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Is Scientific Consensus a Threat to Democracy?
chance_encounter writes "President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Klaus has published an article in the Financial Times in which he seems to equate the current global warming debate with totalitarian thought control: 'The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced ... The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.' At the end of the article he proposes several suggestions to improve the global climate debate, including this point: 'Let us resist the politicization of science and oppose the term "scientific consensus," which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority.'"
Threat to democracy? No.
Threat to scientifically illiterate politicians? Maybe.
Consensus science isn't science, it's politics, and that's exactly what the Global Warming debate is about: politics
Scientists listen to data, not what politicians/economists etc want.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
"They have an obligation to declare their political and value assumptions and how much they have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence."
That is:
"You need to tell me if you have any political thoughts that I can turn into an ad hominem argument rather than discuss your data or your methods because I'm not a physicist and I can't follow the math."
First off, we have to allow scientists to determine whether global warming is a problem, without political interference.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Of course science is under strict control. Of course it's undemocratic.
In a democratic society you are free to state that the world is flat. The people are free to elect someone who says the world is flat. In science you've actually got to prove that the world is flat. Does that mean you're "not free" in science to assert whatever you want as reality. Sure. Personally I like those restrictions. Without them we'd be back in the middle ages.
We don't elect reality. We discover it. Discovery requires that one thing is paramount: observation, and the unbiased interpretation of that observation. So, in essence you are restricted by reality because you want you perception (your model of reality) to conform with reality as much as possible. So you lose the freedom to say that reality is anything you damn well please.
I for one welcome our reality overlords.
No, it is about negative externalities. We don't want the rest of you fucking up a shared resource, projecting the cost of your actions onto us. Global warming is not about "consensus science," whatever the hell that is supposed to be. Is the theory of gravity "consensus science?" No. Will you be ridiculed for rejecting it? Probably, unless you come up with something better. The global warming deniers haven't come up with better science.
I'm sorry if all that hurts your feelings. Science doesn't care about your feelings. No matter how much you are personally inconvenienced by the truth, it is still true. The fact is, the rancor comes from the global warming deniers, in that type's typical projection of their own motivations onto others. The global warming believers are merely responding in kind.
No one gets anything out of believing in global warming. There are no huge grants. There would be scientific fame, and real world wealth beyond counting for anyone that could prove it wrong. Almost everyone would have to change their lifestyle, yet some of us still care more about justice and not making others pay for our actions.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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I was very worried about AGW, but statements like, "neuremberg style trials for denialists" made me think something's not right. Add in character assasination, the way any "contrarian evidence" is assumed to be funded by oil companies, and debating tactics that throw the principle of falsifiability out of the window, made me distrust the whole damnded thing.
The science needs to be free to operate carefully and efficiently, regardless of whether it's finding evidence for or against AGW. The business of science is to discover the truth of the matter, regardless of whether that truth happens to agree with our beliefs and values.
I suspect that the notion of what "good science" is has changed subtly. Good science is science that finds the truth. But scientists who want to be good people, may come to believe that being a good person means creating science that "does good things", such as save the planet. If you want to save the planet because saving the planet is a good thing to do, then there may be a bias towards only studying subjects that offer an opportunity to become an important scientist who makes discoveries about dangers and remedies for the planet.
Good science is purely about the truth. What you do with that knowledge is a different affair altogether. Good science is simply being dispassionately interested in facts. It's not the scientist's job to be a good person. Just give us the facts. We, the people, will worry about the rest.
So... the SUVs the dinosaurs drove brought about their extinction, then?
What, me? Never.
The only reason anyone ever goes to the scientific consensus argument is because either (a) the person making the argument doesn't understand the science, or (b) the person being argued to doesn't understand the science. In the case of (a), that person typically is assuming that the scientific question is solved, and it's now time to address the complicated political questions. In the case of (b), how else do you try to convince someone incapable of (or unwilling to) understanding the science behind global warming? The strongest scientific critics you will find against global warming (Pat Michaels and Richard Lindzen) argue that they're not sure if humans are the primary cause of global warming, but that they acknowledge that humans are a factor in global warming - and even these critics are a small minority of climate scientists.
