Which line matches the line on the left? On any given test one third of people will say A or B if the crowd around them does.
In the 1950’s a psychologist called Solomon Asch wanted to find out how strongly people would conform to the group around them. He gave about 100 men a card (supposedly like the one in the image to the right) and asked them whether A, or B, or C matched the line. Not surprisingly, most people got the answer right if they are on their own, but if they were surrounded by a group of people who were giving the wrong answer, often they would give the wrong answer too.
In the study, the test subjects thought that the people around them were being tested too, but those people were actors who’d been coached to give the wrong answer. Typically there were 6 or 7 actors and the test subject would be positioned last or second last, so they would hear the other wrong answers before their turn came.
So when faced with an obvious answer, about one third of the time people picked the group-think response instead. Ultimately only 25% of people did not succumb to the group effect in any of their answers, which means 75% gave at least one “groupified” answer to an obvious question.
Most of the people conforming were aware something was amiss, and admitted afterwards that they knew, but didn’t want to look stupid or out of place, but a few were convinced that the answer they gave was right. For them, apparently, the two different lines were the same length.
It takes 3 to form a group
Some interesting variations of the tests showed that we need three actors working to get the group effect. With only one or two actors people didn’t need as much to conform. With four or more in the group, there was no increase in conformity. (So Q&A is overdoing it — they don’t need a stacked panel of five — three would do).
But it only takes one to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes
What’s especially interesting to me is that it only took one “partner” who spoke the truth, to break the group effect. This is good news for the brave skeptical commenters who venture to sites and media-outlets where groupthink is at it’s most nakedly noxious. It’s also why the one person that speaks up to defend a victim can deflate the bully.
Naturally there are questions as to whether this effect is so strong in women, other cultures, with older people, or even in different era’s. One researcher tried to replicate it in 1980 with 396 engineering, maths, and chemistry students, but got wildly different results (like 1 out of 396, which seems a tad too perfect). But there are many other studies that support Asch’s original findings that people’s brains work differently when in a group. The herding instinct runs strong.
Imagine how hard it would be for some people to see the truth when surrounded by professors saying something else.
H/t to Howard Bloom’s entertaining book Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
See my tweets @JoanneNova and share ideas with Facebook
If we now apply the group-think principle to YouTube, Facebook, et al. You can see why this meme has gained so much traction, and why it is now crumbling.
It used to be the scientists, working in the field, who could be relied upon to see through this phenomena – now they seem to perpetuate it.
So it comes down to the sceptics. I wonder if we should form a professional body?
80
A professional body would be a bad idea. Skeptics are not a coherent group. Rather, you need to teach people to think for themselves and to ask questions.
200
Couldn’t agree more. The problem here is that group think is also prevalent amongst teachers and lecturers. I takes a brave and self confident student to keep asking real questions in the current education environment. Individuality is being almost bred out of society. Nobody comes first, and everyone wins a prize.
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And fundamental to that dogma is the notion that it is wrong to “discriminate”.
While I am not advocating discrimination on grounds of race, or creed, group think appears to have interpreted the notion to extend to discrimination of any kind.
Being alive is discriminating. One discriminates when they decide to get out of bed or go back to sleep. A person discriminates when deciding to have coffee or juice for breakfast. It is right and true and proper to discriminate in making any decision. If a property owner chooses one potential renter over another, he is discriminating on the basis of character reference or just “gut feel”. If a country employs some criteria such as net worth, intelligence, skills, or attitude in determining suitable immigrants, that is decision making or discrimination, To discriminate using race or creed as a criterion is just plain stupid.
Yet this anti-discrimination mantra is intended to eliminate individuality. This is by design and not by accident. It is fundamental to the infiltration of our education system which government involvement has wrought.
60
Rod, that highlights the fact that it is corruption of language which is an important driver of forcing social conformity for nefarious ends, masquerading as social justice.
In this ideologically driven blurring of the margins, discrimination now comes to mean and be indistinguishable from prejudice, in spite of there being a definite and considerable distinction between the two concepts. They are conflated together deliberately as a mechanism of creating a hive mind mentality where individuality is not tolerated.
Thus any attempt to make distinctions on the basis of quality become anathema and worthy of derision or recrimination. It is despicable, and the harbinger of the death of enlightened humanity, IMO. It has nothing whatsoever to do with fairness, quite the contrary.
30
I actually agree – it was a rhetorical question, really.
But Rod’s comment is interesting. Does the anti-discrimination mantra extend to activities that require a certain natural aptitude, that cannot be taught? For example, would it be discrimination to refuse to teach classical music to somebody who is tone-deaf? Or refuse to employ a person as an interior designer, if they are colour-blind?
These may be deep philosophical arguments, but I cannot say without the risk of discriminating against trivial arguments, and the element of choice.
40
RW,
Yes but it can go too far and i have had personal experience of such things. I used to live in Newcastle i then lived in Geelong for a short period of time before i lived in Alice Springs.
When in Alice i had to contact a government department in Geelong, i was given a phone contact of a woman i had to ring. I rang the woman but a man answered the phone, i asked to speak to the woman but was refused and told i had to see her in person. I explained i was in Alice so it would be easier to just speak with the woman by phone, once again i was refused and told to make an aapointment.
Eventually the man got it through his thick skull that i was in Alice and was not returning to Geelong anytime soon so he said he would deal with my situation, i declined this invitation based on the nature of the matter and requested to speak to the woman in person i was once again refused.
I suspected something was amiss so i declined to discuss this matter with anyone except the woman that had sent me the letter and directed to contact her. After much avoidance the man eventually came clean and told me why i could not discuss this matter with the woman and the reason why i could discuss this matter with the woman was because SHE WAS DEAF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now dont get me wrong i believe a deaf person can do as good a job as anyone can if they dont have to be able to hear but why would you put a person in a position where they not only have a telephone to talk to people but also get them to hand out their contact number and tell people to ring them?
They need to be able to know their limits, they cannot perform the same functions as able bodied people and they should pretend they can or at least put in positions by idiots where they pretend they can.
This is not discrimination this is just common sense.
