Global Warming Skpetics: “Direct Correlation between Pirates and Global Warming”

Last week,  the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change was held in New York City between March 2 and March 4.   March 8 - 10.  This is the biggest conference of gathering and presentations of Climate Change Skeptics. I agree that we should try looking at climate change from all angles possible and yes there are a lot of uncertainties of the future of our climate that we’re predicting.  I went through a few presentations from last year and found a lot of interesting stories to share….  I’ll start with this one that included the adage “Correlation Is Not Causation the correlation” between pirates and global warming! (*posting updated as Dave pointed out that I’m incorrect on blaming Prof. Hayden for including this slide in his presentation)

This is in the presentation by Howard Hayden, Professor of Physics Emeritus of University of Connecticut, U.S.  Here’s the link to his presentation.  In his presentation, he inserted this slide that he took from the open letter by  the Church of flying spaghetti monster to imply that correlations that current scientists have produced may not have any impact on climate change just like the graph below. The main conclusion was that the fewer pirate there are, the warmer the globe is….  In the open letter, it was stated that quite a well fitted graph can be made when correlating number of pirates versus global temperature.   The graph is included below.  On first glance, it does look like a really good linear fit… BUT.. look again!  the x-axis is not spaced evenly!!! Actually the first number from the left on the x-axis is smaller than the second number while all subsequent number are smaller than the second number!  Well….  this is the type of presentations in this conference?!  

It’s quite a clever graph that Bobby Handerson (the founder of FSM) had! Although his original intention was nothing about mocking the scientists (for climate change), but I guess it has been used here as such tool.  

Do you think climate change evidence provided by scientists are just random correlations?

5 Comments

• 

  By Dave, March 16, 2009 @ 11:02 am

  Actually, if you look at Hayden’s presentation, he uses the Pirate/Global Temperature slide purely as a tongue-cheek illustration of the adage “correlation is not causation.” The graph was never meant to be taken seriously. The “Church of flying spaghetti monster” is also, in fact, a satirical attempt at discrediting the proponents of Intelligent Design. Don’t mistaken the rhetorical humour.

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  By flo, March 16, 2009 @ 11:16 am

  Hello Dave, thanks for your comment. Yes Hayden did use the slide titled with the adage “correlation is not causation“. He subsequently presented that global warming is not caused by human made CO2…. I think he’s using the graph to mock those who believe in climate change as how scientists are just making correlations randomly, as bad as the pirates/global temp correlation. That’s my thought….

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  By Dave, March 16, 2009 @ 3:19 pm

  The use of rhetorical devices such as irony, parodies and quips are common and often effective presentation techniques, employed by many, scientists included. The Pirate slide is Hayden’s way of leading his argument; it is not the argument itself. The slide does not represent the crux of his presentation.

  There are means through which his theory can be dismantled, but a criticism of his ironical flourish is not one of them. A more appropriate response is a defense of the anthropogenic origins of current CO2 emissions, weighed against Hayden’s assertions. The scientific evidence is staggering, but I will leave that explication to the scientists.

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  By flo, March 16, 2009 @ 3:46 pm

  Thanks Dave, i shall update my posting….

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  By Doxy, February 5, 2010 @ 2:17 pm

  Of course our Pirate population is directly responsible for our Earth’s temperature rise. I mean, after that graph, can there be any doubt?
  To save the earth, the only green we need is scurvy.

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