Slashdot Mirror
The Limits To Skepticism
jamie found a long and painstaking piece up at The Economist asking and provisionally answering the question: "Does the spirit of scientific scepticism really require that I remain forever open-minded to denialist humbug until it's shown to be wrong?" The author, who is not named, spent several hours picking apart the arguments of one Willis Eschenbach, AGW denialist, who on Dec. 8 published what he called the "smoking gun" — it was supposed to prove that the adjustments climate scientists make to historical temperature records are arbitrary to the point of intentional manipulation. The conclusion: "[H]ere's my solution to this problem: this is why we have peer review. Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand. So for the time being, my response to any and all further 'smoking gun' claims begins with: show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here. Otherwise, you're a crank and this is not a story. And then I'll probably go ahead and try to investigate the claim and write a blog post about it, because that's my job. Oh, and by the way: October was the hottest month on record in Darwin, Australia."
show me the peer-reviewed journal article demonstrating the error here
Of course, on of the issues revealed is that they were preventing dissenting opinions from being accepted in peer reviewed journals...
You can prove anything when you're allowed to select the peers reviewing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
For some reason I don't think going, "Lalalalalala, I can't hear you" instead of refuting the points they bring up is going to engender somebody to change their viewpoint, rather the opposite. If somebody is already believing there is a cover-up this is about the only thing you could do, besides admit it, that reinforces that idea.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
we are in serious trouble if someone can't question manual manipulation of dataset's which are the basis of spending trillions of dollars of tax payers money on carbon trading. it's even more disturbing is the fact they get labels such as "denialist" - if you are incapable of leaving the emotional responses at the door, then you aren't fit to be argueing the science.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Because it's a waste of time, that's why. Offering evidence to a denialist ostrich
Not every climate skeptic is a denialist ostrich. Many of us can be converted with patience, lucidity and openness.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Yes, but you're not trying to convert them, as you said it wont happen. What you're doing is trying to convince the people on the fence. They see, somebody laying out refuting the points of the AGW crowd, which then responds with basically "U STUPID", that isn't going to gain any more fans.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
From where I sit, it's the people putting arbitrary "corrections" into the programs to make them come out the way they want and refusing to accept any articles that don't toe the party line into their "peer reviewed journals" who look like religious zealots, and the soi-disant "deniers" are the ones who are trying to do things in a proper scientific manner. Remember, boys and girls, if the facts don't support your theory, a scientist changes the theory, while an activist conceals the inconvenient facts.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Most of the anti-AGW crowd is simply doing armchair, a-priori reasoning behind why AGW is false. "Humans are too puny to have an effect!" they say, or "The climate has changed drastically fast even without humanity being around!" Often there are political reasons for holding this position--certain arguments on how to deal with GW are certainly political in nature, and may come into conflict with one's own dogma, and thus psychologically one may be predisposed to oppose GW on that basis.
HOWEVER, that does not mean that some people that argue for AGW do not fit into the same shoes. Remember, just because you are "correct" does not mean your reasoning is. Naturally, someone that hates big business and "the man" may also psychologically have a reason to believe in AGW--another reason to rage on about the status quo.
If I was a betting man I'd bet for AGW, but really I know the science behind it is quite complicated and I know I'm nowhere near competent to make a good, solid argument on the matter, so I must approach the issue with a tempered agnosticism while leaning a bit towards the AGW side because that's the verdict by a vast majority of hard-working PhDs, and I highly doubt that climatologists consist of some dark, left-wing communist sect of economy-destroying conspirators. That is what true skepticism is, noncommitance (particularly emotionally) to a position particularly when you are not an expert on it. Many on both sides of the GW debate are not skeptics but reactionaries with their thought ruled by political underpinnings. Most of the people I know that rant about how AGW is a fraud no absolutely nothing about the mechanisms scientists go about acquiring the data on past climate conditions.
It really does weaken the position of those who support the AGW theory. Why? Because it is name calling and over simplification. Pretending that everyone who doesn't agree with you is simply in denial of what is happening and then making up a cute little label is not the sort of thing that speaks to a rational debate. It is the kind of thing a con man would do, and thus makes people wonder, why would you use those tactics?
So as a start, you have to understand that there are some major differences in terms of what people believe who are skeptical of the AGW thing. These are just some examples:
1) There are people who believe the whole thing is a crock, there is no warming, it is all made up, etc, etc. These are the only people who could be called in denial, by any stretch of the imagination.
2) There are people who believe that there has been a warming trend recently, however the trend is entirely natural. It is right in line with the kind of trends seen historically, and thus there is no cause to believe this is anything but a natural occurrence. They are skeptical that humans are contributing in any significant fashion.
3) There are people who believe that there is warming, and indeed man is contributing to it, but that the result will not be problematic, and perhaps beneficial. They do not accept the conclusion that the warming will lead to catastrophe, even though they do accept that humans are at least partly causing it. They are skeptical that a warmer Earth will be bad for humans.
4) There are people who believe that people are causing the warming, and that it will lead to worse conditions, but that it would be even worse to attempt to stop it. They believe that the money spent on trying to stop such a thing could be better spent on other things to improve human life. The sort of thing that while warming might cause X additional deaths per year, spending money on that instead of other things would lead to 5X additional deaths per year. They are skeptical that the proposed solutions are the best.
5) There are people who believe that people are causing the arming and that it needs to be stopped, but that reducing output won't do that. We need a different solution like geoengineering or something. Reducing CO2 output wouldn't help, at least not enough to matter, so we've got to find another solution. They are skeptical that the proposed solutions would do anything.
6) There are people who believe that people are causing the warming, and that it will be bad, but there is fuck-all we can do about it. We are too far along, shit is going to happen anyhow, so we might as well apply our energies and money to surviving the change, not to trying to prevent it, since that it impossible. They are skeptical anything can be done at all, other than to try and survive the change.