82
Julius Caesar (epileptic), Nobel Laureate John Nash (schizophrenic), Franklin D. Roosevelt (paralysed from the waist down) and poet John Milton (totally blind) all excelled despite major handicaps.
Many historical figures including Isaac Newton, Abraham Lincoln and showed behaviour consistent with major psychiatric illnesses.
Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg all exhibit autistic charecteristics.
In fact a very significant proportion of ultra-successful people have some form of disability (typically a psychitric illness or autistic spectrum disorder).
Deaf people are perfectly capable of having a phone conversation via TTY or using confidential relay service.
http://relayservice.gov.au/
PS Please enlighten us about your spectacular successes. You must be super successful being able bodied and all that.
02
Are you now pretending to be a warmbot by debating like one? You know when you take something out of context twist it a bit and then mount an argument based on your version of reality?
If you recieve a letter from a Gov dept where they accuse you of fraud and offer you a contact name and phone number to discuss the matter within 48 hours or you will be formally charged you would expect this person to pick up the bloody phone when you ring. It did not say “Oh by the way this woman is deaf so the conversation might be a little one sided” or “by the way she is deaf so you need TTY technology to communicate”.
All the above names are very famous ones indeed however once again the warmbot in you desperately trying to emerge has failed you logically. Did the handicaps they experienced stopped them from achieving their goals? no and that is the difference, if you are deaf you cannot hear the phone ring and you certainly cannot hear the caller talk so why in hell would they pretend she could?
Being able bodied does not automatically mean one is super successful, there are many non able bodied poeple that are successful in a field that allows, this is a very discriminatory statement by you, you should be ashamed of yourself.
00
bananabender pointed out deaf people can indeed use a TTY phone service. Rush Limbaugh (waiting for boos and hisses to quiet down……) continued to do his radio show even as he lost his hearing. There are deaf actresses and actors. Being deaf in a modern computer age is not as limiting as in the past.
00
“Imagine how hard it would be for some people to see the truth when surrounded by professors saying something else.”
And, for “professors”, you could substitute “senior civil servants”. Bishop Hill was suggesting, a day or two ago, that there is no chance in Britain for a sane energy policy, as long as we have a “Department for Energy and Climate Change” responsible for dreaming it up. It is quite evident that no-one with a dissenting view ever gets inside the front door at DECC.
80
Confederacy of Concerned Skeptics? Crowdfunding opportunity, member newsletters, membership cards, offer free discounts to free blogs, maybe we could come up with a canonical list of climatology quotes and really bad misses. Maybe we will accept registrations for pets if they send along a pic.
00
This phenomena of conformity to group error has long been known. Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes” was a colourful example. But in the case it was obvious to see the real truth. But when you have a complex issue, with multiple means of interpretation, there is no single fact that will break the group consensus. Here we have to rely on the experts or authority to some degree. This is why much of the PR effort of climate alarmists is to put as much distance as possible between the mass of “experts” and the others. That means creating “true knowledge” that is only accessible to a few, and creating prejudice against the non-believers to prevent others from breaking ranks. It is more than not wanting to look a fool.
60
The ancient Popes knew all about controlling the populous through’group-think’, which was the principal cause for the ‘dark-ages’ because anyone caught not following the group got lopped.
Unquestionably, ‘our’ All Bulltish Company suffers from group-think.
50
amcoz – it’s generally thought that the so-called “Dark Ages” had little to do with popes.
More a combination of relative climate cooling between the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warming, and the breakdown of law and order all over Europe with the fall of the Roman Empire.
40
LG, you may be right but I would suggest the ‘darkness’ was more to do with a lack of ‘light’ in the populous’ thinking beyond what papa said was the truth; although I would understand that if temperature was significant during that time, it would certainly ‘cloud’ one’s thinking at the time.
20
Fair enough. 🙂
20
Bugger – there goes another long held belief. I always thought the Dark Ages was the result of a shortage of candles.
60
I think the use of the words dark age is the historians way of labeling a time period with not much happening or write about after the fall of a great civilization. The same thing happened in the Mediterranean sea around 1500 BC, only Egypt survived. The reason for the fall of several great civilizations seems to be new war tactics and cheap technology, by the sea-people, that made the costly chariots and their crew an easy and cheap kill.
20
You Might want to talk about the milligram conformity studies next just so people are aware of how far someone will go to do what the consensus person in the white coat asks them to.
Miligram Conformity Study
People are dangerously obedient, and in many cases very stupid
40
This is all a little lite for me; Milgram conformity, groupthink studies, etc..
My view of the behavior of the AGW crowd is more along the lines of the Stanford Prison Experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZwfNs1pqG0
00
How appropriate that in The Australian today Maurice Newman outs Climate Science:
Will someone please tell kevin?
261
Either Obama has been greenwashed (in a Jonestown way) or he is the henchman for persons intent on destroying the USA economy.
60
That is the Leninist way.
30
Colin, I think it could be both.
00
Not greenwashed-Obama follows anything that will benefit his cause (that being the promotion of himself). He cares naught about any of it–it’s just a means to an end. He’d take up conservatism and be against immigration if that was what earned him press time.
00
I think that Norway, socialists, gave the Nobel peace prize to Obama because they believe he is a socialist? I mean a newly elected U.S. president gets it before he has done anything at all?
Could also be because he is not white? But giving a peace prize to a President for being not white would be racists?
10
Yes it is, however the PC crowd will never admit it.
In Australia, its also perfectly fine to be called “whitey”, “gubba” etc….
01
Giving people of a certain race special privileges is not racist. Racism is never associated with positive actions, only negative. That’s why affirmative action was good, why Nelson Mandela won a peace prize, etc. It all makes up for bad behaviour in the past. Also, only minorities can suffer racism, which is why whites cannot. That’s why in California there may be suits coming up with whited suing Hispanics, who are the majority. I would think the same argument might work for whites now in South Africa. In both cases, it will take a while for the majority to be held responsible for their racism. (I don’t necessarily agree with these definitions, but they are the definitions used. )
01
There are far less white people in the world.
You are racist and you didn’t know it…. how lovely.
