I would like to offer a clarification of something I said online. Some people believe that I insulted somebody terribly and I think it's fair to call me out on that but it's also fair to hear my explanation. And I'll give you some context before I tell you what I got in trouble for.

Here's the context. If I said I could hear something and you can't hear it and I'm like what are you serious you can't hear that, you don't hear that sound right now, would it be fair or would it be insulting to inquire if the person has any kind of hearing problem? I think it would be fair. There's nothing wrong with somebody having a hearing problem, right? That's just a normal thing. I'm pretty sure my own hearing is maybe degraded 10% just by age. So that would be fair. Nobody would say oh you're calling him disabled or something. No you wouldn't. You would say do you have a hearing problem because the point in question is can you detect a sound.

Likewise if I said do you see that plane up there and somebody else said no I can't see it. I go right there look right there and the other person can't see it. Would it be fair for me to inquire or would it be an insult to say is your vision perfect? You know do you wear glasses? Because that would explain why I can detect something that you can't. Now I would say that neither of them are insults.

Now let's get to the question at point. There's a question about the so-called Climategate emails in which some of the scientists use the words "trick" and "hide the decline." Now I have claimed that it is obvious to me, obvious and I can detect it easily, that that's casual conversation and not meant to mean literally a trick where you're trying to trick people but rather a publicly used method and people can look at it. And that "hide the decline" was really just a shorthand for the topic. They were trying to explain why some data in the past didn't match so they're trying to hide it for marketing purposes. Now if you're hiding it for marketing purposes you're not really trying to make the world the worst place. You're trying to be consistent with a theory that has tons of evidence in your opinion and there was just one little piece that's annoying and the public would get the wrong idea so you try to de-emphasize that for marketing purposes.

So that was my interpretation. Now I am very good at interpreting words. I'm a professional writer and I read people's psychology. That's also my domain. That's what I write about and talk about. I've got my second book on that coming. So I would say that I'm a good sensor. I can sense when somebody's telling a joke versus when they're serious and I can sense, because this is my domain it's my special expertise, when somebody is talking in casual language versus precise language and whether that means something. Words and meaning are my domain. I have a special sense for that as really I would say any author would share this better sense.

And so I got into a conversation on the internet with, and so Tony Heller came up because his interpretation of the words are that they clearly indicate, Tony Heller is probably the most capable climate skeptic so I've said that his presentation, his research and his persuasion are the best I've seen on the skeptical side and I've asked people to respond and to figure out what's wrong with his take and I'm not really getting the pushback that I was expecting. So I haven't yet found, I'm not saying it doesn't exist it's too early, but I haven't seen anybody say oh it's here we debunk his claim that the data used to be one way and then it was fudged. So he has a lot of credibility as a technical mind, a scientific mind, an engineering mind, a rational mind.

But his interpretation of what "trick" and what "hide the decline" meant in that context was wholly opposite of mine. He says they are literal. I say they're not. Now I asked in the context of that conversation if Tony was on the spectrum and people said whoa Scott you're way out of line you've gone ad hominem. Why are you attacking him? Somebody actually used the R word and said why are you calling him a retard. I don't even want to say it. And I actually was surprised. I thought wait a minute when did it become an insult to be on the spectrum? Who is saying that being on the spectrum is an insult?

Because part of the assumption for that was that his ability to go so deep with the data is part of the superpower that comes with being a little bit on the spectrum. And part of the superpower is what's driving Silicon Valley. It's what you could imagine that Dilbert, my character, my beloved character has maybe a little bit of it. Meaning that engineers and technologists are quite well known for having a higher degree of being on the spectrum and it's also well known that it's highly associated with great capability.

Tony Heller shows great capability consistent with that. He also shows in this one specific example taking something literal that in my own expertise I think is clearly not literal. And other scientists have looked into the situation and found out it was not literal as well. So if I ask him Tony is your ability to sense literal speech versus figurative speech as good as mine because I'm not on the spectrum, and again I'm not saying that how awesome I am that I'm not on the spectrum because being a little bit on the spectrum is associated with tremendous powers. It's like a superpower.

So I want to be really clear. If I ask somebody if they're on the spectrum that is not an insult. Not in my world. In my world the people on the spectrum have invented the whole freaking world. They've done all of the cool stuff. How many people on the spectrum were involved with creating my phone for God's sakes? So please don't assume that I think that's an insult. I think that is a totally perfectly legitimate question to ask. Now he didn't answer the question so I don't know the answer to it. But I will argue strongly that it's a fair question in the context of asking if somebody can sense something that would be hard to identify for someone on the spectrum and easier for someone who wasn't.

Just going with the science. Not an insult.