So a big part of the problem with trying to frame everyone as a "denialist" is the simplification of the argument, to try and say "Oh they all just ignore everything that is said." No, in fact, many don't. They simply come to a different conclusion. Also they may well find enough evidence to sustain part of the argument, but not all of it. You find people who say "Sure, I'll buy the world is getting warmer. We've got pretty good instrumental data on that. However I'm not so sure about CO2 being the cause. The data on that is more shaky. Either way I'm really skeptical that a warmer Earth will be a bad thing, there's essentially no data to support that." They aren't just saying "La la la, I can't hear you!" They are just not convinced by all the arguments.
Well, when you simply dismiss them as a "denialist" and act as though they are a moron, that does nothing to convert them. In fact, it may do the opposite. They say "Hmmm, this is the kind of thing con men do. When someone questions them, they just attack and shout down their questioner. They are afraid of scrutiny. They want you to accept what they say, unquestioningly. Why are AGW proponents acting like this? Could they be con men?"
So seriously, knock it off with the label. You are doing nothing to help.
Average guys with websites can do a lot of amazing things. One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand.
Aye, there's the rub...
I think the author is overlooking two simple facts: not everyone with a website is an "average guy", and that there are more than a few people in the world who are capable of understanding advanced mathematics and statistical methods who don't have the related PhD that apparently enables one to do so.
Thanks for the link. I know that on Slashdot you're not actually supposed to read the articles, but nonetheless, I found the Economist post and the author's response illuminating. The author raises good points about the dangers of over-reliance on the peer review system. It's a good system but it is not doesn't always work - crap gets through and good articles aren't published. Simply ignoring any non peer-reviewed work puts far too much faith into the system.
Now, you can choose to rely on the opinions of scientists to form your opinions, and often that is enough, but if you really want to be sure of any particular topic, you should investigate it yourself. It might take a lot of work, but you will be rewarded with knowledge.
That said, global warming isn't all that inaccessible. If you have a basic background in math and physics, you can get close to the cutting edge just by reading the IPCC report since its such a great summary of the field. I guarantee you will quadruple your understanding of the topic just by reading that alone, and it will give you a good launching point to dig deeper, because everything it talks about is directly referenced to real peer reviewed papers.
Some interesting things I found reading the IPCC report:
Every self-respecting geek who is willing to opine on the subject of global warming should read that report. Otherwise they are leaving themselves uninformed.
Qxe4
I am very sceptical with regards to a "not named" author claims... ;-)
Before everyone starts putting down the author for being anonymous, please observe that this is The Economist. For those of you not familiar with that particular publication, one of its distinguishing traits is that it does not publish bylines. Ever. Editorials in The Economist are backed by the reputation of the editorial staff of The Economist, not of any individual writer.
Breakfast served all day!
All what original data?
You can't mean all data behind the climate models, because some huge faction of it is still available. You must be referring to the small subset of it that was deleted before Climate Change became recognized as the important issue it is.
Heck, a lot of the Original Data behind such famous theories as gravity and a round earth was deleted, too. That has no bearing on the fact that those theories were proven true. Exact same thing with human-caused climate change.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
The article's point isn't to ignore all that. It's that to say that some random blogger likely doesn't have the tools to correctly analyze the data, and may well be doing their own shaping of the facts. And proving that to yourself is going to take a couple of hours (at least) of research and your time. The end result of which is probably going to be that the people who posted the data were aware of the factor in question, went and checked what the source was, and have a good explanation for what's going on with the data and why they did what they did.
All of which is public record, and has been analyzed six ways from tuesday, by people with far better credentials than you or the blogger is likely to have.
So, in this writer's opinion, it's not worth his time. If someone can get into the peer-reviewed journals, where the standards of competence and knowledge are much higher than on a random blog, he'll pay attention. Because every time he's gone and done the background check on some blogger's new climate data scandal, he's found it isn't a scandal at all, and quite often (like in this case) the blogger already knew that. But was posting it as a scandal anyway.
So it was a waste of time, both to read the blog and to take it seriously.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
The "birthers" would say the same of themselves. Most irrational people don't think of themselves as irrational, of course that's just another example of them being unable to face reality.
Some of them are different, but when I come across them... let's just say I'm skeptical.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
It's only anomalous if there's only one set of data points. YOu can take samples from all over the planet if you wish and compare the various samples which significantly reduces any local effects that skew the data. Isotope ratios can also be used to give an idea of the climate as well. Just because we haven't been keeping direct temperature records does not mean that the data set just stops.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The author is a skeptic only as long as their skepticism and logic leads to conclusions that match the authors personal beliefs. As soon as it doesn't, well lets put a damper on critical thinking. Mmkay?
>
I would love to see the US become a leader in green technology. I'm not convinced that the best way to accomplish that is to impose new taxes that dramatically raise the cost of living for American citizens while increasing the size and scope of government. I don't see how you build a green economy by gutting the current one and diverting much needed capital into Uncle Sam's coffers.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
...the burning of gasoline produces carbon dioxide....
Indeed it does, but where was all this carbon dioxide, before it became fossil fuel? Was not the carbon from every bit of fossil fuel and coal that has already been burned and that is still underground in the atmosphere once upon a time? The earth was a lot warmer then, but that seems to be good, because living things not only survived, but thrived. Aside from the unproven theory that the ocean levels would be significantly higher, why would a warmer Earth be bad?
Why don't you stick to science, rather than bringing religion or politics into the discussion? The pilfered e-mails show that these supposedly neutral scientists have a political agenda. That is why they labeled it a "travesty" that the data doesn't support their socialistic political agenda.
All theory is gray
This is interesting to me:
"One thing they cannot do is reveal statistical manipulation in climate-change studies that require a PhD in a related field to understand."
Emphasis mine. I'm a math major, granted, but I can understand it just fine. It's just basic statistics. It's numbers, if you will. Being a meteorologist doesn't enter you into some magical realm where you have special magical numbers that behave completely differently than the number systems everyone else uses in mathematics. And certainly being a Ph.D. meteorologist doesn't require you even be a bachelor in Math, does it? So how would even having a doctorate degree in meteorology or any number of RELATED FIELDS result in one being capable of understanding statistics? Honestly, this absurd statement made by the author sums up what I felt reading the entire article. It's rife with the rantings of someone who doesn't really understand what's going on, clearly admits he doesn't understand the math, yet wants to chime in and put his $.02 in while discrediting someone else just as unaccredited as himself. This is sheer lunacy.