10
It doesn’t work that way. The world population has nothing to do with racism, as racism occurs only in specific countries and for specific political reasons. The entire concept of racism is political, as witnessed by the use of the term “hispanic” as separate from white (unless you’re George Zimmerman, in which case you are a white hispanic). Which is why racism cannot apply to the global community–different countries have different numbers of blacks, hispanics, etc. In Mexico, one supposes racism could apply to whites, though I don’t really know if politically speaking, racism ever applies to discriminating against whites. I don’t make the rules. Politics does and that means they can be as irrational as one needs them to be for the moment.
01
Oh, as for only minorities suffering racism, that can still apply even if the minority becomes the majority because one has to atone for bad things one’s relatives did 100 years ago when they were the majority.
01
That’s utter nonsense. While its true that there has been plenty of politics that is racist, that is not the core nor the root of racism.
Racism comes from the natural instinct for tribalism…. its perfectly natural. How we as civilised people react to those instincts is what matters. It’s not an accurate word however, because the same instinct governs how we behave in family and social groups.
I grew up as a foreign national in Australia… and experienced my fair share of racism, from Anglo Saxons… even though I am whiter than they will ever be.
00
As I said, the PC crowd will never admit it.
10
Treeman his name is Kevni if you are referring to the little git with glasses and a tendency to abuse flight attendants.
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The CLUELESS CLIMATE CLAN had a “lynching” at JCU last week & the Grand Wizards were satisfied.
Strange fruit indeed…..
20
Perhaps your readers can learn from this.
(Perhaps you can tell us what you think of the article instead of making cheap insults on those who read and post) CTS
03
Learn what?
30
Well yes Mr lost you Willy. It clearly shows the tendency to group think, like you do.
Group think is something that we don’t see from our skeptic regulars – we fight like cats and dogs amongst ourselves and disagree on things all of the time, including the science.
There is one thing that we do have in common however and that’s skepticism. The first prerequisite to scientific study.
I challenged somebody over at WUWT yesterday and I will let you in on the same:
30
No we don’t.
10
That’s figurative “all the time”, not literal.
00
Yes we do!
00
That’s not an argument . It’s just contradictions!
Monty Phytons flying circus.
00
Alright, we’ll call it a draw.
00
In the Title OLD STUDY…. most readers have been aware of this for years. If you suggest “your readers can learn from this” I would have to agree if 75% can believe the obviously wrong to conform to such a simple problem as which line length matches NOW ! Compare this to a complex system that has around 100 scientific fields involved with no individual skilled in more than a mere portion of those fields. I would expect near 100% conformity.
Take for example lines A B and C appearing on your screen being the same amount of pixels.
Adjust for variables ie screen size shape curvature magnetic influence viewing angle head tilt resolution scale and on and on.
Readers here learn from everything they read but we know people like yourself will always see line A is equal to whatever your told it is .
PS when they change their mind you can always pat yourself on the back and say “see consensus science is self correcting”.
00
The above question has four answers.
A) If real world longitude matters more to you than length.
B) If symmetry or position on the page matters more to you than length.
C) If you feel the need for a heard of self infatuated psychologists to approve of your answer or length matters to you.
D) Other.
10
I would go with D for sure.
The line on the left is a single entity as compared to the three lines on the right.
There is no scale.
or E) the answer is C and I have not been paid by an oil company to say so but people can abuse me for being an A and B Denier.
20
After some thought andy I need to mark it as F) “None of the above” because the others all include letters at the bottom.
I can remember being tested for IQ when very young. I was asked to put the shapes into the ball as fast as possible and timed by stopwatch. The ball was one of those toys with different matching shapes moulded in it. I simply put them all in the largest hole and got the best time ever. Plan b was to separate the ball into two halves, scoop the bits into one and reasemble it. All the bits went in the big star shaped hole with no problem so plan b was not used but could have worked out faster.
10
Standing up and telling the truth is hard Jo, especially if the group are true believers, even the most loyal of companions can deny the existence of the nose on their face.
Luke 22:34
50
Just spotted this quote:
It comes from Bertrand Russell’s Nobel Lecture in 1950. Sixty three years on, it’s relevance to the current political landscape is most poignant. Whether one looks at Rudd’s greatest moral challenge or Drew Hutton’s request to ASIC to withdraw Jonathan Moylan’s prosecution, the conviction of acting from idealistic motives removes both men several levels from reality.
60
Tribal ‘groupthink’ leads people to sit back and let others do the work; to instinctively mimic others’ opinions and lose sight of their own and often succumb to peer pressure.
The Emory University neuroscientist Gregory Berns found that when we take a stance different from the group’s, we activate the amygdala, a small organ in the brain associated with the fear of rejection. Professor Berns calls this “the pain of independence.”
50
Yes, it is difficult to go against the group. This is quite natural, as for most of human history rejection by your tribe would mean death. But clearly there is a benefit the other way too – someone willing to speak against the group view could greatly advantage the tribe.
The process by which one individual changes the minds of a group is really interesting. If a long held belief is challenged, the minds of the old are often not changed, and the new idea only progresses because it is adopted by the young, while the old die off.
00
Yet frequently, as the young grow older, they reject the idealism of youth and return to the “old ways”.
00
I blame the young “woman” for this, Because they select young men that behave like this, testosterone?, on instinct. So that the offspring will behave the same way?
00
You forget John, most of these young will come to learn what their parents meant as they age, learning it all the hard way, over again.
You find some who remain so cosseted that they never grow up though. I don’t know if that might be more so in the modern age. I suspect youngsters are learning to grow up quicker now than their parents did.
10
This is not news to anyone who has competed in sailplanes. The contests are races and sailplanes go fastest when you find the best “energy line” (rising air)between climbs in thermals and use only the strongest(highest rate of climb) thermals. Many times I’ve seen a bunch of pilots hang in to a miserable thermal because nobody wanted to be first out to maybe find a better one. I’ve also seen a bunch go off 30 degrees off course for no discernible reason(no better looking cumulus clouds or terrain) following one guy who got slightly disoriented.
You generally do better by making your own decisions based on what you see and flying your own flight. The exception is that two good pilots who trust each other can sometimes go faster than each on his own.
Even these numbers accord with the results of Asch’s experiment.
