenditure.
Note that the Budgie Smugglers may only be visible because the suit and tie don’t actually exist.
Willard , I’m gohan to miss out on this one since I changed from speedos to trunks 25 years ago.
The reason the N and O2 are not as important is that the radiation mainly passes through them both ways so in one sense they don’t exist.
There is heat transfer by collision so they do have a bulk effect in warming up with the CO2. It may have some effect on the mechanics of of heat transfer but since they would gain or lose energy in synch with the effective or current CO2 energy level and can gain or lose energy mainly by collision it would seem to be mainly the GHG ie CO2 and H2O that one worries about.
OK, one comment. Speedos are the preferred lower half of most super hero outfits. I believe Scott Mandia functions well in them.
For N and O2, it’s next door, Doc.
That was far too easy… impressed. Note, Scott Mandia may also suffer from the same syndrome as super hero types – Action Man / GI Joe genital nonexistence, i.e., a couple of budgies short of a hypothesis.
CargoCult Etc. … just sayin’. It’s a scientific cesspool. Floaters abound.
Maybe SpeedoScientists could talk on RejecTED? I’m sure they’d make the grade.
It seems somehow appropriate that Romer takes inspiration from Smolin, who also erected “a strawman to fire down a whole discipline”
“Philosophy: Donut be disappointed by reality. #KrispyDremes do come true!” http://budgysmuggler.com.au/mens-swimwear/foods/donuts.html
Sorry, something took over my brain on the eve of “however bad you think it will be, it’s worse.”
In summary
Another reason why Speedos might be here to stay:
Speedos will be all the rage with the Olympics in 100 years. We could have Volley Ball for winter, and sand dune skiing in summer?
It is a known fact that Aleppo was the Marx brother who quit the Groucho Show to become a Shriner.
I do like reading Talib.
Fooled by randomness.
Explained to me to the concept of a positive test or hypothesis at a set level of precision being only as useful as the incidence in the sample population. The screening fallacy.
I thought he was positive on AGW in this book so a little surprised at knocking him. On the other hand if you follow his ideas they do not support consensus messaging as being reliable.
JCH wins 2016 on a TKO. Let’s see how 2017 goes.
angech, shake out some more cobwebs… it was a KO. As for 2017, you are up against this. It’s called warmth… I figure at least a mean of ~.90 ℃ for 2017, or… the second warmest year in the GISS record. Pray for the Kimikamikaze; it’s all CargoCult Etc. has got… a divine wind… a miracle.
Look at the stadium wave come and go… 2006 to 2014… the big green dip… negative PDO plus La Niña dominance… the Kimikamikaze… and now it’s gone… the skeptic’s crutch… the gift to their abject stupidity… is gone.
An ordinary La Niña does you no good at all. We just had one.
> I thought he was positive on AGW in this book so a little surprised at knocking him.
I thought you believed in AGW too, Doc. Don’t you?
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Speaking of Aleppo:
http://www.businessinsider.com/alibaba-jack-ma-davos-america-history-globalization-2017-1
Compare and contrast with the “but the poor” that is making the rounds at Judy’s as we speak.
PS: Judy moderated the comment where I copy-pasted that quote. Perhaps it was the word “GRRROWTH.”
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