Any undergraduate student taking a statistics course can tell you when you're biased or hinted at what a dataset OUGHT to look like (expectations, or beliefs), the decisions you make on manipulations and adjustments to the graphs are almost dedicated to proving those correct, even if they're wrong. Just like when you sit down with a postulate you need to prove. You have the end result, and you are given some basic facts, now you're trying to force your way through definitions, techniques, tricks and the like to get the result that's on the paper. But when someone hands you an equally difficult proposition and says: "prove or disprove the following," the difficulty goes up tenfold if it in fact is not specifically chosen because it's easy to see that it's provable or easily disproved by counterexample. The same exists here. And I know that being a graduate math student I know that even I, my classmates, and even professors make more subtle mistakes than accidentally adjusting data in an incorrect fashion (even if your reason for doing so is 100% valid). I can assure anyone who's uneducated in mathematics that unless they are literally a doctorate in statistics, they can make those mistakes just as easily.
Here's my suggestion. Open the data. Don't funnel it to some government bureau or tightly controlled data collection agency, just PUBLISH IT and let everyone scoop up all the data for themselves. Then let people with math backgrounds or anyone really to sit down and mess with the data. Let everyone see it and if the entire community agrees that data from one node looks fishy or wrong, then we can discount it as a community, not as someone who believes "well damn, if just the data between dates A and B from this place would go away, the result would be clear... hmm.. well these do look off a bit.. maybe it's an outlier, i'll just delete this data here." Keep the thermometers used, keep notes about what's being done, publish that as well. If we believe there's an outlier, we should test the thermometers and if those are defunct, then we can throw out the data without bias. If a mistake like recording temperatures in kelvin is made, well we can adjust for this, but we don't need to discard it. Let's have some common sense people. It's PEER REVIEWED SCIENCE. Well, not technically. In peer reviewed science, we can do the SAME experiment over again and get the exact same result in a predictable fashion. In this, the data we get is from YOU, so of course it could be doctored to provide a guided result. It can ONLY be peer reviewed if absolutely ANYONE can take the RAW data and come to the same conclusions you did. This entire debate is just silly. I won't believe anyone is correct until this happens. How about we give transparency a try with this global warming crap for a change?
Except, the burden of proof is not on the skeptics. It is on those who wish to prove the exception to the rule is, indeed, the rule. If you want people to believe in global warming's existence, you've got to prove it, irrefutably.
Considering the history of climate prediction (lies, 180 degree inaccuracy, etc.), anyone trying to do that has a hard job ahead of them. We've been hearing "we're 10 years from total annihilation due to our abuse of the planet" since my parents were in grade school, and I've got kids of grade school age now, myself. Climatic temperatures were supposed to be 20 degrees hotter now than they are and agriculture will shortly become unsustainable for the population's feeding, according to what I remember being 'taught' when I was in grade school.
That's a lot to fight against. Generations of people are tired of the propagandized rhetoric and general bullshit.
If you want people to believe you - intelligent, discerning, capable people - the first thing you have to do is not treat them like idiots. That's something the climate change community (if there is one) needs to get right. The second thing they should concentrate on is not appealing to emotion (alarmist dramatization and unqualified exaggeration) but to intellect. (Look how far it's gotten the theory of evolution.)
Another big issue which is getting in the way of people "believing" in climate change/global warming/global cooling/global atmospheric sequestering/whatever is that they're concerned about the political and economic implications of anything pushed down from governments, on account of the climate change fear mongering. Anyone who (here in the US) has had to deal extensively with the EPA knows what I'm talking about. The government doesn't tend to fix the problem at hand, they just make business-as-usual more expensive. Trade embargoes on Chinese tires? Great, tires just got more expensive. Tax fuel so people drive less? Great, you just made maintaining one's lifestyle more expensive. (And, in many, many cases, just ruined the livelihood of many others - never mind lifestyle.)
What I am personally concerned about is the reactionary uh anacrophytes - people who seem terrified of old things. They're trying to push new, (scientifically) untried, short-term, ecologically destructive, and largely infeasible technologies such as ethanol, battery-powered automobiles, wind turbines, et cetera. Yes, there is value in expanding these technologies, increasing their efficiency, and so on. But these anachrophytes are vicious in their pursuits, and want regulations, new laws, and the like which will drastically and destructively change the economic landscape. These are the kinds of people who blather on about the "smog" that diesel engines put out, how they maintain our energy dependence - why they aren't a viable alternative to gas - yet they push things like lithium based batteries as "green". Which planet are they on?
And now we've got this environmental summit which, optimistically, will push forth changes that will cut down on emissions/etc. Realistically, it will be another splint on the otherwise healthy leg of the US and Western countries, allowing for China and the rest of Greater India, and the third world to push closer to us - economically and militarily.
In the best of times, such "optimistic" regulations are mildly disruptive and inconvenient to a society - at best. But these aren't the best of times; these are pretty tough times for everyone, globally. So even in a best-case scenario, we're looking at what might be generally termed, a bad idea. Struggling economies aren't terribly good at ecological preservation: they'll burn waste oil for heat, dump shit in streams, and so on. Damaging an economy for the pursuit of reducing CO2 output is ass-backwards if one has any perspective on how economies work.
So yeah, prove me wrong. The ball is in your court, but you're a long way behind in the game due to decades of slacking/misbehavior.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I don't think there's any danger of modern science being "reformed" the way you describe. We're in far more danger of the masses infusing science with baseless conjecture due to the overall poor level of scientific education, resulting in the tainting of our scientific institutions with populist hokus. Witness NASA having to put together a press release reassuring the public after the movie 2012.
The idiotic "everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and nobody's opinion is inherently better" idea is resulting in homeopathy being immune from criticism because their opinions are equal to the opinions of qualified doctors. Here we have climate change skeptics, on the payroll of big oil getting the same weight as scientists with real, irrefutable data, thanks to this misguided "we are all entitled to an opinion and the right to promote it".
