I thought this was interesting . . . (CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)
The founder of The Weather Channel is remarkably cool toward the idea of man-made global warming.
He writes:
It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a SCAM. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create in allusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental whacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the “research” to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed to be a consensus.
More:
Global Warming, ie Climate Change, is not about environmentalism or politics. It is not a religion. It is not something you “believe in.” It is science; the science of meteorology. This is my field of life-long expertise. And I am telling you Global Warming is a non-event, a manufactured crisis and a total scam.
It is interesting that one meteorologist thinks that global warming might be overblown.
One might think that this reflects broader disagreement among scientists. It does not. There is almost a total consensus among scientists that man-made global warming is real; the dissenters among climatologists can literally be counted on one hand.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
Excerpt:
“That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords “climate change” (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position [that man-made climate change is real], evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.”
I dislike pulling out Wiki, but for lists of names, it can’t be beat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_the_mainstream_scientific_assessment_of_global_warming
(You must have really, really big hands)
As for why there are not more papers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_controversy#Political_pressure_on_scientists
I believe most (though not all) of us mainly have beef with the idea that global warming is man made, that it is bad, and that we must shut down rather than try to come up with useful solutions. All of these are part of the current “Global warming is true!” fad.
Jimmy,
You sly dog. You return to blogging by posting on a topic sure to start a combox flame war. 🙂
Wait a moment while I put my Nomex fire suit on….There, flame ON!
Oh yeah. Man-made global warming is a hoax.
Actually, this list provides impressive confirmation of my claim despite my perfectly ordinary endowment of digits.
Having looked at the list, I count FIVE professors of climatology, meterology or atmospheric sciences who believe that global warming is due primarily to natural causes. FOUR of these professors are retired. That leaves: ONE professor of climatology, meterology or atmospheric sciences who believes global warming is due to natural causes.
Here are their names:
Hendrik Tennekes, retired Director of Research, Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute
Reid Bryson, emeritus professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
William M. Gray, Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University
George Kukla, retired Professor of Climatology at Columbia University
Marcel Leroux, former Professor of Climatology, Université Jean Moulin
We would have to include another handful if we started to draw from the list who believe the cause of global warming is unknown. Heck, we might even need to start counting on our toes if we included all of the geology and paleoclimatology professors.
There are 37 professors on this list (assuming I have counted correctly) drawn from fields as far removed as physics, mathematics and astronomy. If we include all the scientists in those fields, there would literally be hundreds of thousands in the world.
Perhaps this list does not include every scientist who doubts global warming, but I see no reason to conclude from the data you have presented that the percentage of qualified scientists who affirm anthropogenic global warming is any less than 99.99%. And that is being charitable.
This article is primarily about pressure on scientists to *downplay* the threat of global warming.
The theory that 99.99% of scientists accept anthropogenic global warming because of political pressure is absurd. Most of these scientists have tenure; some need to apply to government organizations for grants, and it’s possible these organizations would be less likely to give grants to scientists who propose research which would cast doubt on anthropogenic global warming. However, given that the current administration would welcome such research and given that there are many very well-financed corporate interests who would welcome it as well, such scientists could easily find funding from other sources.
Your claim that the reason there are ZERO published papers arguing against anthropogenic global warming is because of bias among scientists is as absurd as the conspiracy theorists who claim that the Bush administration orchestrated 9/11.
This is a claim that could only be made by someone who is a total outsider to the scientific community. Scientists have their biases like anyone else, but their first commitment is to the truth and they do everything they can to be as objective as possible in their pursuit of it. And of all human endeavors, it is science which most often succeeds in achieving objectivity.
I certainly agree that the implication of anthropogenic global warming is not that “we must shut down rather than try to come up with useful solutions”. The most reasonable response is to do a cost-benefit analysis using all of the data available to decide what to do next – a tax on carbon emissions is one step in the right direction which would have other benefits (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/10/pigou-club-manifesto.html – Greg Mankiw is a former chairmen of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors).
Reasonable and well-informed people disagree about what policies are most prudent in dealing with anthropogenic global warming. Reasonable and well-informed people do not disagree that there is a scientific consensus on the matter.
Jimmy, sorry for the long post.
Jason: physics is a valid direction to come at global warming, given that you have to unravel as much of what is going on as possible to figure out what is causing any given effect.
Astrology involves the sun, which is the source of most of the warmth on earth– if you bothered to read the quotes, the very first one says that there is unusual solar activity. To automatically exclude the expertise of astrologists is to invalidly limit the possible causes.
Geology looks at evidence of what has come before to see if there is something different going on, such as would be required for man-made global warming. Seeing as many geologists do not specialize only in palioclimatology, it is also wrong to automatically exclude all geologists.
And seeing as NASA had that nasty error in their stats not too far back, mathematics is *also* quite important. Given how complex the math can be, someone needs to check the calculations– and if you look under the “global warming isn’t happening” tab, you’ll note that the president of the World Federation of Scientists says the IPCC models are invalid.
You seem to think that because they are not coming at a problem from the aspect of climatology–not any of the other atmospheric sciences, even?–they can’t know what they’re talking about; I counter that, if there is actual human caused warming going on, then research from the other angles will not contradict and should, indeed, support such a finding.
I will also nitpick and point out that you said “There is almost a total consensus among scientists that man-made global warming is real,” not “…among scientists whose authority I accept.”
Among those you do not accept:
Reid Bryson, emeritus professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.
William M. Gray, Professor of Atmospheric Science.
Tim Patterson, paleoclimatologist and Professor of Geology.
Fred Singer, Professor emeritus of Environmental Sciences .
Jan Veizer, environmental geochemist.
John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center.
William R. Cotton, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences.
Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Science.
Patrick Michaels, former state climatologist.
Reasonable and well-informed people do not disagree that there is a scientific consensus on the matter.
Reasonable and well-informed people do not try to define everyone who disagrees with them as not being reasonable and well-informed.
Foxflier,
As I pointed out in my original post, I’m glad to accept geologists, physicists and paleoclimatologists have something to say about the matter (I’m a little more reluctant than you to accept that astrologers have any authority 😉 ).
If we do accept that these fields have expertise, we’ve massively widened the pool of scientists from which we are drawing. If we consider just climatologists, we have 4 or 5 out of a few thousand. If we consider physicists, astronomers and geologists as well, we have 30 or 40 out of a few hundred thousand.
The proportions are the same no matter how you look at it (and yes, perhaps 99.9% is a more reasonable conservative estimate; 99.99% may be too high).
This is a fair point. That comment of mine was in bad taste. I regret including it in the post.
He ends the article with an allusion to Global Warming’s impending doom when the predictions do not come true.
I would like to believe that, but the prophecy has failed time and again in spectacular fashion.
The first prediction set for total Ice Cap meltdown and ocean rise by the year 2000.
Obviously that has not happened. What happened to the prophets? They either melted into the ether or endured the ordeal completely unscathed.
Anyway, that is my main reason why I believe it is a hoax: because the predictions always fail.
To automatically exclude the expertise of astrologists is to invalidly limit the possible causes.
What’s your sign?
OK, I’m more than half posting this to encourage some of you about the value of these combox discussions, which generally never seem to actually change people’s minds.
In every previous discussion on Global Warming here that I’ve seen I’ve defended the idea, in ways similar to what Jason is now doing. However, gradually the arguements and quotations got to me, and now I’m not sure. It’s true that consensus is not scientific. It’s true that scientific studies are effected by researcher bias and interest and funding. It is true that the peer-review system is heavily flawed and that papers will be shot out of the water for very unscientific reasons (at least according to a Ph.D. ecology student who was my TA some scientists are very territorial about their area of research and will be overly critical about a paper they see as infringing on their research interests to hopefully prevent its publication, then publish something similar later). If this happens why not other abuses. The scientists would not necessarily be thinking in this case that they are distorting the truth, but if they are so convinced of man-made Global Warming itself and convinced it is of great importance they will approach an anti-global warming paper assuming the scientist is a crack and looking for any and all ways to prevent publication, while a paper purportedly supporting man-made Global Warming while of course it has to be up to standards they will want to see published.
There is also the relatively small percentage of CO2 released into the atmosphere by humans compared to other sources, esp. volcanos. Also there is the much less established issue of what the results of Global Warming would be.
Anyway, the number and quality of dissenters is still less than I would expect if it were all a scam like this guy says, and some of the principles are quite persuasive, so I’m not definitively taking one side or another. I just think we need to take all the doom and gloom prophesies with a grain of salt, at least for a while still.
JR– my development was pretty much the same, although a bit more simplistic.
I use to trust Scientists, because Science is Science. It’s logical. It’s rational, you can’t lie with science. It goes from the evidence and works up to a conclusion, adding or removing as information comes in.
….Then I started finding out that scientists are humans. And humans are flawed. When you get money by saying “there is a problem. We need to study it!” it’s very common to see a problem. If you think that people are a problem on the earth– as many folks do, for whatever reason– you’re more likely to look to them as the “likely suspect.” (this doesn’t mean folks are lying, this means that folks are, well, folks)
Jason– that is only a list of folks who were pissed enough to say anything in public and were noted by those who made the listing in Wiki. As far as I know, there is no mandatory registration of one’s view on any subject in science. Thus, we have no information, and any assertion of a percentage is a raw guess– or an estimate from a very bad sample. (IE, comparing those who do stand to make money from investigating a phenomena, vs those who are not getting money and might be harmed by speaking out against someone’s cash-cow)
This is a fair point. That comment of mine was in bad taste. I regret including it in the post.
Fair enough. Unfortunately the cat is out of the bag. Science is infected with ideology and we are in a quandry. We are not going to conduct our own experiments, and yet we (wisely) refuse to trust the new high priesthood in white lab-coat vestments.
I might point out that a significant portion of scientists are atheists, so they’re hugely mistaken on a critical subject. Most scientists think they should be in charge of ethics in things like cloning and/or killing human beings at early stages of development.
The “consensus” view of scientists has often been wrong when they wander into this sort of doomsaying (population bomb, global cooling for example).
God Bless,
Matt
StubbleSpark, please show me the the evidence that a majority of scientists believed either in global cooling or that the ice caps would disappear by the year 2000. It’s possible there were individual scientists who made these claims – they were certainly never part of any consensus. Any impression you have to the contrary is a false impression conveyed by the media.
Scientists are well aware of the fallibility of their predictions which is why they use sophisticated statistical procedures to analyze their results. They make their names by proving widely held opinions wrong so if there would be a bias *against* consensus in any field, it is science. Perhaps because of this, I can’t think of one example in the modern era (past 50 years), when a theory that 99.9% of scientists believed was correct turned out to be wrong. Modern scientists have enough prudence and historical sense to avoid such outcomes. Can you think of such an example?
This point, and others you make about the peer review system are correct. Papers are routinely rejected for unscientific reasons. The point is that these errors are due to idiosyncratic biases – if a paper presented any kind of convincing evidence against anthropogenic global warming, it would be published in a top journal and its authors would be lauded. Scientists care about the truth and make a very determined effort to be aware of and correct for their political biases; these creep in anyway, but they end up excluding marginal papers (“This is OK, but has several flaws, I don’t feel right about it”). Scientists know a good paper which presents compelling evidence when they see it.
I think the problem here is your failure to distinguish between the predictions of scientists (which are generally careful and prudent) and the predictions of people in the media or politicians, which tend to draw on only the most extreme views of scientists on either end.
Matt, see my above post. This is simply incorrect. Show me the evidence of a scientific consensus on either of those issues. There was none. There were only individual scientists whose views were strongly disputed by many others.
There is probably more money to be made from speaking out against global warming than for it – there are many corporations with billions of dollars that would love to have credible scientists oppose global warming.
I admit as much, which is why I initially confined myself only to meteorologists and climatologists. If a climatologist thinks global warming is wrong, publishes no papers on the subject and never speaks out about it, they cannot be too confident in their opinion! I expect that the listing on wikipedia probably does list most if not all of the climatologists who oppose global warming.
They make their names by proving widely held opinions wrong
That’s a good point — think Galileo, or Copernicus.
Perhaps short-sighted scientists would be motivated by money and politics, but I suspect that the *really* greedy ones would want to prove global warming to be false to ensure their fame.
Scientists threatened for ‘climate denial’
By Tom Harper, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:24am GMT 3/11/2007
Scientists who questioned mankind’s impact on climate change have received death threats and claim
to have been shunned by the scientific community.
They say the debate on global warming has been “hijacked” by a powerful alliance of politicians,
scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of
carbon dioxide emissions.
Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five
deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate
change. One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see
further global warming.
“Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel
threatened,” said the professor. “I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics,
but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity.
It has got really nasty and personal.”
Last week, Professor Ball appeared in The Great Global Warming Swindle, a Channel 4 documentary in
which several scientists claimed the theory of man-made global warming had become a “religion”,
forcing alternative explanations to be ignored.
Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology – who
also appeared on the documentary – recently claimed: “Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have
seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges. “Consequently,
lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science.”
Jason,
It’s interesting that you’re still posting, though this blog has moved on from the materialism post.
You must be hooked. There’s just something about Jimmy.
One final point. I think some of you are failing to realize just how small the number of scientists who disagree with the consensus on global warming really is. It is about half as large as the number of priests who have spent time in prison for sexual abuse (and there are as many scientists in the fields discussed as Priests in the US).
Of course, I agree that the media’s claims about the frequency of sex abuse cases in the priesthood are overblown. But so are their claims about scientific dissent from anthropogenic global warming.
Mull this over a bit more: the percentage of scientists who argue against anthropogenic global warming is smaller than the percentage of priests who have spent time in jail for sex abuse. It’s a very small number.
Guess I’ll weigh in here. It’s one thing to disagree with scientists when they start talking about morality, or social policy, or religion, or aesthetics– which unfortunately they do all too often. But even if they’re only human, and even if their opinions are therefore necessarily flawed, when it comes to subject within their actual area of expertise, how can a non-scientist possibly argue with them? I certainly can’t do better science than they– in fact I can’t even begin to falsify or confirm any of their findings. For me to second-guess climatologists on global warming would be like a person who has never read a work of the Bible or any Church documents (but has examined a few second-hand accounts of them) coming in and telling Jimmy that he doesn’t know what he’s doing in the apologetics field. Of course it’s possible that the experts are wrong. But I’m not qualified to make that judgment.
So it’s interesting when someone who may possibly be an expert expresses an opinion like this one. But as Jason has noted, until many others join him it will simply be interesting.
I think the real debate should be on, assumning global warming is real, what we should do about it. The very smart economists who came up with the Copenhagen Consensus basically said ‘nothing; fixing global warming would be too expensive and not worth it.’
I find the continuous use of the word “consensus” interesting. Science is based on facts, not consensus. Science progresses by challenging so-called “consensus”. “Consensus” is not only not science, it is anti-science.
I like the theory that the rise in the salt in the water is causing some of the “melting” of the poles.
The reason I personally feel they are on to something is because there are a lot (offshore drilling, cities near the oceans) that desalinate the water and dump the salt back in. You can record the salt content of water, thus you will have proof. It may not be the only reason, as we have cycles of warming up, but it is something I could agree with knowing how salt affects ice!
ooppps.
That should be
the rise of salt in salt water.
I find the continuous use of the word “consensus” interesting. Science is based on facts, not consensus. Science progresses by challenging so-called “consensus”. “Consensus” is not only not science, it is anti-science.
Oi vey. This again?
When we speak of consensus among scientists on a topic, it is to be understood that we’re talking about informed consensus.
That is, the individual scientists have presumably analyzed the data and reached a conclusion themselves. By asking a population of scientists to publish the results of their analyses (“consensus”) we are likelier to find a correct answer than by relying on the results of any one scientist.
Of course science is based on “consensus” — informed consensus — that’s the whole point of repeatable experiments. The more times an experiment is repeated (to obtain the same results), the higher the confidence we can have in those results.
Say “oi vey” all you want; science is still based on facts, not consensus.
I would just remind folks that in 1974 some of the same scientists were predicting a global winter(See the 1974 Time magazine article on global winter) . How we got from a global winter to a global summer in just 30 years just shows me how little we really understand the world around us.
On a personal note, not weather related but people related, I have seen many really smart degreed people who couldn’t reason themselves out of a wet paper sack. I do have letters behind my name but I am not so naive to think that those letters make me any more correct than the old man down the road that I visit ever so often.
Say “oi vey” all you want; science is still based on facts, not consensus.
Oi vey. 🙂
Read my post.
Or shall I rephrase it?
Scientist A performs Experiment 1. He gets Result X based on Facts.
Do I trust Result X? Maybe, but it seems early.
Scientist B performs Experiment 1. He gets Result X based on Facts.
Do I trust Result X? Maybe, but it seems early.
Scientists C-Z all perform Experiment 1. They all get Result X based on Facts.
Now it’s looking like Result X might be a reasonable thing to believe. Of course we never “prove” anything, but we have good reason to provisionally trust Result X.
THAT is what is meant here by consensus; *not* a poll of scientists mere opinions.
Has anyone found anything regarding the credentials of John Coleman (besides being a TV weatherman)? E.g. does he have a degree in meteorology or a related discipline?
Game over Jason.
Please consult the 1975 Newsweek (it was Newsweek, not that unfortuante publication Time) special edition dealing with global cooling. Quoting directly from the article, “The evidence in support of these predictions [of global cooling] has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.” Remember, they had a scientific consensus, so they can’t be wrong. Right?
Further, over 19,000 scientists have signed on to the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine petition stating, “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.”
Jason, you live in Al Gore fairy tale land. I strongly urge you to retreat from it. Shall I continue? Perhaps John R. Christy’s recent WSJ editorial would be helpful? But hey, what’s the director of the University of Alabama’s Earth Science Center know about such things?
Jason, would any amount of evidence, any real reasoned argument, possibly change your mind? I’m not convicned you are open to changing your mind, but you have already decided you have all the answers.
Here’s a copy of a little something I posted on Catholic Answers Forum–
With my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, I would like to present:
Name That Global Disaster!
Here are your clues:
1) It was promulgated within the last fifty years
2) We’ve been told it will wipe out millions of people
3) Statistics regarding it are often exaggerated
4) Its dire effect is taught in schools as though it is fact, thereby scaring children
5) Scientists who disagree are ostracized
6) We have to do something about it NOW (preferably spend millions of your tax money)
Now then, can you pick the global disaster?
1) Impending ice age
2) Overpopulation
3) Acid rain
4) Depletion of the ozone layer
5) Depletion of the rain forest
6) Global warming
7) All of the above
A few points from a “Scientist” though it’s biology not Climatology–still we do take courses on the environment, physics, chemistry, statistics, etc. in order to get that degree.
1)Because one scientist agrees with another’s research results does not mean they did their own research, they just looked over someone elses. 2)the numbers in statistics like this are easily rendered meaningless by minute wording in the workup process or manipulating formulas. You can get nearly any number you want by wording questions a particular way or choosing to use formula “A” rather than formula “B”. 3)we’re only using wikipedia as a resource here… how scientific is that? 4) it doesn’t take a scientist, especially these days, to learn about any particular issue, all you have to do is read stuff. Scientists are not always endowed with god-like intelligence. My own experience is that there is more ferver than intelligence among college science professors, just based on things like basic living skills. I’ve met just as many factory workers with the same amount of intelligence as college professors. The only difference is that some are more aware of their brains than others.
Jason,
Caillon et. Al in Science 2003 established, like many other papers have (over twenty, going all the way to 2007) that there is about an 800 year lag between CO$_2$ and Temperature, with temperature changes occuring about 800 years before the CO&_2$ changes. This suggests that temperature causes the carbon dioxide levels, and not the other way around. Other correlations, such as with Methane, suggest the same.
There is no scientific consensus that global warming is human caused. There are over 20 papers in Science alone that dispute this point. But beyond that, even if there were scientific consensus, a common-sense look at the data shows that consensus to be wrong.
Science is based on data. Not a vote. Not some “papal” authority of Al Gore. It seems, Jason, that your views would suggest that you are far more Roman Catholic in your thinking of science than you may care to admit.
“Of course science is based on “consensus” — informed consensus — that’s the whole point of repeatable experiments. The more times an experiment is repeated (to obtain the same results), the higher the confidence we can have in those results.”
And what specific experiments have been run to show convincingly that global warming is anthropogenic? Everything I’ve read is that they’re working off computer models, which are only as good as the data which is input. And it’s easy to manipulate the data to produce the results you want to see.
AS far as “consensus” goes, once upon a time there was worldwide consensus that the world was flat, and that the Earth was at the center of the universe.
And finally, do a Google search and you’ll see that in the 1920’s and 1930’s, there were articles and stories of how the Earth was headed for times of global warming…. here’s a link:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070814/NATION02/108140063
Now please excuse me as I have to get back to work, driving 150+ miles in my minivan throughout the metropolitan Detroit area as a corrugated carton salesman, increasing my sales so that we can cut down more trees, run expensive equipment, ship more boxes to customers who use lots of energy producing products that people buy when they drive their cars to the stores…..;-)
Is the Weather Channel too poor to afford a proofreader or editor of some type?
That should be an illusion. I have trouble taking any sort of scientist seriously if he doesn’t have the brains to (a) proofread his statements first or (b) get someone else to do it. It just lessens one’s credibility, IMO (of course, the fact that I’m a professional proofreader might have something to do with that…)
Jason, you live in Al Gore fairy tale land.
Don’t doubt The Gore and his Gor-y Tale!
For heaven’s sake, the guy:
1. Invented the Internet
2. Won an Academy Award
3. Won the Noble Peace Prize
Al Gore is the Hero of Earth and the Whole Human Race!
Praise the Gore!!! NOT!
Actually, Joanna, that pull quote wasn’t from the Weather Channel, but from a post that John Coleman entered on an independent blog. It seems that he’s no longer affiliated with the Weather Channel either. Doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t proofread all that well – – – eye no eye dont prufrede awl that good ether!
If you want to befuddle Al Gore types in one question, ask them:
What caused the end of the last Ice Age, and did humans have anything to do with it?
This discussion thread is pointless and sadly typical of the MMGW debate because everyone is arguing about consensus and not the scientific data.
Try to understand this: Consensus is not an argument.
I think it’s very telling that the primary “argument” of MMGW proponents right now is that there is a “consensus”!
I’ve embedded a video related to this topic which features a prominant Australian scientist making this point (and many other helpful ones):
http://www.americanpapist.com/2007/11/weather-chanel-founder-says-mmgw-is.html
The proposition that the global warming observed since the 1970s has a significant human cause is, in principle an empiricably testable one. Ad hominem is irrelevant.
Anyone who cares to, can study the issues and do the scientific research themselves. If one doesn’t have the time, inclination or aptitude to study for a couple of PhDs in the relevant subjects the next best thing is to rely on those who have. If there is a consensus amongst those who have studied the matter it seems to be obstinate to reject their consensus without sufficient reason.
As much as I respect the expertise of some on this blog on theological and moral matters, I would not rely on their judgement on an important matter of medical fact. I (and I think they) would, instead, go to someone who had spent some years obtaining a recognized medical qualification – a qualified doctor. I expect you will find a few doctors who disagree about the efficacy of eg vaccination or whether smoking causes cancer. But if the general medical consensus is that vaccination is good for most children or that smoking kills, I should heed that advice unless I have sufficient grounds. My own desire to continue smoking is not a rational reason to prefer a doctor who says that the risks are exaggerated or for me to say past medical consensuses have been wrong, so what do the quacks know anyway.
Question: Are the IPCC the best qualified scientists or are they global conspirators and charlatans in it for the money?
Who would be able to tell?
Answer: National Scientific Academies would seem to be good judges of real scientific credentials.
The National Scientific Academies of the following countries issued this statement in support of the IPCC
“The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science. We recognise IPCC as the world’s most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving this consensus. Despite increasing consensus on the science underpinning predictions of global climate change, doubts have been expressed recently about the need to mitigate the risks posed by global climate change. We do not consider such doubts justified.”
National Academy of Sciences (US),
Royal Society (United Kingdom),
Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Science Council of Japan,
Russian Academy of Sciences,
Academia Brasiliera de Ciências (Brazil),
Royal Society of Canada,
Académie des Sciences (France),
Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina (Germany),
Indian National Science Academy,
Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Italy),
Australian Academy of Sciences,
Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts,
Caribbean Academy of Sciences,
Indonesian Academy of Sciences,
Royal Irish Academy,
Academy of Sciences Malaysia,
Academy Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand,
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Source: Royal Society 2001 Royal Society 2005
For the comments of other scientific bodies
The scientific evidence and consensus is with the IPCC. Just as the scientific evidence and consensus is for evolution.
Now of course a consensus can be wrong, but can we now admit the scientific consensus?
I work in the weather industry and know a great number of meteorologists. All of them agree that there is no question that “global warming” is occurring. The big question is: WHAT is causing it?
Many are NOT convinced that man is responsible for the warming. After all, it took global warming to melt the glaciers which covered the Midwest millions of years ago.
But watching the news and listening to the liberal politicians, one would think that there is no question that man is causing it.
I do wonder if this whole global warming issue, which scientists warm will cause giant changes in ocean levels and weather patterns, has anything to do with Scripture prophecy about the end times and “the roaring sea” which perplexes and causes anguish among the people of the last generation:
“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of the waves..” (Luke 21:25)
“After all, it took global warming to melt the glaciers which covered the Midwest millions of years ago.”
That was actually a mere 10,000 years ago, more or less. Not even a tick on the geologic clock.
I work in the weather industry and know a great number of meteorologists. All of them agree that there is no question that “global warming” is occurring. The big question is: WHAT is causing it?
Many are NOT convinced that man is responsible for the warming. After all, it took global warming to melt the glaciers which covered the Midwest millions of years ago.
Gabriel,
Thank you for pointing this out!
If only others would be as informed about this as you are, perhaps not everyone would be so gullible in the Gore-ish mentality that the reason “The Sky is Falling” is due to man!
It still doesn’t make sense to attribute Global Warming to mankind when one has yet to conclude that by the relatively sparse evidence for it.
Now, folks seem to think that throwing money on it will actually SOLVE Global Warming!
I believe this money would be better spent if you forward all such monies to my bank account than into Al Gore’s piggy bank!
“They make their names by proving widely held opinions wrong
That’s a good point — think Galileo, or Copernicus.
Perhaps short-sighted scientists would be motivated by money and politics, but I suspect that the *really* greedy ones would want to prove global warming to be false to ensure their fame.”
Galileo was WRONG:
1. He was not an innocent victim on the Church, a Church that encouraged Copernicus and protected Kepler. He could not prove anything at the time.
2. Galileo could not prove the stellar parallax problem – would not be proven for another 200 years.
3. Galileo said planet orbits were circular and not eliptical- he was WRONG and was known to be wrong.
4. Galileo proposed the theory of tides to prove the heliocentric theory – WRONG.
5. Galileo proposed the nature of comets as atmospheric exhalations to prove the heliocentric theory – WRONG.
6. Cardinal Bellarmine challenged Galileo to put up or shut up. Galileo could not put up and would not shut up.
Don’t use Galileo as the epitome of an ideal scientist -he wasn’t. He was an average scientist who would be very much at home in the modern world of wild scientific speculation.
“Global warming” is a red-herring. One does not need a Ph.D. to notice that humans impact life on this planet. Even the human migration from Asia to Australia 40,000 years ago wiped out a significant portion of the flora and fauna (e.g. see Miller et al., Science, 2005). The question is not whether or not man-made pollutants are going to raise the average temperature of the earth 0.1 C or 1 C. The question are we or are we not the stewards of the earth? Is it less immoral to clearcut whole swathes of land for houses made of chemically treated pressurized wood than it is to use a condom?
Do we really think that all the smog that we have created since the Industrial Revolution had no noticeable impact on the environment? It’s pointless to quibble over the validity of statistical models. All we need to do is take a step back and say “Are we doing everything we reasonably can to reduce our impact on the world?”
Just because a bunch of atheistic scientists who (horror of horrors!) get paid with money happen to agree with a guy named Al Gore doesn’t mean that we don’t have an obligation to reduce carbon and nitrogen pollution.
Just because a bunch of atheistic scientists who (horror of horrors!) get paid with money happen to agree with a guy named Al Gore doesn’t mean that we don’t have an obligation to reduce carbon and nitrogen pollution.
Michael,
There are several things wrong with what you’ve stated here.
1. How do you know these scientists are all athiests?
2. How do you know that Global Warming is directly caused by man?
3. How do you know that all the money that’s being thrown to the Global Warming fund will actually solve ‘Global Warming’?
4. What if Global Warming is actually a natural consequence and not a man-made one? What then?
We, as Christians, have an obligation as stewards to this earth placed by God Himself.
Yet, though I was merely an associate scientist, I agree with Staff Scientists as well as Principle Scientists at certain research groups that the evidence has yet to conclude that:
a. Global Warming is CAUSED by man.
b. That man can actually SOLVE ‘Global Warming’
Scientist who try to disagree with the idea of man-made global warming are ridiculed and risk loosing their funding. I like this quote from Prof. Chris de Freitas of the School of Geography and Environmental Science at Auckland University:
“Science should be open-minded. Good science thrives on debate and discussion and not the reverse. What’s happened is the reverse – you claim consensus and marginalize anyone who disagrees with the mainstream. That’s very unscientific.”
