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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."
I am very sceptical with regards to a "not named" author claims... ;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I beg all of you to please see this TED Talk before modding me down again. Ive been labelled heretic for posting on related stories in the last couple of weeks, actually modded insightful until the thought police arrived and modded me troll.
The weather exhibits chaotic behavior and to find precisely one single cause for variation is futile, like CO2 emissions from human activities.
The hottest day on record! screams the summary. Er, well since 1941. Well and good, how do you know the hottest day last century in Australia didn't happen in 1940?
The Earth has been getting warmer since about 10,000 years ago. Truth. AGW doesn't explain that. But it does follow that the Earth was getting warmer while we humans still lived in caves and were probably numbered in the thousands, not in millions of people. No, we are told. AGW is about the speeding up of warming. Really? We know for sure what the speed of variation would be without humans around? Let us not confuse premises with facts.
The variables are many and not one of them is well understood: ocean currents, atmospheric currents, solar radiation (insolation), the effect of the strength of the Van Allen belt, volcanic eruptions, etc. No weather model can correctly predict past, known, climate; how can one believe that the future predictions are correct?
We need a more open discussion and a lot less cries of burn the heretics. We are talking about science, not religion.
BTW, if anyone knows of a climate model that correctly predicts past, known weather, please post a link.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey
If the dissenters are morons who don't understand it, what does that make the believers? Blind-faith followers? You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Denialist ostriches aren't disagreeing because they have a qualitative or quantitative argument to the contrary, because their objections are based on ideology, not science.
The hard part is differentiating between the ideologues and the merely vociferous. Refusing to consider anything that has not been peer-reviewed is an ideology all of its own. Ultimately it comes down to a judgment call for anyone who is less than a perfect expert in the field. Although I am a big fan of applying the little boy who cried wolf criteria - the more unsupported claims someone makes, the less weight their opinion should carry. Of course that requires investigating prior claims which is generally more work than most press-release reporters are willing to do.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
...You can prove anything when you're allowed to select the peers reviewing....
Here is an article that would have likely been rejected by those who have control over the peer review process:
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
You will find other interesting stuff on this website, that many if not most on Slashdot would disagree with.
All theory is gray
Why was this modded flamebait? The scientific community is still a human institution, and thus vulnerable to the various human weaknesses. My concern is not with the science behind climate change research, it is with the politicising and extremist ideological behaviour on _both_ sides. To me, this is the issue with these emails. I know the political bullshit goes on, but it worries me when bullshit looks as though it may be influencing the scientific process. A rationalistic approach is the only hope we have for determining the actual reality of climate change, and so I don't like to see "delete that data", or "hide that trend". I don't care if the scientists in question believe they need to do this for the "greater good". I want my science to be science.
You don't need a PhD to publish in a refereed journal. If you find an article you disagree with, publish a different analysis.
Most science really is difficult. You don't need a formal education, but you do need to be able to read the real journal articles (not some condensed version) and write coherent objections. Even better - join a climate research group.
My field (high energy accelerators) has nothing to do with with climate change, but it has similar problems. When we propose a multi-billion dollar, 10s of kilometer long accelerator, someone will argue we should use NEW laser acceleration technology - it would let you build the accelerator on a tabletop. The arguments as to why this doesn't work are quite technical - but are nonetheless true. (BTW - its just to dang expensive IS a perfectly valid argument)
Hokay. As someone who works in science publishing for a medium-sized (neither one of the top, nor one of the inconsequential) publishing houses:
i) If you're casting doubt on our editorial board's position then you will indeed be expected to have more solid evidence than some random, 'out there' paper that blew in, unsolicited. That's just the way of the world. Got the evidence? All is well, it's probably an awesome scoop!
ii) If you scoop an important and well-funded group's work, *awesome*! Get over here, we'll get you peer-reviewed thoroughly and double-quick, pulling in favours if necessary - that scoop will be great for our impact factor!
iii) Kluwer are goddamn shady, make no mistake, but I work for a company which is both for-profit and for-science. There's no conflict, because so far we haven't been offered any money _not_ to publish the best science we can. Hell, it'd be *great* if someone would, but from experience I'd have to conclude that there _is_ no group with bottomless pockets waiting to bribe us into submission...
That was once the rallying cry of the AGW "consensus" -- that skeptics didn't publish in peer reviewed journals. The skeptics, however, managed to do so. The response of the "consensus"? As seen in the leaked emails, they attempted to prevent the studies from being published and to boycott the journals which published them. So enough about the "peer review" stuff. Number one, it's been done. And number two, it's quite disingenuous to demand peer reviewed articles while working behind the scenes to prevent them from being published.