This is one of the fundamental flaws in the concept of free speech for all; it does not account for relative differences in resources. One wealthy liar can out-campaign ten poor truthful scientists.
I'm not against free speech, nor do I think censorship is the answer. I don't have a clue what the answer is, nor can I even suggest a solution.
I only want people to recognize that "free speech" as an absolute principle, while being all nice and cuddly as a concept, has very grave problems.
I hate printers.
You're right that non-PhDs can certainly do PhD-level work from time to time. But how do the rest of us know whether to trust the work without expert-level knowledge ourselves? Allowing us to know who to trust to make technical claims is part of the function of the academic degree as a social institution. Peer-review serves a similar purpose. So, yes, I think lay people generally should ignore the contributions of people without "credentials" until someone with credentials can give it their seal of approval (note that this does not mean I think that non-credentialed researchers should be ignored by the credentialed, only by laypeople), not because they are sure to be worthless, but because most of us just have no tools with which to evaluate the work other then just looking to the letters behind the author's name. Sad but true.
So, I agree with your criticism of his implied claim that non-credentialed scientists can never contribute to advanced fields. But I think the thrust of his article (and, even, of the quote you selected) is quite correct.
caritj.org
Because it's a waste of time, that's why. Offering evidence to a denialist ostrich
Not every climate skeptic is a denialist ostrich. Many of us can be converted with patience, lucidity and openness.
Frankly, not that I've noticed.
Here's a question: have you actually ever read the IPCC report on the physical basis for climate change? I don't mean, have you read the critiques of it written by other people who are telling you not to bother reading it. I don't even mean, have you read the summary for policy makers. I mean, have you actually read the report?
Assessment report: The physical science basis, for what it's worth.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Ah yes, it doesn't take long for someone to post a link to the fully qualified blogger Anthony Watts whenever the word skeptic appers in conjunction with climate, but if you call yourself a skeptic then consider the following...
Well before Watt's stared his website scientists had already explained how adjustments are made to compensate for the urban heat island effect but that didn't stop our pluckly little weatherman from building a website to show those ivory tower dwellers where they were sorely mistaken. As Watts fame (and income) grew, NOAA thought it might be a good idea to try and add some clarity so they took 70 weather stations that Watt's himself had rated as the best. They re-ran their analysis with just those stations and compared the result to the original analyisis using all 1200+ stations. Lo and behold the two curves were virtually identical as can be seen on the first graph in NOAA's response to Watts. Why? - Because the trend does not rely on the abolute temprature, it relies on the changes in temprature. Such systematic errors in measurement have long been known and handled by mathematicians and scientists alike.
Observant readers may note that a fully qualified political scientist by the name of McIntyre did manage to get a paper on the subject published in an obscure journal which was subsequently hyped so much that the US senate held an inqusition (err, inquiry) into Mann's 1997 hockey stick paper.
The inquisition called on the US National Acedemies of Science to proffer an opinion on McIntyre's claims. Their testimony came down heavily in favour of Mann's conclusions but also made some minor crticisims of his confidence levels. Mann being the leading scientists he is took those critcisims seriously and subsequently published an extended study in the journal Science, yes that's right, the world renowned journal published by the very same organisation who critcised his confidence levels.
McIntyre's paper failed to stand the test of time but rather than having another crack at science he went off to become yet another fully qualified blogger and created the popular front site "climate Audit", I say front site because both Watt's are McIntyre are stongly associated with the anti-science lobbyists at the CEI and the Heartland Institute (now there's a couple of targets for an email hack if I ever saw one).
McIntyre used his site to continue pushing the claim that Mann had hidden his data (where have we heard that before?). To put it politely, I am highly skeptical of that claim. If it was true then how did NAS come to it's conclusions in their testimony, and how is it that many others have also replicated Mann's work? Why is it that both Watts and McIntrye take selective quotes from the testimony to loudly declare that they "discredited Mann's hockey stick"? - You would think that if the testimony actually came to that conclusion then they would want you to read it. Yet nowhere on either site will you find an link to the testimony because...well...skeptical people might actually go and read it.
Considering the above farcical chain of events I don't blame Mann for expressing his desire to keep McIntyre's discredited paper out of the IPCC reports, I would have said the same thing. However this does not change the fact that the paper was subsequently included and discussed.
For those who don't like to read scientific papers and abhore pdf's there is an excellent summary on the youtube channel Climate crock of the week, unsurprisingly Watt's abused the DCMA in an attempt to have the video removed.
The skill of genuine skepticisim starts by learning to be skeptical of ones own ideas and beliefs. It's siad that a great scientist starts every day by
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Here we have climate change skeptics, on the payroll of big oil getting the same weight as scientists with real, irrefutable data, thanks to this misguided "we are all entitled to an opinion and the right to promote it".
Of course, you should also point out that scientists at universities are funded by government grants. It's hard to get those grants if you say something that the politicians don't want you to say. While your position assumes that companies only have their own interests at heart, I contend that politicians are corrupt and wish to gain power. Global warming legislation aims to be the largest power grab since the civil war.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Oh, and by the way: October was the hottest month on record in Darwin, Australia.
I am thoroughly convinced that no amount of evidence at this point can convince the skeptics. They are traveling on faith. This is why they are ridiculed. They don't like it, but hey, neither do people who believe that they've been abducted by UFOs.
I see your Darwin and raise you one Houston. Houston Texas had the earliest snow this year in recorded history. You would think that someone with a PHD, claiming to be qualified to write articles on climate change would know the difference between climate and weather.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Not every climate skeptic is a denialist ostrich. Many of us can be converted with patience, lucidity and openness.
That's a fair enough argument. The question then becomes, what's the cost/benefit trade-off?
Take another example - 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Yes, some of them can be deprogrammed and brought back into mainstream society. I've done it a few times myself. But how much time and effort should we really be putting into this? Do we REALLY need multi-million-dollar studies which 90% of them will ignore anyway? How do we approach the problem? Even if we put all our time and energy into it, how do we know when we've reduced the movement down to just those who are unable to listen to reason? Do we continue the effort for the next thousand years, or is there a point at which we can say "enough is enough"?