Here is an article about glaciers:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ForeignBureaus/archive/200502/FOR20050216a.html
Here is a new journal article about man-made global warming from the Journal of Geoclimatic Studies:
http://www.geoclimaticstudies.info/benthic_bacteria.htm
Scientist who try to disagree with the idea of man-made global warming are ridiculed and risk loosing their funding.
There is also the reverse —
There are those scientists who are benefitting here with lucrative sources of grants, which they never before had the luxury of having — especially at this level, all profitting from the ‘Global Warming’ scare.
These scientists have much to lose if they were to consider evidence that contradict their agenda.
There have been principle scientists who disregard evidence merely because of the fact that they would lose their precious source of funding if they were to present such evidence as part of their findings and, therefore, do not disclose it as part of their research.
I don’t doubt this is the case with certain scientists these days who advocate the ‘Global-Warming-caused-by-man’ scare.
Now, it seems, that even burning wood is prohibited because Global Warming ‘fundamentalists’ are shouting how this actually destroys the environment as well!
Can you imagine that???
Burning wood????
So, therefore, our American forefathers (as well as the indians who settled the land before them) must have been culprits as well!
1. How do you know these scientists are all athiests?
It was sarcasm.
2. How do you know that Global Warming is directly caused by man?
I never said it was. My first sentence was “Global warming is a red herring”. There are differences between the terms “global warming”, “greenhouse effect”, “climate change” and “global temperature”. It is a very complex issue. But my post had nothing to do with global warming, per se. So no, I do not know that global warming is directly caused by man although I have little doubt that man is playing a role.
3. How do you know that all the money that’s being thrown to the Global Warming fund will actually solve ‘Global Warming’?
Again, I never said that. At all. I don’t even know that there is a “Global Warming Fund”. I know that money is going towards examining the problem and working towards solutions. I’m sure I agree with some of them and disagree with others. Kind of like most things.
4. What if Global Warming is actually a natural consequence and not a man-made one? What then?
Well, then we better get used to being the next Mexico since all the fertile land is going to move north. I, for one, am very interested, as a member of the world’s last remaining superpower with an already declining currency, of keeping the status quo. Reducing air and water pollution seems like a pretty simple way of at least taking a stab at the problem. Do you have any suggestions?
There are those scientists who are benefitting here with lucrative sources of grants, which they never before had the luxury of having — especially at this level, all profitting from the ‘Global Warming’ scare.
Really? I’m interested in this claim. I have no opinion on its veracity but I would love to see some data on this. Have grants gone up? In amount or in number? Are they more now per researcher than before? Because this claim gets thrown around a lot, casting doubts on the motivations of the scientists; it’d be nice to know if there is some actual truth to it.
“The scientific evidence and consensus is with the IPCC. Just as the scientific evidence and consensus is for evolution.”
It is a completely cheap rhetorical trick to attempt to link these two issues. When one talks about credentialed scientists who dissent from the ‘consensus'(forced or not) opinion on global warming one is not talking about Creation Institute scientists. Mentioning one in the same sentence as the other is only an attempt to discredit by false association.
Now, it seems, that even burning wood is prohibited because Global Warming ‘fundamentalists’ are shouting how this actually destroys the environment as well!
Actually, this is quite true and has always been the case. A little burning for warmth isn’t a problem. It’s burning wood (and leaves) to get rid of them when a better solution would be mulching that is the problem.
And yes, our forefathers undoubtedly contributed to affecting the environment. Like I said, 40,000 people killed off most of the megafauna in Australia.
Galileo was a genius, a great scientist, and anyone who suggests otherwise is either simply dogmatic to the point of being unable to think, or is simply ignorant of the man’s accomplishments.
Galileo’s greatest work wasn’t heliocentric theory (though it does explain the motion of planets and moons far more elegantly, and so Galileo was RIGHT about this), but rather motion principles. Though he may not have been the only person to have discovered this (I argue Aristotle understood it very well, and was simply mistranslated and misunderstood), his discovery shifted wildly the paradigm in physics. His philosophy of science, as being a thing of experimentation and theory as opposed to simple observation, changed physics forever in many profound ways.
And I don’t see why any Roman Catholic should beat up on the guy; he stayed loyal to his faith.
And sure, like Newton (though not to the same degree), he was pompous, proud, and obnoxious. Not always a good friend.
But an amazing scientist.
That said, global warming is not human caused!
Really? I’m interested in this claim. I have no opinion on its veracity but I would love to see some data on this. Have grants gone up? In amount or in number? Are they more now per researcher than before? Because this claim gets thrown around a lot, casting doubts on the motivations of the scientists; it’d be nice to know if there is some actual truth to it.
Consider the fact that ‘Global Warming’ is not only a popular theme these days (e.g., NBC’s ‘Green’ Week, etc.), but one on such a global scale (obviously, it can’t help but be), it has opened a host of significant, new opportunities (e.g., job positions) and access to such funding never before available to various scientists.
There are actually members of the IPCC who even oppose the notion that Global Warming is caused by Man; however, they are quickly silenced by crowds of media-hogging pop scientists who promote this ever-popularized notion — in spite of the evidence not only against it but also the existing evidence that hardly even concludes that this is indeed the case.
There was a video where even members of the IPCC who opposed such a notion submitted their case.
Surprisingly, hardly any attention was given to it by the MSM.
I can’t see why their opposing views weren’t given a fair shake in the media — although I don’t doubt that it’s because it would put a damper on the ever popular “The Sky is Falling” theory as espoused by the likes of Al Gore, a hero for humanity, and those media outlets who have been endorsing such a view and have actually been benefitting from all the hoopla surrounding it.
I, for one, am very interested…of keeping the status quo. Reducing air and water pollution seems like a pretty simple way of at least taking a stab at the problem. Do you have any suggestions?
The United States has been very good about reducing air and water pollution. Calling carbon dioxide a pollutant is an attack on life and prosperity itself. As for keeping the status quo. Sorry, it ain’t going to happen. But one thing we do know for sure is that allowing the global warming agitprops to get their way will be the surest way to diminish the status of the U.S. as their solutions all involve globalist centralizing principles that will reduce U.S. prosperity and transfer wealth away from it.
BTW, Michael with and without the underline are two different posters…in case anyone is confused.
The problem is one of language.
There is, no doubt, consensus about some things having to do with global warming (and even man-made global warming) in the scientific community. The problem is that there is no consensus about what exactly the consensus is about.
One person says X. Another person says Y. Another person says X+Y. Another person says X+Z, but not Y. Another person says X’.
Rather than dealing with X or Y or Z or X’, we deal with everyone agrees about X and/or Y and/or Z and/or X’. That turns into everyone agrees about X and Y, which turns into everyone agrees about X. Which, of course, isn’t the case. But it’s a lot easier than dealing with X or Y or or Z or X’.
Add to that the fact that the most vocal and visible supporters of X are also the most irrational, and will conclude (because it suits their own purposes) that the sky is falling.
Add to the equation many rational people sitting on the sidelines who don’t care to get in the fray. They look at the sky and see that it is not falling, and that it is indeed quite incapable of falling. And they see a few vocal lunatics yelling that X is causing the sky to fall, and they quite reasonably conclude that because X is not, in fact, causing the sky to fall, maybe X does not exist at all.
And they see scientists who are supposedly part of the consensus that X exists claiming that they never said X, but rather Y or or Z or X’, and they quite reasonably conclude that there is, in fact, no consensus that X exists.
And then they are told that everyone who has not said “not X” must be included within the X exists crowd as well, so that the consensus that X exists is indisputably quite large, swelling to 99.9% or larger (assuming, of course, that one is charitable).
Esquire, you’re probably right about everything you said in there. Even if I did have to read it twice to make sure I understood it.
MrsDecentfilm,
I think you may have been duped by the reference to the “Journal of Geoclimatic Studies” edited by “Dr Hiroko Takebe” based at the “University of Okinawa”.
These sites claim there is no such institution or scientist, and it is an elaborate practical joke:
http://www.desmogblog.com/spoof-website-touts-global-warming-death-were-you-duped
http://bluecrabboulevard.com/2007/11/07/fraud-alert/
I’ve been trying to verify the existence of the said University and academic – so far without success eg finding a web page of the “University of Okinawa” showing “Dr Hiroko Takebe” as a member of the “Climatological Department” as a would be a good start. The whois info shows it was registered from Wales!
You may wish to verify for yourself – I could be wrong – I stand open to correction.
Exquire– good logical formating.
Consensus is not science. Counting heads is not science. The number of “scientific” theories that once held “consensus” status that are now considered garbage is legion.
Our computer models cannot reliably predict tomorrow’s weather and you think they can predict what will happen in 100 years? Our computer models cannot take historical data and produce accurate information about today’s weather (unless you very carefully cherry pick the data – which they do, by the way). Mars is warming – did we cause that too? People claim that dust storms on Mars are responsible for warming there. Where is the energy coming from to cause the apparent increase in dust storms? Is the increase in dust storms a cause of the warming or a result? Mercury is warming, too. We gonna claim that dust storms on mars are causing that too? Why do the proponents always gloss over hte fact that increases in CO2 are a lagging indicator and not a leading indicator?
It is unusual, in the history of this planet, for there to be polar ice caps – we are technically still in an ice age. They come and go naturally.
Global warming is a scam perpetrated by those who want to control you.
Re: “disappeared into the ether”
Yeah, 99.9% of scientists and ordinary folks used to believe in the ether, too. Now, most people don’t even know what that expression means.
Furthermore, there used to be orange groves in Kent. That was a lovely time. Many eons before, it was even hotter — there were hippos in the Thames. And that was another pleasant time.
So, although I don’t believe we’re in any kind of global warming period or that humans cause a significant effect (volcanoes, animal methane, and the like being far more important), I don’t think it would be a bad thing if it got warmer. Just because we’ve had the misfortune of living in a miserable and chilly period ever since the Little Ice Age began (triggering the bad bits of the Middle Ages, the Reformation, and the witch craze), doesn’t mean the world has to suffer through it forever.
The Concensus: “Global Warming is real, and you better agree that you are destroying the world…or…or else!!!
Really, Algore has started his own religion, and is doing everything anti-Catholics accuse Catholics of doing: the selling of indulgences (carbon off-sets), hypocrisy (C4 jets), the promoting of an idea that is half-baked (man-made warming), and anyone who dissagrees with Al god..er..Gore is burned at the stake.
Er..Consensus.
Really, Algore has started his own religion
Don’t bad-mouth The Gore!
He won the Noble Peace Prize as well as an Academy Award, for goodness sakes!
Having looked at the list, I count FIVE professors of climatology, meterology or atmospheric sciences who believe that global warming is due primarily to natural causes. FOUR of these professors are retired. That leaves: ONE professor of climatology, meterology or atmospheric sciences who believes global warming is due to natural causes.
Disgusting.
Are you claiming that scientists have to pass in their scientist badge when they retire?
In fact, because retirement means that you are no longer competing for posts, raises, grants, etc, it diminishes the rewards you can get for going along with the party line and also the punishment you can get for dissent. Therefore, if retired scientists are saying it’s false, it is stronger evidence than if unretired ones are — less motive to lie.
There is, no doubt, consensus about some things having to do with global warming (and even man-made global warming) in the scientific community. The problem is that there is no consensus about what exactly the consensus is about.
The scientific consensus is: recent global warming has a significant human cause. The major doubts are about the severity of the future impact.
No doubt Esquire’s methodology could also be used against the medical consensus that smoking causes cancer.
No-one on the IPCC doubts that earth’s climate is very complex and has interrelated multifactorial causes.
They do not doubt that for most of this planet’s long history that natural causes have been the only causes of climate change.
Only evolution deniers might doubt that in the last couple of centuries we have released quantities of CO2 which were slowly absorbed over millions of years.
CO2 levels are now at the highest they have been for at least 800,000 years.
And the planet is warming – this no longer doubted by the deniers.
Can we separate the different causes, especially the human from the natural causes?
How much, if any, human cause is there? – this is the nub of the scientific question.
Given the scale of the calculation involved, computer models have to be used. Details here (Grids 135km x 135km at 38 athmospheric and 40 oceanic levels).
A model is another name for a theory, albeit a very complex quantified one in the case of climate.
But are they testable?
How accurate are they?
Have they been fabricated to give the ‘right’ result?
Does the model/theory correspond with the observations?
Competing theories can be tested against the observations.
One way of testing is to “play/run” the models’ equations from different time periods and see which models predictions best corresponds with the observed reality. This will help to eliminate arbitrary doctoring of a particular model.
A model which corresponds with the observations is more likely to be true than one which does not.
The conclusions of various groups’ modelling is:
natural causes alone (Milankovitch cycles, sunspots, solar activity, volcanoes etc.), cannot explain climate variations since the mid 1970s,
but by adding human causes we get a prediction much closer to observations.
Sir David Attenborough was once a climate sceptic, believing that it can all be explained by natural causes and cycles. He changed his mind. In this 3 minute excerpt from the last 5 minutes of Are We Changing Planet Earth (BBC/Discovery/ Open University 2006) he graphs climate change with Prof Peter Cox
Youtube same clip on 5min.com
If these models were fabricated or self-deluded it would be possible for others to produce their own climate models which show the opposite. As far as I know this has not been done – someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
NB Measuring thermometers have only been available for about the last 150 years so quantified models cannot be quantifiably tested much earlier than this time.
What is the scientific consensus on ideal body fat?
What is the scientific consensus on the health effect of eating a high fat diet?
What is the consensus on the health effects of drinking alcohol in moderation? What is the scientific consensus on what moderation means?
What is the scientific consensus on plate tectonics? What was it years ago when every school kid in the world noticed that South America looks like it fits right into Africa?
When they first discovered the ozone layer they also discovered the ozone hole – in other words scientists have never known a time when there was NOT an annual ozone hole – yet the presence of the ozone hole is declared to be a problem. It could be perfectly natural recurring feature of the atmosphere.
What was the scientific consensus on alar?
Science pumps out crap and consensuses from around steaming piles of it everyday.
(Psst… Esau… it’s the Nobel Peace Prize, not the Noble Peace Prize.)
I’ll try to stop now, I promise. 🙂
Excellent points in your posts, quasimodo. I’ve got another question: What is the consensus on what the earth’s ideal temperature is?
consensus – schenmsus. Guess I’ll stop going to the doctor then, and eat as much animal fat and smoke as much as I can, do no exercise and inject myself with heroin when I’m bored. 🙂
(Psst… Esau… it’s the Nobel Peace Prize, not the Noble Peace Prize.)
Thanks JoAnna for the correction! ;^)
Darn that dynamite guy!
Acutally, Leo, regarding the animal fats, not the other things you listed, your body does need these, in small amounts. NOt the concoted plactic that is being passed as healthy stuff these days.
Such as real butter should be used over margarine or some immitation.
Millions of people have found that animal fats are not necessary.
This article that I sent earlier seems to be a hoax!
It seems like none of these folks really exist . . .
http://www.geoclimaticstudies.info/benthic_bacteria.htm
It seems like none of these folks really exist . . .
None of us do… really…
OK, so THIS guy is no hoax. My good friends in Alabama have him as their TV chief meterologist, and they like him a lot.
He has some interesting stuff on his blog about intolerance in his field:
http://www.jamesspann.com/wordpress/?cat=19
http://www.jamesspann.com/wordpress/?p=650
I haven’t read the original paper so I can’t say how fair James Spann’s spin is. I doubt if any here can even properly understand the paper’s abstract
Scientific consensus rarely changes due to one observational paper alone. Results need to be repeated. If doctors had a knee jerk reaction to every medical paper published they would be radically changing their minds every week. No doubt these new observations will be fed into the climate models and the revised models will be tested against the observations. Meanwhile the ‘scientific jury’ is still on the side of human-caused climate change. I suspect that some of the the deniers want absolute proof before taking action. I’m not sure if any amount of evidence would convince some sceptics.
This matter is seen as a scientific one in most of the developed world with cross-party consensus on the facts, though not necessarily on the solutions, but in the US even the scientific facts are highly politicized.
Regarding intolerance and improper influences – there are allegations on the other side as well.
Climate Change Research Distorted and Suppressed by Bush administration
Climate scientists pressured on climate change
Top climatologist accuses Bush Administration of trying to gag him
As with the tobacco lobby’s shills, there are allegations that many of the AGW deniers are funded by oil companies,
List of Exxon funded sceptics
Oil lobby payments
Meanwhile the ‘scientific jury’ is still on the side of human-caused climate change.
1. What comprises this ‘scientific jury’ you speak of?
2. What substantial data exactly has warranted such a conclusion?
3. What is the standard error in these?
4. Who are the authority figures for such subject matter?
5. What is the actual consensus of all such scientists?
6. What exactly are their individual findings?
7. Do their individual findings actually support “The Sky is Falling” theory and that Man is responsible for it?
Correction:
4. Who do you believe are the authority figures for such subject matter?
Is there some special connection between people who post on Christian message boards and denial of global warming?
Esau, on authorities, I refer you to my comments on the IPCC and National Scientific Academies of Nov 8, 2007 9:41:53 AM
If your point-by-specificity is serious rather than rhetorical you will want to read the IPCC sources, methodology etc. for the detailed answers – you’ll find it here http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html It will take some time to read.
On the value of consensus in general – it depends upon what that consensus is based upon. Unexamined commonly held assumptions are probably worthless as consensus or anything else eg it was once almost universally agreed that a heavier object will fall faster than a lighter one – now known to be false by experiment/observation.
Consensus does not in itself guarantee scientific truth. In science the quality and quantity of experiment and observation is more important. My point is that if one cannot do the experiment/observations oneself or one is unable to evaluate complex evidence oneself then it is rational to rely on the evidence-based consensus of those who are best qualified – as with medical facts.
None of us do… really…
You getting nihilist on us, Esau?
And remember, folks, it’s D + avid and B = David B.
Raindrops – is there some special connection between those who post without substance and those who will not give an email or website?
Is there some special connection between people who post on Christian message boards and denial of global warming?
I know Nothing! Nothing!
What is the scientific consensus on plate tectonics? What was it years ago when every school kid in the world noticed that South America looks like it fits right into Africa?
This guy, http://www.creationscience.com, disagrees with the plate tectonics theory. FWIW.
That Posted by: | Nov 8, 2007 5:03:15 PM wuz moi.
Leo,
Consensus does not in itself guarantee scientific truth.
THANK YOU FOR POINTING THIS OUT!!!
Thank God, somebody actually understands that!
I wish you had mentioned this on another thread!
In science the quality and quantity of experiment and observation is more important.
Actually, there is more to it than just that —
In my experience, the conclusion made on a body of data is only as good as the operating assumptions.
If the assumptions are faulty, no matter the data, the conclusion made by the experimenter are utterly flawed one way or the other.
That is because the way a Scientist makes sense of experimental data is by making certain assumptions; thus, the conclusion is only as good as the assumption(s).
Where there were faulty assumptions made, the conclusion will be just as faulty.
David B.
You getting nihilist on us, Esau?
Nihilists kick a_ _! Only kiddin’!
Foxfier,
Is there some special connection between people who post on Christian message boards and denial of global warming?
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens!
Now why would you say something as insulting to us no-email/no-web-ies? =(
CO2 levels are now at the highest they have been for at least 800,000 years.
So if we stoppeed adding now, how exactly do we get all this stuff back into the center of the earth?
Is there some special connection between people who post on Christian message boards and denial of global warming?
No, but there is a lot of skepticism of people who post on Christian message boards of man-made global warming.
*winks at Esau* Why, dear sir, just as there are folks posting on a Christian message board in support of human-based warming, there are those who do not give internet-tracking and yet post substance.
It may not be hugely *common*, but I doubt anyone here would suggest you don’t have substance!
*sings* Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens….
Raindrops – is there some special connection between those who post without substance and those who will not give an email or website?
No.
there is a lot of skepticism of people who post on Christian message boards of man-made global warming.
Atmospheric physicist John Houghton describes, “I lecture a lot to Christian audiences — I am a Christian myself, so I have Christian connections — also at universities, colleges, and to people in business and government. These days I give 40 or 50 lectures a year, on average about one per week… On the whole, Christians have been lagging behind many other groups in their concern for the environment, care for the Earth, and care for poor people.”
Is there some special connection between people who post on Christian message boards and denial of global warming?
Hmmm …
The US has the highest proportion of climate change deniers and the highest proportion of religiously-motivated evolution deniers in the developed world. Connected? Amongst many Evangelicals I suppose you could find a common root in distrusting scientific consensus both on evolution and climate; perhaps a common root between UN End-Time conspiracy and UN climate conspiracy to control the world somehow.
But on the other hand, sites like Slashdot and Reddit seem to be full of vociferous atheists who are also climate denialists. I think the correlation is not to do with Christianity but with the US and certain views which are polarized there, which the rest of the developed world accepts in a non-party political manner.
Despite some ad hominem here, suggesting that:
– most of the scientists involved are atheists
– AGW is a new age religion.
Consider this
Vatican announces plans to become first “carbon neutral state” in the world
Climate change a grave issue says Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI reiterated his concern for the environment, saying that the attention being given to global warming is very important.
…
“Care of water resources and attention to climate change are matters of grave importance for the entire human family,” the Pontiff added. “Encouraged by the growing recognition of the need to preserve the environment, I invite all of you to join me in praying and working for greater respect for the wonders of God’s creation!”
Intervention by the Holy See at the 9th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change 2003
Both scientifically and politically, it has been recognized that human activity is a significant factor in climate change. Further, human actions can play a crucial role in the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. The consequent ethical responsibilities are not limited only, however, to single acts of individuals, but apply equally at the level of technical, economic and social structures and at the government level. There is, therefore, an ethical obligation incumbent on all individuals and societies, particularly certain sectors of society, to assure that all activity is oriented towards the common good, with special care and consideration for the poor.
Holy See statement to the UN on Sustainable Development
However, all is not gloom. Encouraging signs of greater public awareness of the interrelatedness of the challenges we face have been emerging. The unease created by predictions of disastrous consequences of climate change has awakened individuals and countries to the urgency of caring for the environment. Environmental degradation caused by certain models of economic development makes many realize that development is not achieved through a mere quantitative increase of production, but through a balanced approach to production, respect for the rights and dignity of workers, and environmental protection.
Pope leads eco-friendly festival
“Before it’s too late, we need to make courageous choices that will recreate a strong alliance between man and Earth,” [B16] said.
“We need a decisive ‘yes’ to care for creation and a strong commitment to reverse those trends that risk making the situation of decay irreversible.”
Vatican to build solar panel roof
Pope Benedict has criticised “the unbalanced use of energy” in the world. Last year he said environmental damage was making “the lives of poor people on earth especially unbearable”.
What is the Holy See’s current position on Climate Change
US Conference of Catholic Bishops
As people of Faith, we are convinced that “the earth is the Lord’s and all it holds….We believe our response to global climate change should be a sign of our respect for God’s creation.
—
Of course, Popes and Bishops’ Conferences are not specially guided to pronounce on matters outside of faith and morals, but B16 is surely not an atheist, a neo-Pagan, dishonest, foolish or a scammer “out to control us” with GW alarmism as some here would characterise “GW believers”.
Houghton’s last claim is unsupported nonsense, unless one takes it hyper-literally. What a dope.
I think Leo handled many of the above objections well. Just a quick rundown of responses:
Francis 03: I’m was heartened to see your post. The only qualification I’d make is that the Copenhagen Consensus is perhaps inaptly named as there is no consensus among economists about how best to deal with global warming – not that you implied otherwise. I’d certainly agree with you that the members of the Copenhagen Consensus are very smart and their opinions are certainly worth considering.
I hope you’re not a medical doctor!
I hope I have continues! I hate it when I have to restart all the way at the beginning of the first level, that’s just a waste of time.
Newsweek does not a scientific consensus make. Evidence for a scientific consensus would be: results of a survey of scientists or studies tabulating the viewpoints expressed in published papers.
Yes, if some reasonable percentage (maybe 10%?) of climate scientists felt that anthropogenic global warming was not occurring, then I would be much more cautious in my judgment but would think that anthropogenic global warming was probably occurring. If 50% of scientists disagreed, I would have no opinion on the matter at all since I have no expertise in this field.
Your charge that I think I have all the answers seems completely unfounded – what claim of mine is it in response to?
It’s true that the media often exaggerates the claims of scientists. I’ve never disputed that. All I’m saying is that in the case of global warming, the consensus among scientists is real and not fabricated by the media.
This is a fair point, which is why I initially cited a survey of the peer reviewed literature and not a survey of scientists themselves. This gives us a better impression of the number of independent sources of evidence being marshalled to support their viewpoint (I agree that this does not resolve all of the methodological questions about how best to conduct such a survey).
Aristotle, I doubt there are over 20 papers in Science alone that dispute this point – could you list them or link to some other resource that lists them? It’s true that the survey I reported earlier of the scientific literature extended only until 2003; it’s possible things have changed dramatically since then but I doubt it – I would expect that there are some papers challenging anthropogenic global warming, I think they are just a very tiny percentage of the total papers on the topic (even I was surprised that the earlier paper found zero). Do you know of any follow-up surveys to the one I linked to in my first post on this thread that might suggest otherwise? I would certainly be interested to know if things had changed since 2003.
Smoky explained the fallacy with this point – there is a huge difference between arbitrary consensus and informed consensus.
Climate scientists are well aware of the shortcomings of their models and of what kinds of evidence are most convincing – they know far more about this than you because they spend their time thinking about and analyzing these shortcomings. Despite this, almost all of them conclude that anthropogenic global warming is real. This is because the evidence comes from a variety of independent avenues, some experimental, some based on computer models. But don’t take my word for it – ask the scientists who spend their lives arguing with one another about what evidence is reliable, trying their best to win acclaim by proving their colleagues wrong, and yet still somehow agreeing that anthropogenic global warming is real.
A climatologist could outline in great technical detail all of the arguments, but you could not appreciate them without the requisite expertise. You have no basis for assessing them. Your only basis for reaching a conclusion is to determine what people more informed than you think. This is why I appeal to the consensus among climatologists with the understanding that this consensus emerges from their extensive analysis of the underlying data.
The evidence I cited and the evidence Leo cited above referred specifically to the scientific consensus on *anthropogenic* global warming – that means man-made.
The consensus is about whether man-made global warming is occurring; if you mean that there is no consensus about the extent of this warming and what costs we should be willing to bear to avoid it, then you are correct.
Of course, you know better than the scientists who spend their lives analyzing the question and determining the validity of these models – you act as if scientists had never considered the possibility that their models might be incorrect, when in fact this concern is central to the process of doing science.
This is false. Even prior to Michelson-Morley there was a great deal of controversity about all the formulations of the ether theory. To the extent that it was accepted at all, it was only because there were simply no viable alternative hypotheses.
No, but retired scientists are less likely to be up to date on the most recent evidence. I don’t see how this claim is at all “disgusting” – either way, it happens to be true.
Excellent analogy. Interestingly, the most prominent scientific opponent of man-made Global Warming – Richard Lindzen – also doubts that nicotine causes cancer…
There is none, although there is agreement that too much is bad – which leads us to an absolutely essential point. Scientists are quite willing to point out when they don’t know something. This is why we should listen when they say they do know something.
Wow! I thought Hiroshima and torture threads generated responses!
Let us assume for the moment, purely for the sake of argument, that Man has contributed to global warming. What scientific evidence is there that Man can counteract such global warming?
Game over Jason.
I hope I have continues! I hate it when I have to restart all the way at the beginning of the first level, that’s just a waste of time.
Ha ha! I was very much into video games growing up, until early high school (NES – Genesis era). It’s what got me into programming, which is what I do today (stupid Mario).
I stopped playing games altogether until recently, when I started having fits of nostalgia for my NES days, and I learned that you could download old games onto the Wii (Nintendo’s newest system). So, I splurged on one. And I’m quite happy — I’ve downloaded old games like Super Mario Bros, Metroid, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, etc.
But what really made my year was downloading and beating (for the first time!) Castlevania II. It’s amazing how a game made 20 years ago could still be enthralling.
But — I died. A lot. Thank goodness for continues!!!
I actually don’t know what most scientists think is the answer to this question, although I gather those who believe global warming is man-made think that we can at least slow its progress if we stop doing the things that cause it to occur.
As others have pointed out, there is a further question about what the cost of stopping these behaviors would be, and this question must be answered on a case by case basis.
William Nordhaus is a very respected authority on this question among economists. Here is a 2005 article of his on the topic where he considers some alternative approaches:
http://www.econ.yale.edu/~nordhaus/kyoto_long_2005.pdf
Here is his conclusion:
“All evidence suggests that we are just beginning to understand and cope with the “great geophysical experiment” of global warming. Nations must work together to protect the global environment just as much as to prevent tyranny, disease, poverty, and war.
The coming years will undoubtedly witness intensive negotiations on global warming as concerns mount and the quantitative approach under the Kyoto Protocol proves ineffective and inefficient. As policy makers search for more effective and efficient ways to slow the trends, they should consider the fact that price-type approaches like harmonized environmental taxes on carbon are powerful tools for coordinating policies and slowing climate change.”
One other quick point I forgot to respond to in my laundry list above:
Only if you include as scientists anyone with a BA in the physical sciences! We’ve discussed above how much dissent you get if you actually try to locate people who might have some expertise.