Flying sailplanes in contests is the closest the average civilian can get to being a fighter pilot. No guns and missiles but a not negligible chance of sudden violent death.(usually mid air collisions with other sailplanes or inadvertent, uncontrolled, contact with the ground)
40
Exactly Mike. Similar to racing drivers going off the track “in sympathy”.
10
HERE is a Breakdown of Obama’s GLOBAL WARMING speech by some of the 25%.
The Emperor Has No Clothes? Quite so.
But, the part to note is the Obama quote at the 3.00 minute mark of the ‘breakdown’ link above:
“And while we know no single event is caused solely by climate change”
So, the Climate Commission is now wrong?
20
“So, the Climate Commission is now wrong?”
Excuse me?? the Climate Commission has never been NOT wrong !!
30
This sounds similar to “wisdom of the crowd”. The difference should be that a large sample is tested individually, without foreknowledge of their peers’ decisions. However some studies suggest that foreknowledge of peer decisions increases accuracy, such as in a jury. But this sounds scary when, as described here:
That could mean juries should hear all the evidence and not discuss it among themselves until their individual verdict is collected. Once this is done, deliberation is carried out in the normal way to reach a verdict, then an average taken from the two values.
This is still dangerous ground. Social/governmental influence regarding forgotten laws and constructs can undermine what’s “lawful” because something else has long been considered “acceptable”, such as the requirement for “driver” licences to travel in a personal conveyance as we have today, instead of the free Right to travel in a conveyance of the day since introduction of the Magna Carta in 1215.
For example, there is no valid Law or Act that specifically repealed our Right to travel freely and unencumbered on public roads and, Section 76 of Australia’s Constitution allows parliament to make Laws (Statutes), however nowhere is it written that such Statutes must be obeyed. There is no valid Law or Act that binds a flesh and blood human being to a Statute that does not wish to be so bound.
Laws must be written, not inferred or implied. The social influence through long-time acceptance that Statutes must be obeyed is borne of laziness (eh.. what can ya do?), peer pressure and lack of knowledge to the contrary.
When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.
80
Jo,
The biggest challenge is once a program or law is put in place and used for many years, it is very difficult to remove. Add in vast amounts of advertising propaganda and teaching to generations and you have a very NASTY problem.
This is the future of our current path of the world economies due to promises and worry about the future later.
Sorry boys but the future came a little earlier than planned and there is not a single politician that can stop it. They too have been to trusting in their advisers and not investigating themselves.
Every implemented program or law is another chain around societies neck for trying to be competing in a “free-market” system.
20
Czech govt tells MEPs to reject CO2 backloading, Groote optimistic
LONDON, July 2 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The government of the Czech Republic has told the nation’s MEPs to reject a Commission proposal to prop up carbon prices in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme a day before the full EU Parliament is due to vote on it…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2443282?&ref=searchlist
2 July: Wall St Journal: Art Patnaude: EU Carbon-Trading Vote Looks Close
Some members of the European Green Party, who supported the initial proposal in April, are considering not supporting the new amendments, designed to help the passage through parliament, because they are “so weakened, it might not be worth it,” the EU official said…
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130702-707973.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
10
ignore the Czechs, ignore the German voters…
3 July: Business Spectator: Reuters: EU carbon market expects narrow win in crucial rescue vote
The market has priced in a ‘yes’ vote, which would be a vote of confidence for the future of the scheme, but politicians and analysts said it was likely to be tight.
A negative vote on the plan to temporarily remove some of a glut of carbon permits would almost certainly send allowances on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) towards zero and leave the market in limbo for the rest of the decade.
A yes for the proposal, known as backloading, would likely have little immediate price impact as it is largely factored into the market…
In an interim vote, a parliament committee backed the revised plan on June 19.
HSBC’s head of climate change center Nick Robins said the outcome at Wednesday’s plenary session was “too close to call”.
“It is unclear how the watering down to gain votes will be offset against loss of support because the scheme loses integrity as a carbon reduction mechanism,” he added.
Thomson Reuters Point Carbon analysts said the plenary will likely vote in favor of backloading…
“If it’s (backloading) not supported, I don’t think the (European) Commission will have the courage to propose anything better,” said German politician Peter Liese.
He has long supported intervention, but many of his center-right grouping in the European Parliament have not, helping to delay what was meant to be an emergency fix…
Prices are still only around 4 Euros.
If EU politicians reject this amended proposal on Wednesday, they still have the option of supporting the original backloading plan, but given the rejection in April, that is considered unlikely…
At member state level, a deal has been blocked primarily by Poland, which relies on carbon-intensive coal, and by Germany, which has stalled sensitive policy issues ahead of elections in September.
***Even with a positive vote on Wednesday, a final decision on backloading will not happen until after the German elections in September, and no permits are likely to be taken away before next year.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/7/3/carbon-markets/eu-carbon-market-expects-narrow-win-crucial-rescue-vote
Big Oil/Big Energy love it…
2 July: BloombergBusinessweek: Ewa Krukowska: EU’s Carbon-Market Fix Faces Second-Chance Vote in Parliament
“I’m confident this time we will have a majority in favor,” Matthias Groote, a German lawmaker from the Socialists and Democrats group who oversees the proposal in parliament, said in an interview. “It’s an innovative approach and the first step to support the transition to a low-carbon economy.”
Lawmakers will vote on the amended bill after 11:30 a.m. in Strasbourg, France.