Honestly, I was never 100% convinced that AGW is a problem that we should to be worrying about right now. Probably not even 80% convinced. What I do know that this "climategate" manufactroversy is complete fucking nonsense. If anything, it's put me further into the mainstream camp simply because it's exposed the sheer lunacy and ignorance of the other side. If you're at all swayed by the release of the CRU e-mails, you seriously need to re-examine how you discriminate between good and bad data.
Here's an idea: if you believe the GP and the majority of people who believe as he does are irrational, haul out your global climate data sets and indicate why they're irrational. It couldn't be worse and would probably be a lot better than the wretchedly stupid argument you just "formulated."
Yet you have fallen prey to the same black and white thinking the GP was criticizing. Assuming all climate change skeptics are on the payroll of big oil is ludicrous, as is your suggestion that all scientists who are not skeptical have irrefutable data even when they refuse to disclose that data.
Having a PhD does qualify you to hold an opinion, but it doesn't magically make that opinion valid, just as not having a PhD does not disqualify you from having a valid opinion. The problems you see in free speech pale in comparison to the problems with censorship.
The answer is to engage in critical thinking no matter the source, and not to give too much weight to any authority or lack thereof.
THIS.
Having something published in a journal is not the be-all, end-all, it does not mean that a theory is now correct one and for all time. It means it is time to start wider discussion and testing. The way science works is by trying to prove things wrong. You see phenomena in nature, and you come up with what you think is an explanation for them. You refine said explanation to the point that it makes testable predictions, the sort of thing like "If X occurs, Y will also occur," or whatever. You then set out to try and prove your theory wrong. You test those predictions. You say "Ok, well then let's try making X and see what happens, if we don't get Y, we know that we are wrong." Each time you fail to falsify your theory, you are more sure it is true.
Others join in, they re-try your experiments, make sure you didn't fuck up. They find alternate explanations and test those (well maybe Z could also cause Y, not just X). The more times that everyone tries and fails to falsify your theory, the more sure you are it is the right one. Only by repeated testing by yourself and others, only by actively trying to figure out what is wrong with your theory can you reach one that you are certain (or at least as certain as we can be) is right.
So publishing an article is NOT the last step in that, it is the first. You do some work, your write it up, you publish it. Some reviewers look at it to make sure there is nothing obviously wrong, and it then goes out to the larger community. That's when things start.
Wrong. Occam's Razor says that, faced with alternate theories both explaining satisfactorily the same phenomena, you must assume as correct that which requires the least assumptions.
Here it's between "people who have studied for many years the field have determined such, and have decided not to answer critiques from anybody who can't demonstrate having studied the field similarly" and "people who have studied the field for many years have conspired to create a false impression upon everybody else, and silence any critic who dares break the illusion". The one that requires the least assumptions is, obviously, the former instead of the latter, therefore that's what you must assume as true until proven otherwise.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
This is the situation we are in: we may or may not have a very serious problem. Most of the people who would have to do the work, and pay the price, of solving the problem do not have the time or the interest to study the matter deeply enough to know whether the situation is bad. So we have to choose who to trust. Do we trust the person who is telling us what we want to hear, or do we trust the peer-reviewed science?
We don't have the third choice that you propose, where we figure out whether the guy who wasn't peer-reviewed is telling us something we need to know, because we don't have the time or the interest to check his or her work. We can *hope* that if what he is saying is valid, and can be verified, that it will make it through the gauntlet of scientific skepticism. But until it does, we simply don't know whether or not to listen to it.
If we listen to everything that might be true, before it passes through this filter, then we *inevitably* are going to be guided by our own prejudices, because we simply have no other way to decide who to listen to.
So yeah, I'm very sympathetic to what you're saying here. I'm in the same boat you are. But I just can't buy your argument, because it leads nowhere. And if enough people buy your argument, and refuse to use the tools that they actually have to separate the wheat from the chaff, and if this really is the serious situation that we are being told it is, then we are going to be begging our children for forgiveness, because it is they, and not we, who will pay the price for our choice.
While I agree with you're basic premise of opening up the data, I think your view of the statistics is a bit limited. Anyone can draw a trend line and calculate error bars, but when multiple data sets have conflicting data, it requires to a great deal of understanding of experimental methods, theoretical models, etc. to determine which datasets are most relevant to make what kind of conclusions. The "tricks" come from matching up tree ring data, ice core data, satellite data, direct measurements and many others. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses these methods is where an expert is needed and why your undergraduate math major is less than useful.
Right now a lot of the reason that we are so energy-inefficient is not because we aren't being taxed enough, but because things like building codes are heavily biased against energy efficient homebuilding. So most of the homes that are build are insanely inefficient. Office buildings tend to be more efficient, but still not at the level of efficiency that would be possible if the codes were biased in favor of efficiency, rather than against it. E.g., I'm building a house in Vermont. The guy at the local lumber company was *aghast* when I told him I wanted 14" thick walls and R40 insulation. Nobody does that! In *Vermont*! That's just lame - there's no excuse for building an energy-inefficient house. They're more comfortable, hugely cheaper to heat and cool, and don't cost much extra to build--yes, you spend more on insulation, but you can buy a cheaper heater or chiller.
Another problem is the tragedy of the commons: nobody's willing to conserve first. So everybody buys an SUV, because everybody else is buying an SUV, and so we all need SUVs to avoid being crushed by other SUVs, or whatever. To solve this sort of mexican standoff, government regulation is actually a really effective solution. CAFE standards work. Unfortunately the anti-regulation climate of the past 30 years has prevented them from doing much good as technology has advanced--ironically, CAFE standards could have prevented the extraordinarily painful market correction that came to a head in 2008 in the auto industry, but since the auto industry lobbied so hard against it for so long, they had to be bailed out.
So sure, maybe carbon taxes aren't the right idea. Maybe there are other things we should do first. But for some reason nobody seems to be doing them.
The theory with carbon taxes is to offset them against other taxes, so that they are revenue-neutral for people who are being reasonably conservative, revenue-positive for people who are being very conservative, and revenue-negative for people who are being outright wasteful. So if you modify your behavior, carbon taxes *should* save you money. But sure, for people who aren't willing to do that, they'll suck. And consequently, they'll probably never be enacted, because nobody likes to tighten their belts. And so later on we'll all get to tighten our belts a lot, suddenly, instead of a little, steadily.