🙂
Leo, quite a bit back you mentioned models, and how they’re tested. One problem with models (which you admitted to) is that they have a very limited data set with with to work. 140 years is a blip in time, and extrapolating from there is akin to asking 10 people their opinion of tomatoes and saying that it’s an accurate portrayal of the opinions of not only everyone alive today, but everyone that ever lived or will ever live.
In other words, the models may be good for those 140 years of data, but (as they say in the investment field) “past performance in no indication of future return”. All that’s required is some unknown variable that hasn’t changed in the past 140 years to change, and the models are useless.
Jason, you belabor the point about who is in consensus about global warming. In the end, however, consensus is not science.
Simply have someone show the actual science and I will be in the consensus. As long as the best “science” is studies like Mann’s hockey stick I think I’ll wait to see what the next 20 years or so will bring.
Mattew Siekierski– I seem to recall a big to-do a while back, because none of the models they use to get the disaster results worked when you took them back a century, plugged in the data and let them rip.
All that’s required is some unknown variable that hasn’t changed in the past 140 years to change, and the models are useless.
Yes, that is a theoretical possibility which should be investigated. But it would not be reasonable to conclude that existing climate models are therefore useless.
We have to use models because we do not have a 100 identical planets and suns and a few billion years in which to run direct experiments. Similarly, we cannot do the most direct medical research on humans, so we use “animal models” instead. Despite the obvious scientific limitations of species differences and sample sizes, often of ‘only’ a few dozen animals, we still consider it reasonable to take precautions against certain chemicals. The first research on tobacco smoke was ‘only’ epidemiological and criticized for sample sizes and the limitations of animal studies. This was often done by scientists paid by tobacco companies.
Climate models have a good degree of predictability ie the hypothesis is confirmed by the available evidence, even when the models are started from different times eg 1850, 1900 etc.. (Foxfier, if you have a reference to your recollection, I’m listening).
The hypothesis that has been most clearly refuted by the models and observations is:
– known natural causes alone explain climate observations over the last 150 years.
The hypothesis that
– adding known human causes to the known natural causes explains climate observations over the last 150 years
has, so far, been confirmed.
One should the same degree of scepticism to assess competing hypotheses.
I would have serious doubts about human-caused climate change, if eg sceptical scientists were able to produce computer models which produced a better fit with observations using natural-causes-only assumptions. AFAIK they haven’t – please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m sticking my neck out on this one…
I would love to be able to use fossil fuels without worrying. I would love it to be the case that humans were not affecting the climate, but the evidence points the other way. Sometimes I doubt that any amount of evidence would convince some doubters – if that is their case then their denial is not empirical, but perhaps based on a perceived threat to their lifestyle.
On the accuracy of weather forecasting models and climate models. The analogy is that of predicting the behaviour of a specific individual versus predicting the behaviour of a group over time. Predicting what a specific individual will do on a particular day is much more prone to error than predicting the average actions of a group over time. Eg when boiling water, my hypothesis that adding a lid will cause more bubbles to form X-times faster, is not refuted by a poor accuracy in predicting when and where specific bubbles will form.
Is there some special connection between people who post on Christian message boards and denial of global warming?
If you don’t believe in something, you will fall for anything. Oddly enough, Catholics are natural skeptics and all these gloom an doom scenarios don’t move us to fear quite so easily.
Sorry, post of Nov 9, 2007 4:06:08 AM was mine.
I agree with all of Leo’s responses but would make a further response that I think is even more compelling.
SCIENTISTS ARE AWARE OF THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THEIR MODELS
They debate them constantly in academic settings and in very technical detail. They also know much better than you when these models are reliable and when not. They know the difference between a very tenuous prediction and a strong prediction supported by many independent research agendas which all converge on the same answer.
That last point is crucial – they believe in global warming not because of a single graph, but because of multiple lines of inquiry which all converge on the same result.
When you say that scientists are somehow ignoring the shortcomings of their models, you are saying that you know the science better than the scientists. If you think that, you are almost certainly wrong.
Jim, this is an illegitimate request because if someone showed you the actual science you wouldn’t understand it. You wouldn’t be able to distinguish a good argument from a bad argument if both were presented by people much more knowledgeable than you. Neither would I (except in economics, where I also have the requisite training).
This isn’t because you aren’t smart enough – it’s because you don’t have the requisite training. That’s how science works. You need to learn a lot before you can properly evaluate the arguments that scientists make.
If you want to know for yourself, obtain a PhD in climatology or the atmospheric sciences. Otherwise, just try to figure out what most scientists are saying – if you insist on seeing the arguments for yourself, you’re just pretending to understand explanations when in reality you have a superficial knowledge of a very deep subject.
Why wouldn’t scientists realize this very obvious point? Why are you smarter than 99.9% of climate scientists?
The answer is – of course they’re aware of whether their models have predictive validity or not. Of course they test their models in this fashion. Some of the models perform well, others perform poorly.
However, the entire set of thousands of models combined with the cumulative experimental evidence from across several related disciplines convinces the scientists who study the matter that anthropogenic global warming is real.
You raise facile objections that scientists have obviously considered. As a matter of broadening your own intellect, that is acceptable. As a matter of figuring out what’s actually true, that is not. The only way for you to figure out what’s true is to determine what people with the technical expertise to evaluate all of the evidence actually think.
Really Michael? This must be why the 93% of the National Academy of Sciences who are agnostics or atheists are so gullible. Or maybe instead they actually know something…
Jason– Thank you kindly to keep your words out of my mouth.
I did not claim I was smarter than anyone; however, I do seem to recall a big to-do about that exact case, where a non-partisan group found that to make the models get the right answers, the scientists had to “tweak” them by choosing numbers that got the result they wanted, when the actual numbers were unknown. The scientists doing the models say “this shows it will work!” The ones objecting say that they’re putting their thumb on the scale.
I did not put in a link because, frankly, I don’t feel like wasting the time to search it out only to have the True Believers ignore it.
Taking ten seconds to Google for “climate model inaccurate”, I find the following:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/greenhouse_warming_what_greenhouse_warming_.html
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn12833-climate-is-too-complex-for-accurate-predictions.html
and the following
http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-03-21/specialreport.htm
with the money quote of
The most common defense of climate models consists in the claim by the Hadley Centre that their model can simulate the record of the past 150 years if account is taken of such things as solar variability, volcanoes, and aerosols. But each of these factors is, in fact, unknown. Thus, including these factors simply amounts to including adjustable parameters that permit one to achieve simulation by tuning. This is simply an exercise in curve fitting, yet the IPCC uses these models to conclude in summaries for policymakers that greenhouse gases contribute substantially to global warming, even though the IPCC, in the body of the 2001 report, indicate that the accuracy of these models is limited by uncertainties in estimates of internal variability among other things.
BTW, while I was Googling around, I found the following:
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjUzYTMwMDNjZmM3OTQxMjNjZjM3OGE4NDEzODhjNjY=
You might want to read it. Your first post on this topic was inaccurate.
Jason and Leo have made some very good points.
Again, I would like to raise curiosity to the statements that Esau made earlier and I have seen many other people echo; namely, dissenting scientists are being “silenced” and the consensus scientists have a strong monetary interest in holding the opinions that they do.
Why are some so skeptical of a majority of scientists’ interpretation of the data and the models and not the least bit skeptical at such a conspiratorial claim. In fact, such a claim could be easy to support. Scientists have to disclose not only their funding sources but any possible competing interest. It’s all on record. Has anybody looked to see if funding has increased in proportion to the increase in global warming rhetoric? Have dissenting climate scientists actually lost funding? Have dissenting climate scientists been denied publications in journals? Or is the “silencing” just overblown claims that their research isn’t being given the attention that they would prefer because few people believe their interpretations?
Also, because points in long posts tend to get lost, I would like to reemphasize a point that Jason made above:
Do the dissenters actually have better models? It isn’t enough to say that there are uncertainties. Both dissenters and the consensus are using the same data; with different observational assumptions and parameters, do the dissenters get better fit models to a natural-cause for global warming or are they merely the voice of criticism? It is one thing to say X is wrong because of uncertainties in the assumptions; it is an entirely different matter to say that X is wrong because with a different set of assumptions, Y would be better. I don’t know the answers; it’s not my field.
Lastly, calling CO2 a pollutant is not an assault on life, as someone above stated. Water is poisonous if given in high enough quantities. So is salt. Both of which are essential for life. Additionally, we do have data about CO2 levels dating back tens of thousands of years; they come from ice core samples.
Do the dissenters actually have better models? It isn’t enough to say that there are uncertainties.
This leaves me flabbergasted. It is enough in science to criticize a model for being inaccurate. Retorting, “Well do you have a better one?” has no place in science and it certainly cannot provide a rational basis on which to base political and economic policy.
Do you think NASA would have gone to the moon based upon a bad astrodynamic model reasoning that they had nothing better to go on?
There simply isn’t a model good enough to predict weather 100 years in the future. We do not know enough. We cannot accurately predict weather a week in advance and tomorrow’s forecast is kind of iffy.
You give the appearance of reasoning out of blind terror.
Foxfier, thanks for the links.
On your first link, I must confess I barely understand Christopher Moncton’s article. However Dr Gavin Schmit and Dr Stephan Harrison are both scathing about Moncton’s understanding and analysis. As Schmit and Harrison are both senior academic climate scientists and Moncton is a classics graduate, I a layperson on this matter who does not understand all the technicalities, find this a no-brainer.
Additionally, I note that Moncton’s organization, Science and Public Policy Institute also known as Frontiers of Freedom Institute received $180,000 from exxon mobil (bottom of p2).
The New Scientist article suggests that CO2 is higher than previouly thought – not a cause for comfort for those concerned with our environment. Yes climate is complex (irreducibly complex?) and it may be we can only model so much with limited accuracy. This finding does not refute the IPCC’s and the scientific consensus.
The Frontiers of Freedom article seems to quote the small minority of sceptical climate scientists. These I take seriously, because they are scientists specializing in that field. But the vast majority of their peers disagree with their analysis after studying large amounts of data. How should a lyperson decide?
Despite their limitations, the climate models (and all models have limitations), do show that
– natural causes alone cannot explain recent climate observations
– but by including human causes we get a much closer approximation to observations.
AFAIK, sceptics have only cast doubt on the accuracy of the climate models, they have not produced alternative ones which produce a better fit with observations using natural-causes-only assumptions.
Re CO2-temperature time lag, Mars warming, Medieval war period, volcanoes etc.
New Scientist magazine addressing the main sceptic claims
UK Government’s Meteorological Office refuting climate-change-denial myths
This leaves me flabbergasted. It is enough in science to criticize a model for being inaccurate. Retorting, “Well do you have a better one?” has no place in science and it certainly cannot provide a rational basis on which to base political and economic policy.
That isn’t what I said. I said there is a difference. As others here have meticulously pointed out, scientists are well aware of the limitations and uncertainties of their models. Criticisms of those limitations are clearly valid. However, it is also impossible to get completely accurate data to everyone’s liking. So yes, it is also a valid criticism of the criticism to ask for a better model. Our best model says that the current climate change is man-made. Are there inaccuracies? Certainly. But there are two ways to approach the issue; we can proceed as if the best model available is correct, until proven otherwise, or we can do nothing because the data is inconclusive. However, the data is not as inconclusive as you think. And I certainly do not believe that the combox-crusade against global warming rhetoric has any real idea what those inaccuracies are. Why do I think so? Because of this statement:
There simply isn’t a model good enough to predict weather 100 years in the future. We do not know enough. We cannot accurately predict weather a week in advance and tomorrow’s forecast is kind of iffy.
There is a very real and very important difference between “climate” and “weather”. Learn what it is, think about it, and then come back to the issue. Until that time, I must conclude that you are reasoning from ignorance or political prejudice.
Also read some of the links that have been generously provided by some other commentators. They are invaluable in helping laymen understand the issues.
Leo,
When the models being used are applying extrapolated data to cover various natural activities over the past 150 years (e.g., temperature was measured, but solar activity and volcanic emissions are a bit less likely to cover the same span with accuracy, so they apply models based on a shorter time to estimate the numbers for earlier dates, and feed these numbers into the other models), you reach a point where the models start to cancel each other out.
By that, I mean that if I use data from 1920-2006 to create a model, which I then use to generate the numbers for 1860-1920, and then punch those numbers into another model that basically uses the same formula to predict things for 1930, of course it’s going to match. And the more extrapolated data (from other models) I use in my model, the closer fit I’ll be able to show.
I’d like to think that the scientists involved wouldn’t do that, but I have no way of knowing. Sometimes simple things are overlooked, and early “accepted” models sometimes get learned as “truth” (for example, if extrapolated data for volcanic activity was generated in 1975, students from 2005 may use them as absolute numbers instead of remembering that they’re extrapolations). I’m not trying to paint a nefarious picture of the scientists, I just question their conclusions, and therefore question some of their methods.
Jason,
First, please don’t shout. I hope that the scientists are fully aware of the shortcomings of their models, and data, and the fact that they are working with a very limited data set with regards to modern accuracy. But how accurate were sunspot observations in 1880? Or any other natural component of the models?
What I’m saying is that I question if they really are accounting for everything, and without seeing evidence that they are, I just have to trust their word.
Also, you said “Jim, this is an illegitimate request because if someone showed you the actual science you wouldn’t understand it.” Do me a favor. Instead of deciding that us normal neanderthals are unable to understand the science, give us all of the information we ask for and let us reach that conclusion ourselves. Otherwise, it just looks like you’re saying the scientists have the right to say “You can’t understand this, it’s too complex, you don’t have the training, so we don’t have to show you anything. You just have to trust us.”
We, the non-climatologists, may not understand everything. So what? What harm is there in showing us the data behind the pretty graphs and charts, and behind the doom-and-gloom claims? What harm is there in giving us more data than we can handle? As it is right now, we have summaries that we have to trust (or not trust) based on faith in the scientists’ capabilities, thoroughness, and integrity.
If anything, it should help their case, because those of us who want to look at the data (taken in snippets, of course) can see that they truly did account for conceivable mistakes or additional possible factors. But when we’re just told (without data, just a summary sheet and a cute graph) that solar activity doesn’t have any bearing on global climate, and we have to accept it, well, that raises suspicions.
Underlined Michael (to differentiate you from the un-underlined one 😉 ),
I don’t think the claim is that any individual scientist gets more funding if they are louder in proclaiming the threat of global warming (especially the anthropogenic nature of it). The claim is more broad…the fields of research that are tied to global climate change all get more funding, to some degree. To think that increased awareness/alarmism doesn’t increase funding levels is to pull the wool over one’s own eyes.
And while some of the claims may be true, there may also be some scientists who are exaggerating things in order to generate more interest in funding the research (akin to a fireman who is also an arsonist, setting fires just to put them out, generating work for himself.) It just takes a few unethical scientists to tarnish the entire group. Without openness to the layman, why should the layman trust any of them? One who expects/demands to keep secrets about the research but requires acceptance of the results is dreaming if he thinks he’ll get universal acceptance.
Excessive fervor and direction of funding towards one field also is harmful to science as a whole. The amount of research money spent on Cold Fusion (especially after faked successes) could have been better spent on researching other alternative energy solutions. All of the media hype about the potentials of Embryonic Stem Cell Research (even there have been zero successes) overshadow the real solutions that have already occurred in Adult Stem Cell Research…so ESC gets more hype and greater funding, but ASC is producing real results on a more limited budget.
Lastly (because this is getting so long), you said “Additionally, we do have data about CO2 levels dating back tens of thousands of years; they come from ice core samples.” Who was measuring the temperature in 50,000BC? Ahh yes, back to models to extrapolate global temperatures back then. Well, if those models include using the CO2 levels from the ice core samples to calculate the temperature at the time, then any model using the calculated (not measured) temperatures will show a correlation between temperature and CO2 level.
Again, I would like to raise curiosity to the statements that Esau made earlier and I have seen many other people echo; namely, dissenting scientists are being “silenced” and the consensus scientists have a strong monetary interest in holding the opinions that they do.
Why are some so skeptical of a majority of scientists’ interpretation of the data and the models and not the least bit skeptical at such a conspiratorial claim. In fact, such a claim could be easy to support. Scientists have to disclose not only their funding sources but any possible competing interest. It’s all on record. Has anybody looked to see if funding has increased in proportion to the increase in global warming rhetoric? Have dissenting climate scientists actually lost funding? Have dissenting climate scientists been denied publications in journals? Or is the “silencing” just overblown claims that their research isn’t being given the attention that they would prefer because few people believe their interpretations?
Michael,
I believe from personal experience running the gamut from academia to formal research as well as private industry, I can attest to the fact that if a Scientist were to contradict the main line (i.e., the popular theory of the day being supported by the majority), these would essentially get booted off — not officially though — but informally by relegating such folks to lesser projects or even lesser positions.
The pride and arrogance of certain prominent scientists are fierce to the extent of exacting such hard consequences on those who contradict them and their conclusions.
Some here may do well to remember that in the course of scientific history, it was those scientists that contradicted the popular theory of the day, the general consensus, that actually held views that were closer to the truth!
Take, for instance:
1. William Harvey whose discovery of blood circulation was basically ridiculed by the scientific community who, in turn, ostracized him
2. Karl Gauss who forced to keep secret of non-Euclidean geometry for 30 years. Lobachevsky, who later published his work, actually ended up suffering the very ridicule Gauss feared. It wasn’t until decades later that non-Euclidean geomtry was finally accepted by the community.
3. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was the one to come up with the Black Hole theory. The research community at the time looked down on Chandra. Sir Eddington, who was promoting his own pet theory, aggressively attacked Chandra. As a result, Chandra could not even pursue a career in England and was forced to migrate to the United States who then lived in total obscurity.
It wasn’t until 30 friggin’ years that others started seeing merit to this theory until, finally, in 1983, won the Nobel prize!
LESSON: Never Underestimate the authority-following tendency of the Physics Community or the Power of RIDICULE used by people of stature such as Sir Eddington!
These are just a meager few of the examples!
Jason, for one reason or another, seems to think that a certain group of eminent scientists are infallible in their opinions and that their models are virtually perfect; however, that’s far from the reality of it all.
From all the research I was involved in, the POLITICS — NOT SCIENCE — was what dominated the research!
If anybody else would like more, I have several more examples which could fill up the entire thread of how often the general consensus was frequently wrong, how the prominent members of the scientific community often put down the dissenters, who were usually correct!
– Zweig was responsible for the Quark theory and instead of being recognized by the community, was declared a charlatan
– Vant Hoff who proposed the three-dimensional Tetrahedral structure in chemistry was fiercely attacked and ridiculed by members of the scientific community during his time
– Semmelweis tried to promulgate his theory to the experts of his day — which was found to be so unpopular in the medical community (as he was essentially saying that they were responsible for the deaths of several new mothers because of the fact that they were not washing their hands);
The vast majority of the experts in his day, rather than consider his theory, attacked and ridiculed him to the point where Semmelweis ultimately ended up in a mental institution! It wasn’t until several years after his death when the medical community finally started seeing merit to his theory!
I love attempts to poison the well.
Leo, have you investigated the funds and donations of all organizations that promote anthropogenic global warming to verify that there is no potential conflict of interest?
Michael, you said “we can proceed as if the best model available is correct, until proven otherwise, or we can do nothing because the data is inconclusive.”. What harm would be done to the climate if the models are wrong? Attempts to “fix” what might not really be a problem could do more damage than the perceived problem. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to reduce emissions and lessen our impact, just that we need to proceed with caution in attempting to “fix” the damage believed to exist.
To make that a bit more clear, I’m all for lower CO2 emissions, better energy use, etc., but I don’t want it done in a way that will throw the US into a recession, destroy companies, cost tons of jobs…I’d rather see a more gradual approach. And I’m opposed to any quick attempts to “scrub” the emissions of the past 150 years….I’m concerned that any such attempts would have the potential for a worse impact. And the urgency behind the alarmism (media hype, not necessarily scientific statements) could cause a push to rush a treatment without enough research, and quite frankly that scares me. We only have one Earth, no control group, no “clinical test” on a global level (local tests won’t cut it for me…things can react way too differently in a global level vs. a local level). Extreme caution is not only suggested, it’s mandatory.
Esau, I have no doubt that it is sometimes the case that:
… if a Scientist were to contradict the main line (i.e., the popular theory of the day being supported by the majority), these would essentially get booted off — not officially though — but informally by relegating such folks to lesser projects or even lesser positions
But if this were happening most or all of the time then one would expect science and its technological fruit to be stagnant and never progress – but it does progress…
In my limited experience of academe, the fastest way to get a good reputation is to come up with a novel/unorthodox theory or refute an established theory. Your work then gets studied at least at undergraduate level. I personally found that I generally got higher marks for putting up good arguments against my teachers.
If we were to continue Esau’s line of reasoning we couldn’t trust anything that came from scientists.
Matthew Siekierski, no I haven’t checked those funding sources. But I imagine most climate research is done at universities and the same type of institutions where most science is done. I suspect that their ultimate funding is similar to the funding which led to the tobacco-cancer link.
I have no reason to believe that climate scientists earn more than other academics/scientists.
But if this were happening most or all of the time then one would expect science and its technological fruit to be stagnant and never progress – but it does progress…
You fail to understand the history of Science —
It progresses BECAUSE of the DISSENTERS!
There are countless more examples I have other than the very few above.
Leo,
Would you kindly read about the Scientists I mentioned and their theories?
It is by the theories of these dissenters of yesterday — who, in their time, were ridiculed by the vast majority, by the general consensus; that we have been able to make such progress in Science!
In other words, had man merely gone by the popular, general consensus; we wouldn’t have progressed at all!
Again — look to the examples I cited above!
I have many, many more!
Leo- you seem to have missed the point. In a matter of moments, I was able to find several sources which Jason *should* accept who admit that the models are highly inaccurate. Given that they are inaccurate, it’s very foolish to base long-term goals on them. (At least one of those links mentions that the feedback estimates are totally wrong, and one of them mentions the utter lack of the predicted heat-signature from global warming.)
Mr. Siekierski– one of these days, I’m going to grab my college logic text book and spend the whole day just typing out fallacies. The day an environmentalist debate goes against the actual arguments of Unbelievers, rather than attacking them as sell-outs (without evidence, even) or the day that a Gorebot admits that the US has done better at reducing CO2 than the Kyoto folks…. I think I’ll be so busy giving thanks and praise to even respond.
I’m for reducing the amount of *everything* that we use, including fossil fuels.
Waste is a sin.
I’m for clean air and clear streams and stewardship of the planet in general, just out of sheer gratitude.
I’m for alternative energy in part just because it’s cool. We in the U.S. should be all over that, what with having to buy fuel from barbaric, unfriendly regimes and gas back up over $3 a gallon.
But I am completely unconvinced of anthropogenic global warming.
Ditto everything Tim said in his post.
There simply isn’t a model good enough to predict weather 100 years in the future. We do not know enough. We cannot accurately predict weather a week in advance and tomorrow’s forecast is kind of iffy.
They don’t. They use oxygen isotopes. It’s pretty cool. Granted, it is still extrapolated, but from an independent source. And it isn’t like scientists don’t realize this.
There simply isn’t a model good enough to predict weather 100 years in the future. We do not know enough. We cannot accurately predict weather a week in advance and tomorrow’s forecast is kind of iffy.
Fine. It’s more broad. Substantiate it. It should be easy.
If anything, it should help their case, because those of us who want to look at the data (taken in snippets, of course) can see that they truly did account for conceivable mistakes or additional possible factors. But when we’re just told (without data, just a summary sheet and a cute graph) that solar activity doesn’t have any bearing on global climate, and we have to accept it, well, that raises suspicions.
The links that Leo recently provided have a lot of other links to primary data. It isn’t that scientists are deliberately hiding anything. All data, particularly the publicly funded data, is open and free to the public. If not, you can go to the library and read the primary data.
Or better yet; I’ll do it for you: You don’t want to take scientists word on sunspots, here is a link to a brief description of why the sunspot hypothesis is overblown.
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/DamonLaut2004.pdf
Now you can consider yourself informed on that one issue.
Again it isn’t because scientists are expecting the public to just take their word for it; they are simplifying it for the public. This is generally a good thing. That the skepticism falls along political lines should of course cast doubts on the motivations of the skeptics. These discussions never seem to fail to mention the name “Al Gore”, even before he won a Nobel Prize. Dissenters, particularly the non-scientist dissenters, usually mention Kyoto or some other policy issue somewhere n the discussion; the prevailing political thought on how to deal with global climate change should have nothing to do with whether or not global climate change is man-made or not. And yet somehow it always gets discussed.
For the record, if it even matters, I am Catholic, slightly libertarian-leaning Republican who favors a free-market solution to most problems, opposed Kyoto as ineffectual, thinks Al Gore is a scare-monger, and yet I still think that human activity is responsible for much of the warming of the earth in the past few centuries.
“That the skepticism falls along political lines should of course cast doubts on the motivations of the skeptics.”
So, the inverse isn’t also true?
That the hysteria falls along political lines should of course cast doubts on the motivations of the hysterics.
Leo said:
Matthew Siekierski, no I haven’t checked those funding sources. But I imagine most climate research is done at universities and the same type of institutions where most science is done. I suspect that their ultimate funding is similar to the funding which led to the tobacco-cancer link.
I have no reason to believe that climate scientists earn more than other academics/scientists.
How does the research get funded? Where does the grant money come from? How is the awarding of grant money determined?
The scientists don’t have to necessarily earn more to see benefit from increased funding through increased grants that are awarded because of popularity. Increased funds may not change their income, but it can be used to buy expensive equipment that might otherwise be out of reach, to go on research expeditions (i.e., vacations), or a myriad of other uses that isn’t reflected in their W-2’s.
If you’re going to show concern about research bias caused by funding sources, be intellectually honest enough to apply it to all parties. The source of the funding may cause one to investigate more closely the possibility of bias. It should not be used to completely dismiss the claims made.
That the hysteria falls along political lines should of course cast doubts on the motivations of the hysterics.
Thank-you, Tim J.!
Also, what is equally disturbing is the fact that many scare-mongers with their mob mentality think along the fallacious notion that if you do not subscribe to Global Warming as man-made caused or even Global Warming in general, you must be an environment-hater!
Not so!
As stewards of this earth which God had given unto us, we should take care of it!
Tim J.’s initial post have voiced reasonable comments in this regard!
The scientists don’t have to necessarily earn more to see benefit from increased funding through increased grants that are awarded because of popularity. Increased funds may not change their income, but it can be used to buy expensive equipment that might otherwise be out of reach, to go on research expeditions (i.e., vacations), or a myriad of other uses that isn’t reflected in their W-2’s.
BINGO!
Thanks, Matthew!
Exactly!
There have been scientists who surreptitiously siphon such funds to their pet projects in the guise of the ‘necessary’ purchase of such assets (e.g., equipment) that they otherwise would not have been able to obtain had it not been for the GW funding that fortuitously had come into their reach.
Such siphoning cannot be detected by simply inspecting such documents as a W2 as perhaps only a specific, line-item audit of such activities could unearth these facts.
People don’t realize just how difficult it is when conducting research that is not in the popular arena as AIDS or Global Warming and the tremendous struggle there is in obtaining funds.
It seems for these scientists that it only makes fiscal sense to hitch a ride on the pop theory of the day in order to access funding that they otherwise would not have.
Esau, are you suggesting that AIDS research is as fabricated as climate science?
That the hysteria falls along political lines should of course cast doubts on the motivations of the hysterics.
Of course! But READ the scientific literature. READ the scientists. They are far less “hysterical” and frankly more pessimistic about our abilities to curb the trends. But that is the politics. That the recent trends in global warming is man-made is not being disputed however; it is everything surrounding what to do about it that is mucky and subject to hysterics.
But there are several factors that get wrapped up together. Is the earth warming? Is the warming man-made? And how bad is it? The answers are yes, yes, and debatable.
Attack the hysterics. Do not attack the fact that this trend is clearly man-made.
FWIW, I like this speech by Michael Crichton. Personally, I have found some of his fiction trite and contrived, and some of it entertaining. In this speech he makes some interesting points, and his example of the environmental (mis)management in Yellowstone was eye-opening to me.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-complexity.html
“Do not attack the fact that this trend is clearly man-made.”
No, not “clearly”, at all.
I would rephrase that;
“Is the earth warming?” Maybe, a little.
“Is the warming man-made?” Maybe, a little.
“And how bad is it?”
That’s like asking “Have you’ve stopped beating your wife?”. One must agree that it is somehow “bad” before one can even consider the question.
How bad was it when the mile-thick ice sheet that covered most of the U.S. 10,000 years ago melted? The planet has been through this over and over.
I think we should take steps to reduce energy consumption *anyway*. The Earth will do what it will do.
Esau, are you suggesting that AIDS research is as fabricated as climate science?
WTF?
oops:
Greenland used to be green, but it was a lot hotter then.
also, you’re all aware I’m sure that NASA has revealed that the temperature data that much of the hype is based on was flawed and shows that the hottest year on record was the 30’s and not the 90’s?
The AIDS scare also proved to be false, as today it kills far fewer people (almost exclusively homosexual or IV drug users) than the virulent form of staph infection that can be eliminated by better cleaning and hygiene practices in places where it’s being spread…
Face it, hype is just that… hype. Once people start jumping on the bandwagon they can’t be trusted to be objective, scientists and global warming are no different.