1. I'm from Darwin. It's a lovely town to live in -- relaxed, beautiful and friendly (though on the downside there's a housing crisis now). It's always great to see the homestead up in lights. I miss living there.
2. Adjustment is a fine thing but of course subjective. I'd be interested in seeing the average adjustment across all data points. If the law of averages holds -- ie if there really is correction for effectively randomised local conditions -- then the worldwide average correction should be close to zero. I don't think that's too much to ask, is it?
3. A worldwide emissions trading scheme will create an estimated $3 trillion market. That's hammer-of-god money. It scares me, personally. Carbon taxes have the same effect in economic terms, with fewer places for fiddles to hide. It's also easier to offset carbon taxes with income tax cuts.
Until recently I've been pretty much convinced of human global warming. Now I'm beginning to wonder. I'm not a skeptic / denialist / seal-murderer per se, but the current round of stuff is ... unsettling.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
I don't have a problem with people who thing humans are causing "global warming". I have a problem with their intention to force everyone to do what they want in order to fix it. I was going to elaborate on this a bit, but I decided to just quote Orson Scott Card's commentary on the situation:
The correct solution to the oil problem, according to the ["global warming" religion], is to have fewer humans. Now, I haven't noticed them volunteering to lessen the population starting with themselves; nor have I seen their heroes bicycling everywhere (environmental ayatollah Al Gore's plane being a legendary instance).
But they do systematically resist every solution that doesn't involve wrecking the American economy and destroying the American way of life.
No insecticides! But also no genetically altered crops with enhanced resistance to insects and disease!
No coal-fired power plants! But also no clean nuclear plants! (Even though France has proven that standardized nuclear power is safe and relatively cheap.)
Yes, you can build windmill farms -- but you can't put them anywhere.
Solar collectors? Excellent -- but don't put them anywhere, either, because they interfere with the natural ecology -- even in the barest desert. (God forbid that lizards should have more shade.)
Collect solar power in space and beam it to Earth? Fine -- except that you are forbidden to actually receive the power anywhere because it's too dangerous.
Hydroelectric power? Great idea -- except that you can't build a dam anywhere because it transforms a surface environment to an underwater one, which, naturally, annoys the squirrels. Squirrels, being natural nonsinners, take precedence over evil, sinful humans, the only animal that is forbidden to act according to its nature.
Electric cars and public transportation? Great idea -- but not until after we've converted all power plants to non-carbon-emitting fuels. (Never mind that it can only ever happen the other way, converting to electric cars immediately, so they're already in place when the oil runs out or, as I hope, we stop buying it because we've met the need in other ways.)
The conference in Copenhagen is intended to find a way to "stop and reverse climate change". That's a direct quote from Obama's press secretary. Too bad the people in charge of this stuff won't let us actually do any of the things that could make progress toward their goal.
I agree with you, AlexLibman - the "global warming" believers need to show us some concrete evidence that A) we're changing the earth's climate, B) it's a bad thing, and C) we can undo the damage we've done.
So far all they've shown with any degree of certainty is that the climate is changing - they haven't shown that we're causing it. (I know, I know, science disproves, it doesn't prove, but at least they could explain how they know the temperature change isn't merely the earth's natural cycle - and we do know the earth has a natural temperature change cycle, and that we are in the "temperature slowly rising" portion of that cycle. I guess the "global warming" believers think we're speeding it up?)
So they've shown us half of part A, they've given us unsupported "educated" guesses about B, and they're holding conferences on the assumption that C is true. I don't know whether we're causing "global warming" - but honestly, I don't care. We have bigger, more immediate problems to worry about.
Why don't we focus on smaller, provably achievable goals first, like reducing pollution (which is an excellent goal quite apart from this "global warming" shenanigans) by switching to nuclear power? If we switch, and there's a measurable effect on the planet's temperature, then we'll have some evidence pointing at their larger claims, and then we can decide what to do about it.
The only arguments I've heard from the (usually conservative) anti-global-warming crowd are absurd. They fall into two main points as far as I can tell -- one is "It's anti-capitalist" and the other is "Government has no business telling private companies what to do."
In fact this is perfectly illustrated by the above post, who says
How is that "natural"? How does that even remotely follow?
"It's anti-capitalist" is just ridiculous. As an example, say we want to reduce emissions and stop using coal, so let's use nuclear. Where do they think the nuclear plants are going to come from? Someone is going to have to build, staff, and maintain those, and sell the resulting energy at profit. There are thousands of potential jobs just from the construction alone.