Actually, I have taken part in the government grant process. However, I am in one country. Are you sure that the process you describe is universal? Who are these scientists that review and approve grant money? How did they get that job? Can any scientist do it? Can I can go to my wife, (who has a science degree) and have her approve me some government money? Is it really that easy?
Seriously. The Constitution spells out that Congress controls the purse strings. They allocate the money. If it requires the approval of other scientists, then congress chooses those scientists. It starts and ends with congress. And last time I checked, congress is a nothing more than a bunch of politicians who were able to make enough promises to get elected and will tell whatever it takes to gain more power and get reelected. Nowhere in the Constitution does it give the power to scientists to tax citizens and spend the money on their behalf.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
You've made some good points and one bad one. Note how correcting you on the bad one (Greenland) seems to be a substitute for a genuine rebuttal.
The author raises good points about the dangers of over-reliance on the peer review system. It's a good system but it is not doesn't always work - crap gets through and good articles aren't published.
And neither of you understand the peer review system. It's actually a very complex system, and one full of competition on many levels.
First, there are many scientists trying to get their work published. Second, there are many journals. Third, each journal has a journal impact factor. Fourth, papers mention other papers. Fifth, journals and papers are not the only means for how scientists communicate their work or collaborate. There are conferences, groups invite speakers, etc.
A journal impact factor is a simple calculation. On average, a paper published in Nature gets X number of mentions in other journal's papers. A paper published just about anywhere else gets much less. So people want to get published in Nature, obviously. But people are also realistic, and their PIs help them with finding the right places to get published. And if you don't, you can try again. Sound research is likely to be resubmitted, often times elsewhere.
When a paper is submitted, you don't just get a "we're publishing it!" or a "DENIED!". You get questions from the reviewers, sometimes requests for more data. If it's rejected, often times it's rejected with some helpful, useful suggestions on how the reviewers feel the paper could be improved, and sometimes it's said between the lines that if you resubmit after taking some of those suggestions, you'll get the thumbs up from that reviewer.
Yes, Nature and the like are the holy grail. But many, many people don't look only in Nature. They read the journals dedicated to their little niche, because they know that sometimes good, fresh thinking doesn't make it into Nature just because so many people submit. And guess what? So are all their true colleagues. So while you don't get your name in the newspaper or a mention on the nightly news, your research still sees the light of day, and often times, with more 'useful' eyeballs. And if it's good, you impress people, they collaborate with you, present your paper at their group's internal meetings, or hell, just toss the paper across the lunchtable and say to their colleages, "you should give this a glance." It's extremely common for labs/groups to have two weekly presentations- one presentation is the work of someone inside the group, and often someone in the same group presents research OUTSIDE the group. And often, it's presented regardless of how sound it is; it's meaningful to say "here is what so-and-so found" and then show why they were wrong, or what they did badly.
Now, I'm on the outside of all of this as an IT person, but I've made many scientist-friends and their lives revolve around this stuff. "Willis" clearly doesn't understand it. The peer-reviewed journal system is complex, but also remarkably free of collusion. After all, if someone presents solid research that something widely believed to be true is not, it helps the journal because controversy sells copies, generates debate and discussion, generates mentions in other papers in other journals (hellooooo impact factor!), etc. The primary concern of a journal is not looking stupid by publishing something that isn't sound and well supported, not suppressing controversial research.
Show me a scientist who bitches and moans publicly about his anti-global-warming research not being published, and I'll show you someone whose science wasn't sound enough to cut the mustard. Every day thousands of papers are submitted to journals and rejected partially or fully, and it's not a conspiracy. It's people doing research that isn't supported enough. There is certainly a dark side, namely, reviewers who don't recuse themselves or aren't qualified to evaluate a particular paper, but that's one reason multiple reviewers are involved, and you can always submit your work to another journal.
Please help metamoderate.
All people are equal.
All opinions are not equal.
Sometimes we are not entitled to an opinion - to be taken seriously. If I walked into a heart surgery theatre (suitably sterile) and gave my opinion about the appropriate treatment, the surgeons there would be entitled to say "Throw the idiot out".
The problem is, most of us humans know we don't understand heart surgery. Many of us humans don't realise how ignorant we are about other subjects too.
I am anarch of all I survey.
Isn't this precisely the risk of overreliance on the peer review system? Unpopular opinions get silenced.
That's a common myth. You see, there are many journals. All want to grow their subscribership, increase their impact factor (the scientific journal measurement of notoriety.) They do that by publishing the most interesting research they can.
Doing research that mirrors what's already been done isn't very popular; grad students and postdocs, for example, have to clear what they're doing with their PIs. That's not likely to happen unless they've got some angle. This isn't apparent to the layman- or even someone who has "PhD" in their title, but even a minor difference in premise can be a big deal.
Identical research also doesn't get published. New, fresh, interesting research is what journals want. So while Willis thinks there's a massive groupthink, there's actually little of the kind. It may LOOK like groupthink, because on the surface, yes, there's the gross layer of widely-accepted-fact. The devil is in the details, and that's where research is taking place.
It's a special kind of arrogance to think that you can just stroll in and understand, much less analyze, a field where people dedicate years, if not decades, to their research.
Please help metamoderate.
Relevance
Implications
Weight
Related-Information
Significance
It's not all numbers
If you were a scientist with a relevant education in the field, you could answer all of those questions.
Why did the dentist use a UV light on your teeth? Why did the doctor's hammer have a rubber coating on it when he hit your knee? What are your brake pads made out of? Why?
There are lots of questions. But if you're not going to try to answer them the right way, by finding out on your own, you're just another Troll (aka Glenn Beck).
Don't put words into parent's mouth, he's just saying that there is substantial domain specific knowledge required to make sense of the climate data.