God Bless,
Matt
The AIDS scare also proved to be false, as today it kills far fewer people (almost exclusively homosexual or IV drug users) than the virulent form of staph infection
Worldwide, MRSA kills a hundred thousand or so people a year. Meanwhile, AIDS kills more than three million people a year. And again worldwide, more than 80 percent of all adult HIV infections have resulted from heterosexual intercourse.
“And again worldwide, mort that 80 percent of all adult HIV infections have resulted from heterosexual intercourse.”
I’m not saying that’s not true, but I would like to see the evidence.
“mort that”?
“The unsteady hand betrays.”
Hiv started between homosexuals, right? (he said, betraying his ignorance.)
It came to light in gay communities in the 80’s, but its origin is much earlier than that and is shrouded in mystery. A number of theories have been proposed:
http://www.avert.org/origins.htm
Jason said:
Then this interest you:
Source
Try going through the list of the signers of the IPCC reports to see how many of them are specifically trained in climate research. You too will be underwhelmed.
Jim
I don’t know if you have read the endorsement of the IPCC by various national science academies which I posted on Nov 8, 2007 9:41:53 AM. Presumably national science academies know better than you or I who the real experts in a particular scientific field are.
This is the list of the IPCC’s physical science basis authors http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/wg1_AuthorList_2005-11-03.pdf
please state which of them are “landscape architects, psychologists, lawyers, a philosopher, a dermatologist, a gynecologist, and a diplomat”.
I guess now we know why Al Gore flunked out of Vanderbilt Divinity School (not because he is the anti-christ): he was busy studying climatology …
Again, you’re right, I apologize for saying, “Why are you smarter than 99.9% of climate scientists?” You did not claim to be so (I think I was a little upset at the poster who claimed that people shouldn’t trust scientists because they are atheists).
Regarding your substantive points. You cite articles claiming that it is difficult to make accurate predictions or measurements in climate science / questioning whether global warming is man-made.
Despite this, other scientists assert that the evidence suggests with very high probability that global warming is man-made. I don’t have the expertise to assess whose arguments are more reasonable and neither do you. All we can do is ask what most scientists believe. On many issues, scientific opinion is divided. In this case, that is not so (see my next point for more on this).
This was an interesting article, although it by no means invalidates the study under consideration. I did not claim it was performed by the national academy of sciences (that was RFK Jr.).
The article points out that the study I cited reviewed only papers with the keywords “global climate change” rather than just “climate change”. Of the more than 900 papers with the words “global climate change”, 75% endorsed anthropogenic global warming, 25% took no position and zero opposed it.
The critique made in the article you linked to is: if you use the key words “climate change”, there are 9,000 more papers. OK, but a subset of 900 is a fairly large sample. It might not be completely random, but I see no reason to think that adding the word “global” would create a huge systematic bias.
Since no further research has been done, a sample of 900 (even if not entirely random) is surely many times better than pure speculation. If someone does a further study using the full sample of 10,000 or so, I’d be eager to hear the results.
This is an excellent point. I think these conspiracy claims demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of what motivates scientists in academic positions, but you don’t have to take my word for it – if you insist on proposing conspiracy theories, at least provide some evidence of a systematic bias rather than citing isolated cases. For every case that has been proposed of a critic being “silenced” there are 10 articles about a supporter of the consensus having their views excised from official government documents. Politics goes both ways, but scientists with tenure at major research universities are less susceptible to political pressure than about any other group I can think of.
Fair enough, I think I’ve been reading too many of Esau’s posts ;-).
Exactly, without being able to assess the evidence for yourself, you just have to trust them. And why shouldn’t you trust them? After all, they’re reasonably smart, well-qualified to assess the evidence, and insulated from political pressures by tenure (see more on political pressures below). They are not completely free of bias like any humans, but there are strong sociological pressure in any scientific discipline to be as objective as possible. I should think that scientists would be extremely trustworthy.
That’s exactly what I’m saying and what scientists are saying. You just have to trust them. It’s not because you’re a neanderthal. It’s because you haven’t spent years studying the technical material necessary to assess their arguments in the proper context. I’m certainly not claiming to be able to appreciate these arguments any better than you (it’s actually quite likely that you could appreciate them better than I – just not nearly as well as a scientist trained in the appropriate discipline).
These data exist and if you have access to a university library system you could presumably read the published articles to your heart’s content. You might learn a thing or two from them but without formal training, you won’t be able to adjudicate disputes between experts. I don’t know if you play chess, but imagine if you came upon a game between two grandmasters. You could study it and learn a lot, but you would not be able to suggest anything to either of them that they would find remotely helpful.
I’ve seen no evidence for this claim except a few anecdotes. If anything, I’d expect the trend goes the other way due to the fact that the current administration would love to see evidence that opposes the consensus and because their are many very wealthy corporations that would benefit from such evidence.
That depends whether they can make their case forcefully or not. If they disagree with the consensus but present no new evidence, their peers will probably ignore them and not give them much credence. If they present compelling evidence, they will be listened to.
Two points in regard to your list of historical figures:
1) The modern scientific establishment is in many ways quite different from the scientific establishment that existed centuries ago; it is telling that none of the instances of ostracism you cite occurred in the past 50 years
2) The case of a genius who realizes that all of his scientific peers are wrong is a compelling story, but it is by far the exception and not the rule. The vast majority of the time that scientists believe their peers are all wrong, the single scientist turns out to be wrong. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that you can select the few exceptional cases.
I engaged with the one source you cited that discussed the statistical trends in beliefs among climate scientists.
As I pointed out above, why should I accept your sources that say climate models are highly inaccurate when the vast majority of published papers think that these models are sufficiently accurate to justify the inference that there is anthropogenic global warming? You seem not to have engaged with the point that Leo and I (and others) have made repeatedly that scientists constantly debate the shortcomings of their models – it is no more legitimate for you to form an opinion on these models than for you to form an opinion on any of the other substantive scientific issues at stake, except insofar as your opinion is based on the fraction of experts who support each position or solid evidence that the experts are untrustworthy (speculation in this regard doesn’t cut it).
No one is disputing that bias among scientists is a logical possibility.
I’ve suggested several reasons why we would think scientists would be more objective than just about any other group (tenure insulates them from political pressure, they have non-monetary ambitions otherwise they’d have chosen different careers, strong sociological pressures against political bias).
But even more to the point – your accusation among bias is *pure speculation*. Other than a few anecdotes (and it is equally easy to provide anecdotes of suppression of opinions of scientists who support global warming), you’ve provided no evidence of systematic bias.
It’s as if I said, “Some Priests have been arrested for sexual abuse. Furthermore, Priests are supposed to be abstinent which makes it even harder to satisfy their sexual urges through conventional channels. I suspect all Priests are pedophiles – don’t send your children to church!”
Would you find this argument convincing absent any evidence of a systematic pattern?
The hysteria might fall along political lines, but the opinions of scientists don’t!
This is an absolutely crucial point to grasp. Catholics and atheists, republicans and democrats, blonds and brunettes – however you divide them – the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is man-made.
Tim J., this seems to completely fail to engage with every point I have made above. Why don’t you trust the consensus opinion of the vast majority of scientists? (and I pose the same question to Mary Kay). It seems to me you must do one of the following:
1) Doubt there is a consensus (see the study I cited in my first post and the subsequent discussion – can you present any evidence that more than .1% of qualified scientists disagree that global warming is man-made?)
2) Not believe the consensus (see my extensive posts on why we should think scientists are about the most objective group we have). I like Leo’s analogy – if you think scientists are untrustworthy, do you believe HIV causes AIDS?
Which is it?
Yes, and this caused every scientist to immediately change their view because their opinion was based entirely on that single time series… oh wait, it wasn’t. It was based on mountains of evidence. And I’ve seen nothing to suggest that the scientific consensus has done anything but strengthen in recent years as more evidence has been accumulated (the Nordhaus paper I cited earlier makes this claim, although I’m not sure what his evidence is for it).
I don’t care what evidence Al Gore cites. I cited a survey of over 900 scientific papers with the keywords “global climate change” which found that 75% explicitly endorsed anthropogenic warming and zero opposed the consensus. As Leo points, one would think that the endorsement of every single major scientific organization in the country might mean something since they would know who the experts are.
I addressed this above. This is only true if you include as a scientist anyone with a BA in the physical sciences! A truly absurd criterion.
I simply can’t understand how you can doubt there is a scientific consensus on a claim endorsed by American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society and the IPCC. These organizations do not make endorsements likely.
If you find a single example of a claim endorsed by all of these organizations (or even one of them!) that turned out to be wrong, I will be extremely surprised.
Typo in my last post which could cause confusion: “These organizations do not make endorsements lightly.”
Why? Because they hold the title “scientist”?
I know you meant this in the rhetorical, but I’ll answer.
1) Because consensus in science has been wrong before.
2) Because the conclusions are being used to drive political issues.
3) Because I see a potential conflict of interest arising from funding potential if there is large public interest, interest that can be driven by alarmism.
4) Because dissenting opinion is ignored, derided, dismissed as unneeded because of the consensus, or the dissenters are attacked not on their science but by character smears.
5) Because of the expectation of unquestioning acceptance of the information.
There are more reasons, but those are a good start.
But I already don’t, for the reasons listed above. Instead of trusting them, I’d like some explanations.
Even science should be able to pass a “sniff test”. By that, I mean that I should be able to look at methods and data and, even without fully understanding the science, be able to say “that makes sense”. I’m not even being given the opportunity.
I don’t have such access. Why should the data be limited to academia and the “inner circles” of scientists?
No, but I should be able to see why they make the moves they do…if not at first, eventually, as the game plays out.
You really think that there hasn’t been an increase in funding for Global Warming research? You really think that grant money isn’t being directed towards university programs that are studying Global Warming, that the funding now is the same as it was 10 years ago?
First of all, the current administration doesn’t directly control the grant process. George Bush doesn’t make the decisions about who gets how much money, it’s done by career government workers (not that there’s anything wrong with that occupation…not meant in a derogatory manner).
Secondly, there are quite a few people, corporations, organizations, schools, etc., that would benefit from a continued or increased fear of anthropogenic global warming. Al Gore and Generation Investment Management are a prime example.
Third, the attempt to insert the current administration into the argument is fallacious and partisan. If I’m not mistaken, the administration came out supporting the idea of anthropogenic global warming (meaning it’s your ally, not your enemy). So all you seem to be trying to do is divide things by party line.
I haven’t said that I think anthropogenic Global Warming is completely wrong. I think it’s entirely likely that man has contributed to the warming. I do find it unlikely that man is the primary factor. And what I refuse to accept is the argument that has been presented: “We’re scientists, and we say it’s anthropogenic. You just have to trust us.” I don’t have that kind of blind faith in manmade institutes.
“I don’t have such access. Why should the data be limited to academia and the “inner circles” of scientists?”
You can subscribe to something like JSTOR. The information isn’t being hidden, it’s just that the journal publishers need a way to make money, which back in the day was through subscriptions but now it’s mostly gone electronic, so if you want unlimited access to their publications you need to pay somehow. Most colleges and Universities subscribe to one or several peer-reviewed journal databases, so students using college computers can access the information for free.
Why is so much effort going into arguing about an Appeal to Authority logical fallacy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority
An appeal to authority or argument by authority is a type of argument in logic, consisting on basing the truth value of an assertion on the authority, knowledge or position of the person asserting it. It is also known as argument from authority, argumentum ad verecundiam (Latin: argument to respect) or ipse dixit (Latin: he himself said it). It is one method of obtaining propositional knowledge, but a fallacy in regard to logic, because the validity of a claim does not follow from the credibility of the source. The corresponding reverse case would be an ad hominem attack: to imply that the claim is false because the asserter lacks authority or is otherwise objectionable.
Michael (not underlined),
do you think the title of this page and Jimmy’s opening statement:
“The founder of The Weather Channel is remarkably cool toward the idea of man-made global warming”
is an example of an appeal to authority?
Why is so much effort going into arguing about an Appeal to Authority logical fallacy?
Because it is an ideological battle, not a scientific one. Basically all we’ve heard here is, “My guys are on the level. Your guys are dupes and shills.” and people are wisely skeptical. Personally, this doesn’t bother me until it gets to the proposal level and people start thinking massive state power-grabs will solve the problem. Some protest that AGW proponents are not as a whole insisting on this. That might be true, but we have a whole 20th-century of history (and countries with massive state power have a horrible environmental record.) of this to make us reasonably wary.
do you think the title of this page and Jimmy’s opening statement:
“The founder of The Weather Channel is remarkably cool toward the idea of man-made global warming”
is an example of an appeal to authority?
It would be if he actually asserted that the debate is over and everyone should now reject the idea of man-made global warming based upon the authority of one man. As it is, all he said was, “I thought this was interesting.”
J.R., you’re absolutely right. I could do that.
What would be better for us non-scientists would be a gathering of all of the information into one place, a compiling of all of the arguments for and against. Something like the IPCC, but one that will release the full materials used to reach their conclusions in a timely manner, instead of releasing a summary to be used for political purposes and to drive policy.
Have they made all of that information available yet?
Michael (not underlined)
Jimmy’s opening reference was an appeal to authority. “Founder of the Movie Channel on GW” doesn’t quite have the same weight/interest. The reference has more weight/interest because it is from someone with an apparent qualification to speak on the matter. This is not just celebrity interest, otherwise their name alone would be sufficient.
Therefore, it would be on-topic for this discussion to be about the validity of authority/ad hominem/rationality of reliance on those with superior knowledge of a complex matter.
Your “authoritative” quote from Wikipedia does not say anything about “the debate is over” being a criterion of invalidity. As an aside, it’s ironic to see a written statement of the Argument from Authority being used as an authority to reject an argument from authority 🙂
What piques me is the sudden insistence that “the debate is over”.
Why? Because one side of the debate declares it over?
Appealing to the consensus is not a fallacious appeal to authority, if the claim of consensus is valid, and it is the consensus of experts in the field.
However, if an expert has a bias (i.e., Big Oil or Big Green has paid him), then one may safely question the validity of that expert’s voice in the consensus. It’s not enough to completely dismiss that expert’s opinion, but it warrants deeper investigation.
In my opinion, finding the biases of all parties in this matter is impossible. Therefore, I refuse to accept any of them as unbiased authorities, and would prefer to see the data and logic behind their calculations that lead them to their respective opinions. This is why I keep saying that I want to see the data, and that “We’re scientists, trust us” isn’t good enough for me.
You may have heard this saying before: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Well, to me, anthropogenic global warming is an extraordinary claim, so I want extraordinary evidence…because this isn’t something that I’m prepared to make a leap of faith on.
Have they made all of that information available yet? (Matthew Siekierski).
I have difficulty seeing the wood from the trees in the IPCC materials, but they do seem to have published all their documents on the web.
IPCC main publications page
The links on the left to Assessments & Special Reports and Technical Papers might be what you’re after. The ones I’ve seen have exhaustive references to the primary scientific research papers which you will probably have to subscribe to if you want to read them in full.
more IPCC technical publications
The UK’s Hadley Centre is a major research institution on this matter. Hadley Centre main publications page
scroll down to Research. Some of the source research is here along with references to other research papers.
You can even download all the source climate data used in their climate models!
Manchester Metropolitan University undergraduate course study notes
I don’t know what your level of knowledge is, but here are two educated layperson’s science summaries
Hadley
Australian Goverment
No, because they have spent their lives studying the matter. The general arguments against appeals to authority are absurd as you believe hundreds of things on the basis purely of the authority of scientists. Do you believe that the earth orbits the sun? Have you tested this for yourself? Do you believe that the rotation of the earth on its axis is responsible for seasonal climate change? But predicting the future climate is so hard!
Let me consider each of your reasons for distrusting the scientific consensus in turn.
Consensus in science has been wrong, but this is by far the exception and not the rule. This is especially true since the advent of the modern system of peer reviewed journals (which are imperfect, but much better than other institutions man has come up with for arriving at true scientific claims).
My question for you is:
Can you name a single claim that 99.9% (or even 95%) of scientists have believed in the past 50 years that has turned out to be wrong? Please cite something more substantial than a newsweek article which says, “Scientists believe global cooling is likely” – just because one journalist thinks scientists believe something doesn’t make it so.
Even if you can (and I doubt it), on how many thousands of other claims has a 95% or 99% consensus of scientists been right?
This is a reason to distrust the politicians, not the scientists! The President of South Africa doesn’t believe HIV causes AIDS. The scientists in South Africa all believe it. Who is right? No one is completely free of political pressure, but scientists are better insulated than almost any other group (see more below on financial incentives).
Pure speculation. There is more funding for research which argues for anthropogenic global warming because more scientists are doing such research; the reason more scientists are doing it is because it is true. There is also more funding for research that attempts to prevent AIDS by vaccinating against HIV than their is for research that casts doubt on the claim that HIV causes AIDS. This isn’t because of political pressure – it’s because of the science.
To support your claim that causation goes the other way – from money to the beliefs of scientists – you need to present *evidence*. You need to show that exogenous shocks to funding cause scientists to change their beliefs. Such a study would not be hard to do – but even stating the appropriate experiment shows how dubious the claim is.
I have never seen any evidence that in *any* scientific discipline that the beliefs of scientists have been influenced by the availability of funding. The particular research avenues they pursue might be, but scientists are not going to say, “Oh, I was going to do experiment A which supports the view X. But since funding is available to support the opposite of X, I now believe the opposite of X and will do experiment B to support it”.
Again, you’re confusing the public debate with the scientific one. Scientists attack the dissenters based on their science. Their opinion isn’t ignored – it’s a part of the scientific debate which scientists have rejected.
You simply speculate with absolutely no evidence that “consensus” scientists have rejected it for political reasons. These scientists don’t view themselves as members of a political consensus. They do research in many other topics as well – they view themselves as human beings trying to be as impartial as they can in their pursuit of the truth about the scientific world. They don’t reject arguments out of hand because they come from political opponents (which is why no scientist ever asks if their colleagues are republicans or democrats). They reject arguments because they are not supported by the data.
This is an overstatement. I think the kinds of arguments you make above are at least the right *kind* of arguments (they’re just very weak ones). I’m just saying you don’t have the knowledge to evaluate the claims of scientists. This is an indisputable empirical fact.
What you can do is determine whether or not scientists are trustworthy or not. You have presented some reasons why you think they are not. I have argued that these are horrendously weak reasons supported only by speculation based on your own political bias and not by any evidence. I’m eager to hear your reply.
Just like quantum mechanics… oh wait.
Maybe some kinds of science should pass a “sniff test” – if an economist claimed that people with more education tend to earn less money, they better provide strong evidence for this intuitively dubious claim.
We’re talking about physical science here though. You have no intuition for long-term global climate change. The arguments you make about the complexity of the models could equally well be applied to the complexity of the engineering models necessary to launch a rocketship to the moon. Yet somehow, we managed to do it.
The question isn’t whether the models are complex or not – it’s whether they work. You’ve arbitrarily fixated on a few studies questioning the validity of a few particular models to the exclusion of the hundreds of other experiments and models which are generally accepted by scientists. How do I know this? Based on the fact that all the scientists are well aware of the doubts you raise but nonetheless believe that anthropogenic global warming is real.
To go back to my analogy, you come upon a game of chess between chess grandmasters. There are 100 chessmasters watching who all say that player A is winning. You say, “Ah, but player A’s knight is in take!” This might seem decisive to you at the time because you don’t realize that other features of player A’s position more than compensate for this and make it obvious to anyone more informed than you that player A has a decisive advantage.
You might think that, but you’d be wrong. Go download a game between chessmasters. Here is a particularly elegant one:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011478
Play through the whole thing. Do you now understand all of the moves? My guess is you understand about 3 because they were forced and the rest you have an extremely superficial understanding of. You could spend years studying this game and not understand all the moves.
The analogy with science is quite precise.
See my point above about the experiment you would have to do to show that funding actually effects the opinions of scientists. A correlation doesn’t cut it since that could easily be caused by the fact that the data has caused more and more scientists to want to do research on global warming!
The question is whether an increase in funding leads scientists to change their beliefs – not just affects the direction of their research (it might cause them to do research on one topic rather than another), but switches it in such a way as to increase scientific support for the subject being studied. And I’m talking about academic scientists, not scientists hired by Phillip Morris.
You have presented no evidence that financial incentives have affected the beliefs of scientists in any scientific discipline over the past 50 years; a fortiori, you have presented no evidence that the current overwhelming majority of scientists who accept global warming are moved at all by financial incentives.
My only point in bringing up the current administration was that there are powerful and well-funded interests who would gladly support research opposing the current scientific consensus (whatever they might say publicly). So the idea that global warming dissenters can’t obtain funding is just highly dubious. If you are making this claim (and I’m not sure you are), what evidence is there for it?
The faith is not blind, but supported by all of the arguments we have made so far. Again, you believe the earth orbits the sun and not the other way around based purely in your blind faith in science. I very much doubt you have performed the measurements yourself.
Wdo you trust then? Just your own intuition on the matter? What are you basing your belief on if not the consensus among scientists?
Sorry, that last post was mine.
Matthew,
The data is available as Leo points out, but I don’t know what you’re going to do with it lacking as you do a PhD in atmospheric science. You might find it informative, but you just won’t be able to adjudicate between competing experts because they know everything you know about the matter and much much more.
I’m not sure why it should be an extraodinary claim – humans have obviously had an enormous impact on the earth’s ecosystem – we’ve observably caused a massive increase in extinction rates. The only question is whether we’ve affected the global climate – I have absolutely no intuition about this one way or the other, any more than I have an intuition about the results of a random chemistry experiment.
I think your claim raises an interesting point though.
Is there anything that could happen short of global climate change continuing that would convince you that the scientists are right in their predictions? If I take your claims at face value, there seems to be absolutely nothing that scientists could do today to convince you that global warming will occur in the future. Is that correct?
Matthew,
If you still doubt my claim that “you just won’t be able to adjudicate between competing experts”, I would urge you to play through the chess game I linked to in my above post:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011478
Please, tell me where Topalov went wrong.
And if you can’t, why do you think you can do the same thing in the equally (if not more) complex world of climate science?
Those are the older assessments. 2007’s assessment isn’t out yet, but the summary of the assessment has been used to attempt to drive policy. I have a problem with that.
But thanks for the link. I’ll do some studying, going back to the 1990 assessment.
By the way, Hadley Center can be used to show the point about concern for bias. They’re a major research institute on this matter. As such, they surely get funding specifically for Climate Change/Global Warming. Should they report that there is no significant human cause, that funding dries up. While this isn’t enough to dismiss their findings, it is enough (for me) to have some reservations about unquestioningly accepting their findings. Demands that I just accept the findings raise concerns, because it looks like an avoidance of questioning.
I hope that’s clear enough. I don’t dismiss what they say, I just want verification that what they say isn’t tainted. I know of no other way to make that determination besides seeing all of the data.
“There is more funding for research which argues for anthropogenic global warming because more scientists are doing such research; the reason more scientists are doing it is because it is true.”
Talk about circular reasoning… the research is SUPPOSED to be done in order to FIND OUT if GW is true.
If you are funded to research the question “How Bad Is Man Made Global Warming?”, then there is not only bias in the question, there is a very natural pressure (I’m not claiming a conspiracy) to confirm that MMGW indeed exists, especially if the majority of your peers are moving with the same current, fighting over funding.
I’m not arguing that scientists are being dishonest, I’m saying they are as human as all of us, which some seem to deny. Sorry, Jason, I don’t see scientists as specially qualified to lead the human race.
MMGW is not a conspiracy, but a classic case of groupthink. Like String Theory, all you have to do is work it into the title of your grant proposal and you are off to the races.
This reasoning isn’t circular at all.
HIV causes AIDS -> scientists uncover evidence that HIV causes AIDS -> scientists do research into the link between HIV and AIDS -> more funding for scientists doing research into the link between HIV and AIDS
You don’t dispute this. Yet you dispute:
Humans cause global warming -> scientists uncover evidence that humans cause global warming -> scientists do research into the link between human activities and global warming -> more funding for scientists doing research into the link between human activities and global warming
Your alternative is:
Political pressures -> more funding for investigations of the link between humans and global warming -> scientists support link between humans and global warming
This could be equally well applied to the link between HIV and AIDS or any other scientific claim. Where is the evidence for the last implication in this chain of reasoning? It is pure speculation with no basis in fact. You have simply failed to engage with the many reasons I enumerated in the above posts about why we should think scientists would not be especially susceptible to political pressures. Instead, you just speculate that the scientific consensus on this subject is due to political pressures.
Why do you believe that HIV causes AIDS, that the tilt of the earth on its axis causes the seasons (the weather is so hard to predict!), but not that human activity causes global warming?
Tim J, let me pose to you the same question I posed to Matthew above:
Is there anything that could happen short of global climate change continuing that would convince you that the scientists are right in their predictions? If I take your claims at face value, there seems to be absolutely nothing that scientists could do today to convince you that global warming will occur in the future. Is that correct?
Jason,
I supplied a list of reasons I don’t blindly accept the declaration of “consensus” as fact. I appreciate the detailed response, and don’t have time to reciprocate at the moment to the degree that I’d like. Here’s a somewhat quick response, and, if you’d like to explore it further we can.
There are several problems with your arguments.
First, I’m uncertain how a percentage-based consensus was obtained. Percentage of articles published in journals? Outspoken people? Surveys? So I question your implication that 95-99% of scientists involved in global climate-related research are certain of anthropogenic global climate change. Does it include scientists who claim there is anthropogenic global warming, but that it’s not the primary cause of the current warming trend?
Second, the time span of 50 years is insufficient time. Science has held beliefs for much longer periods that have turned out to be false.
You are correct that the review process improves things, but it’s still faulty.
Third, my concern over bias is a concern, not a proof. There is no need for me to prove that belief change occurs in scientists as a result of funding changes. That’s a psychological issue, dealing with the subconscious, psyche, and several other aspects of human behavior. My concern doesn’t come from scientific finding, it comes from observation of human behavior…empirical evidence, I admit, and subjective.
And my concern doesn’t cause me to reject their findings, merely question them. Why is questioning them such a bad thing?
Fourth, the chess analogy is invalid. 100 chessmasters saying “player A is winning”, great. A record of the moves to that point should be available. Given the option, I could choose to study the moves and understand how that determination is reached. Global Warming proponents, however, seem to want to hide the record of moves, and rely on the “we’re chessmasters, trust us”.
By the way, I can understand the calculations involved in sending a rocket to the moon. I may not have thought to apply them in that manner had I been involved in solving that riddle, but I can certainly see the “why” after the fact.
And you can hardly expect me to glance at a game between masters (who spend long periods determining their next move) and give you a succinct and immediate answer. But at least I’d have the opportunity to examine the information.
By the way, you’re very good at telling people “you’re too dumb to understand this” in a nice way.
Fifth, while I haven’t measured the orbit of the earth around the sun, I can look at the science involved.
Sixth, even a lay person should have the right to review the scientific process, and ask questions. An explanation limited to “it’s too complex, you wouldn’t understand” is hogwash, avoidance, and unacceptable. Competing experts may know much more than me, but if they can’t explain it well, then they shouldn’t expect acceptance.
Seventh, the claims are extraordinary. 2C temp increase in 100 years because of CO2 we release, and nothing else? I demand proof, not “we’re scientists, trust us.”
Eighth, you are incorrect. I thought I’ve been relatively clear in previous posts about my position. I’m unable to determine who to believe. I believe there is some anthropogenic warming, but I’m uncertain that man is the primary cause of the total observed change, or that it’s a crisis that we must combat. What the scientists can do is try to explain the science in terms that I would understand, be willing to clarify issues that are questioned…not say “because I said so”.
Try flipping things around and see how well it works. Get a group of experts in religion together, have them make a declaration that “God exists” and therefore everyone should worship God. In fact, we need the government to lead the way in this. Any questioning of the conclusion and resulting policy are met with “we’re the experts, it’s too complex, you wouldn’t understand, trust us”. Do you think that would fly?
Jason said (with my labels of 1,2,3,4):
You missed 2a, where the scientists get funding to research the link between human activities and global warming. That, coupled with 4, is where the potential for bias comes in.
You, and others, seem to think that scientists are above such bias.
You also presume 1.
A better list would be:
1: Scientists observe increased temperatures around the world, investigate possibilities of cause.
2: Some evidence points to a correlation between increased CO2 levels caused by man and the increased temperatures
3: Grants are sought to research this possibility
4: Research is done to find/disprove such a link.
5: The link is found, and used to procure further funding for continued research.
The concern is that if step 4 disproves a link, there’s no additional funding to be had. So there’s a bias to find a link.
Appealing to the consensus is not a fallacious appeal to authority, if the claim of consensus is valid, and it is the consensus of experts in the field.
It is if the argument being made is that since a majority of scientists accept a certain interpretation of the data that you must also accept it because you are not qualified to do anything else. That is a textbook example of the fallacy.
Matthew Siekierski
good luck in your studies and credit to you for attempting something more ambitious than a 5 minute googling, skim-read, copy and paste in a polemic. BTW I’m sure I saw the 2007 IPCC background there – keep digging :).
I would distinguish being critically aware and being unreasonably sceptical.
Regarding political bias, I note that the factual issue seems to be party-politically polarized only in the US. In most of the rest of the democratic developed world, AGW is accepted as a scientific fact by most major political parties – the political arguments are over what to do about it.