Someone has to design, manufacture, install, and maintain the smokestack scrubbers. Someone has to design, manufacture, and upkeep new and more efficient engines. Or solar panels, or hydroelectric power stations, or whatever. All creating jobs, all being done at profit.
There's a whole green industry waiting in the wings to do these things. How on earth is it anti-capitalist, anti-business, or anti-"The Man" to see a need for better and more efficient service, and provide that need at profit?!
"Government has no business telling private companies what to do." I don't get this one either. Private industry would never regulate itself in consideration of anything but its bottom line. There's a reason we're not all still working 14 hour days and dealing with child labor -- and it's not because corporations voluntarily relaxed those standards. Why does anyone think it's a good idea for companies to crap all over everything, dump any pollutants they want anywhere they like? But the second someone suggests that maybe that's not good, out comes Fox News and their ilk to blame government for ruining everyone's fun.
Finally, I don't see how anyone can argue that we can continue to take billions of tons of carbon-based fuel, set it on fire, release whatever combustion byproducts into the atmosphere.. and absolutely nothing bad will happen. So, again, even if it's not having any actual effect on the global temperature, wouldn't we all be better off not breathing that crap?
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
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.
This is a convenient way to pass off work done by someone recently out of business school as the result of years of experience in writing about a particular subject area (not to be confused with years of research and/or work in a subject area or industry).
Obama & Alan Keyes: Keyes points out that Obama was born in Kenya to which Obama replies, "So what? I'm running for Senate, not President."
if they do know more about the topic then answering the skepticism shouldn't be a problem should it?
Answering the skepticism is completely acceptable. Answering the skepticism one skeptic (of millions) at a time, with each skeptic having a different set of skepticism, and frankly not asking in the spirit of education but in cynicism IS A PROBLEM.
Yes except peer reviewed journals do in fact routinely publish anti-AGW articles.
The problem is that none of these articles have been successful in establishing an alternative model.
So that's a big old FAIL for the anti-AGW guys.
No they don't. SUVs came about as a direct result of CAFE loopholes. (They're "light trucks", yeah right). Increasing the gas tax would be far superior; not only would it encourage fuel efficiency in a way that can't be gamed, it would encourage other ways of saving gas like reducing commute distances.
I completely agree that revenue-neutral carbon taxes would be a good policy; even if AGW is completely false it would be no more economically harmful than our current income and payroll taxes.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
On this website is nothing interesting. Except for people that want to investigate the AGW denier backgrounds.
Citation:
ABSTRACT
A review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate. Increased carbon dioxide has, however, markedly increased plant growth. Predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in hydrocarbon use and minor greenhouse gases like CO2 do not conform to current experimental knowledge. The environmental effects of rapid expansion of the nuclear and hydrocarbon energy industries are discussed.
The first article starts with this abstract. Nearly ever sentence in this abstract that makes a claim like leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th and early 21st centuries have produced no deleterious effects upon Earth's weather and climate contradict basic physics knowledge you learn in the 5th grade ... and which I have learned 30 years ago.
It is not funny (just did not like to start the sentence with: Isn't it funny ...) that our day pseudo scientists (likely some 25 year old uneducated deniers) don't even understand why this Abstract alone is so disappointing.
angel'o'sphre
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The argument that you need a PH.D to understand the climate models you folks have created means you've simply created a magic language like the religions of past - Latin for example being the official language of the Church which conveniently was not understandable by the common man. By creating a complicated language and set of mysterious rituals (like the 'Trick' of the one guy everyone on the Sky is Falling Brigade uses to pump up their numbers) you don't manage to be convincing. People aren't at the point any more when some guy in a robe speaking in a indecipherable tongue is enough to be convincing. So pronouncing that you'll cease to answer critics if they don't rise to your level is counterproductive. But if you want to climb on your high horse, feel free. That's sure to convince reasonable people that you and your fellows aren't full of it.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
It is a greenhouse gas. No blah blah bullshit, it really is. Physics says so, observation says so. Observation also tells us that levels of CO2 are skyrocketing.
Yes, CO2 is a greenhouse gas. However, its effects decrease logarithmically - the change from 0 to 20ppm make a huge difference. From 20 to 80ppm a lot happens as well. From 280 to 380 ... not so much.
http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/co2greenhouse-X2.png
Regarding "sky rocketing" levels of CO2, quite the opposite. We're in a very CO2-starved environment compared to the majority of the time plants and animals have existed on the earth. We've had more than a magnitued higher CO2-levels in our atmosphere without oceans going acidic, the planet becomign like Venus etc.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif
This is undisputed (really) science. The big question is, why's everyone pretending as if it wasn't?
it's in my head