The way it works (in the US) is that Congress allocates funds for research in general. Agencies like the NSF (National Science Foundation), DARPA, etc actually administer the grants. They take applications and decide which are the best ideas that should be funded. The people running these agencies are academics, not politicos. For example, the National Science Board, which oversees the NSF, is listed here. While these groups control which projects get funded, they do not control the results of the research. If a funded project disproved existing theory, it is up to peer reviewed journals to publish or not.
A common criticism of the system is that it encourages a sort of orthodoxy in research. So if the NSF things "dark matter" is a great explanation, then projects which try to find alternative explanations may receive less funding because it is viewed as a waste. This is unfortunate, but there is not enough money to fund all the possible projects so some sort of prioritization must be made. It is much better to have experts do this, even though they have biases.
If the political parties really had that much control of research funding and the results of that research, you would expect that over the last several years you would see lots of peer reviewed research disproving human caused climate change. After all, Republicans were running congress and the White House for a long time.
That is very well said. The bottom line is that if I became King of the World and had to make decisions affecting the environment, I really only have three choices:
1. Become an expert myself. This is totally impractical because it takes too long and I have a huge range of other responsibilities.
2. Listen to lots of random people and make decisions based on which things I hear sound right. The upside is that I will hear an extremely diverse set of opinions and that the best option will likely be submitted to me. The downside is that many of the opinions are baseless claims by crackpots or people with selfish interests.
3. Listen to the opinions of experts whose sole job is to study and test these issues. Baseless ideas will not pass this filter and so I will be presented with a narrower range of views, but the best options should still be present. The major issue here is making sure the experts are really experts and that they have no other axe to grind.
Of these options, it seems like 3 is the most reasonable option and that is what our current peer review process is. It is always reasonable to question the expertise of the experts, but that same questioning should be targetted at random bloggers, too.
This planet, and the life upon it, survived it before... it will do so again... even if we somehow actually were the cause of it (which as I said, I doubt).
Umm, no one is arguing that. There is not one single AGW proponent out there that would claim that global warming is going to destroy all live as we know it.
What it *will* do is alter the earth's climate such that it deviates from that which humanity is adapted to. Rising ocean levels due to polar melting and simple heat expansion of ocean water will result in coastline destruction, displacing millions, if not billions, of people. Meanwhile, changing weather will mean movements in fertile regions, destroying valuable cropland. I could go on, but I'm hoping you're starting to see the point.
And if not, let me spell it out for you: Humanity is adapted to the climate as it exists today. Change that climate and, regardless of the nature of that change, the result will almost certainly be negative. So, will AGW destroy all life on the planet? No, of course not. That's absurd. But it could seriously fuck us up.
I hate to be a sourpuss, but it looks pretty bad when you begin your refutation of data manipulation by saying "less than 5 percent" is "NONE".
What I did by quoting that first bit is called "honesty". It's usually done by people who actually care about things like "honour", "truth", and "morality". Of course, the downside is that idiots who only care about sound-bites will focus exclusively on that single phrase, while ignoring the rest of the statement. That's the price we pay for maintaining our integrity.
I think there is actually a very easy way to solve this problem...show us the code. Give out ALL the raw data, every little scrap, along with the source code for the programs they are using to manipulate it.
I have to go with RMS and his traditional view on data, which is probably the one and only time I'll ever agree on ANYTHING with that guy, but in this case I see no other way. if you want to prove to me that AGW isn't a scam, and considering how much leaches like Goldman Sachs will make off of carbon credits it is hard not to be a little skeptical at this point, then share the code.
I may not be able to read this data myself, but there are a LOT of really smart guys out there that can, so share it. Hiding from FOI requests is NOT the way to get anyone but the most fervent Koolaid drinkers to go along with your beliefs. After all we have had the creationists trying to debunk evolution for quite awhile now, but most folks won't believe them because the data is there for all to see. Considering that the changes required by the AGW bunches will cost the working poor untold mountains of money, can cause another bubble and enrich parasites like GS, and can cause the loss of many more jobs and folks falling deeper into poverty, I think having transparency with regards to the data, both raw and adjusted, is not too much to ask, wouldn't you agree?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I looked at the list. Thanx for providing it, BTW.
Now, in the list, the majority of the people I see there are deans, college presidents, a few professors and some people that I have no idea why they would be there. Some of the people on the list don't even have Ph.D.'s.
Mr. Arthur K. Reilly, for example, works for Cisco and has an MS in... well, it doesn't say.
Dr. John T. Bruer got his PhD in Philosophy.
Dr. Dan E. Arvizu is Director and Chief Executive of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Gee, I wonder where he comes down on AGW. Just think, if I, as a Dr. Venture style Super-Scientist could prove that AGW is a myth, this guy may be out of a job. I wonder how he would vote for my grant funding?
Dr. Steven C. Beering is a Dr... as in MD. His science degree was honorary. He is the president of Purdue.
Dr. Camilla P. Benbow's specialty is education.
Dr. Ray M. Bowen is the President of Texas A&M. He does have a PhD in in mechanical engineering, although his resume is mostly academia administration.
Now not all of these people are out of place. Kelvin K. Droegemeier is an excellent fit He has a PhD in a scientific field. He has worked in the real world and has actually done REAL stuff, not just research, not just academia. (And his name! He had me at Kelvin)...
Still, I don't trust many of these people to know beaker from microscope, much less decide where money is being spent. Besides, should this many people in academia be deciding where government grants go? Aren't they kinda voting for their own salaries?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
You don't have to provide an alternate explanation to falsify a theory, you simply have to show that it doesn't do a good job of explaining what is going on. The "You can't explain it!" crap is precisely what the religious nuts try to pull. They say "Science can't explain everything about this, thus you have to accept our explanation." No, sorry, not how it works. Just because there isn't a scientific explanation at this point doesn't mean you are right.
Well same deal here. You don't have to provide a perfect climate model to falsify an existing one, you only need to show how the existing one is wrong.
Science isn't about being fair, it isn't a case of "Well YOU explain it better than me, or accept I'm right." It is a processes for learning about the natural world, and for separating what works from what doesn't. Showing something doesn't work is an important part of science. Ideally you'd be able to present a theory that doesn't but that's not always the case.