Your reservations about the Hadley Centre’s funding would apply almost everywhere, including cancer research and HIV research eg what if HIV was not the cause of AIDS?, what if tobacco did not cause cancer?. Should we be as sceptical about a specialist climate research centre as a specialist HIV research centre?
If funding did dry up at say Hadley or a major medical research centre, what would happen to the staff? Do they seriously fear the soup kitchen and fabricate accordingly? Or is it more likely they would get other research posts in different institutions, perhaps reseaching something very different yet still relevant to their higher degrees? eg I’m sure an experienced climate modeller could transfer their skills to many non-climate-related areas – some more lucrative.
On a more general point as to where the research pecuniary interests lies. It seems to me that a researcher (in any discipline – not just science) is more likely to get funding by highlighting uncertainties and unanswered questions rather than saying “it’s all cut and dried, so just give me some money to go over old ground”.
Of course there are funding fashions and one can try to distinguish between research which:
(a) tests the validity of the basic assumption eg human-caused climate change
(b) examines the effects if the assumption is true eg ‘effect of climate change on migration of swallows’. (Those who are primarily interested in studying swallows rather than climate change would no doubt find other headings for their funding applications in different funding situations).
There will be some overlap between the two due to predictions and testability.
The type of possible bias you (your point 4) (and Tim J) mention could perhaps apply only to some funding under (b), although I think your basic concern is with (a) type research.
The general bias towards the belief that humans are the predominant cause for current percieved global warming, is pretty easy to understand. It seems to be mixed in with the entire environmental/organic movement, which really predisposed society over the last 40 years for the present global warming hypothesis. And even though many conservatives might dislike the ‘type’, or ‘liberal’, philosophies of people pushing the environmental movement, most of these same conservatives would probably not deny the fact that the environmentalists, liberal as they are, have performed a great role in ‘cleaning up’ the world.
Agree with their ‘wacky’ ideologies, or not, they are indeed helping to save countless animal species, old growth forests, ocean fisheries, coral reefs, etc…etc.. from destruction, or irreversible damage. And, without such environmentalists, I think the world would indeed be a much worse, and much filthier, place to live in!
So, true or not, if the global warming debate and movement gets the government to devote more money into solar/wind/wave/bio fuel, research, without overly stressing the economy, I think it’s going to have a positive effect on both the U.S. and the world overall.
And, even though the’liberal agenda’ might be extremely “wacky” to conservatives ..these same ‘wacky people’ surely make for some good ‘house/Earth cleaners’!
“Why do you believe that HIV causes AIDS, that the tilt of the earth on its axis causes the seasons (the weather is so hard to predict!), but not that human activity causes global warming?”
Because the evidence for both is beyond dispute and the evidence for global warming is not. I thought I had made that pretty plain. Human caused global warming is a *theory*, not nearly an established fact.
Have you assessed the evidence that HIV causes AIDS yourself? On what basis do you know that it is beyond dispute and the evidence for global warming is not beyond dispute? The President of South Africa for one denies that HIV causes AIDS.
Here is one prominent scientist who denies that HIV causes AIDS:
http://www.duesberg.com/
How do you know that he is wrong and all the other scientists are right? Have you personally refuted each of his arguments?
I think your only basis for saying that HIV causes AIDS is the scientific consensus on the matter. But this consensus is no different from the consensus on anthropogenic global warming.
Matthew, you raise nine points. Let me answer each of them.
Evidence of a consensus is the following:
1) The survey I cited at the outset which found that of 900 papers with the keywords “Global Climate Change”, 75% endorsed anthropogenic global warming and zero challenged that conclusion
2) All of the major scientific organizations whose members have expertise in the relevant fields have endorsed these findings.
3) Lists of global warming dissenters list fewer than 40 including disciplines as diverse as physics, mathematics and astronomy (yes, these lists may not be exhaustive, but I would be surprised if very many professors of atmospheric sciences or climatology were left out – my rough count produced five of these in the above list)
This evidence includes all scientists who think that the evidence favors anthropogenic global warming whether or not there are other factors involved.
If you’re now asking, “Well, what should we do about it?”, this is obviously a more contentious issue as the costs and benefits of global climate change are difficult to assess. Still, speaking now as an expert in my own field of economics, the majority of economics would favor an approach along the lines of Nordhaus (2005) which I cited above.
It is possible that some of the beliefs that scientists hold now will turn out to be false. We can’t know at this point. The question we want to answer is, “How likely is it that a view endorsed by all the major scientific organizations and nearly all of the published papers in the subject will turn out to be simply mistaken?” To answer this question, we need to determine what other views fall into this class.
Some examples are:
1) HIV causes AIDS
2) The germ theory of disease
3) General Relativity
The third example suggests the possibility that our current understanding is incomplete. General relativity will eventually be superceded by a deeper theory – nonetheless, it’s main conclusions are quite unlikely to be reversed.
My point is this: without the benefit of hindsight we can’t know for sure what theories will be proven false, but scientific consensus seems to be the best indicator we have at any given moment that a theory is true.
Are there any other examples of current theories where you disbelieve the current scientific consensus? Why single out global warming? (if the answer is your argument about financial incentives for scientists, I’ll address that more in a future post).
Questioning them is only a bad thing to the extent that your unfounded speculations influence the political opinions you advocate which in turn influence policies.
If they did rely on this, they would be perfectly justified since the whole point of my analogy was that they *are* chessmasters in the sense that you could only hope for a superficial understanding of their arguments anyway.
However, as others have pointed out, scientific research is mostly a matter of public record. To the extent that it is not, this is not the fault of the scientists, but the fault of the journal publishers who demand high fees for access. Scientists would gladly have their work published in the public domain if they could, and with the advent of “Arxiv.org” in the physical sciences, things are moving in this direction.
Even if you spent a year analyzing that game, you would only begin to scratch the surface of its complexities. Without a grandmaster’s deep knowledge of chess, your analysis would be too unfocused to yield meaningful results. This is exactly why I chose this analogy – the same thing is true if you apply yourself to studying climate sciences.
In both cases, you would learn a lot and improve yourself – I would certainly not discourage you from engaging in any sort of study. Just don’t expect that at the end you will be able to argue with grandmasters or physical scientists in the fields in which they are expert unless you also achieve their level of expertise in the methodologies of the field (which would require at least a PhD in the case of atmospheric sciences).
Let me stick to the HIV/AIDS example then, since this is one where there are working scientists who actually dispute the link. Do you really think that without a PhD, you could understand the link between HIV and AIDS well enough to argue with Peter Duesberg?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Duesberg
He denies that HIV causes AIDS. He’s wrong, but we only know he’s wrong because there is a scientific consensus to the contrary.
You certainly have that right. You just shouldn’t give your personal assessment of the evidence much weight relative to the consensus views of the scientists in the field, anymore than you would give your own analysis of where Topalov went wrong in the chess game I linked to much weight relative to the consensus opinion of chess grandmasters.
I don’t know enough about the subject to know if that particular claim is part of the consensus view. If it is, scientists are better positioned to: a) determine whether it is really an extraodinary claim, b) determine the evidentiary burden to establish this claim, and c) know whether this burden is met.
The scientists are willing to do so. I don’t know why you keep asserting that they aren’t – whether any particular scientist is willing to explain himself in detail to you is another story. My point is just that you shouldn’t need their explanation to accept that their results are probably true and should drive policy. You simply don’t have the time or expertise to confirm every claim relevant to policy for yourself. This is why there is specialization; but this specialization can only work if people are willing to defer their judgment to others who are more expert in cases where such deferral is warranted. I’m arguing that this is one of those cases.
Regarding the potential costs of global warming and the policy implications, you would do better to consult the economics literature which mostly (rightfully) takes the conclusions of scientists for granted. If you’re interested in this question, I’d be glad to refer you to a few articles from which you could start your investigation. As I’ve said before, there is no consensus among economists about what is best, but the majority favor an approach which combines a carbon tax and tradable permits.
I actually addressed this claim at great length in another thread (materialism and the moral argument part 4 among others).
Short answer is: we agree who the experts are about science (the scientists who study the field in question), but we don’t agree who the experts are about religion. I would actually argue that scientists are among the groups we should consider most expert about at least some aspects of the question of whether God exists, but that is an argument for another thread.
And just to make that last point perfectly clear, my answer to your question of, “Do you think that would fly?” is, “Absolutely yes”. I think the best way to determine the truth of religious claims is in fact to determine who is expert in assessing each of these claims and then defer our judgment to them. So my position is perfectly consistent across these different domains. You are at least consistent if you reject deferral to experts in each of these domains (although I would argue that you are consistently wrong!); but presumably as a Catholic (if you are a Catholic), you don’t reject deferral to experts in matters of religion. I wouldn’t argue against such deferral in general – I just think that you picked the wrong experts (presuming you are in fact Catholic).
Leo,
I will dig. My brief brush with the site showed the data for the 2001 assessment, but from what I saw the 2007 assessment isn’t slated to be fully released until early next year.
And I will take your admonition to heart. Critically aware vs. unreasonably skeptical, that is.
Re: bias at research centers with regards to funding, I would say that skepticism existed in the 80s regarding HIV/AIDS. However, I have a sense that there’s a problem with the comparison between the two issues. As complex as the human system is, it’s much more limited in scope, and better known. There are also multiple patients that allow for comparison of symptoms and indicators. If half of the patients with AIDS weren’t HIV-positive, then there would be evidence that there’s something else going on. With Global Warming, we only have one patient, one test case.
As far ask being skeptical about it, it’s a matter of level of funding. AIDS funding wasn’t/isn’t as extreme as Global Warming’s funding. And additional funding doesn’t come from going over old ground, it goes to figuring out how to fix the problem…and the funding money comes in quicker if it appears to be an emergency.
And, again, this isn’t enough to dismiss the findings of those researchers, it just causes me to question their results more. Much like a scientist funded by Big Oil should be questioned if his results show no global warming.
Jason, I will answer you soon, but it’s late here (2am), and I’m tired. My fifth child was born on Thursday by emergency C-section (she’s fine…6lbs and healthy, and my wife is doing very well), and I’ve been running around quite a bit. I have a few things left to do tonight before I go to bed, and I have to get up early to take the other kids to Church before going back to the hospital to gather up the wife and new daughter to bring them home.
Unfortunately, that means I probably won’t have time to get to this tomorrow, and the next few days might be somewhat busy.
But a quick response to your response about authority. I question the scientists’ authority because they’re men. I trust the Church’s because it’s guided by God. On top of that, I’m prepared to make a leap of faith and trust God, but not make that same leap for scientists. I don’t deny that it takes faith to trust the Church’s teachings, and admit that it’s not something provable by science.
Several other quick responses:
I find your sources for numbers to calculate consensus to be limited. Publications can easily be biased, organizations can make declarations with a simple majority opinion of members (like a union choosing to accept a contract with 51% approval of the members). I’m not sure what the other lists you’re talking about, regarding dissenters.
Of the three accepted scientific facts you’ve listed (HIV causes AIDS, germ theory, and Relativity), only General Relativity would seem to be a good example. As I said in the previous post to Leo, HIV-AIDS (and germ theory) has multiple subjects on which to test theories…global warming has only one. Scientists try to overcome this limitation by creating as accurate models as possible, but it’s not the same.
Regarding parts 4 and 5, I don’t have to be able to argue with a grandmaster of chess, nor a climate scientist. I merely have to be able to argue with myself…I can’t get behind something that I’m unable to accept. This is an important point, and I hope it doesn’t get lost. I’m not trying to prove the scientists wrong, I’m just trying to find the information that will enable me to believe what they’re saying.
Point 6: I give more weight to my opinion than to scientists’ opinions because it’s a matter of what I’m capable of believing. My conclusions aren’t binding on others, except that they will affect how I vote, which may in turn affect policy. While this may look concerning, it’s not nearly all that bad, because my vote is one of millions, and politicians don’t seem to listen to us anyway 😉
Point 7: I’ve seen various numbers, and don’t recall which report had the 2C over 100 years. Sorry. However, to me it appears to be an extraordinary claim, because a review of the last 100 years shows variation in temperature year-to-year, some quite large. And I should clarify that I don’t necessarily have a problem believing the 2C change, just that it will be man-caused.
Point 8: I covered this earlier…for me to support something, I have to believe it. For me to believe it, I have to accept it as true. For me to accept it as true, I sometimes need clarification and verification. Global Warming, because of the major impact to policy, is one such instance. I don’t have to understand everything that goes into it, I just want proof that will convince me. To date, I haven’t seen enough proof/evidence. The summary of the 2007 IPCC assessment is out, but the data (evidence/proof) is lagging by quite a bit.
And I won’t defer completely to scientists in this case simply because of the extreme nature of most of the proposed solutions I’ve seen. It’s too much for me to take on a “trust us”.
I covered point 9 earlier in this post.
Ok, that was way too much time. I’ll try and check in later. Have a good day.
Matthew, congratulations on the birth of your fifth child!
I think we may finally be getting to the heart of our disagreement.
My claim is: “In order to maximize the probability of having true beliefs, the best thing you can do is base your belief on the consensus of scientists.”
As far as I can tell from your last post (and correct me if I’m wrong), your claim is something like, “I prefer to find out for myself regardless of whether this is really the best way to maximize the probability of having true beliefs. After all, there are very few consequences of me being personally incorrect.”
If that is your claim, then I don’t think there is much we disagree about. My point with the chess analogy presumed that you were ultimately interested in maximizing the probability that your beliefs were true. This was why I said you should ultimately want to “argue with a grandmaster”. The idea was, if you disagreed with the consensus of grandmasters about where Topalov went wrong after studying the game, who would you believe?
If you cared about maximizing the probability of having true beliefs, you would side with the grandmasters. However, if instead you simply cared about having an opinion that you personally understood the reasons for regardless of whether it was correct (or at least, if having true beliefs is not your sole concern), then your own study would be sufficient. The same goes for global warming.
Is this an accurate characterization of your position?
“I wouldn’t argue against such deferral in general – I just think that you picked the wrong experts (presuming you are in fact Catholic).”
Jason, what would you know about a “Catholic expert.. and his qualifications”? And, do you know very much about Jesus Christ, His teachings, and the early Church that transmitted these teachings to each generation since His death, resurrection and ascension?
If you don’t know these things you cannot be a very competent judge as to what a ‘Catholic expert’ might actually be like. And really, the Church herself proclaims openly who Her best experts are, and have a ‘process of canonization’ to study and proclaim such experts to be canonized “Saints”, and some of these are further classified as “Doctors of the Church”.
So, these are REALLY the EXPERTS you must be talking about(except for the competent experts currently leading the Church from the Vatican), and they have left their teachings for us in very numerous autobiographies, sermons, apologies, treatises, written prayers, journals, etc…, with each century having it’s own, so called ‘experts’ in believing and living the ‘Catholic Faith’.
And one item you might be missing in all of this, is comparing ‘Faith’ to ‘science’.. and as you seem to try to do very frequently. The great problem here, is that faith deals with ‘spiritual life’, which is the ‘apex’ of all created things, whereas science pertains to only the ‘means’ to which physical life is both given and maintained in this world.
To highlight the difference between science and faith, consider the goal of the Christian person..the attainment of the Kingdom of Heaven. Now if science, knowledge, logic, etc.. were essential to attain eternal life, a Christian would be able to find such requirements in the teachings of Jesus Christ, upon whose teachings the Church is established. However, we find almost the opposite!
See, here, the many ways that Jesus, the authoritative teacher of Catholics/Christians, describes the ‘APEX’ or summit of Christian being, which pertains to being considered worthy of being included into the “kingdom of Heaven”:
” At that hour the disciples came to Jesus, saying: Who thinkest thou is the greater in the kingdom of heaven? 2 And Jesus calling unto him a little child, set him in the midst of them, 3 And said: Amen I say to you, unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, he is the greater in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And he that shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me.”
and,
” And he, lifting up his eyes on his disciples, said: Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are ye that hunger now: for you shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now: for you shall laugh. 22 Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. 23 Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For according to these things did their fathers to the prophets. 24 But woe to you that are rich: for you have your consolation. 25 Woe to you that are filled: for you shall hunger. Woe to you that now laugh: for you shall mourn and weep. ”
And,
” Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in:
36 Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. 37 Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink? 38 And when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? 39 Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and came to thee? 40 And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.”
So, Jason, for a Catholic Christian who is trying to attain the goal of “Eternal Life” we must be very attentive to these FEW teachings of Christ, above. And as you can see, they really don’t pertain to philosophy, logic, worldly learning, etc.. And likewise, if we are to find experts in Catholicism, they too must be ‘practicioners’ of such admonitions…and not just students, or teachers, of such. Much of Christian faith involves LIVING it, wherein comes the saying of Christ:”COME FOLLOE ME”.
And again, regarding “EXPERTS” in Faith, this is why the Church examines the lives of prominant Catholics, after their deaths, to find those who have LIVED and practiced the teachings of Christ in an extraordinarily excellent way….that is…by living lives of “Heroic Virtue”, well as teaching others about it.
So, the ‘Saints’ and ‘Doctors’ of the Catholic Church are the valid teachers that the Church proposes as examples for all interested in following Christ. And from these same, the Church’s present ‘Magisterium’ also learns from, as can be found in the text of the current Catholic Catequism, which is ‘filled’ with the teachings, quotes and examples from these Saints, Doctor’s, Martyr’s and Hero’s, of Catholic faith.
So really, herein you have your panal of experts in the Christian Faith: BOTH, the Catholic Saints throughout history, and then in the present, the current ‘Magisterium’ of the Church, united and obedient to, the Pope in Rome!
A. Williams,
I think we need to distinguish between two issues here:
1) Presuming that the basic tenets of Catholicism are correct (that Jesus was divine, that the New Testament accurately describes his life and records his teachings, etc…), who is most expert in determining how to apply these principles in our daily lives?
2) Are the basic tenets of Catholicism correct?
I agree with you that the answer to question 1) is Christian saints and the “Magisterium”.
I am concerned with question 2). It seems to me that answering this question requires studying the historical evidence regarding Jesus’ life and forming an opinion about whether historical accounts of miraculous events are likely to be reliable (and what evidentiary burden they should be required to meet). I’ve argued in other threads that this question actually involves a number of subquestions, some of which are best answered by historians, some by philosophers and some by scientists.
(This post attempts to close the indentation tag)
We risk getting off track here.
Scientific expertise is different from Magisterial authority and they should not be confused. One difference is that a Pope’s Magisterial authority does not come from him being cleverer or more learned (or more saintly) than all or most members of the Church.
Those who are interested in what B16’s prudential judgment on Climate Change is, can check my post of Nov 8, 2007 6:10:19 PM. BTW please note the final paragraph of that post!
In coming to this prudential judgment on a complex and controverted matter of scientific fact, how do you think he would have proceeded? I think it would have been rational of B16 to identify and consult the leading experts in the field. He is a former academic and, as Pope, has special access to members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Good point Leo – let’s stick to the global warming issue.
To summarize some of the above lengthy posts: I think the challenge that remains unanswered by those who are skeptical of the scientific consensus is:
Do you believe that HIV causes AIDS? If so, on what basis do you do so given that a) Prominent political authorities like the President of South Africa challenge this conclusion and b) Scientists like Peter Duesberg challenge this conclusion.
It seems as though the only basis for believing that HIV causes AIDS is that fact that the vast majority of scientists believe that it does; the evidence for this claim comes from 1) The endorsements of all the major scientific organizations and 2) meta-studies of the scientific literature on the topic.
But this is exactly the same as the evidence for scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming.
Jason,
Nonsense. The HIV AIDs connects is clearly demonstrable by clinical test. It is entirely irrelevant how many scientists take one side or the other. The truth exists whether we recognize it or not.
Global warming is theoretical and far from proven. More precisely the link between man made activity and climate change is even more poorly demonstrated. That’s fact – it’s simply a difficult thing to prove. You might ponder how you take the worlds temperature for a single day and you’d understand why. Do you add up all of the numbers from every airport and average them? No that wouldn’t work because airports are hotter than open fields and airports over represent the developed world. Do you use satellite data and average over the world? Not a bad way to go and the data contradicts much of the global warming claims – however this data is only available for few years – so you need something else. You can use tree rings, but the effects of atmospheric CO2 content (which is rising without doubt) exaggerate the effect of putative warming. For every global warming piece of data there are issues. Most real scientists are very cautious in what they actually print in scientific journals.
The issue is exaggerated by the press and the political arm of ecological groups. Even if we accept that global warming occurs it’s not necessarily a bad thing – it would increase crop yields and thus reduce food prices which would be good for the poor. The wild claims of increased storms are entirely unproven and have been strongly refuted. The hysteria, the character assassination the call for radical and obviously futile “reforms” (read Kyoto) unmask Global warming as a political front rather than a scientific one.
Jason, like I said before, there are a lot of patients to diagnose with AIDS. Case after case can be cited where a patient who has AIDS also has HIV. This was further studied, and HIV infection occurs first, and no cases have been found where a patient has AIDS but doesn’t have HIV.
In other words, there’s repeatability of the tests (unfortunately), something that can only be done with imperfect models for climate science.
Matthew,
I’d like to see your response to my Nov 11, 2007 7:04:53 AM post since I think that may get at why we disagree.
Memphis,
I have answered this claim perhaps a dozen times on this thread and others. The truth exists whether we recognize it or not, but the consensus of scientists is our best indicator of the truth because you’re not qualified to assess the evidence for yourself.
Don’t scientists realize this? Why are they so stupid as to think that anthropogenic global warming is occurring even so? Perhaps they’re just naive? Alternatively, perhaps there are many independent different avenues of evidence which all make sense in light of the anthropogenic warming hypothesis.
The remainder of your paragraph is a number of scientific claims that we’re both unqualified to address. If you want answers to specific objections, ask a climate scientist. If you want to know the truth as best you can determine it, go with the consensus.
Perhaps it has been exaggerated, and I agree that Kyoto is a far from perfect solution (other reforms would be preferable), but if Global warming is a political front, why is it endorsed by every major scientific organization and almost all of the peer reviewed scientific literature? What evidence can you present that their research is driven by political pressures?
The sociological pressures in science all scientists towards being as objective as possible in their research. This is why the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats, Catholics and Atheists all agree about anthropogenic global warming. There is no division along political lines among scientists. They’re only human so they can’t be perfectly objective. But they’re much more objective than the politicians and commentators who you rely on to form your opinions.
If on the other hand your opinions are based on your own first-hand assessment of the evidence, you simply don’t realize the extent of your own ignorance. Again, consider my analogy with a chess game. You make arguments that sound superficially plausible but are easily answered by scientists who are far more expert than you. We also can’t test the big bang theory in a lab – it only happened once – yet it is believed by a consensus of scientists. Do you deny that the big bang happened as well?
There is a political front here: the denial of global warming. This is obvious from the fact that while many politicians are skeptical of anthropogenic global warming, this skepticism is not reflected among the vast majority of scientists. The support for global warming is based on a scientific consensus.
Memphis – I’m not sure if you’ve been following the argument the whole way through – but I’d appreciate if you’d read some of my earlier posts before responding as I’ve had to repeat myself a bit here.
Matthew, how about the big bang theory? There are no repeated tests of that. Do you think scientists are right about that?
On the HIV/AIDS analogy, the claims you make demonstrate correlation and not causation. The last claim you make about no cases of AIDS without HIV is actually false. Here is an article by a nobel prize winner in the physical sciences who is skeptical that HIV causes AIDS. I of course agree with you that he is wrong, but I agree because of the scientific consensus on the matter, not because I am qualified to appraise the evidence myself. If you attempt to demonstrate to me that HIV causes AIDS, you will also eventually be forced to appeal to that consensus.
http://www.duesberg.com/articles/kmreason.html
Excerpt:
“Second, in the absence of any agreement about how HIV causes AIDS, the only evidence that HIV does cause AIDS is correlation. The correlation is imperfect at best, however. There are many cases of persons with all the symptoms of AIDS who do not have any HIV infection. There are also many cases of persons who have been infected by HIV for more than a decade and show no signs of illness.”
“It seems as though the only basis for believing that HIV causes AIDS is that fact that the vast majority of scientists believe that it does”
Well, that’s part of it, but you seem to be saying that the only judgment a layman is allowed to make is a matter of arithmetic… adding up scientists either “pro” or “con”. If most scientists favor a particular view, then that view should be accepted as most likely true.
But I make my own judgments based not only on what view is held by a majority among scientists, but also on my own assessment of that view based on my own knowledge of the world, experience of life and human nature, and common sense. What someone above referred to as the “sniff test”. I can’t make any really informed judgment about technical details, but I ought to be allowed an opinion at least on what CAN be understood of the broad outlines of this theory or that. I can certainly hold an opinion on the philosophical implications of such theories. As has been pointed out, scientific consensus has been frequently wrong.
My sense is that the data on global warming is extremely nebulous, and is very susceptible to interpretation and manipulation.
Spin is also a factor. There is a huge difference between saying “Most experts agree that humans may contribute to global warming” – (a statement I don’t much doubt, because it is reasonable), and saying “Scientists agree humans are causing global warming” – which is a statement I doubt a reputable scientist would be comfortable making.
My understanding of the data also gives me the impression that mankind controls only a tiny percentage of the whole engine of carbon release on the planet. The most that could reasonably be claimed, in that case, is that human activity is augmenting this cycle of global warming to a degree that is not statistically insignificant. THAT I would accept without too much grumbling. But to say that human activity is the sole – or even THE major cause of a new warming cycle and – more importantly – that we have a prayer of stopping this cycle, is pernicious nonsense.
Dispute this statement, if you like; “The globe WILL warm and cool significantly in spite of the activity of humans.”.
Environmental stasis is a sentimental fantasy, and a dangerous one.
Yes, we should take steps to reduce energy consumption, we should look for alternate fuel sources (oh, how well I remember the anti nuclear power protests of the seventies and eighties!) and ought to encourage innovation… but this calls for a broad cultural response, not a narrow political program initiated from the top down and controlled by the corrupt officials and committees of the U.N..
Exactly right! At least insofar as it is a matter of arithmetic beyond the most basis facts. It’s true you could confirm that 300+200 = 500 for yourself. You could also figure out whether it’s a hot day in July. But for anything that follows from more complicated reasoning, it’s necessary to appeal to the experts.
But do you think Fermat’s Last Theorem is true? I think it is, but not because I’ve checked the proof myself!
This has been pointed out, challenged by me every time, and I’ve never gotten a satisfactory reply!
The scientific consensus is NOT frequently wrong. It is very, very occasionally wrong and I don’t know of any instance in the past 50 years when it’s been wrong at all. Sometimes lone geniuses are right and all the other scientists are wrong, but that is by far the exception and not the rule. The scientific consensus has never been overturned by the “common sense” opinion of the masses. When it is wrong, it is almost always because a less common sensical theory is right.
Scientists are aware of your objections! They have a “sniff test” as well. But for some reason, they feel that the evidence overwhelmingly favors the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming despite this sniff test. Why do you think your common sense is better than the the combination of common science and evidence that scientists bring to the table?
Then you’re wrong. See the statements by all the major scientific academies. Compare their wording to your statements. Of course, science doesn’t deal in absolute certainties so they will always need the qualification “very likely”:
“It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.”
– Joint Science Academies Statement
That’s because you’re not qualified to assess the data and have fallen for the political spin of the Republican party. Again, recall my above point: there is no ideological divide among scientists. Republicans and democrats, Catholics and Atheists agree that global warming is occurring and is man-made.
This is pure ignorance on your part. Please don’t take this as an insult. I’m ignorant of the science as well. The only difference between us that I’m aware of this ignorance and so I defer to scientists. You seem not to be aware of how superficial your assessment of the evidence is. Consider the chess analogy as well. Does your “sniff test” work in chess? Why would you expect it to work in the equally complex world of climate science?
If everything were as clearcut as you suggest, then why do so many very smart scientists who are qualified to assess the evidence all have the opposite view? There is no consensus among economists about just what should be done, but none dispute the underlying scientific fact of anthropogenic global warming, nor do they dispute that countermeasures taken by us would have real effects.
Here is one take that I think is probably representative of the opinion of the majority opinion among economists:
Part 1:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b78fc54c-f673-11db-9812-000b5df10621.html
Part 2:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/781e620e-0d4a-11dc-937a-000b5df10621.html
One clarification to avoid misunderstanding.
When I say the scientific consensus is almost always right, this doesn’t imply that scientists know everything!
There are many, many questions about which scientists willingly admit their ignorance. New discoveries often shed light on these issues.
However, there are some questions which scientists think they have resolved satisfactorily (HIV causes AIDS, rotation of the earth on its axis causes the seasons, the universe is expanding…). These are subjects of a scientific consensus. It’s possible that the vast majority of scientists are wrong about these things, but extremely unlikely.
It’s interesting to note that Duesberg is correct when he says that the main causal link between HIV and AIDS is actually a correlative one. Unfortunately for him, that is true for all germ theory. And in the case of HIV it is absurdly high (and coupled with other really high correlations like AIDS being an immune disorder and HIV targeting T-cells). But I think it does get to the heart of the problem with the skeptics. All science is correlative to a certain degree. The larger your sample size, the higher your confidence intervals. When you are dealing with a sample size of one (the earth), things get trickier.
