Re: I love this !
Posted by Gianmarc on 8/21/2016, 11:06 am
I understand the anxiety, or perhaps even the animosity, that trained and degreed mets feel when they see amateur forecasters indulging meteorology as a hobby. They resent the notion that someone who does not have their training, which is to say those who have not invested as much grueling study and toil in honing their understanding of meteorology into an expertise and earning the privilege of practicing it as professionals, seem to presume they can do the job of a professional meteorologist as well as Ph.D.s do. I think we can grant them that disgruntlement, and I think it's OK and legitimate for them to feel that way.

This is a common anxiety in today's world thanks to social media and youtube and podcasts and the unprecedented proliferation of information today. A guy like Dan Patrick sees folks starting sports podcasts and resents the idea that they think they can do just as well what Patrick has found fortune and fame doing for decades. A guy like me, who has a master's in creative writing, has been a professor at several universities, and has published a book with a major publisher and published my work in the NY Times and other major publications, sees people who self-publish or write blogs and therefore presume their expertise and their accomplishment in the area in which I have made my career is equal to mine. I resent that, because I know how much hard work has gone into what I have achieved, and I know how few people who tout self-published books or blogs have demonstrated the same ability or put in the same amount of work as me. We live today in a world that encourages the notion that each of us is a celebrity; I think we generally can thank Facebook for fostering that delusion.

All that said, I think Jim's post on this subject is on the money. For these mets to be so dishonest and disingenuous as to say the reason they have a problem with amateur forecasters is that something they tweet about a long-range forecast is going to cause fatalities is embarrassing. It is embarrassing because they are not being honest about the true reason they resent amateur forecasters. Just be honest. They can't lie to me about it; I know their resentment because I feel it myself in my own chosen profession. I also know how much honest, good, hard work Jim has poured into his passion for meteorology for decades, and I have come to trust the expertise he himself has developed in that field outside the classroom. I find often that Jim is possibly the most careful and scrupulous "amateur" forecast online today. For Jim to be dumped into this broad class of "amateur mets" in as negative a light as folks like Marshall Shepherd cast them shows how little he and his like know about the quality of Jim's work and the extent of his devotion to it. As Jim suggests, it is sad, because I think it would be wonderful if TWC were open-minded and welcoming enough to have someone like Jim on WxGeeks. What is wrong with using a platform as far-reaching as TWC to embrace the general public's enthusiasm for meteorology?

Marshall, just be honest with your audience. You do not think amateur mets are going to kill somebody; you know that is the load of bull you're selling your audience to justify an unspoken and deep resentment you don't have the courage to face up to. The truth is you don't like amateur forecasters because you resent them. You resent the kind of world that has enabled them to flourish. You resent the idea that some of them think they can do your job as well as you do. And, most of all, you resent the suspicion that in some cases, they may be right. Jim may not want me to say this, I don't know, but I will say it: I absolutely am as comfortable going to Jim for information about an approaching storm as I would be going to, for instance, Bryan Norcross. Sorry, Marshall. Welcome to the 21st century buddy.
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I love this ! - cypresstx, 8/20/2016, 8:23 pm
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