Author Archives: Willard

About Willard

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The PoNo Principle

In a previous post AT asked for a response to Hans’ piece. The gist dates from six years ago: besides the branding effort, the point behind these typologies is moot at best. Let’s be more specific. First, it is not … Continue reading

Posted in Contrarian Matrix, Philosophy for Bloggers, We Are Science | Tagged , , , , , | 103 Comments

True Contrarians

I like contrarians, and consider contrarian a term of endearment. If we believe the investment lore, only contrarian traders achieve success. The myth rings true: to beat the market, one must go against it. To win, contrarians need to believe … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, ClimateBall Bingo | Tagged , , , , , , | 18 Comments

How To Lord Comment Sections

On the 2022-10-03, Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley (viz. Christopher) wrote a piece at Tony’s showcasing a paper he allegedly wrote two years ago. Nobody ever read it. It has not been published anywhere. Co-authors are unnamed, yet … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, how-to | Tagged , , | 30 Comments

FAIL Better

Recently AT reminded us of FLICC, a taxonomy of contrarian tactics introduced in 2007 by MarkH. His bro’s Deck still shines. As a first post of a science blog, it does the job. As a permanent classifier, it deserves some … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, how-to, Pseudoscience, SpeedoScience | Tagged , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Matt and Chris’ Gurumeter

Matt Browne is a Professor of psychology for the School of Health, Medical and Applied Sciences at the University of Australia. He hosts the Decoding the Guru podcast, which AT praised recently, along with Chris Kavanaugh, cognitive anthropologist at Oxford … Continue reading

Posted in We Are Science | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

How to Do Things with Claims

A recent paper introduced the idea of contrarian claim. Expectedly, contrarians raised concerns about it. A recurring one is: what if the claims were true? This note shows how this may lead to a head fake {1}. Let’s look at … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, how-to | 21 Comments

Ciara and Neil’s SearchScene

I stumbled upon this intriguing project a few weeks ago: https://www.searchscene.com/ The blurb says that SearchScene is a charitable search engine that donates a big-hearted 95% of its profits to charity, focusing on charities that help fight climate change and … Continue reading

Posted in We Are Science | Tagged , | 1 Comment

John’s Audit

This June we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the best audit ever, a series of posts written by John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State climatologist. I call him NG because that’s how he signs his comments. The series starts with this entry … Continue reading

Posted in We Are Science | Tagged | 24 Comments

How to Reason by Analogy

Issues echo one another. Unimaginativeness alone prevents us from connecting any two of them. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if the usual Climateball ™ suspects voice Covidball (tm pending) concerns that sound familiar. While similarities may be infinite, tropes converge. Take … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, Philosophy for Bloggers | 25 Comments

The Bingo Core

A few months ago I posted a Bingo Card. Thanks to feedback, more Climateball exchanges, with contrarians, and some vacation days, a clearer image has emerged. Here is the current version (1.1): The up-to-date version will be found on the … Continue reading

Posted in ClimateBall, ClimateBall Bingo | 37 Comments