But that is where independent lines of inquiry come into play and should be emphasized. In the absence of sample-size increase, you can increase the number of modes of inquiry. If you approach the problem from multiple avenues, do you get the same answer? In this case, do you get a man-made contribution to global climate change when you examine the problem from different indicators? Like proving someone is guilty of murder, you have a single isolated incident that cannot be repeated. But a prosecutor pieces together evidences that, perhaps on their own show a high level of uncertainty of the suspect’s guilt, but taken together can more strongly suggest that guilt.
Anthropogenic climate-change is similarly demonstrated (as is many other less complex areas of science). But if we are looking for an HIV/AIDS level of linkage between fossil fuels and global climate change we are probably never going to get it. That means we either have to lower our confidence intervals or we will simply have to say that we can actually never know. In the case of a murder, we ought to err on the side of caution given that a false positive can end up punishing an innocent person.
With the case of global warming, it is fairly clear that global warming has a man-made contribution that is significant. Many of the objections have been asked and answered by scientists, as Jason has meticulously pointed out. Clearly a lot of the dissent comes from the implications that man-made global warming has on policy.
But, might I suggest a “sniff test”, as has been suggested earlier? Does burning massive amounts of fossil fuels do something to the environment? The sniff test should clearly say yes. Just look at old photographs of L.A. Or take a trip to Mumbai today. The answer is obvious. So should we attempt to reduce our carbon output?
To me, although I am convinced that we have contributed to global warming, the answer is irrelevant of actual impact; it is a moral question. 1/3 of the man-carbon output is underground coal fires in China and another third is due to deforestation. Whether or not I use CFL bulbs or drive a fuel-efficient car is not going to make any lick of difference to global carbon output. However, the same goes for whether or not my volunteering at a soup kitchen is going to end world poverty. We have an obligation not to rape the planet as much as we have an obligation not to slaughter the unborn.
Lastly, as far as the data being hidden by scientists: most of the data is publicly available. A number of journals, such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences make their older (more then 6 months old) issues available online for free. Additionally many journals allow authors to post their papers on their own websites in some form, either complete or in the proof stage. Or they have the right to distribute them at will; so if you want to see a paper you don’t have access to, you can just email the author. Literally.
Jason,
I don’t quarrel with the scientists. I quarrel with your appropriation of what they say as being equivalent to what you say.
In his book on Aquinas, GK Chesterton points out that only one thing got Aquinas really mad. It was when Siger of Brabant appropriated what he had said and equated it to what he was saying. To the uninformed, they looked the same, but to St. Thomas, what they were saying was radically different.
To me, you are Siger of Brabant, loudly crowing that you agree with the scientists, but, near as I can tell, misinterpreting what consensus there actually is among the scientists.
You are not going to get much debate here with legitimate science. But when non-scientists start trying to force their interpretation of what science says upon us, that’s another story.
When I say the scientific consensus is almost always right
Jason,
Please prove this —
Per my cited examples (and many more), it is those who go against the general scientific consensus that are usually the correct ones!
Speaking of climate change, do you think most people are aware that – according to the WMO (World Meteorological Organization), global mean temperature has been in decline since 1998?
I think your only basis for saying that HIV causes AIDS is the scientific consensus on the matter. But this consensus is no different from the consensus on anthropogenic global warming.
Jason,
You could not be so wrong —
Firstly, addressing something at the cellular level is much more doable than something as grand a level as atmospheric chemistry!
There are so many possible chemical reactions that need to be taken into account when dealing things at such a macro level as that in the atmosphere, the milieu you’re dealing with here is too vast unlike in a closed one such as that in a lab.
I hope you have enough understanding of rudimentary chemistry to know why this is so.
Even the transition states would be somewhat unpredictable given the potential energy states and the influx of possible reactants.
A few quick responses:
How do you quarrel with my interpretation? I have mostly quoted verbatim from scientific organizations in terms of the substantive comments I have made.
For instance,
“It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.”
Most people, no. Every single scientist working in the field, yes (provided of course that is correct, which I presume it is).
Esau, I’ll respond to your challenges later as they require more than a single sentence. Briefly though, you cherry-picked a few instances when (arguably) a single scientist was right and other scientists were wrong. I admit that this occasionally happens. However, you’ve ignored the thousands and thousands of instances when a single scientist challenged the consensus and was wrong.
Esau,
Jason is not wrong about the consensus of scientists on global warming vis a vis HIV. The difference is not in the consensus; it is a difference in the certainty levels acceptable to reach their conclusion. Virology and climate science are very different in their particulars, but the point is that most people accept that HIV causes AIDS not because they themselves have seen the data and are overwhelmingly convinced; they believe it because they believe the scientific consensus.
That there are different thresholds for accepting different positions should not come as a shock. Just because you think there should be more certainty in the statistics doesn’t mean that the scientists who study these topics daily agree with you.
Also Esquire, science is far less open to interpretation than philosophy. It’s difficult for one philosopher (and especially a non-philosopher) to accurately articulate the position of another philosopher. The same is not generally true in science (although there are a few exceptions) – but more to the point – you haven’t actually taken issue with any particular claim that I’ve made!
Also, as Michael pointed out above, scientists are glad to share with you their data if you e-mail them.
I would urge anyone on this blog who wants an answer to particular scientific objections to e-mail a professor of atmospheric sciences or climatology and ask for a few references that address the issue. I very much doubt any of you have bothered to do this – instead, you presume without justification that the scientists have either ignored your obvious objection or are concealing the fact that they have no satisfactory answer.
“..according to the WMO (World Meteorological Organization), global mean temperature has been in decline since 1998?”
Heck, if it keeps on going down, Al Gore will probably be leading the effort of taking off our catalytic coverters and cranking up the coal factories to try to stabalize things a bit!
And he’ll probably win another Nobel prize!
Personally, I like things a little warmer, than cooler. Fans are inexpensive to operate and everything grows well in warm climates. I think if it was an ‘ice age’ that Gore was pushing…ALL WOULD BE ON BOARD and scared out of our pants!
Jason is not wrong about the consensus of scientists on global warming vis a vis HIV. The difference is not in the consensus; it is a difference in the certainty levels acceptable to reach their conclusion. Virology and climate science are very different in their particulars, but the point is that most people accept that HIV causes AIDS not because they themselves have seen the data and are overwhelmingly convinced; they believe it because they believe the scientific consensus.
That there are different thresholds for accepting different positions should not come as a shock. Just because you think there should be more certainty in the statistics doesn’t mean that the scientists who study these topics daily agree with you.
Michael,
You have misintrepreted greatly my point here —
When dealing things at such a small scale, you have greater CONTROL over the variables as well as knowledge since the milieu is so miniscule.
That is why NANOTECHNOLOGY is so appealing!
However, the atmosphere is such a grand scale milieu, it is far more difficult to account for every single variable out there!
It’s difficult to explain this if you do not have even a rudimentary background in chemistry; but suffice it to say that reactions in the atmosphere is less predictable than that in a closed environment as in a lab.
I’ll not go any further since my going into the specifics of the difference of the chemistry in both milieus would be a grand waste of my time; and not to be condescending, but I doubt you’d hardly understand any such thermodynamic and kinetic arguments of all possible reactions in one milieu versus the other.
Heck, if it keeps on going down, Al Gore will probably be leading the effort of taking off our catalytic coverters and cranking up the coal factories to try to stabalize things a bit!
And he’ll probably win another Nobel prize!
A. Williams,
Well, let’s see —
Al Gore’s won:
1. An Emmy
2. An Oscar
3. A Grammy
4. A Nobel Peace Prize
I wouldn’t be surprised if he won another!
There is no greater person deserving of such an award then somebody who’s able to convince everyone else that “The Sky is Falling”!
I would urge anyone on this blog who wants an answer to particular scientific objections to e-mail a professor of atmospheric sciences or climatology and ask for a few references that address the issue.
Oh brother!
My professor friend is such a one and even he has voiced his skepticism on the matter!
Jason, you’re not quite right in the Nov 11 comment. I’m trying to maximize my confidence that I’ve learned the truth on an issue, not just trying to maximize being right.
I could go through life siding with the majority in all things, and, for the most part, I’d do a pretty good job of being “right”. But I want to know, to the best of my ability, that I am right.
Big Bang theory is interesting, but by no means proven. I accept it as a possible explanation of “the Beginning”, a really good one, at that, but have some reservations. I.e., from whence came the cosmic egg?
HiV/AIDS: While correlation is not causation, with multiple cases to study, it becomes easier to determine if it’s merely coincidence or there’s a causality involved one way or the other (or a common cause). Link deniers for this case haven’t given anything remotely convincing…and credentials aren’t all that impressive to me, so the title “scientist” isn’t convincing in the least.
Since you keep sticking to the HiV/AIDS topic, I want you to think about this. Suppose you got sick, and instead of looking at you and being able to compare your symptoms to a library to cases, the doctors can only model what they know of the function of the human body (apart from illnesses learned about from other people), plug in what they know of your sickness, and recommend a solution. The day they recommend something major (e.g. heart transplant), wouldn’t you question things?
Michael (the underlined), I quite agree with you that making personal changes is a good idea. Reducing carbon output is also a good idea. Where we disagree is that man’s effect/impact is “significant”. Without agreement on that, the sense of urgency for required/recommended changes is different. I have no problem with the proposed changes, per se, just the speed of implementation, which impacts the cost of implementation. (Fast, cheap, good; pick two.)
I also have concerns about the actual impact some proposed solutions would have. In these days of expected instant gratification, the rush to “fix” a complex system could be disastrous.
What is he a professor of? What field does he do research in?
At any rate, compare:
1) I have a friend who is a professor of something who has voiced skepticism about anthropogenic global warming
2) Every major scientific organization has issued statements declaring it very likely that human activities are responsible for global warming; studies of the literature find that every paper published in peer reviewed journals which takes sides on the matter endorses this hypothesis
Jason,
Okay —
Let’s go one on one here —
Provide your Thermodynamic/Kinetic argument for proving that this is, indeed, the case; namely, that man is responsible for GW.
There, I’ll point to you where you may, in fact, be wrong; given my past conversations with not only my professor friend but also his colleagues.
Jason,
I am a scientist and while working on my masters degree I took classes in environmental computer modeling and while a post doc I worked with a ecologist who was a global warming expert. So I know a little about the culture of science and the way global warming is taught and tested and it’s limitations.
First a note about the Scientific consensus: it’s always open to revision and is frequently superceded. The entire history of Science is a history of revolutionary changes in world view. To the student it’s taught as a seamless narrative but in reality it’s as personal petty and prone to all human errors as any other field. Classically the man who topples the last world view jealously guards it and the science may not advance until definitive evidence proves him wrong or the previous advocate retires. Almost every major advance in Science takes heroic effort of swimming against the consensus. This is not about popularity is about demonstratable testable reality.
Equating the HIV AIDS connection to global warming is ridiculous. HIV is a fully sequenced virus: all of it’s genes are known in both form and function. Very close equivalents to this virus exist in apes and cats and have been directly demonstrated to cause disease. Statistics do not need to enter into it at all: there are physical and chemical lines of evidence that are superior to any statistical finding.
Global warming however is an incomplete system, one that is not fully understood and one that is very complex. Global circulation models are highly complex programs that contain many parameters that can not be measured but must be estimated. In fact it was several years before scientists agreed that clouds were net cooling rather than net warming.
Scientists make their sincerely best attempt to model all that they can and to keep the model focused on those elements that matter. However the system is artificial and may miss crucial stochastic elements. For example volcanic eruptions are extremely hard to predict but they contribute to global cooling. Mount Pinatubo (spelling?) cooled the earth for a couple of years by all by itself.
Built into these models are numerous untested hypothesis that while reasonable are not proven. The assumption that CO2 drives warming is built into most models. While changes in solar activity are often discounted or are left static for the sake of simplicity. It was only this year that a mechanism to explain the discrepancy between changes in solar activity and surfac temperatures was put forth along with some evidence. Basically solar activity rises and falls with temperature but the changes are too modest to explain everything. There must be either some other component (CO2) or an amplifying effect. Recently it was shown that cosmic radiation can induce cloud formation. High solar activity reduces the cosmic radiation and hence lessens cloud formation and that would allow solar activity to explain much, if not all of the global warming by itself. Of course this finding does not preclude the possibility that human made gasses contribute but it does put the scale of their putative effect into perspective.
Memphis Aggie,
Thanks for your above post!
You couldn’t have articulated these matters better!
Esau,
When dealing things at such a small scale, you have greater CONTROL over the variables as well as knowledge since the milieu is so miniscule.
No doubt. And that point is well-taken. That simply means that there are different levels of accuracy across scientific fields. You cannot hold atmospheric science to the same rigor that one can hold chemistry. But it is false to assume that this means that there is any difference in the broad range of consensus agreement between two such fields. The consensus of climate scientists may be rooted in a higher level of uncertainty but that just means that (quelle suprise!) they are different kinds of science with different methodologies. I do not need to know the exact level of humidity in the air to know that when it is cloudy I should leave the house with an umbrella.
and not to be condescending, but I doubt you’d hardly understand any such thermodynamic and kinetic arguments of all possible reactions in one milieu versus the other.
My B.A. in chemistry and my Ph.D. in biophysics beg to differ. Although I agree that it would be a waste of your time to explain your position to me and I certainly don’t want to get into a credentials pissing contest. I’m well aware that climate science is messy and while I do not have much experience with climate models, per se, I do have a good amount of experience with molecular dynamics simulations so I intuitively understand the limits of modeling. I’m just saying that I hold my reproduceable, controllable benchwork to a different confidence standard than I hold modeling and predictions based on modeling. I also trust that the climate scientists know the difference and have enough experience to decide that it is unreasonable to think that humans are not impacting global climate change.
Where we disagree is that man’s effect/impact is “significant”. Without agreement on that, the sense of urgency for required/recommended changes is different.
But you don’t have anything really to base this level of significance on. As Jason has pointed out, the consensus among those with the experience and knowledge is that it is significant and it is urgent. Many of us do not have the requisite knowledge to make that determination. I, too, am not happy with the suggested methods of remedy. But this is the level of debate that we should be having; not whether or not man has contributed significantly to the rise. That truly is undebatable at this point. And I, personally, was very slow to jump on that bandwagon. Just a few years ago I was unconvinced and mainly because of my skepticism towards modeling complex systems. But working in a group with people who used molecular dynamics models convinced me of their validity. It’s good to be a skeptic but at some point you’re just tilting against windmills.
I’m just saying that I hold my reproduceable, controllable benchwork to a different confidence standard than I hold modeling and predictions based on modeling.
Michael,
Thank-you for at least admitting this much.
It’s just that I find a great deal of difference between what I would regard as ‘paper chemistry’ (which I would include models as a species thereof) and actual chemistry.
I appreciate your candor in these matters as well as the degree to which you’ve revealed your personal background.
Curious though —
I do not at all doubt your credentials, but how come you have a B.A. in Chemistry instead of a B.S.?
I know it might be a consequence of your academic institution as well as perhaps the education system of your province, but if you would clarify, I am open to learning new facts.
For example, I just learned that being an ‘A’ student means nothing to other folks whose educational systems operate strictly by numbers rather than letter grades.
Esau, good idea. But instead, let’s go one on one in a field in which I am expert rather than one which I know nothing about since my point isn’t that you should trust me, it’s that you should trust the experts.
I do research on medicare part D plan choice – are senior citizens choosing the best medicare plans given their drug needs?
My claim is: people make at least two serious errors in plan choice:
a) They choose the most popular plan even if it is inappropriate for them
b) They tend to systematically overweight premiums relative to out of pocket costs
Not every makes these errors; but a statistically significant portion of the population does.
Now, do you agree with me? If not, why not?
Jason,
I’ll accept that it’s reasonable to trust the experts in many cases. However my point is that true experts are far more cautious in what they say than many journalists or politically motivated activists.
Also there is a fundamental rule in Science: the larger the claim the more definitive the proof must be. In other words wild claims need very strong evidence. It is principle of science that skepticism is the rule: the burden of proof is on the global alarmists.
Also there is a fundamental rule in Science: the larger the claim the more definitive the proof must be. In other words wild claims need very strong evidence. It is principle of science that skepticism is the rule: the burden of proof is on the global alarmists.
Memphis Aggie,
Thank you for pointing this out!
It seems the only burden Jason places on such people is that they only need be considered expert by his person; after that, he’ll accept whatever claim they make regardless of the evidence!
Esau,
I went to a liberal arts school so they were all B.A.’s. Actually, they were A.B.’s because the degree was given in Latin, but that’s splitting hairs. “It’s a small school, but there are those who love it…”
Getting back into it, however, and piggybacking onto Aggie’s comments; just because there are different standards of assessing the validity of modeling vs. bench work does not mean that, in Aggie’s words, global warming is a “wild claim” or that proponents are all (or by necessity) “alarmists”. I mean, it’s not like it is a wild claim to notice a correlation between rising temperatures and rising man-made air pollution. This isn’t phrenology.
I mean, it’s not like it is a wild claim to notice a correlation between rising temperatures and rising man-made air pollution.
Michael,
Correlation does not prove Causation.
Michael,
Fair enough – you’re right that the correlation of increased CO2 to warming exists and that man made global warming is a reasonable theory. However the hostility to dissent from this theory and the hostility to alternative reasonable theories and the exaggerated rhetoric of Al Gore and others does constitute wild claims. I think it’s fair to term them alarmist.
I am open to the possibility that global warming exists but the claims of impending disaster can become extreme, and extremely unscientific.
Michael,
You’re partially right. I’ve never been given a good, convincing explanation as to why I should believe that man’s impact is significant.
Then it’s required for them to prove it, or at least convince a sufficient number of people to get the policy changes implemented that will help. It’s not required that I accept their word simply based on their position as researchers.
I’m not looking to make the determination, I’m looking for a convincing argument. I haven’t seen one yet.
Your declaration of undebatable-ness is not sufficient to convince me.
Do you see what I’ve been asking for? Convince me. Nobody wants to do it, they just want to say “scientists have reached a consensus”, and I refuse to accept that. Prove it to me, stop asking me to just accept it without proof. Consensus isn’t proof, or even sufficient evidence for me to accept the consensus opinion.
Jason,
I’m willing to accept your assessment of things regarding Medicare part D plan choice. However, should conflicting opinions arise, I’d like to retain the right to review all information from both camps. It’s no different for Global Warming, except that conflicting opinions have already arisen.
Two groups of self-proclaimed experts make statements in opposition…while I could use a consensus of the experts, I’d prefer to come to my conclusion based on weighing the evidence supplied, not the relative popularity of the opinions.
Matthew,
I am a skeptic but I think there are a few points that are demonstrably true. The first is that atmospheric CO2 has substantially increased. This is undeniable and readily proven. Combustion is certainly a major source of CO2 increase and it is clearly man made. Second CO2 does physically absorb infrared radiation that the Earth reflects at night thereby slowing it’s cooling, trapping heat. The basic physics of the concept of global warming through greenhouse gas is reasonable. What is not clear is the whether the real increase in CO2 is enough to warm the globe and if so how fast and what compensating effects might there be etc.
I’m no global warming proponent because I believe the scale of the CO2 effect is too small and that the proposed remedies are absurd. I am made distrustful by the extreme claims and the radical proposals.
As a Catholic I look on the world as a robust creation and a mystery that we only partly understand. Global warming proponents presume they understand it more fully – I’m not convinced. Certainly we are called to proper stewardship of the Earth, but that includes rightly ordering our responsibilities first to God and then to neighbor before that of the world. There is some truth to this climate change notion but some of the most effective lies hide behind an element of truth.
Jason,
The particular claim you have made that I take issue with is that there is 99.9% agreement among qualified experts for your theory of global warming.
The problem, again, is one of language.
Scientist 1 says that I believe global warming is a real phenomenon, and I believe it is entirely caused by man.
Scientist 2 says that global warming is real, and it is mostly caused by man.
Scientist 3 says that global warming is real, and I don’t know the cause, but man almost certainly plays a part that cannot really be quantified.
Scientist 4 says that global warming is real, and man certainly almost certainly plays a part, but that part is almost certainly negligible in the larger scheme of things.
Newsflash: SCIENTISTS AGREE THAT MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL!
Jason: 99.9% of scientists agree that man-made global warming is real.
The fact of the matter is, you have made a claim that cannot be proven, and which you claim is true simply because no one can prove it is not.
Esquire,
Splendid elaboration on your previous post!
I believe your illustration here denotes exactly what is the actual consensus amongst the scientists.
Jason has mistakenly extended this consensus to mean consensus on man-made GW.
“Why do you think your common sense is better than the the combination of common science and evidence that scientists bring to the table?”
You know, Catholics in particular are often accused of “shutting off” their brains and letting others (the Catholic hierarchy) tell them what to believe. But in the case of global warming, we are assured that the scientists have taken common sense into account, so we need not bother about engaging our own.
I am not saying that my common sense is better… I’m just saying it’s MINE. The science behind claims of man-made global warming, for reasons articulated better by others (like Memphis Aggie), strike me as very wooly. The level of reasonable dissent on the “man-made” aspect of global warming makes me very skeptical as to whether we should even *begin* to consider putting legal force – especially at the international level (God help us) – behind purported global warming “fixes”.
Incidentally, I don’t remember hearing any Republican address the issue, as I don’t really keep up with politics, much. I’m aware of politics, I’m just not into it. I know I SHOULD watch the debates, but every time I try I can feel brain cells leaping out my ears trying to commit suicide.
My thoughts on global warming are my own.
I have to say, I never thought, as a kid, that I would see the old adage “Everyone complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it” turned on its head. I guess anything is possible inside the beltway.
Has anyone yet hypothesized what the optimum temperature of the earth is? If not, how do we know that warmer is not better?
Alright, let me deal with these one by one.
First, Matthew’s Nov 12, 2007 10:06:13 AM post.
I’m still not quite sure I understand what you mean.
Is the distinction you’re drawing between just believing something to be true and understanding why it is true?
If that is the distinction you are drawing, then I actually don’t think we disagree. If you want to maximize your probability of being correct (which is, for instance, what you would have to do if you were in a position to dictate policy), then you should defer to the consensus of scientists. If however you care primarily about whether you can give a first-hand account of why you believe what you do, then studying the material yourself is preferable. As long as you recognize that if you were in a position of responsibility and your decisions effected the well-being of others, this would be the inferior option.
The big bang theory takes no position on this question. It asserts (quoting wikipedia) “that the universe has expanded into its current state from a primordial condition of enormous density and temperature.”
While this theory is not “proven”, I think just about every physicist would agree that it is very, very likely to be true in some form (although they would also agree that it is incomplete and will eventually be superceded by a deeper theory).
Would you agree that the big bang theory is very likely to be true? If so, why do you believe that the big bang theory is very likely to be true but not anthropogenic global warming? If you would not agree that either is very likely to be true, then I’ll have to categorize you as an “Esau-level Science-Skeptic” and we have other things to discuss.
If virtually all doctors and medical researchers agree that this is the best course of action, then I would certainly consent to it. These researchers would recognize the weakness of their models and would only recommend something like that if it were supported by multiple independent lines of evidence. I certainly wouldn’t presume that I have a better understanding of the weaknesses of their models than they do.
And note that a more apt analogy would be if they were to recommend heart transplants for themselves as well!
In response to Memphis Aggie’s Nov 12, 2007 10:22:07 AM post:
I think you’re confused about what I’m claiming. I’m not claiming, “A good way for scientists to do research would be to figure out what the majority of other scientists think and assume it is true.” This would be a bad way for scientists to do research.
What I am claiming is: “The best way to maximize the probability of a correct scientific judgment at any given moment is to side with the consensus opinion among scientists. The stronger that consensus, the more likely that opinion is to be correct.”
As a scientist yourself, perhaps you can answer my question: Is there any other scientific claim in the past 50 years which has been endorsed by all the major scientific organizations as very likely to be true but later turned out to be false? Is there any such claim in the past hundred years? Even if there are a few isolated examples, do you seriously think this is the norm?
And please, I know that scientists realize every day that their old theories were incorrect. That is not my point – my point is that scientists are aware of the degree of uncertainty surrounding their predictions (both the uncertainty within the context of a given model and the uncertainty about the correctness of a model’s assumptions). When there is nonetheless broad agreement among the experts in a given field that a theory is very likely to be true, it usually is (not always, but most of the time). This doesn’t mean it won’t be superceded by a better understanding (as with say, Newton’s theory of gravity); it just means that our current understanding is basically correct in its broad outlines (as Newton’s theory of gravity is). I’m also not saying that global warming is known with the same degree of certainty as Newton’s theory! I’m just saying that because the major scientific organizations representing the vast majority of scientists working in the field say that anthropogenic global warming is very likely correct, it probably is correct.
The analogy is the following: for someone who someone who is not a biologist, it is reasonable to believe that HIV causes AIDS solely because of the near-consensus among biologists. This is the same reason it is reasonable for a non-climatologist to believe that anthropogenic global warming is a reality. I think in terms of the evidential basis for the belief, the big bang theory is a better analogy for the reasons you describe. But I’d just point out as I have so many times above – scientists are aware of the uncertainty in their models, yet they still believe that anthropogenic global warming is very likely to be true. This is not because they are in denial; it’s because their are multiple independent lines of evidence.
You go on to make several substantive points about the science. These seem reasonable to me, but I have no basis for evaluating them since I have no training in relevant fields. Further, your arguments give me no reason to doubt the consensus view among scientists because I am quite certain that the same scientists who say that global warming is very likely to be true are well aware of the points you raise and take those points into account in arriving at their judgments.
Do you think that scientists simply ignore these points? What basis do you have for believing that?
And Memphis, one more thing in response to your previous post.
As a graduate student myself, I am well aware of the difference in expertise between someone who has taken a few classes on a subject and someone who has spent their life studying it. Do you seriously think that the classes you have taken qualify you to appraise the evidence in such a way that your personal judgment would be as weighty as that of people working in the field? If you were to read a particular paper and come to a different conclusion about it than your professor, would you really trust your own judgment if you knew he had also studied the paper in detail? Would you feel comfortable discussing these issues in a seminar with professors of atmospheric science and climatology?
Memphis, have you read carefully what I am claiming about this question?
“It is unequivocal that the climate is changing, and it is very likely that this is predominantly caused by the increasing human interference with the atmosphere. These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.”
This from the joint science academies of G8+5 nations – are they true experts enough for you? Or are the joint academies composed mainly of politically motivated activists? Who isn’t a politically motivated activist in your view?
Regarding what should be done about global warming, please read the articles by Larry Summers in the financial times linked to in one of my above posts. These represent my own opinion on the matter as well. Quick summary: a carbon tax (which would have many other benefits) combined with massively increased funding for research into alternative sources of energy. Kyoto is excessive; I’m not sure about tradable permits; at this point, unless the situation grows more dire, I think they are probably excessive as well.
And don’t you think the scientists who endorsed the statement that global warming is very likely correct are aware of this “fundamental rule”? Don’t you think they would only make such a claim if there were multiple lines of evidence supporting it?
Who here is making those claims? Would you disagree with any of the policy recommendations I proposed above (and which Larry Summers advocates)?
All I’m saying is that people who think that we should do nothing about anthropogenic global warming are simply not in touch with the views of experts on the issue.
Who is hiding their research? Go read the scientific literature. But if you come away unconvinced, this is probably due to your own ignorance and inability to process the information without proper training since most scientists who know more about the matter than you are convinced by the existing evidence that anthropogenic global warming is very likely to be correct.
Even an expert couldn’t necessarily do that because you could always just stubbornly insist, “I’m not convinced.” The posters on this blog certainly can’t do that because we’re not experts.
THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH IS CRUCIAL (sorry, not shouting, but I’ve typed a bunch of responses and want to make sure no one overlooks this point)
All we can do is try to convince you that you are being unreasonable if you demand that the arguments of experts be so transparent that you can appreciate their obvious correctness without having to obtain the proper training. The real world is just more complex than that. Fermat’s Last Theorem is true, but you will never know enough math to appreciate why mathematicians believe this. Topalov should not have accepted Kasparov’s rook, but you will never know enough chess to appreciate why grandmasters believe this. Anthropogenic global warming is very likely occurring, but you will never know enough atmospheric science to appreciate why scientists believe this. In every case, if you care about having a correct opinion on the matter, you must simply defer to the consensus views of experts.
I really only brought up this example because of Esau’s absurd challenge that we go “one on one”.
I am arguing that in cases of complex judgments, you should defer to the views of experts. You say that when there is disagreement among experts, you reserve the right to make a judgment yourself. But who are you to adjudicate between experts? Why should you be able to adjudicate any better then the experts themselves? You err in giving too much weight to your personal judgment relative to the judgment of experts.
If 50% of climate scientists believed that global warming was occurring and 50% believed it was not, I would have no opinion on the matter. If I were to review their arguments as a non-expert, I might find the arguments of one or the other groups more convincing; but the mere fact that the experts were so polarized suggests that any conclusion I came to would be quite tentative and I would continue to believe that it was just too difficult to decide one way or the other; otherwise, the experts wouldn’t be so polarized.
On the other hand, if all of the peer reviewed papers published in a subject advocate a single position and if all the organizations of scientists who do research in a subject endorse that position, then no matter what opinion I come too personally, I would agree that the consensus view of the experts is probably correct. The fact that there are a small number of experts who dispute this consensus raises slightly more doubt than if the consensus were unanimous, but as I’ve pointed out before, there are experts who dispute the fact that HIV causes AIDS. In either case, the conclusion one reaches should not be, “I must investigate this myself or be agnostic on the matter.” Instead, the rational conclusion is, the consensus opinion is probably correct.