Emission permits in the EU’s $72 billion cap-and-trade program have lost more than 70 percent in the last four years. The euro area’s record-long recession has reduced demand for pollution rights, worsening a glut that swelled to about 2 billion tons in 2012. That’s almost equal to the EU’s annual limit that the system imposes on some 12,000 power plants and factories. The caps were set before the economic slowdown…
Opponents of the fix, ranging from Poland to steelmaker ArcelorMittal (MT), say it pushes up energy costs during an economic slump. The EU commission and companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) say intervention is needed to bolster prices that are too low to stimulate investment in clean technology…
“Signs are hopeful about the vote, but no one is very confident yet,” said Jesse Scott, head of the environment policy unit at power industry association Eurelectric. “The key consideration for members of parliament who voted no in April is whether they really want to risk the consequence of another no, which would be the collapse of the ETS carbon market.” …
“We (analysts Kathrin Goretzki and Jochen Hitzfeld at UniCredit SpA) expect a price increase if the voting outcome is positive, but think it will be limited to a maximum of 5.50 euros a metric ton,” they said. “In the event of a renewed rejection of the proposal in parliament, we anticipate a price decline to 3.40 euros.” …
In the second stage of the regulatory process, member states will decide on the details of backloading in a separate regulation, which will set the amount of allowances to be postponed and the schedule of auction delays. The measure will then become subject to a three-month scrutiny…
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-07-02/eu-s-carbon-market-fix-faces-second-chance-vote-in-parliament
10
And the whole and only basis for this madness is the mean of several climate models that all are scientific wrong? And that the only basis for this is a political one trough UNFCCC ?
00
Of course the same principles apply to sceptic tribalism but you’re special.
Woody Allen once said “I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.”
[You need to address the topic of the post, and stop the personal attacks -Fly]
00
Well I was on the post – an attempt at humour and pity you can’t see the mutual irony. Wasn’t meant to be that insulting or I would have been rude.
00
You are certainly funny! The difference with skeptics is they are very aware of the group-think dynamic. Yes, skeptics will sometimes ban people who are too skeptical (as is the case with those who say CO2 is not a greenhouse gas–though not all sites have that rule). I have often been asked why I support such-and-such a person because the climate change people assume all skeptics back each other as the climate scientists do. We back the right to question but not always the conclusions reached or the methods used. Plus, skeptics are free to point out instances of what they consider “group-think” without fear of having the comment removed. To the degree that skeptics all question climate change science, we are alike. The reasons we question are often different and we have no playbook to read from other than the nature of skepticism itself.
20
Perfect!
00
Is that the sound of snorting and munching I hear? Yes the pigs have well and truly got their heads deep in the Canberra money troughs before Tony pulls out the funding:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/news/2013/7/2/climate/taralga-wind-farm-committed-cefc-funding
Canberra doesn’t want to miss out and is approving a solar farm of their own:
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/australias-biggest-solar-farm-gets-go-ahead-in-act-20130702-2p8pc.html
And Christine Milne takes us into Greens fantasy land where everything is 100% renewable and everyone loves their neghbours, flowers chirp and … yeah, never mind:
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/roadmap-for-100-renewables-how-the-greens-would-get-there-29745
An argument sadly devoid of any realism or facts, but
chickenlentil soup for Greenie souls…20
I wonder what a green blast furnace would be like, or a green smelter for that matter, both powered by renewables. It hurts to laugh…..
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Oh yes, it’s all couched in lovely Green language, but here is what she is really talking about.
Yes folks, to get to 100% renewable electricity that is also reliable, the only way to do it is to chop down all our trees. Their “nice name” for it is “Bio-fuel”. How lovely and green……
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On the news today people were asked about “renewables” and gasoline. Most thought it was fine to put as much ethanol as possible in gasoline so it would cost less. None of them had any idea of the damage that could be done to cars, nor how much land it would take to grow and process the ethanol, nor the cost of blending the fuel, etc. Just “it will make gas cost less”. There is absolutely no thought process involved in this.
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There was a study I once saw referenced in New Scientist back in the day that talked about a tipping point when I group is faced with a binary choice.
When the breakdown was about 50/50 then rate of change between the two groups was very slow. However once a tipping point was reach – I think the article said something like 60/40 – group think would take over as no one wanted to be associated with the ‘losing’ group and the breakdown would then rapidly move into the 80/20 type zone.
Anyone else ever heard about this study or this effect? It was years ago that I first read about it.
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This would happen everytime a jury debates the guilt or innocence of the defendant i would assume.
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Having done jury duty before, yes.
It takes a bit of strong will to dig your heals in.
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where in Adelaide are you from Mudcrab?
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Interesting cases, like Lindy Chamberlain and Schapelle Corby come to mind.
How could so many people have been so wrong about Lindy Chamberlain?
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more Lowy attempts to manufacture consent! given the economy is being damaged by CAGW policies, then how is it separate from the “carbon tax lies” or the “carbon tax” & why were ther two questions about the carbon tax even asked?
3 July: Lowy Institute: The Interpreter: John Connor: Do voters want to repeal carbon pricing?
John Connor is CEO of the Climate Institute.
This post is part of a debate – click here to see how this debate started and developed.
The last year and the couple before it were chock full of scare campaigns, rent seeking and tough political battles in what Professor Ross Garnaut described as perhaps one of the worst examples of public policy debate in Australian history. It is perhaps no surprise, then, that polls conducted by the Climate Institute and the Lowy Institute have tracked a decreasing desire for climate action as well as confusion and opposition to the complex policy solutions of carbon pricing and emissions trading.
The decline has come since the somewhat heady days of 2006 and 2007, which John Howard described as a perfect storm of support for climate action…
The findings in the 2013 Lowy Institute poll, with data collected in March, show a rebound of support for climate action. It also reveals declining (but still majority) opposition to the legislation which it describes as ‘a fixed price on carbon that will then lead to an emission trading scheme’…
Our data, collected in June, found a significant drop in the numbers supporting repeal to 37%, with 36% uncertain and a fairly steady 27% opposing repeal. Support for carbon pricing remains soft but opposition is decreasing. It may be that the double whammy of complexity in the Lowy Institute Poll of ‘carbon pricing’ and ’emissions trading’ reinforced a stronger negative view, but polls from Essential, Nielsen and others have tracked a similar decline in opposition…
Our probing of the reasons behind Coalition voting preference revealed some telling results on the question of whether the upcoming election is indeed a referendum on the carbon tax. Similar to the Lowy Institute’s findings, management of the economy was by far the most significant issue, followed by perceptions of lies and broken promises. The next most significant was ‘the carbon tax lie’ followed by a number of issues before ‘the carbon tax’ itself, nominated in the top two reasons by only 13%. This reinforces the view that voter concern is higher around the process than the policy, which remains poorly understood.