There are lots of places that address the basic science behind global warming, but if you're unwilling to try to understand that basic science, then it makes more sense to accept the wisdom of the majority than the wisdom of the minority under the theory that sometimes the minority is right. (Sometimes they are, but that's the exception and not the rule.)
Heck, there's already been a shift in certain circles towards the next "stage" in avoiding responsibility for global warming. First, they denied the warming. Then, they denied that humans were responsible. Now, they've moved on to the coup de grâce: who's to say warmer won't be better?
(Oh, and this argument against scientific consensus could just as easily be made against evolution, general relativity, or even quantum mechanics. No, it's not a threat to democracy.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
There are no climate scientists who take their cue from Al Gore. Just thought you should know. Al Gore is just reporting the science (and might occasionally get it wrong), he's not the one actually doing the science. It must be convenient to have an easy target now, though.
You know it's possible to accept the science behind global warming without having to like Al Gore. My father's done that, and I'm sure you can, too.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Just because someone modded you up, I thought I'd pull up the first page of results of a quick google search. Lokiee there....
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Really? How old are you? I remember Rush Limbaugh, for one, making exactly those comments in the early 90's. To wit, he brought up these new satellite results that were able to measure the effect of the full moon on temperatures and then claimed that it was funny that with such sophisticated techniques they still weren't able to measure global warming. There were plenty of ditto-heads who took that statement and ran with it.
Why don't you do a little personal research on the Mann Hockey Stick? Try to go to sites that cover actual science and not just politics though, okay? Also avoid sites that admit to being junkscience.
Please provide the book title and such a quote. Also, don't confuse "a climatologist from the 1970s" with "the climatologists of the 1970s". A lot of people who bring up "global cooling" seem to do that. (I do see, however, that you were good enough to qualify that only "some" were claiming that.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
No, all the serious scientific organizations.
/ 5702/1686?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT= &author1=oreskes&searchid=1103210845409_5389&store d_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&fdate=10/1/1995&tdate=12/31 /2004
Really.
All of them.
Seriously, for real.
Yes.
All of them.
No, really.
It's true.
Did the message get through, yet? Look, here's a scientific study of the fact that all climate scientists agree that global warming is real and man-made:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/306
Believe it yet?
It's true.
On one hand, you have scientists paid to do research by the government and other public organizations, with no instructions on what they can and cannot publish. These scientists are not paid more if they find that global warming is anthropogenic than if they find that it's not. If you think otherwise, you're drinking the Crichton kool-aid, and are subscribing to the biggest conspiracy theory of them all.
On the other hand, you have scientists paid to do research (sometimes out of their field) by fossil-fuel companies who are not allowed to publish their data without first passing it through those doing the funding. Interestingly enough, these scientists don't find evidence that global warming is non-anthropogenic. No, they only seem to be able to show that it's not necessarily primarily anthropogenic. Two key terms there: "not necessarily" and "primarily". That is, they know that humans contribute to global warming, there's no way to interpret the science otherwise, even when being funded by fossil fuel companies. They also know that it's possible that humans are the primary contributors to global warming. However, if they do their research just right they find that there's not enough evidence to say that humans are definitely primary responsible. Of course, it's not to hard to find a lack of evidence.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Humans are "hardwired" for both altruism and selfishness, for rape and for courtesy, for monogamy and for promiscuity. What expressions these drives and instincts take is based on history, society and culture. "Selfishness" means something completely different in a nomadic livestock-herding society than it does in a pre-modern agricultural one, and both mean something very different in a modern, technological society in which you work for money which you spend on housing and manufactured goods.
Appeals to "human nature" fail when closely analyzed. We are all capable of acts of remarkable sacrifice and remarkable selfishness, and through various semantic games, we can interpret each through the lens of the other.
Also, describing a call for a worldwide regulatory system in response to climate change as "communism" is incorrect. "Capitalism" in modernity has, and has always had, an extensive governmental system to support it: to control borders (which keeps markets, especially labor markets, in place), to protect property, to print currency and enforce monetary and trade policy, and so forth. It is not as if there is currently a "Wild West"-like free market that policies against climate change is going to shut down: intelligent and responsive regulation is firmly established as a requirement for successful capitalism. (Just think what would happen if we didn't regulate, for example, the printing of currency.)