I still don’t understand why you insist on giving so much weight to your personal opinion despite obviously being less qualified than the scientists who do research in the field.
I think your problem is that you hear only the proposed remedies of those who speak loudest, and not the remedies of those who speak with the greatest intellectual authority. Please read the financial times article that I linked to in the above post or any article by William Nordhaus for a reasoned discussion of possible remedies. The Stern Report is also a good starting point, although my tentative opinion (based mainly on what others with greater expertise than I – such as Nordhaus and Summers – seem to think) is that its conclusions are a bit too extreme.
Alright, as long as you distinguish between these two claims:
1) As far as I understand the evidence presented, I see no reason to conclude that man-made global warming is a serious enough threat to mandate any concerted action
2) If I were in a position of authority, I would not support any policy designed to combat man-made global warming.
1) strikes me as a perfectly reasonable claim as long as you recognize that it represents only your personal opinion. 2) strikes me as entirely unreasonable – if your decisions affected the well-being of others, you would have absolutely no right to privilege your personal opinion on a scientific issue above the consensus opinion of experts in the field.
Bill912, there are dozens of articles (probably hundreds) in the economics literature attempting to evaluate the costs and benefits of global warming. Needless to say, scientists and the vast majority of economists agree that the costs outweigh the benefits.
If you are interested in this topic, I can give you a few references to get started.
You act as though I simply generated that number out of thin air based on my impression of news reports. As I’ve noted several times, the claimed consensus is based on three sources:
1) The survey I cited at the outset which found that of 900 papers with the keywords “Global Climate Change”, 75% endorsed anthropogenic global warming and zero challenged that conclusion
2) All of the major scientific organizations whose members have expertise in the relevant fields have endorsed these findings.
3) Lists of global warming dissenters list fewer than 40 including disciplines as diverse as physics, mathematics and astronomy (yes, these lists may not be exhaustive, but I would be surprised if very many professors of atmospheric sciences or climatology were left out – my rough count produced five of these in the above list; that is approximately .1% of atmospheric scientists)
I agree with you that these are crude measures in the sense that they don’t distinguish between scientists who believe that anthropogenic global warming is one among many causes of global warming, those who believe it is a primary cause, and those who believe it is an impending disaster that must be remedied by massive and immediate action.
I would note that the statement issued by the joint academies of sciences includes the phrase: “These changes will transform the environmental conditions on Earth unless counter-measures are taken.”
Regarding what should be done, consult my above posts where I references the popular article by Larry Summers and the more technical articles by William Nordhaus which advocate massively increased funding for alternative energy sources, carbon taxes and potentially other price mechanisms.
My primary claims is that if you think that nothing should be done, you are simply refusing to accept the consensus opinion of experts (where experts here includes a combination of scientists and economists).
And what would that optimum temperature be? And why?
“All I’m saying is that people who think that we should do nothing about anthropogenic global warming are simply not in touch with the views of experts on the issue.”
I dispute the anthropomorphic claim not the global warming possibility. You hide a much weaker claim in the first point and you ignore the hyperbole.
Also Bill912 is right: there likely will be benefits to global warming as well as detriments and the rate of onset will greatly effect our ability to respond. So if climate change is slow and mild enough it may be net beneficial. By comparison the power grabs that pretends to be a solution in Kyoto are designed merely to sink the US economy in typical anti US fashion while a polluter like China is exempted. Global warming proposals are even more extreme and indefensible than the theories. They are guaranteed to have high costs and even optimistically will do next to nothing. One demonstration of the falsity of the alarmism is the lack of serious proposals.
bill912,
This question is extremely complex; there is no single optimal average global temperature, although one can use average temperature as a heuristic to evaluate the costs and benefits of global temperature change in the absence of a more complex model. There are a number of factors to take into account, some of them very probable (effects on agricultural production) and some of them fairly improbable but of very large magnitude (the shut-down of thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic ocean).
Further, no one calculates an optimal average temperature over the entire space of temperatures. All that people do is analyze the cost and benefits along the likely temperature path that we are on and the paths that we might reach through policy intervention. Anything else is irrelevant from a policy standpoint.
Economists have long debated how best to take these effects into account and precisely what effects need to be considered. If you’re interested, William Cline’s 1992 book “The Economics of Global Warming” gives a first pass at making the calculation you desire. Subsequent studies have criticized Cline’s calculation and more recent attempts use updated parameter values and are methodologically preferable.
Needless to say, there is no agreement among economists about the exact cost/benefit ratio of proposed policies. There is general agreement that the cost/benefit ratio is positive for carbon taxes and massively increased funding for research into alternative energy sources. It may be positive for cap and trade programs designed to reduce emissions, and it is probably negative or close to 1 for the Kyoto protocol.
All of the evidence I have presented for a scientific consensus pertains to anthropogenic global warming and not just global warming per se. If you dispute anthropogenic global warming, you disagree with the stance of every published paper in the peer reviewed literature that takes sides on the issue and the stance of every major scientific organization.
Yes, it must be that every economist who has ever analyzed this question has ignored all the possible benefits and just added up the costs. Oh, wait, it’s called “Cost-*Benefit*” analysis. Stupid me. Maybe the hundreds of experts who have studied this issue have thought of this completely obvious point after all and integrated it into their analyses.
Where is the formal analysis that supports your conclusion that nothing should be done (presuming that is your conclusion)? As it stands, there appear to be hundreds of papers supporting my conclusion and none supporting yours (and now we’ve entered a field in which I do have some expertise, even though it is not my sub-specialty).
Jason,
What you’ve done here is discount a important point. Science and ecology is politicized and global warming is at the forefront of those political calculations. Scientists who are overwhelmingly left wing have an political agenda which consciously or unconsciously some may propagate through their work. In the closed cocoon of the University diversity means race or sexual orientation, but never world view. You can look any way you want, sleep with whoever you want, but don’t disagree on left wing dogma.
There is reason to distrust Academics when their work touches on policy. It’s simply prudent to be skeptical here.
“If you dispute anthropogenic global warming, you disagree with the stance of every published paper in the peer reviewed literature that takes sides on the issue and the stance of every major scientific organization.”
That’s simply false.
I have many things to say in response to this, but for now let me just repeat what I’ve said dozens of times above: among scientists, liberal or conservative, republican or democrat, catholic or atheist, the vast majority agree that anthropogenic global warming is occurring. The same holds for the estimates of academic economists – it is simply not the case that if one looks at the average estimates of republicans one finds a recommendation that we should do nothing; I don’t know if these recommendations are on average less severe (it’s an interesting question), but by far the majority of Republican economists agree with the policy recommendations I have proposed.
I would also point out that your view that only people who share your political and social persuasion can be trusted with policy analysis is extremely narrow-minded; but even so, even if you insist on that claim, the evidence still favors action to curb global warming.
I’m basing this claim on the 2003 study of the matter I cited in my first post on this thread. Perhaps that study was not completely exhaustive and perhaps there have been other papers published since then so it may be too strong.
Let me qualify it: you’re disagreeing with the view of the vast majority of published papers on the subject and the view of every major scientific organization that has spoken out (which is almost all of them).
Big difference between every one and the vast majority. That kind of hyperbole makes me less likely to trust you too.
I’m much more Hobbesian than you imagine. I don’t completely trust right or left. In fact I expect to be told lies and condescended to by the elites in politics and the media, and the Academy. The left wing group think of academia is real – deny it if you like – I’ve seen it first hand.
The evidence for global warming is weak, ask Bjorn Lomborg or MITs Richard Lindzen (whose name was added without his permission to the list of consensus scientists). Global warming is not proven to be anthropomorphic. If you want to convince me don’t give popularity arguments give me science.
Also what policy proposals are you putting out there? And don’t ask me to read through 200 + posts to find your little gem.
The study actually concluded every one that took a stand so it was hardly hyperbole. I assumed that it was obvious this was what I was referring to as I’ve referenced it about a dozen times since this thread began. That assumption was apparently mistaken.
Jason,
Let me be clear on policy issues. I don’t object to anti pollution statutes or taxes to reduce consumption of oil and coal or incentives to plant more trees or policies that promote more efficiency in general. These are simple prudent good practices which can be defended on many grounds – not simply on global warming. In fact the arguments for these policies are made stronger by not relying on doomsday claims. If environmentalists made an efficiency or oil dependency arguments they’d be more successful. If environmentalists made any reasonable concession to economics or to acknowledge the real effects their policies have on people I’d have more respect. Instead skeptics are labeled “deniers” and castigated personally (read Bjorn Lomborgs story).
Also this is a Catholic blog – make a anti-materialistic/stewardship argument and I’ll go with you a long way. But don’t expect me to accept the global warming shibboleth. There is a reasonable middle ground.
Jason,
I don’t care how many ecologists you line up – isn’t that obvious by now?
And my comment was about the looseness of language used. I have been guilty of it too. It’s easy to paint with too broad a brush. However it damages credibility.
We can argue past each easily enough – what is much more interesting to me is to see if we can agree on something substantial under this climate change umbrella. I think policy is a likely arena.
BTW, the estimates for Kyoto were that if everyone complied — and signatory nations are already failing — it would lower the average temperature a fraction of a degree
Is the earth warming? Are humans causing it, and to what extent? And — is there anything we can do?
There is, BTW, no reason why someone who answers yes to the second question needs to answer yes to the third.
Ooops “We can argue past each easily enough”
should read: “We can argue past each other easily enough”
“Is the earth warming? Are humans causing it, and to what extent? And — is there anything we can do?”
My take is yes, no (or only negligibly) and not much.
Esau,
Of course correlation does not prove causation. I’m not that stupid. However, correlation does point to a reasonable path of study. If two things are correlated, is it a wild claim to suggest that there may be a link between them? There is a correlation with rain on election day and Republican victories. A causal link between the two would be, of course, much harder to demonstrate.
I’m going to shift things a bit here. Jason has taken great pains to provide plenty of data and demonstrate the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community on the matter of anthropogenic climate change. And yet some commenters here insist they are not convinced and that they need to see the data. Well, here it is:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/563.htm
That is a link to the over 300 tables and figures of primary data that the IPCC used in 2001 to make their assessments of the scientific basis for anthropogenic climate change.
I invite anyone still reading this enormous post and who thinks that the data is too weak to draw certain conclusions from to tell us why. I invite you to select any chapter of the IPCC report and find a conclusion that you disagree with. All the data is there for you to demonstrate for those of us who agree with consensus report why you do so. If it is a methodology problem you have, tell us specifically what study or methodological issue you have and why you think the data is inconclusive. Chapter 8 is particularly useful in that regard. Maybe you can start there. If you think the numbers for any given study do not support the claim that follows, please tell us what numbers would support such claim.
I am genuinely curious as to why some of you aren’t convinced. Now is your opportunity to share with us some of your opinions. You have 14 chapters of data to choose from and I’m giving you free reign to choose whatever it is you want to dispute.
Memphis Aggie,
Bjorn Lomborg got his Ph.D. in political science. Also, he doesn’t argue that global warming doesn’t exist and he admits in his book that it is man-made. I do not know why you would use him as an example that the evidence for anthropogenic global warming is weak.
http://www.lomborg.com/faq/
Read his FAQ. His issue is with policy preferences, not global warming per se.
You’re right Michael: Bjorn is bad example for the anthropomorphic argument but a good one to highlight the political tactics/character assassination etc.
I’ll look into it but don’t expect me to read the whole thing or get back quickly. Off the top of my head I can offer the following: if two or more factors are well correlated with warming how do you decide which is correct? Answer: look for a example were the two factors are not confounded. So global warming could be man made or could be solar.
On Mars we have the solar effect but no men and we have observed warming on Mars. Since we share the same sun it’s reasonable to assign the warming to solar activity. So even if the IPCC data is golden in it’s correlation – it’s not the only explanation.
Dear Jason,
I think you are grossly overestimating the level of expertise or competence involved in understanding the results of climatological science. You seem to imply that understanding Wiles proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem and trusting the “experts” in climatology are on the same level. It is somewhat difficult in terms of the depth of material to cover to understand semi-stable modular forms, which is the basis for Wiles proof, but many, many people in other fields know how to solve partial differential equations on a computer. People who do work on almost any computer simulations in the sciences at an advanced level (physicists, chemists, fluid dynamicists, aerospace engineering, etc.) have the requisite expertise to critique the computer models made by climatologists. A theorist is a theorist. Only the domain specific knowledge is different.
I do work in computer modeling in a couple of different fields and I can easily read the papers in theoretical climatology. If I had any standing in the field of climatology, I would write papers explaining some of the weaknesses in the models (and there are some). For instance, one has to deal with questions of how heat is diffused through ocean water in order to factor in its effects on atmospheric temperature. I read one paper, yesterday, in starting to review the literature which has been cited 313 time, according to Google Scholar, which approximated the temperature perturbations in the ocean by a vertical diffusion model. This ignores the fact (which was not known at the time) that large-scale vertical diffusion is controlled by small-scale vertical diffusion, which is itself turbulence-controlled. The thing is, we can’t model turbulent flow very well (it is near the chaotic boundary, mathematically). What did he do? Use a stochastic approximation, which is what I would have done? No, he apparently used a straightforward large-scale diffusion model (the paper was written in 1988), because he did not know any better. Sorry, for all of the jargon.
My point is that the understanding of the fluid dynamics and heat tranfer in large climate systems is not that well understood that these sort of models are anything but a first approximation. As mathematical understanding gets better, one would expect the models to get better. We aren’t there, yet. As an academic exercise, these computer models are fine, but I would not want to make policy decisions based on them.
I want to comment later on how science should be done, but for now, I recommend reading Nobel laureate in physics, Richard Feynman’s 1974 Caltech commencement speech entitled. Cargo Cult, Science. {Notice: There is a slightly salacious anecdote at the beginning]
Jason,
By the way I went back read much of what you’ve written in response and I recognize some moderation and good points. I also recognize that arguments of this kind are often fruitless and reflect my vanity rather than shed any great light. I’m not going to change your mind and you won’t change mine.
I am going to try and bow out of this debate on a positive note, if possible.
I guess no one ever realized that before. Oh wait. Please read some of my above posts addressing this issue.
Brief summary:
1) The vast majority of scientists believe that action taken now could slow the warming process (see the statement by the joint academies of science of the G8 nations)
2) The vast majority of economists believe that at least some of the proposals to curb global warming have a cost/benefit ratio less than 1 (meaning they are worthwhile); their is disagreement among economists about particular policy proposals – like the cap and trade program and the Kyoto protocol, but almost all agree that carbon taxes and increased R&D would be worthwhile.
Certainly. Among the commentators who have questioned anthropogenic global warming, you have been one of the more reasonable ones.
In response to your last post, I would only reiterate my central point: I think you put far too much weight on your own first-hand assessment of the evidence relative to the views of scientists. I realize that your own judgment must seem very reasonable to you because you fully understand the reasons supporting it, but you should also recognize that from an objective standpoint your own judgment cannot carry much weight relative to the views of scientists who have studied the evidence at much greater length than you. Total objectivity is impossible, but that doesn’t mean you can escape the responsibility to try to be objective in your judgments – and this responsibility demands that you give greater weight to the appraisal of the evidence by scientists working in the field than to your own appraisal.
Masked Chicken,
As someone who routinely spends my Friday afternoons programming differential equations in matlab, I have to disagree with you. My familiarity with computer models in economics in no way qualifies me to have an informed opinion about global warming because the domain specific knowledge is quite crucial in forming such an opinion. And your familiarity with computer models hardly qualifies you to assess economic models except in a very superficial fashion.
Your example illustrates this point nicely. Someone with a strong physics background might be able to read a paper in theoretical climatology and recognize that some assumptions are dubious.
However, if they are not working in the field, they would have no awareness of:
1) The sensitivity of their results to this assumption – you act as though your critique invalidates the entire model when the only way to know if this is the case is to redo the model with the changes you suggest; all science is based on simplifying assumptions – the role of the domain specific knowledge is to tell us how robust our results are to relaxing these assumptions
2) What other evidence is there for the paper’s central claims that do not depend on the same assumptions
3) The role of the claims in the paper in supporting the overall judgment that anthropogenic global warming is probably occurring
You act as though the 313 papers that cited this one simply assumed it was correct. Perhaps these papers were investigating other sources of evidence that lead to related conclusions or perhaps they were correcting the very error you point out. Unless you devote a substantial amount of time to familiarizing yourself with the entire literature (and this is quite an expansive literature), you have no way to know.
Do you really think that the fact that you can point out an error in a paper from 1988 somehow qualifies you to assess the status of the entire scientific literature? If you think so, please, pick a well-cited paper in labor economics. Critique it. I’ll let you know how you did.
You argue that you would not make policy decisions based on these computer models. The vast majority of scientists who have studied the issue in more depth than you disagree. This seems to be almost entirely a question of the sensitivity of these models to the underlying assumptions. The scientists in the field think that under reasonable assumptions, their conclusions are justified. You disagree. On what basis? What do you know that they don’t know?
I’ve actually read Feynman’s article at least twice and enjoy it very much, although I don’t see how it engages at all with my point.
(as an aside, this is irrelevant to my point and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but I have a feeling you no more understand the role that semi-stable modular forms play in Wiles’ proof than I understand how the ADS-CFT correspondence is the most compelling instance of the holographic principle – still, I also enjoy using jargon to feign understanding)
As someone who routinely spends my Friday afternoons programming differential equations in matlab
Ooooh…Matlab…I had a lot of fun with that language in one of my artificial intelligence courses in grad school. The matrix paradigm takes a little getting used to (I often wanted to write explicit loops at first instead of relying on matrix operations), but once you get the hang of it it’s quite elegant.
Memphis Aggie,
I wanted to express my personal appreciation for your posts on this thread. They were informative and matter fact and stayed away from being condescending or personally insulting like what others have chosen to put up here.
It was refreshing to read actual information rather than dogmatic assertions that we must all believe the pronouncements of the new scientific magisterium or risk burning in the hell of the anthropogenically warmed world. This fire and brimstone stuff gets old after awhile. Oh wait, I mean sunlight and carbon.
Dear Jason,
I enjoy your continued presence both in this discussion and on this blog. I sincerely hope in my remarks below, that I maintain both charity and humility.
I have to start off with an apology. I should not have commented on the author’s work that I cited above without reading it in detail (I was working off of an abstract). As such, I have been unfair to the author and I apologize to him.
So as not to muddy the water by putting forth illustrations that I should prepare for much more, let me state my central point clearly in a more general way: climatology is not such an exclusive science that people in certain other disciplines might not have similar knowledge and be able to read and understand the literature nor make intelligent criticisms.
As such, climatologists are not a secret society which should be simply trusted because they are “experts”. They are scientists using the common tools of science towards a specific task. If I also own many of the same tools, I might be able to do the work as well with some small additional study, even though I may not put out a shingle as a climatologist. They actually have a smaller set of domain specific knowledge than you might think, in certain cases.
Climatology is a highly interdisciplinary science and since I do interdisciplinary scientific research myself in some related fields, lets compare their knowledge base to mine:
Advanced Mathematics: check, up to and including graduate level mathematical physics in the most difficult program in the country (or so I am told).
Computer modeling: check, including finite element modeling, nonlinear math, fluid dynamics, mechanical engineering
Chemistry: check, graduate standing
Physics: check, standard undergrad courses
Applied mathematics: check, up to advanced graduate level courses
Thermodynamics: check, graduate course work
Fluid dynamics: check, part of my research
Historical research: check, graduate standing
Botany: check, graduate course work
Acoustics: check, part of my research
etc.
Do you see where I am going with this? I could probably walk right in to most climatology labs in the country and start work without too much problems. There are specific applications of fluid dynamics that I would have to learn because they are part of the history of the discipline, but I would not have to start from scratch and I suspect that my boss would not treat me as a complete neophyte. We share perhaps, 85% of the same knowledge base and any comments I make within these common areas would be equal to his.
In physical climatology, there would be field work that I would be missing, but not so much in the theoretical side. All I am saying is that playing the game of “trust the experts” can sometimes give too much status to people who, on the whole, share a lot of knowledge in common with other people. Why should I not critique their chemistry, say or their applied mathematics, since I use these areas in my own research and they really do not know more than I.
I am a chemist (among other things). I can certainly do isotope studies as well as most climatologists. Even though I prefer to let then do so, other people can as well.
In my undergraduate days at Case Western Reserve, we were taught to question things and to find things out for ourselves. The faculty went out of their way dissuade us from hero worshiping. Questioning them was encouraged. I suppose that has stayed with me. In graduate school I won the research forum competition three time (I was the only three time winner), for highly interdisciplinary work. I am no novice in science. I am a reviewer for two journals, one a major one in physics, the other, a more interdisciplinary one. Not to be defensive, but I sort of know what I am saying when I say climatology is not that esoteric a field that other people cannot have an informed opinion.
The Chicken
Hi Chicken,
Thanks for your kind words.
I’m not sure if I’ll have time to respond in detail tonight to your interesting post, but I just wanted to start off by apologizing as well – my posts have been getting increasingly sarcastic lately. I think this is mainly due to frustration at having to repeat myself, although I realize that it’s not fair to expect everyone to have read all my previous posts on this thread – in any case, your original post was not at all redundant and I should not have adopted such a dismissive tone.
Where have you studied mathematics/physics? I actually have several friends who are currently in math or physics graduate school at Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Stanford. If you have been at one of those schools in the past several years, you may even have had a few classes with them.
To bill912:
Perhaps the ideal climate is the one that forces people to stop moving into hot, dry climates and 1) lowering the already-low watertable and 2) running air condition incessantly. 😉
Or the ideal climate might be the one that allows Canada to have longer growing seasons in the colder provinces. Or perhaps makes the Great Lakes a habitat for coral again.
I don’t look with a sceptical eye at the global warming models, but I do roll them at some of the economic forecasts.
Jason,
Not quite. I find myself unable to accept (believe) what the anthropogenic global warming proponents have been claiming, and seek clarification so that I may be able to do so. As it stands, I don’t accept the arguments provided, and I have yet to see sufficient evidence that will allow me to believe them.
Being “right” is a different matter. That’s an objective matter, while my belief (or disbelief) in the theory is highly subjective. You’re arguing (quite well) from an objective standpoint…if I want to increase my chances of being objectively correct, I should accept the position of the majority of scientists (assuming that the media interpretation is correct.) But if I want to truly believe it, I have to subjectively accept it, and that is what’s lacking.
I’m don’t know if the Big Bang is very likely to be true. I have my doubts on that. The reason it’s of lesser concern to me is that my belief or lack of belief doesn’t put me at odds with people who are trying to drive policy changes that could affect me. Should a time arise when scientists and politicians and lobbyists are pushing for major changes to laws because of unproven theory about the Big Bang, I’ll investigate things further, and see if I can subjectively accept the position.
A little aside here: Objectivity is near impossible to achieve. The closest we can come right now is consensus, but that still has the taint of subjectivity in it. 1000 scientists are still going to be subjective in their analysis, based on their education, upbringing, field of study, etc.
I attribute it more to the lack of willingness on the part of scientists to explain things, and the opposition to being challenged on the issue (we’re SCIENTISTS! You must accept what we say with regards to science!).
I have a pretty quick mind. I’m willing to study things. If the first level of information leaves me wanting, I want more information. If the second level contains things I question, I want to dig deeper. Are surface station values correctly accounting for urban heat centers? What’s the method being used? Is it appropriate? Why is solar radiation considered a non-issue?
Unwillingness to answer these types of questions, or to just brush them off with “we accounted for that” without explaining how, just increases skepticism in one unwilling to accept the authority of the scientists.
Then I remain resolved to be unreasonable. It’s equally unreasonable for anyone to expect me to accept something as true simply because a group of experts makes the claim, regardless of my misgivings on the issue.
Now you’re going to divert me. I love math, and will enjoy reading up on Fermat’s Last Theorem.
Here’s the annoying thing….if I had enough interest in studying chess (as a hobby, not an occupation), I could absolutely get to the point where I could understand it. Formal education and career choice are not required for learning this, although it helps. The position of many who just flat-out accept the declarations of scientists is that it’s too complex for a non-scientist to understand. Hogwash.
So I’m to be denied the opportunity to even try, my dissenting opinion is worthless, and I’m unreasonable for questioning the authority of the scientists.
Then I don’t actually have an opinion, I’m just siding with a group because I accept their authority. I could be replaced by a very small shell script that simply echos the consensus view, and it would be just as effective, involve just as much thought process.
Matthew Siekierski,
You raise a very interesting point, this website seems to be researching this part of the discussion.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
(Masked Chicken and Matthew – I’ll respond to your posts later tonight)
MissJean, you suggest two consequences of global warming. You are correct that most economic models do not take into account the effects of migration; most economic models do consider the consequences for agricultural productivity although they could certainly do this on a more local level.
I would agree with you that the economic consequences are less clear-cut than the climactic predictions (which themselves have large standard errors, but that doesn’t mean we can’t say with some confidence that they are non-zero).
The issue here is whether the omitted factors constitute a first-order effect or whether it is reasonable to omit them as a first approximation. This is not my sub-field, so it’s hard for me to make a judgment on this question; what I will say is, there have been dozens of different economic models which make different assumptions about how to take into account the kinds of factors you bring up as well as many others; nearly all of them suggest that the policies I endorsed above have a positive results in a cost-benefit analysis.
Whether policies like the Kyoto protocol and cap & trade programs are worth pursuing is more difficult to assess, as the results of any such analysis seem to depend on assumptions which it is more difficult to evaluate (they are especially sensitive to the pure rate of time discounting and the concavity of the utility function for those with some familiarity with economic theory).
Link:
Climate change panel too slow to react?
Some Telling Excerpts:
– But experts and the scientists themselves acknowledge the reports are conservative and have a poor track record of predictions.
– Even if the data produced by different researchers may conflict…
(I believe this accentuates Esquire’s point in his previous comments)
– A joint report this month by two U.S. security institutes said they compared predictions of climate change by the panel and other researchers in the last two decades with changes that actually occurred, and found the scientists had consistently fallen short.
Part of the reason was the lack of data, but it also could be that the scientists shied away from controversy…
I know this topic is primarily weather related, but this is also primarily a Catholic apologetics site. Considering this, I think it might be appropriate to include a reference made by Christ, in the Gospel of Luke regarding natural disasters that will plague the earth in the so-termed “end times”.
Most readers, here, are probably familiar with these prophesies already,but some may not. And some items raised in the Global warming debate seem to mirror the warnings that Jesus gave about 2000 years ago.
So I’d like to insert athis passage from Luke 21, for those who haven’t ever seen it before.In [brackets] I add a few of my own reflections.
5 And some saying of the temple that it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he said: 6 These things which you see, the days will come in which there shall not be left a stone upon a stone that shall not be thrown down.[destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD?.. or nuclear war in Mid East?]
7 And they asked him, saying: Master, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign when they shall begin to come to pass? 8 Who said: Take heed you be not seduced: for many will come in my name, saying: I am he and the time is at hand. Go ye not therefore after them. 9 And when you shall hear of wars and seditions, be not terrified. These things must first come to pass: but the end is not yet presently. 10 Then he said to them: Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. 11 And there shall be great earthquakes in divers places and pestilences and famines and terrors from heaven: and there shall be great signs. 12 But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and into prisons, dragging you before kings and governors, for my name’s sake.[Persecutions during the Roman Empire?]
13 And it shall happen unto you for a testimony. 14 Lay it up therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before how you shall answer: 15 For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist and gainsay. 16 And you shall be betrayed by your parents and brethren and kinsmen and friends: and some of you they will put to death. 17 And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake. 18 But a hair of your head shall not perish. 19 In your patience you shall possess your souls.
20 And when you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army, then know that the desolation thereof is at hand. [Romans..or Moslems?]
21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains: and those who are in the midst thereof depart out: and those who are in the countries not enter into it. 22 For these are the days of vengeance, that all things may be fulfilled, that are written. 23 But woe to them that are with child and give suck in those days [arguments and temptations for those pregnant to have abortions?]: for there shall be great distress in the land and wrath upon this people.
24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captives into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles till the times of the nations be fulfilled. [ did all of this already happen, and now we are in the ” times of the nations”, where all the bounderies on Earth will have finally been definatively set?]
25 And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars;[Global warming caused? Asteroid collisions?] and upon the earth distress of nations, by reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea, and of the waves [More consequences of a rapidly rising sea level?: 26 Men withering away for fear and expectation of what shall come upon the whole world.
For the powers of heaven shall be moved. 27 And then they shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with great power and majesty. 28 But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is at hand.
29 And he spoke to them a similitude. See the fig tree and all the trees: 30 When they now shoot forth their fruit, you know that summer is nigh; 31 So you also, when you shall see these things come to pass, know that the kingdom of God is at hand. 32 Amen, I say to you, this generation shall not pass away till all things be fulfilled. 33 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. 34 And take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life: and that day come upon you suddenly. 35 For as a snare shall it come upon all that sit upon the face of the whole earth. 36 Watch ye, therefore, praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that are to come and to stand before the Son of man. 37 And in the daytime, he was teaching in the temple: but at night going out, he abode in the mount that is called Olivet. 38 And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple, to hear him.