Our forthcoming report will delve into these matters in greater detail and is also backed by the results of rolling focus groups conducted over the last 12 months. I invite Interpreter readers to look out for our next Climate of the Nation as a companion to this important Lowy Institute Poll.
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2013/07/03/Do-voters-want-to-repeal-carbon-pricing.aspx
clicking on the so-called DEBATE, gets you:
24 June: Lowy Institute: Stephanie Dunstan: Lowy Institute Poll 2013
This post is part of a debate – click here to see how this debate started and developed.
The Lowy Institute Poll 2013 finds that more Australians of voting age (by a margin of over two to one) think the Coalition would do a better job than Labor on five of eight key issues: managing the economy, foreign investment, asylum seekers, the US alliance and national security. Labor leads on two issues: managing the relationship with China and the response to climate change…
Above, watch Lowy Research Fellow and poll author Alex Oliver discuss the key findings in this year’s poll with Michael Fullilove.
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2013/06/24/Lowy-Institute-Poll-2013.aspx
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Lowy provides a disclosure that Connor works for the Climate Institute, but doesn’t give one for Dunstan:
Stephanie Dunstan is the Lowy Institute’s first Strategic Communications Manager. She joined the Institute in June 2011 following six years with the United Nations in Asia – Pacific and UN headquarters.
Based in Bangkok Stephanie served as an international campaign coordinator for the UN Environment Program and coordinated a region-wide Millennium Development Goals advocacy program for the UN Economic & Social Commission.
Following her time in Asia – Pacific Stephanie’s expertise in climate change took her to New York, where she worked as Special Assistant to a UN Assistant Secretary General (UNDP) providing policy advice on a range of environmental/development issues, including coordinating the UNDP delegation to the Copenhagen Climate Summit.
Stephanie holds a B.Arts/B.Public Policy from Melbourne University and is a Chevening scholar with a MSc from the London School of Economics. She started her career at the Environment Protection Authority, Victoria.
http://www.lowyinstitute.org/people/stephanie-dunstan
Oliver receives ARC grant money:
Alex Oliver
Alex is also currently conducting the Institute’s ‘leadership mapping’ project tracing pathways to leadership in Asia, which has been awarded an Australian Research Council grant in conjunction with Griffith University and Yale University.
http://www.lowyinstitute.org/people/alex-oliver
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Following the group think also saves having to think for oneself and to make a decision based on what one thinks.
It’s all the more difficult if the decision requires subsequent action. If however, the group has arrived at a decision and determined the action, then responsibility has been diffused.
I don’t find the results surprising. Humans are a “pack animal” that required a social structure to ensure survival. Going against the pack is instinctively counter-productive. Rising above that instinct requires confidence in one’s own decision-making.
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as for Fullilove:
8 Sept 2009: SMH: Michael Fullilove: Global warming and war both require sacrifice
What kind of role should Australia play in the world? One way to answer this question is to consider two seemingly unrelated issues, climate change and the war in Afghanistan…
Both are diabolically difficult global problems. The complexities of climate change and Afghanistan are enough to make anyone’s eyes glaze over…
The consensus among climate scientists is that climate change is already having severe effects and if left unchecked would be catastrophic for life on Earth. In Australia, it would mean more drought, more deaths from bushfires and infectious diseases, worse heatwaves, rising sea levels, falling agricultural production and the loss of the Great Barrier Reef.
The consequences of failure in Afghanistan are not as serious, but they are bracing…
World leaders speak with one voice on the problem of climate change (although not on its solution)…
Addressing climate change involves restructuring the global economy…
Like the Rudd Government, I take the view that both of these are good fights – and I’m in favour of fighting both of them…
Australian conservatives say we should not proceed with the Government’s carbon pollution reduction scheme until we see what happens in the forthcoming negotiations in the US Senate in Washington and at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen.
In making this argument, our diehards are not alone. It is the easiest thing in the world to dodge responsibility on the ground that someone else hasn’t yet taken it…
We should do what we can to generate momentum in the lead-up to Copenhagen by passing the carbon scheme***…
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/global-warming-and-war-both-require-sacrifice-20090907-feae.html
***”scheme” it is, Fullilove…
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Pat there is the possiblity that the Afghan war would never have been if the Taliban when invited to Washington 3months before we blew the shit out of the place had simply agreed to let the Americans build their precious oil and gas pipelines rather than refuse.
So no this idiot is wrong to even attempt to compare one scam with another scam.
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The late Michael Talbot’s “The Holographic Universe” book touched on this psychological fact as well, reporting similar experimental results.
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A bit late but, I had a personal experience recently with the Groupthink Effect where at the end of a Red Lock safety course the instructor asked a deliberately leading yes or no question to which I was the only yes vote out of 12 people.
I knew I was correct but the others just followed the no answer one after another even though they had gone through 3 hours of course instruction including a test which had the question in there and all had answered correctly!
I was asked to explain my answer which I did and the penny dropped for everyone else who exclaimed “Oh I knew that!” so the instructor asked why they answered wrong, he then explained the most vital safety lesson is to think for yourself, don’t assume others have done the right thing.
You know what thought thought?
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DUPES DUPES DUPES!! ALL DUPES! and orwellian double speak 😀
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75% of regular people, but 97% of climate scientists !!!
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I reckon there is a good chance I’d have gone with the crowd. I’d assume that I hadn’t listened to the instructions properly, and that everyone else knew something I didn’t. But if it was somewhat important, and there was a bit of time to discuss it, then the search for the truth would be on.
Just today there were two staff members in my room having an argument about basic physics (mechanics). It turned out that we solved the dispute by attaching a metre rule to my bike pedal and putting the bike on a desk. It worked, in that we resolved the argument. It was fun. There was no wrong answer, because we cared enough to figure it out to everyones satisfaction.
Lastly, I read an excellent article on being a skeptic. http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/11-01-26/#feature It showed just how important it is for people who have discovered an important truth to keep pushing.
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Good article there John, I’m also reading your last book suggestion about the discoveries of Quantum Mechanics.
You might like to apply your skepticism to the Green House Gas Effect Theory. It seems to me that good experimental data is lacking, although most of the readers of this blog would probably agree with the theory and might even claim it is a Scientific Fact, if there is any such thing.