Cold fusion was a good example. Group claimed to do cold fusion, other labs falsified their research, since their experiments were not repeatable. None of those labs provided a theory for working cold fusion, none had to. All they did was show that this particular theory was wrong.
You are missing the point; if everyone's idiotic claims have to be subject to point by point analysis, then intelligence can be overwhelmed by stupidity when it has superior numbers. At a certain point you've got to say "My time as a scientist is costly, and not worth spending on such an obvious cretin"
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Yes, you are very lucky to have scientists to think for you. Thats our job. It takes time, dedication, and specific talent to become an expert in a field of science. Most people lack the talent and/or won't put in the time/dedication.
Society has outsourced its heavy-duty thinking to scientific specialists, and so shouldn't be complaining when those specialists consider each others (peer reviewed) conclusions to be inherently more valuable than the rants of some-twat-on-tinternet.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Or, it is a convenient way to allow published material to stand or fall by its own merit and not be interpreted through the prism of its author. I believe it also has the practical advantage that there is no article "ownership" at the Economist, and hence there is no ego about getting contributions or suggestions for changes from other staff members. Lastly, it passes the experience test: I've been reading it for ~6 years now and the quality of writing and journalism is far in excess of any other mainstream publication. Oh, and their staff list is online. You can check out their credentials if you really feel the need.
[FUCK BETA]
On the contrary, if the raw data is available and the method used to massage it, then the tools are readily available. It's interesting to me that when Prof Mann produces a paper where he's fiddled with the data (as shown by Wegman, McIntyre/McIntrick and as verified by Dr North of the NAS in congressional testimony), the paper is not retracted, it's `defended' (mostly by use of blogs). The same is true of Briffa's Yamal chronology and Steigs choice selection of PC's in his Antarctic Warming paper. We aren't talking particle physics here; you don't need a billion dollar accelerator to reproduce this kind of analysis.
All people are equal.
Do you really believe that? It's clearly not true.
The quote from the Declaration of Independence is "All men are created equal.". Let's go ahead and extend that to "all people". Fine.
The point of the statement was that there is in fact no "divine right of kings". I'm fairly sure you aren't arguing that there is.
However, the fallacy in your statement is that, after birth, all humans are interchangeable (actually that's an argument for equivalence, not equality, but that's a lesser standard). There are wide ranges of intelligence, strength, courage, stamina, dexterity...OK I'll quit listing role-playing statistics. I'm sure you get my point.
Any system that attempts to enforce the "equality" of people in general, such as socialism, is doomed to failure. The real world doesn't work that way. Those who excel, which generally benefits society, should be rewarded. Those who don't, not so much. That simple principle is responsible for the success of the United States, and is ignored at our peril. Yes, I strongly believe in American Exceptionalism, since it's an observed fact.
FUBO! :-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
You are missing the point; if everyone's idiotic claims have to be subject to point by point analysis, then intelligence can be overwhelmed by stupidity when it has superior numbers. At a certain point you've got to say "My time as a scientist is costly, and not worth spending on such an obvious cretin"
The question is largely irrelevant. The real problems with climate science are being highlighted by intelligent people, not by cretins.
There are plenty of researchers out there, qualified, with careers, respected by their peers, who look at the IPCC stuff and say it is not working. These are researchers who know how to think about hard problems.
As for the public opinion, most people appreciate that most predictions about complex systems unfolding in the future, tend to turn out wrong, especially when those predictions are made by experts. I really would like to see where people get the idea that predicting climate is a hard science. At best it is a soft science.
Most of the controversy comes from scientists having decided that it is a moral stance that they need to uphold, that they must not give any openings to "evil" or "dumb" people who don't have the same moral principles, whereby they would willingly work to save the planet. So they have to try to make out that the science is watertight (but amongst themselves they use nuanced academic language, and that's how they get the respect of their peers).
It is the idea that the public is dumb and evil that is causing the controversy. Scientists have decided that they have not just superior expertise, but also a superior moral stance. Well I've listened a lot to people of outstanding moral character, and wannabe world saviours don't impress me. Trying to scare the population into "action" does not impress me.
Climate change is a moral issue. Many believe that the public is too weak morally to do anything about it. This is not unlike Tony Blair admitting that they lied about Saddam's WMDs to get the public to support the war, when they knew full well he might not even have any, but they just wanted, for "other reasons" to get rid of him, and that even if he had no weapons at all, it was "still the right thing to do". Sound familiar? Even Al Gore says this, he said that even if climate change wasn't man made, it was still right to do things "for other reasons".
Stop treating the public like imbeciles and maybe you'll be surprised what they are capable of understanding.
Just how many people do you know would go to a homeopath instead of a doctor? Sure there are some. But there are some green nuts too. Often they are one and the same. Funny that.
you would expect that over the last several years you would see lots of peer reviewed research disproving human caused climate change.
You mean like all of the peer reviewed research that Ian Plimer mentions in this talk? It's unfortunate that most people don't take the time to learn the science for themselves, because all they want to believe are the "we're killing our Earth", "think of the children" and "there's a scientific consensus" soundbites. It's more unfortunate that there have been a number of people taking the time to actually explain the data and the models, yet rather than trying to understand it, some people are so ingrained in their psychological viewpoint that they simply repeat the soundbites back.
Finally, look up Climate gate. And look at the code of the models and the emails. And if you still don't understand, look up what "corrected" data and "artificially adjusted to look closer to the real temperatures" mean. Also note the destroyed data (what self respecting scientist destroys their data?!) and the emails telling everyone to delete their emails. And the people doing this are the MAIN authors of the data used in the IPCC reports, such as Mann and his famous "hockey stick". Complete fraud, except they weren't doing it for money, but for psychological reasons.
After all, Republicans were running congress and the White House for a long time.
And this means they controlled the media too? Now that the Democrats are in office, has everyone else shut up?
Many people are capable of thinking for themselves, and in fact you are advocating a new priesthood.
People who don't wear the white collar that is awarded to scientists are not all morons, and many of them have serious problems, grounded in both logic and mathematics, with the so-called science that has been revealed as of late regarding global warming. The economic solutions appear even worse.
So, adjust your attitude or prepare for a wave of Calvanism.