You have produced yet another set of statements without proof that this has anything to do with man-made global warming. Sea-levelss have been rising for more than 10,000 years and somehow you've just noticed?
In any case,
a) living on a delta is a great way to see the sea rising relative to the land, but the sea-level has hardly changed while those deltas continue to sink. Ask the Mayor of New Orleans. If the deltas are not replenished then you get severe coastal erosion and deltaic islands sink into the water.
b) Tuvalu's problems are entirely caused not by rising sea-levels (because there isn't any) but by overpopulation and overextraction of water making the wells become brackish.
Here's what the scientists say:
"The historical record from 1978 through 1999 indicated a sea level rise of 0.07 mm per year." and
"The historical record (from Tuvalu) shows no visual evidence of any acceleration in sea level trends."
So the sea-level rise is just barely measureable and shows no acceleration due to global warming, man-made or otherwise.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Actually I'm a liberal, and I'm afraid that climate is always changing and always will. Efforts to try to modify the Earth's climate are as futile as King Canute's edict on tidal erosion.
I think the best strategy is not trying to stabilize the unstabilizable, but on adaptation and lifting people out of poverty that makes them less susceptible to climate change one way or the other. But climate change will happen because we live on a dynamic world.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
The debunkers (and I assume you're referring to McIntyre and McKitrick) have not been debunked. Every criticism of the Hockey Stick that they made has been upheld.
From what I can read it seems like the reverse is true. The only valid criticism M&M made was a methodological issue that, when corrected, had no effect on the outcome of the model.
There are more than a dozen climate reconstructions that uphold the original "Hockey Stick", and to my knowledge, M&M have offered no objections to any of them. For a "debunked model" it's been featured prominently in materials as recent as the IPCC TAR Summary for Policymakers, so the scientific consensus clearly has not come down on the side of M&M's objections.
Because those fakers are still writing on RealClimate.
It's really easy to toss around ad hominem attacks like they mean something in science, but that seems to be all the climate change deniers really have to offer.
I never have frustrations, the reason is, to wit:
If at first I don't succeed, I quit!
We had an el nino last year which tends to reduce the number and severity of hurricanes.
Or so this "they" guy says...read it on the intartubes
The deal with hurricanes isn't so much they are stronger or more of them as hundreds or thousands of years ago as much as we have much better news reporting and data keeping now and even moreso, hoo-mannz have been on a coastal area expensive building spree for the past few decades in the US, so when hurricanes *do* strike, it causes a lot more damage. Example, a little cottage I used to live it on the beach in florida, back when that was still possible at ridiculous cheap joe construction worker wage levels is now a big high rise. Where a few people used to live (and I went through a hurricane there actually) and a structure worth x-dollars might have been damaged, (it wasn't, 'cane that didn't hit directly but was sure *exciting* for yours truly)now a lot more people and x times 500 (whatever, big number) dollars worth of stuff is there that could be damaged. I don't know a technical term for it, but the event impact potential threshold is now way higher than it used to be, given the same exact size hurricane.
b) Tuvalu's problems are entirely caused not by rising sea-levels (because there isn't any) but by overpopulation and overextraction of water making the wells become brackish. The Tuvalu embassador never said the sea levels had risen. Instead he noted that the ocean was warmer, and this, he believed, was part of the reason their coral was dying (probably a factor though it may not be the primary one). More importantly he noted that warmer ocean temperatures mean more severe weather (most climatologists seem to agree with this) and severe weather can be very destructive to an island that's only 4m above sea level. Here's what the scientists say:
"The historical record from 1978 through 1999 indicated a sea level rise of 0.07 mm per year." and
"The historical record (from Tuvalu) shows no visual evidence of any acceleration in sea level trends."
So the sea-level rise is just barely measureable and shows no acceleration due to global warming, man-made or otherwise. Your link was broke but the points you mentioned miss the mark on two points. First I couldn't see anywhere where the Tuvlu embassador was talking about significant rises in the sea level, most of his worry was about the severe weather from warmer oceans.