I tried my own experiment, which did not support the Theory
http://www.galileomovement.com.au/docs/2012-10-31_AnExperimentToDemonstrateThePlausibilityOfTheGreenHouseGasEffect.pdf
Most people prefer to argue the toss, as with your two friends, rather than test the proposition for themselves as you did.
I am told that a negative result does not prove anything, and that is probably true, but what if lots of experiments all give negative results? Happy to read about any experiments that might give support to the idea that a body can be further warmed by its own radiation reflected back, or even that it’s cooling is slowed.
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Hi Peter;
The idea that a body can be warmed by its own reflected radiation was discussed here at great length:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/28/slaying-the-slayers-with-watts-part-2
I read your PDF and although it’s relatively similar to Watts’, it may have something to do with the plastic but further experimentation would prove that. I would suggest that the smooth internal surface of the bottle is already reflecting some IR back to the can.
I still adhere to the theory that reflected IR can reduce heat losses (not actually heat it further) from a warmer body, such as the aluminised mylar blankets paramedics use on shock/hypothermic patients.
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Thanks Olaf,
I did look at the Watts experiment. My problem with that was that he is measuring the temperature of the frosted glass envelope of the bulb with an instrument that is totally insensitive to the light energy coming from the filament. The high temperature light energy from the filament is reflected from the mirror and warms the cooler glass a bit more. Heat is still going from hotter to cooler.
I did make a comment to that effect in the discussion but Anthony Watts chose to snip it from the record.
I can try my experiment with different insulating material. In fact I am preparing a new experiment to test the Willis Eschenbach steel sphere greenhouse effect thought experiment, using a home made vaccuum chamber.
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Thanks Olaf,
I did look at the Watts experiment. My problem with that was that he is measuring the temperature of the frosted glass envelope of the bulb with an instrument that is totally insensitive to the light energy coming from the filament. The high temperature light energy from the filament is reflected from the mirror and warms the cooler glass a bit more. Heat is still going from hotter to cooler.
I did make a comment to that effect in the discussion but Anthony Watts chose to snip it from the record.
I can try my experiment with different insulating material. In fact I am preparing a new experiment to test the Willis Eschenbach steel sphere greenhouse effect thought experiment, using a home made vacuum chamber.
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Hooray! Please let us know how it goes. What vacuum pump are you using? I had a refrigeration pump that worked quite well until it burned out. It would go to a small fraction of a hectopascal from memory.
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Hello Mike,
Like you I am a glider pilot and I look forward to meeting you someday,
My vacuum pump is just a medical plastic syringe and a 3 way tap. It seems to work quite well. I am trying to connect to my mercury barometer so that I can try to get a measure of the vacuum. It might take a little time to complete the experiment. Too many Form 2’s to do and instructing etc.
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Peter, I think you’ll need a better vacuum pump than that. You’ll need a really good vacuum to not be confounded by conduction and convection.
Your setup will likely get you to maybe 100hPa or so, I think.
I don’t want to discourage experimentation though as there is too little of it.
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Good to hear the you are studying skepticism John!
We all hope that it will free your mind and that you are able to depart from the unscientific concept of consensus.
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Thanks for that JB. Very interesting article.
The malleability of our minds, as opposed to the immune system, allows us to engage new ideas. Fact and truth often take a back seat when fear of ridicule kicks in. The emotional side of humanity isn’t well connected to instinct or learned response.
The immune system is without emotion. The only reason pathogens such as colds and flu continue to survive and evolve in massive numbers is because they’ve learned not to kill the host. Even better, beneficial bacteria don’t even inflame the host to trip immune response.
Human emotion and the stubborn inability to absorb and process new facts or ideas have often caused the host to be killed – even by itself.
Prior to the Reformation, the Catholic church dogma was that they knew more about the heavens than any astronomer, that Earth was the centre of the universe and defended that line with the threat of death. It took some 200 years for actual evidence to be accepted against that groupthink.
Religious dogma essentially stole 200 years of scientific advances from humanity. If new ideas and facts are deliberately suppressed due to groupthink or personal riches, we might as well have never left the stone age.
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Groupthink must be why this solar madness is getting an interview.
The whole article is here.
To quote the Associated Press headline below that picture (in case you don’t want to go there)…
They forgot to add, “…and useless”
I can see it now in my minds eye. A giant Boeing 747 leaps into the sky on it’s maiden flight from Los Angeles to London with no fuel aboard, its payload replaced by tons of solar panels. But somehow it’s only visible after several glasses of wine (why the wine requirement anyway?).
But…er…they left out a few comments such as…
1. What happens if there’s an overcast at your destination airport or along the way?
2. What happens to this feather light and disastrously under powered airplane if there’s a headwind?
3. What happens if there’s a crosswind on landing?
4. What happens after the sun sets (maybe I’m not supposed to ask that one)?
5. And how do you run those big jet engines it takes for practical flight on electricity?
TonyFromOz, I expect a suitable comment on the wisdom of this solar flight adventure. 😉
Oops! On second thought, I release you from that, Tony. There is no wisdom, just money being spent on a stunt to prove they could do it.
Am I being too harsh?
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After you’ve read that think about this quote from the article.
The Tesla was a flop and Rachael Carson was a fraud. No grip on reality whatsoever.
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Tesla continues to lose money but continues to insist it will make a profit soon. Looks like the “high-flying equivalent of the Tesla” would be a useless plane that is made by a company that loses money. No, wait, at the Tesla has some practical applications. Solar planes are cute news items, but that is their only use. There is a reason we stopped using wind and solar–it is inferior in every way to fossil fuels.
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Sheri,
You’ve got it right!!!!
The smallest planes I ever flew were the Grumman AA5-A (trainer) and the Cessna 150, both two seats with the capacity for about 100 pounds of luggage depending on the weight of fuel you needed and of course, the weight of the humans aboard and whether you would still be within safe center of mass even if you were under the safe takeoff weight. They maxed out at under 2,000 pounds gross weight when the wheels left the pavement or you were flying a dangerous airplane. Contrast that with the weight and payload of any car you would take seriously for a vacation trip. They were powered by gasoline engines developing roughly 90 horsepower. Neither one was suitable for serious cross country flying because of slow speed and short range, not to mention lack of more serious luggage capacity. But they were good, and fun, for a Saturday afternoon to go somewhere for that $100 hamburger (you have to be a private pilot to appreciate that — or married to one).