More importantly those historical stats sidestep the fact that the sea level rise that people worry about comes from land based ice caps (like the one on Greenland) sliding into the ocean. Something that hasn't really happened yet so there wouldn't be any reason for the sea levels to have already risen.
Your argument there is a bit like standing on the deck of the Titanic just before it hit the iceburg and arguing that everyone is safe as the hull is still completely intact.
I stole this Sig
Scientific consensus means that several scientists working on the same problem agree with each other. If there's no reasonable majority behind any one theory, you can safely consider the theory to be mostly conjecture.
The kicker on global warming is that we seem to have the majority of scientists saying one thing, while the majority of politicians say something else.
The scientists have nothing to gain/lose other than their reputations / employability. It won't look good to doggedly predict the climate will change year after year as it doesn't, or predict it won't as it does. Scientists don't work in a vacuum though. The researchers for tobacco repeatedly found no serious problems from smoking, so merely being a scientist doesn't give you a halo.
Politicians don't need to be right to keep being employed. Oftentimes, being on the right team is enough. (Republican vs Democrat, while the country swings, many regions do not.) All a politician needs to do is to keep their bosses happy. The bosses are the people who pay the politician on a per issue basis.
Scientists and politicians can both be bought. It could be argued that many scientists are willing to be bought because of trouble finding employment. It could be argued that politicians solicit being bought. That said, why would you buy a scientist or a politician for this issue?
First, if you were an individual, you wouldn't. You could try, but you (unless you were quite rich) wouldn't have the money to throw at buying a large number of people.
Buy a scientist / politician to tell the world global warming is real:
You would do this if your company would profit from increased environmental regulations. Companies that produce alternative fuels might do this. Also, if your business is inherently polluting, but you have much better emissions control than your competition, this would be a short-term advantage over them. How many companies are in one of these two positions? Did I miss situations here? How many startup alternative fuel companies can out lobby established fuel companies raking in obscene profits? Perhaps there's a secret lobby of corn farmers... even if so I doubt they could compete with oil's lobbying power.
Buy a scientist / politician to tell the world global warming is wrong:
Your business is inherently polluting, cleaning equipment and changing production methods is expensive. If you convince people there is no problem, there's no need to change.
Why would you buy a scientist?
If unbiased scientific data pointed one way, you almost have to buy a handful of scientists to disagree so you can claim that you didn't "know" the truth. Think cigarette companies. Once you have a handful of reports, you're good.
Why would you buy a politician?
Politicians make laws, which could force expensive changes. Paying off a few scientists isn't going to change the views of many people, especially if most scientists disagree. Buying a politician guarentees favorable results no matter what the public thinks. Consider how many people hate out-sourcing. Consider that both parties support it, despite the public's obvious hatred of the idea. (Also consider how few people actually make the effort to buy American)
An additional benefit to buying politicians. People are pack animals with a gang mentality. Once you choose your gangs (Yankees / Braves! Democrats / Republicans! Toilet seat up / down!) you tend to blindly follow them, no matter how divorced from reality they may get. (Will the Cubs do well? They finally did, but the loyalty well before that point was amazing) No matter how many scientists say X is bad, if Bush says X is good a disturbing number of people will follow Bush because they take politics as us vs them. If Bush is on one side, the other side is wrong. The same was true with Clinton. People selectively (and I'm convinced, unconciously) filter their perceptions to fit the view of the world they want to have. Political lines are sad
The media has got all the issues completely wrong. By melting the ice caps (and permafrost, which is much greater in volume), sea level rise of only about 15m would ensure - which is nothing compared to the regular, cyclic 100-300m sea level changes from plate techtonics (ridge spreading rate changes, hotspots) which occur over 10^5 to 10^7 year cycles. What we do need to worry about is the release of the methane held in permafrost - high levels of methane (although there were other causes) resulted in the Permian/Triassic extinction event, wiping out 50% of animal life. As for CO2 levels being 'normal', if one looks at the past CO2 levels from sediment isotopes, it's very clear that the current level is about 5 times the level of all previous cyclic highs. It is completely abnormal.
puts ("Python r0cks\n");