But solar is going to save us all, have no fear — I just don’t know from what. 😉
The Grumman, by the way, was the lighter, being made of honeycomb composite material, decades ahead of anything in its class or bigger for state of the art and very tough. I bounced them off the runway a lot before I ever learned to land them (mental block about the ground coming up at me I suppose). Unfortunately it was also the one with the least payload capacity.
I’d rather these guys spend the time and the money developing a more dependable car battery or longer lasting tires.
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Yep, we use wind and solar for flying gliders and they are only good for a bit of fun, like sailboats.
I think you’ll find the Grumman trainer was the AA1-A, Roy. The 5 is a larger 4 seat airplane. The AA1-A was the productionised Jim Bede BD-1. My wife and I own a younger cousin of that design, the kit built BD-4. One year ago today we set off on our great adventure and flew around Australia in it. It is a considerably more capable, faster airplane than the two seat trainers.
Re landing: When my wife was learning to fly she would come home complaining that landings were “white man’s magic”. However nothing stops the descendents of good New Zealand pioneering stock for too long.
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Mike,
You’re no doubt right about the AA5 vs. AA1. I was working from memory. I flew both and AA5 was what came out of hiding after years of being unable to fly. Somewhere I probably still have all the manuals, my log book and other stuff squirreled away but I would have to go looking.
I loved the trainer for local flying. And when I got checked out in the 150 as an alternative I immediately discovered that high wing coming down to block my view as I rolled into a turn. That bothered me quite a bit because the low wing design doesn’t have that problem and I took a long time to get used to it. But otherwise the 150 is a much more forgiving airplane than the Grummans and really easy to fly.
The Tiger, the more powerful of the 4 place AA5s, was a really good airplane for weekend getaways with my wife and son.
Re landing: Your wife has my sympathy. But there came a day when, almost like magic, it clicked and I never had any trouble again. There was a similar day when I took off with my instructor early on a Saturday morning and my attitude and airspeed were perfect. I didn’t comment about it. I was sitting there enjoying my success when my instructor had the gall to tell me, “I told you so.” But he was right, he had.
I wish I could get to Australia and fly around it with you. It’s a beautiful and diverse place from the pictures and descriptions I’ve seen. But flying as pilot is out of the question for me anymore. It’s a whole different world when you’re behind the controls and I’m glad I got the chance to do it.
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Apparently there are longer lasting tyres and longer lasting batteries already in existence but they will never be released. They interfere with good business of the tyres shops. Tyre shops are usually also battery suppliers.
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The president continues to get it wrong but continues to insist he’ll get it right soon. It must be something in the water or the air. Oh, I know, it’s the CO2. What else could it be (do I need to use 😉 so you know it’s sarcastic)?
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I actually read a post somewhere by a Greenie who was complaining of headaches and nausea due to the increase in global CO2….. such a nasty pollutant they were saying…..
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It’s that what CO does?
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That’s an interesting question Sheri….. does CO2 cause people to become mindless morons? Certainly with this person it appeared to!
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I meant CO.
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And I believe that CO does give one a headache. But it’s also its own cure unless you get out of it soon enough.
CO is nasty stuff; odorless, colorless and undetectable by humans without technology’s help.
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We are talking about CO2 in the atmosphere… you know 400ppm? Are you saying that will give somebody a headache?
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Slider,
Sheri insisted she meant CO and I believe a headache is one of the symptoms of CO poisoning if it gets very far along.
CO2 at even 10 X 400 PPM will not give anyone a headache as we all know.
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Roy is correct. The claim was “complaining of headaches and nausea” made by a Greenie. My attempted, though apparently not clear, point was that the Greenie was confusing CO with CO2. All that carbon stuff gets thrown together with Greens.
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Fear of CO2 probably causes headaches. It also causes pain in another part of one’s anatomy — that is, the anatomy of skeptics. This blog seems to be a good cure for that, at least for me. Nothing is as good as venting your frustration.
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I would be interested to see what happened if they flew into a thunder storm.
I have recently seen a movie, taken inside the flight deck of a regular passenger plane, flying through a storm. I would hate to think what would happen if the plane was made of ultralight materials, and relied on electricity for propulsion.
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Exactly. I was wondering how it would fare if hit by lightning. It’s a pipe dream promoted to the Nimbies that think solar panels work at night. Even solar powered torches have batteries for a reason.
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In the electronics business we say it was “smoked”.
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It wouldn’t even need a thunderstorm…. a good thermal can take them up at such a rate they wouldn’t know what hit them…. and spit them out in pieces at the top.
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I dont think it would matter what happened there appears to be no bang seat so the pilot is screwed it would crumble up like card board and he would fall to his death. Not even his ideology could save him then.
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Rereke,
That Air France flight from Brazil to Paris (flight 447) did exactly that. There is no other probable explanation. After they finally retrieved the flight data recorder it shows that the plane was slammed into the ocean at a vertical speed exceeding 100 MPH. Nothing can hope to get away with flying into a thunderstorm. They are extremely violent and the hammerhead cloud can reach 70,000 feet high. Vertical speeds both up and down are far too great for any aircraft to counter.
I read a report of two solidly frozen ducks falling to the ground near a thunderstorm. Now birds are the only pros in the air and not even they can get away with being inside a storm as violent as that. This solar joke won’t even withstand a simple rainstorm.
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For those of you who are pilots or just plain interested, I found this link with the history and some actual technical details about Solar Impulse.
Among other details, there’s at least $48 million invested in the thing. Thankfully it’s private money. Basically it’s one man’s personal adventure all wrapped up in the hype that it may help save the world from human pollution. It’s a remarkable technical achievement that has no real usefulness except to prove he could do it.
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I ran this experiment when I was a high-school student. 35 years ago.
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hurrah!
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Cheeky fecker.
So when are you doing it yourself?
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