[Words that all Christians should heartily consider!]
From the website I linked above:
In 1999, a U.S. National Research Council panel was commissioned to study the state of the U.S. climate observing systems and issued a report entitled: “Adequacy of Climate Observing Systems. National Academy Press”, online here The panel was chaired by Dr. Tom Karl, director of the National Climatic Center, and Dr. James Hansen, lead climate researcher at NASA GISS. That panel concluded:
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Chicken,
Let me now respond to your Nov 13, 2007 6:59:36 PM post.
I actually very much agree with this point and agree with almost everything you said in your post.
The only clarification I would make is that people in more peripheral disciplines are not as able to render an accurate judgment about the overall status of research in field. This is primarily because, by definition, they do not devote the majority of their time to familiarizing themselves with this research (I say by definition because if they did, I would not classify them as being in a more peripheral discipline). So a theoretical physicist could understand the mathematical language of climatologists, but also would not have the broad understanding of the literature necessary to appreciate which assumptions in a model were well-founded and which were less so.
To give an analogy, one broad question in empirical economics concerns the behavioral response to taxation (i.e. the “labor supply elasticity”). There are literally hundreds of papers, perhaps thousands, trying to estimate whether people end up working fewer hours because their taxes are higher. Someone with a strong background in statistics could read these papers and perhaps critique their metholodogy, but I would not trust their forecast of the consequences of a particular policy nearly as much as I would trust the forecast of a well-respected labor economist – this is because the labor economist has a greater familiarity with the literature and much deeper understanding of which assumptions are critical in any given case and why.
So I certainly agree that you can use your expertise to critique particular papers by climatologists and even particular assumptions that are routinely made in the literature. If you so desired, you could also devote the majority of your time to studying the matter and then I would consider you to be as qualified as any other expert. But if this topic is not the primary topic of your research, then you are less qualified to comment on the overall direction of the field then someone who specializes in that field.
It sounds from this paragraph like we don’t actually disagree. Still, I’m not sure I fully understand why being able to “subjectively accept” something is important. I agree that studying material and making an argument for a particular viewpoint can be educational and enriching, but as far as what one actually believes to be true… (see below)
Let me press you further on this question. Pretend we have a “truth” machine. We can press a button and it will tell us the truth. We can ask the machine if the big bang theory is correct in the same sense that Newton’s laws are correct – that is, they provide a reasonably accurate description of reality although they are ultimately just an approximation to a deeper theory. Before we ask the truth machine this question, you can make a bet. If the big bang theory is true, you pay $100. If it’s false, you get an amount $X. How big would X have to be before you would be willing to take this bet? Presumably if X were a trillion dollars, you would take the bet. If X was 1 dollar, you would not take it. What is the value of X at which you are indifferent?
I’ve argued as much myself several times; the only question is one of relative objectivity; how objective are scientists relative to other authorities and relative to yourself.
I don’t know what you’re talking about here. Can you give an example of the reluctance of scientists to explain themselves? As far as I can tell scientists are eager to share their arguments with whomever will listen. As I’ll elaborate below, it’s just unreasonable for you to think that you’ll be able to fully contextualize these arguments even if you can follow the step by step reasoning.
You might love math, but if you think you’re really going to understand the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, you’re either unaware of how complex the proof is, or you’re kidding yourself. There are of course different levels of understanding. I could read the wikipedia entry on the proof and regurgitate it, but that would not be real understanding.
Let me offer a very concrete challenge. I will consult with some of my math graduate school friends. You can study the proof as much as you want, then I’ll ask you a technical question about the proof whose answer is not readily accessible online, but which anyone who follows the mathematical structure of the proof should be able to answer. Do you think you’ll be able to answer this question without asking someone more informed than yourself? Unless you’ve had extensive graduate level training in theoretical mathematics, I doubt it very much.
Again, there are different levels of understanding and the level of understanding you could obtain as a hobbyist is quite superficial. I claimed based on the consensus opinion of grandmasters that Topalov erred in taking Kasparov’s rook. To fully understand this claim, you would have to be able to do two things: play out the game playing as Kasparov after the rook is taken against a strong grandmaster and win. Also, play out the game as Topalov against a strong grandmaster and draw after declining the rook sacrifice. Unless you devote the remainder of your life to studying chess full time, you will never be able to do this. The position occurs too early in the game and the number of possible variations is just too immense. Understanding of this sort requires a much deeper understanding of the game of chess more generally than you could ever hope to obtain without years of professional study.
As I clarified in my above post to chicken, the problem isn’t that particular details are too complex for you to understand (although they probably are unless you’ve had technical training in physics, statistics and computer modeling). The problem is that the total quantity of evidence is so expansive that you can’t hope to assess it with the same degree of authority as someone working in the field.
You can try all you want and doing so will probably be very educational. At the end of the process, you just shouldn’t give your personal opinion much weight anymore than you would give your personal evaluation of a position early in a game of chess much weight even if you had studied it extensively if you knew that grandmasters had also studied the position extensively and come to a different conclusion (I used the qualifier “early” because in the endgame, rigorous proofs are often possible; the early-middle game is clearly the more appropriate analogy as climate science does not deal in rigorous proof).
That’s correct, at least in terms of the best way of arriving at a true opinion. The reason I focus on this criterion is because it is the one that is relevant for political decision-making. Do you agree with this? If you were in a position of authority, you would have to act based on “objective” reasons and not based on your “subjective” judgment, right?
Matthew,
If you google, “Modular elliptic curves and Fermat’s Last Theorem”, you’ll find that the first link is Andrew Wiles’ paper in which he presented the proof.
Do you think this proof is correct? Are there any errors you can spot? Is there a single numbered theorem or equation in the paper which you understand well enough to see why it is correct as stated and would be incorrect if I were to modify it slightly? How much time studying the underlying mathematics do you estimate it would take you to be able to follow this paper?
And yes, I agree that climate science is not this technical – but my claim is twofold: 1) If you don’t think this theorem is basically correct in its main ideas, you’re being as irrational as someone who thinks the earth is flat because they’ve never been in space to see it for themselves; 2) You will never have any first-hand understanding of why this theorem is correct – you must accept it on the authority of experts.
I fail to the see the relevance of Fermat’s Last Theorem to Global Warming. FTL was a puzzle for many years as Fermat had scribbled in the margins of a book that he had a proof in mind but never provided it. Mathematicians were stumped for centuries because they were unable to discover or rediscover any such elegant proof. In fact, no proof at all was discovered until recently.
Your claim regarding Global Warming is that because it is an area of academic speciality only specialists are truly qualified to have an opinion. That is different than FTL , which was so esoteric that specialists struggled for centuries to find the proof. How are the two similar? What do they have in common?
“Let me press you further on this question. Pretend we have a “truth” machine. We can press a button and it will tell us the truth. We can ask the machine if the big bang theory is correct in the same sense that Newton’s laws are correct”
Truth machine: “beep…beep…pleeze clairify wat you mean by “Bang”. Are you SURE it wasn’t a soft and purpetual Huuuummmm…beeep…beeep.?
Beep…beep..puleeeze clarify wat you mean by “Big”? Beep..How ….Big..beep.. is Big?? ..is Big …BIGGGGG? as in VERY BIGGG? Or, just “Big”..like.. llike…beep…”big” zit on a teenager nose? beep…beep..pleeeeezeee clarify question….you’re fryinnnnng my silicooone, beeeeeeee….p!!
Michael, I brought up this example because I felt that Matthew was taking a very extreme position on the question of deferral to experts. He appears to be suggesting that he only believes things which he could in principal verify first-hand without having to spend years studying a subject and that experts are somehow remiss in not making their reasoning more transparent if this is not so (perhaps I’m misinterpreting him). I brought up Fermat’s Last Theorem to convince him that this is not so – there are claims he does accept (or should) based solely on the authority of experts.
As I’ve clarified in my post to Chicken, I agree with you that global warming differs in being less esoteric and technical – people with a strong background in physics, mathematics and computer modeling should at least be able to comprehend a typical paper in theoretical climatology even if they can’t adequately assess all of its underlying assumptions. What they are less qualified to do is to render a judgment on the overall status of the field given all of the evidence available. On this issue, they too must differ to the experts who study this evidence full time.
A. Williams, if you really want to fry the truth machine, you should ask, “Truth Machine, are there any statements that are true but which the Truth Machine will never know are true? Is this statement one of them?”
Jason,
Did your mother tell you to eat your spinach because it was good for you, even though you thought it tasted awful? Did you really accept, as a child, that she was correct, or did you doubt/question? You knew your mother was probably right, probably telling the truth, but you (if you were like me) didn’t really accept her argument. That’s what I mean by a subjective acceptance.
I now eat spinach happily, knowing that I getting some important vitamins, and I’ve come to like the taste that used to be disgusting to me. I’m sure my wife would love it if I did the same for tomatoes, mushrooms, and fish.
If I were to ever support the anthropogenic global warming proponents, it will be because I really believe it, not because I’m just blindly accepting the consensus view.
Big Bang subtopic: Given my financial situation right now, any possibility of foolishly losing $100 would be bad. But in any case, it would be impossible for me to quantify the break-point, and useless for applying to other situations. Each situation is measured on its own merits, against my own misgivings and questions. Because of how my mind works, I want to know how and why scientists hold a position…unless I can understand (at least in basic terms) that, I will always hold on to some amount of doubt.
That doubt is fed by what appears to be strong-arming, lies, misdirection, etc., by those pushing for policy change based on the (in my mind) questionable science.
Go for it. Don’t expect an answer quickly (I’m a bit tied up at the moment), but I would accept such a challenge. Would I be permitted to consult with my brother (not a scientist, not a grad student, just a computer programmer who writes code having to do with 3d surfacing for CAD/CAM software)?
Right now there’s no great need for me to understand the proof. If, later today, some group of scientists came out and said “Because of Fermat’s Last Theorem, we need to make major changes to all industry, transportation, energy, pretty much everything”, then I’d have more of a drive to study it and try to understand it.
If you think there aren’t any chess hobbyists who understand that, then you’re deluding yourself. I’m not saying that I can challenge the conclusions of the scientists on specifics, just that I want to understand what they’re saying before I support the position.
And I have to make a point here. You keep talking about having the right opinion, or holding an opinion at all. If a grandmaster told me that Topalov erred in taking Kasparov’s rook, I would look at him blankly and probably nod an “if you say so”. That’s not an opinion on my part, just an acquiescence to his expertise. It doesn’t take any thought, skill, or knowledge (beyond “he’s an expert”) to support such a position, and it’s not an opinion. It’s just following what somebody else says.
When a scientist tells me that man is causing the majority of the current warming trend and that the warming will continue unless we curb our CO2 emissions with drastic cuts and major impacts on all facets of life and western civilization, then I pause and won’t take their conclusions at face value. Perhaps a comparison you would accept (taken to an extreme to make a point) is if I was playing Kasparov in a game of chess, if I lost I would die, and I was at the point where Topalov took his rook, and a grandmaster told me it was a bad move, even though it looked good to me. I would want to trust the grandmaster advisor, but I would want to know WHY he is making the claim. It’s my life on the line, not his, so I would want to make sure I agreed with his assessment. Even with multiple grandmasters in agreement, it’s still my life and not theirs. Global Warming is slightly different, because it impacts us all.
Again, you seem to assume I’m trying to prove them wrong. I’m not. I’m trying to get them to prove themselves right to me. I don’t need to know the entire field (which, in reality, no scientist does), all I need is answers to questions that prevent me from accepting their conclusions. Why is solar radiation a non-issue? Is temperature correction for urban heat centers valid? Are global temperature measurements truly global? And I don’t want just “yes/no” answers, or “because we’re scientists and we say so”, I want actual data that withstands refutation, that truly explains things, that can withstand any questions I may have.
Too many times, non-scientist global warming proponents (especially the ones pushing for major policy changes) fall back on “science tells us”.
Why not? My personal opinion is ultimately the one I will accept.
Not if I wanted to be an effective advocate for the issue. If I don’t believe something, how much effort will I be willing to put behind pressing for resolution? It still comes down to my ability to accept the conclusions.
I can comfortably oppose anthropogenic global warming because I don’t believe it’s been sufficiently proven. Were I in a position of authority, I would want a group of scientists to sit down with me and explain every detail that I want clarified before I would lend any clout I may have to the issue. It would be reckless of me to just accede to their expertise without questioning it.
Give me a couple of months of digesting things on this, as a hobbyist, and I’ll get back to you. That’s a lot less time then I’ve been hearing both sides of the Global Warming debate, and I’m willing to bet that I’ll be able to understand/accept why the proof is considered valid.
Just to clarify things, I won’t be expecting to find errors in the proof, but the availability of the proof, the access to everything involved (all equations used) in reaching the conclusion, the ability to take things in bite-sized chunks, will all contribute to my ability to accept the proof as valid.
Answers in order of the questions: Probably. Not immediately, but 30 minutes of looking at it is insufficient to get into any type of detail. Not yet, but once I spend some time with the equations I’ll be able to get there. If I can spend 2 hours a day studying it, 3 months, maybe 6.
Mind you, that last one is a ballpark, and involves merely following the paper, not debating the finer points of it with the author.
Also bear in mind that most of this deals with me personally being convinced of something. It’s unreasonable to demand that I act as if I were convinced if I have doubts. I’m unconvinced that the current warming trend is primarily man-caused. I’m unconvinced that carbon offsets do a thing. I’m unconvinced that other suggested solutions would have a major impact on the current warming trend. And a whole lot more. And since I’m unconvinced, I oppose the more drastic (in my estimation) “solutions’.
I don’t have to be able to beat Kasparov to know he’s a grandmaster of chess, but that doesn’t mean I should play a game with him standing over my shoulder telling me what moves to make. I might as well not be there at that point. I need to understand WHY I’m making those moves. I don’t have to find errors with the science behind global warming, but I’d really like to understand why I should accept their conclusions. Otherwise, I might as well just be an echo port (can you tell I’m in the computer field?), just bouncing back as output whatever comes in as input.
Jason,
Concerning the Kasparov analogy you presented here, that, I must say, is a poor one.
Consider that chessplayers have an extensive view of the entire landscape of the environment, enabling him to account for practically every variable possible due to the omniscience given him by virtue of being able to look at the entire plain, as the ‘world’ is essentially presented to him in the palm of his hand or, rather, his gaming table.
However, where the global environment is concerned, scientists do not have the same omni perspective. They are unable, therefore, to account for practically every variable there is (in a chess game, all the pieces are present and accounted for), the identity of certain aggressors that may be threatening the environment (while the aggressor is yet to be determined for who actually is causing GW; in a chess game, the threat is obvious given the fact that one is able to see the opponent’s pieces) and, thus, would not possess the very same level of certainty as that of an expert chessplayer (whose probability of being correct in his hypothesis may very well be as high as 99.99% given the fact that all possible variables can be accounted for as well as their subsequent solutions).
I guess I haven’t been clear enough. I don’t need to verify everything, I just need to have questions answered with more than a “because”. I took issue with the claims that it’s too complex a field. Well, I’m not trying to understand all of the complexity, I just want simple questions answered, preferably with some detail, so that it could be checked if I so chose.
My claim is that I should be able to get answers to questions. If urban heat is accounted for in the weather stations, how is it done? Does the transform make sense? On what is it based? Your claim seems to be that I just won’t understand the whole of the science, therefore any questions are useless because I won’t understand the answer, how it relates to the entire field, why it matters, etc. At that point, it becomes a matter solely of trusting the conclusions of the majority of experts, something I can’t do.
In other words, I want to be like my son (who is 5) and ask “Why” about everything that catches my eye. Why use this equation? Why ignore this possible factor? Why why why? I can’t do what the scientists do, making the logical leaps and connections, but I sure should be able to understand WHY they are convinced that the applied method or equation is the correct one. Wiles can explain how he built on Ribet’s proof of the epsilon conjecture, that by proving the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture (which is what he really proved, not Fermat’s theorem), in conjunction with the epsilon conjecture, proved Fermat’s last theorem. I should be able to ask “why” at any point along the way, go into as much detail as required in order for me to accept it as true.
That I have no reason to question the conclusions, and therefore am unlikely to do so, does not mean that I de facto accept it as proven. Mind you, this is a math problem (very complex) with known factors. Global climate is a huge system, extremely complex, with many unknown factors.
By the way, the analogy you presented here is also a defective one for the very reason that even a five year & 8 months old child can end up beating a grandmaster.
I just don’t put as great a store in expert opinion as I used to.
For one thing, experts grow on trees. You can find experts with diametrically opposed positions on almost anything. Expert witnesses at a trial, for instance. In my field, the arts, expert opinion is often worse than useless.
Not that the experts are not smart, or educated. They are. The problem is with their perspective, their world view, their most basic assumptions. Paradigm.
When I hear very serious discussion by these experts on why Jackson Pollock is to be preferred to Vermeer ,John Cage to Mozart, and blank slab buildings to the Gothic Cathedrals, I become convinced that these experts have educated themselves into imbecility.
Scientists are no more immune to the effects of world view, paradigm or politics than are the rest of us.
FLT is esoteric. Global warming is not. What is attempting to be solved is a simple energy balance equation. It is heat transfer with the solar flux and geothermal and surface heat sources on one side and radiation and environmental heat sinks on the other with the remainder being the increase in thermal energy in the atmosphere. What makes it complicated is the complex interactions that occur within the system itself. Those complex interactions, like accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and cosmic ray effect on upper layer cloud formation, albedo variations due to ice and water vapor in the atmosphere, and many others are worthy of being studied. Those things lend themselves to being studied but the approach taken to do that is necessarily to hold as many other factors constant as possible. It does not take a degree in climatology to say that conclusions drawn from this modeling which is still in its infancy are over-reaching and not a worthy basis for policy. I can accept a scientist’s expertise in a particular specialty of study but that does not mean that I should accept that his expertise makes his pronouncements regarding what he believes to be a danger to the environment to be infallible. Time after time, even in the information you and others have linked to an expression of caution is made about how much we do not yet know.
What we do know is that global weather is highly variable. This is something that has simply been accepted by people as a matter of course for all the generations we have lived on the earth because it is so obvious. Some winters the Thames freezes and others the Vikings plunder all of Europe because the north is unusually warm. Now that we live in climate controlled buildings people seem to have started to believe that there is a global thermostat and mankind is fiddling with it. There is no good reason to believe that. One thing is for sure and that is that the climate will continue to change. We cannot stop it. We cannot predict it. And we should not fear it irrationally.
I decided to forward the link Jimmy provided to several people I know.
The level of vitrol in the responses I got back amazed me.
You’ld think it was an article extolling the virtues of child slavery.
Dean, that’s because to some, anthropogenic Global Warming is an article of faith. Any contradiction is to be vehemently rejected, the person raising the contradictory argument is to be smeared or discredited in any way possible (especially if a scientist himself), and the mantra of “we’re destroying the Earth” is to be repeated whilst holding one’s hands over one’s ears.
To those who take global warming as an absolute, something proven beyond all doubt, scientists are more infallible about science than the Pope and the Magisterium are about issues of faith and morals.
To question the almighty scientist is to commit sacrilege. To doubt the truths declared by the scientists is to descend into madness.
I’ve been hearing for 20 years how our landfills will be full in 20 years, we’ll run out of food in 20 years, we’ll run out of oil in 20 years, we’ll run out of potable water for 20 years, we’ll overpopulate the earth in 20 years, the rain forests will be gone in 20 years, superbugs will resist all of our attempts at combatting them medically in 20 years, etc. The only solution to all of those problem is to make drastic, immediate changes that will harm our civilization, with the hope that maybe, just maybe, it will be enough to stave off the looming disaster.
“Wolf” has been cried too many times, and if Global Warming is real, anthropogenic, and disastrous, our lack of response is, in part, due to disbelief caused by the constant claim of impending doom that never plays out.
Now, I’m all for looking for alternative sources of energy, reducing emissions, recycling trash, taking care of the water and air, protecting the environment, feeding the hungry, helping the poor, etc. I just can’t find the energy any more to react to the hysteria surrounding all of these claims of global destruction. I want real evidence before I’ll react, not just the opinions of experts who have been wrong so many times before. I think that’s what Jason doesn’t quite understand.
When the price of beachfront property, bikini’s and surfboards, goes up in Maine and Canada…
When Body Glove, Coppertone and Banaana Republic start moving their operations north of the Great Lakes…
When portable swimming pools, air conditioners and 4ft. Ceiling fans don’t stay on the shelves of Walmart Alaska, for more than three days before needing to be restocked…
And when tropical fruit and vegetable prices drop significantly,and banana trees start to be grown in California, and coconuts in Kansas…
Then… I’ll surely believe in the arguments about global warming!
People will start putting their money where their mouths are…and greedy investers will be scrambling for the millions/billions to be made in all of these new, global warming made, markets!
Until then, I hope the governments of the world will focus on supporting research into improved efficiency for solar energy cells, which will help solve the world’s clean energy problems, and not just theorize or complain about them.
A. Williams,
Why even bother with such worries that may never come to be?
Remember what Our Lord advised:
Mt 6:34:
34 Be not therefore solicitous for to morrow; for the morrow will be solicitous for itself. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. (DRV)
Dear Jason,
I doubt that I know any of your friends unless I have met them at scientific conferences because I suspect that people in your age group are just chicks in comparison to the Chicken (oh, wait until your beak gets heavy and starts to hurt … pecking corn just isn’t what it used to be… I am not yet into dotage, but I am probably old enough to be your rooster/father – a young rooster/father, ahem 🙂 ).
Seriously, my whole point above can be reduced to two words: Confirmation Holism . It was a theory presented by the famous thermodynamicist/science philosopher, Pierre Duhem (quite an interesting fellow – it was he who first coined the term, Butterfly Effect, long before chaos theory was more than a gleem in Poincare’s eyes) and given a different format by the logician, Quine, a few years later.
It basically states that science is such a layered activity and the top layer is so depended on other layers of knowledge beneath, that errors on any layer may be either slight or catastrophic and at this point in our understanding of how knowledge is organized, it is difficult to tell, a priori .
Thus, a chemist may spot a flaw in the climatologist’s use of isotope ratios to infer thermal data; a high school student may spot a flaw in a temperature sensor or a whole group of them that are part of global measuring systems (as one high school student in Maine has actually done, recently), etc. I am not saying that when such errors occur that they are not recoverable in some cases, but simply that in doing interdisciplinary work, the sum is very much dependent on the truth of the parts. Sometimes, people outside of the field can see things that people inside cannot because they are too close to the situation. I have had it happen to me in my own research.
When chemists sign off on the chemistry used by climatologists, physicists sign off on the physics, botanists sign off on the botany, etc., then the science truly becomes a community effort and it passes from the realm of experts in to the realm of common ownership.
What I object to is that no one has asked if the community of chemists accept the chemistry used in global warming or if the thermodynamicists accept the thermodynamics, etc. Climatologists have presented their finding in a (semi)-united front without seeking concensus from their fellow scientists, upon whom their results depend. Where does one read that the American Chemical Society has endorsed the chemistry in the IPCC document? Did anyone think to ask? I sure have problems with some of it, because CO2 concentration in ice cores is very dependent on the history of the surrounding region, which is often assumed, without proof, to be consistent.
I do have some acquaintance with the area of paleobiology, because I once helped a paleobotanist to reconstruct on a computer the biomechanics of a million year old fossil fern that she discovered in Antartica (we met when we both took the same graduate botany course). We had to make many assumptions, such as that cell walls had not changed much in a million year and that many of the same cells types in current ferns also existed then. There was no history of the period that we could consult.
The climatologist’s warnings may be correct. I do not want to say. All I am saying is that science must be very careful when it enters the political arena.
This post is too long, already, but the UN has done this before with regards to population growth back in the 1970’s. It was the same pattern: they released a document with a consensus of the “experts” that we were on the verge of extinction because of the eventual effects of overpopulation. In 2003 they released a follow-up report which wound up being a type of back-handed apology because they had come to realize that their lack of foresight in making policy recommendations had resulted in the near decimation of Western Europe because no one had had children for so long. They also never thought that a call for reducing the population in China would result in 70% of the population of children in that mostly agrarian society being male with the females being aborted.
The problem which many people have with regards to man-made climate changes is not only with regards to the science (that is an issue best left to scientists), but that some people are old enough have seen this all before. How are they to trust the wisdom of the UN with regards to global policy? Will they issue an apology in 2030 because of a war which they have inadvertently started which they, in their short-sightedness, could not have seen would result from their policies recommendation, today?
The Chicken
“Wolf” has been cried too many times, and if Global Warming is real, anthropogenic, and disastrous, our lack of response is, in part, due to disbelief caused by the constant claim of impending doom that never plays out.
Maybe Jason, in his youth, simply does not realize that those of us who are, ahem, a little bit older have been hearing these end of the world scenarios our entire lives, mostly from scientists. He has not had time yet to become skeptical. This whole conversation brings this verse to mind.
Leviticus 26:36 …the sound of a flying leaf shall terrify them, and they shall flee as it were from the sword: they shall fall, when no man pursueth them.
(only had time to respond to Matt’s first post tonight, but I’ll definitely try to get to the others tomorrow…)
Right, but if I were to check out whether she was right, I wouldn’t gather first-hand evidence – I wouldn’t run experiments myself or even check data myself. I would just defer to other authorities who I had reason to believe were more expert. Certainly, I would want to make sure that I chose the right authorities which is a non-trivial question, but I would not even consider conducting a first-hand appraisal of the evidence myself. This is true despite the fact that my training in statistics and econometrics would qualify me to assess some of this evidence; it would not qualify me to question the consensus opinion of everyone working in the field UNLESS I had a very particular critique that I had reason to think they simply could not appreciate without my special training; and even then, I would only think that my opinion trumped this consensus if I also had independent reason to think that this critique was decisive and completely undermined all of the reasons they had for believing that vitamins are good for you; such a situation is extremely unlikely.
I think you’re confusing politicians with scientists. What is the evidence of this illicit behavior by scientists?
You can certainly consult with your brother. But I warn you: unless you’ve had fairly extensive training in number theory, it will take you more than a few months to understand this proof. I think you are underestimating the depth of knowledge required here (but I’m quite willing to be proven wrong!).
Again, depends what you mean by understand – I clarified in my previous post precisely what I meant (being able to play out the game from that position and win or draw) and according to that definition, it is you who are deluding yourself. There is not a chess hobbyist in the world who could play out that position against a strong grandmaster and win any reasonable fraction of the time.
This is a GREAT comparison. I think it’s a better example than the one I gave. Suppose exactly this happens. You then ask the Grandmaster for an explanation. He says, “I’ll try and give you one, but it won’t be totally satisfactory – there are just too many different lines so I can only ask you to trust my judgment and my superior chess intuition.”
Are you saying you wouldn’t trust the grandmaster? You would instead go with your own reasoning rather than listen to him? If so, you are making an insane judgment. In this situation, you are obviously more likely to live if you listen to the grandmaster. You might understand the moves you think are justified better than his suggestion, but if you make those moves, you are more likely to die.
The personal stakes in the case of global warming are less severe and you do not wield executive authority; still, the same principal of deferral applies.
These are perfectly reasonable questions and I’m sure a scientist working in the field would be quite happy to address your concerns. My guess is his answer would be something like, “Many of these are serious worries that warrant further investigation, but as far as we can tell, none of them invalidate our main conclusions” – he could then elaborate on why he thinks that. If you are not convinced by his reasoning though, you shouldn’t presume that your semi-informed judgment is better than the consensus of his peers who think otherwise. You have no basis for thinking that you are in an epistemically privileged position.
So you’re saying you wouldn’t listen to the grandmaster in the above situation in which losing means death?
But it would be even more reckless to trust your own judgment more than the consensus of scientists even after they explained their reasoning to you as thoroughly as they could. I realize this is counter-intuitive and contrary to popular cliches – “appeal to authority is a fallacy!” I just think it happens to be the truth.
Again, let’s be very concrete about the challenge I have proposed. After you feel you have studied the proof for a sufficient length of time, I will ask you a technical question about it generated by experts that you should be able to answer if you have followed the mathematical details of the proof; the difficulty level I have in mind is that of a question on a problem set in a graduate level topics class on the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture or the Taniyama-Shimura theorem – in fact, I may just take a question from such a problem set…
I wouldn’t even go as far as to demand that you act convinced. Suppose the question were reducible to the value of a number between 0 and 1 (obviously it is not). I’m saying, if scientists say the number is very likely between .9 and 1, and you think after reviewing the evidence that the number if more likely to be around .3 that your posterior judgment on the matter should be something like: “1% chance of <.2, 10% chance of .2-.4, 40% chance of .4-.9, 50% chance of .9-1"; i.e. you should give the judgment of the consensus of scientists much more weight than your own judgment unless you have some particular reason to think you know something they don't know. Do you have such a reason?
But if your life were on the line, this would be a damn good strategy. The point of playing chess is not solely to win but the experience of thinking. To the extent that this is what is important to you about global warming, your strategy is perfectly reasonable. But to the extent that the answer is actually important – to the extent that winning or being right does actually matter (as it would if you were in a position of authority) – you must defer to experts.
My point with that example was not about finding out the information, it was about personally accepting the information. In order to change actions, one has to accept the information provided. That’s why people still smoke, even though experts have been saying for years that there are tons of negative effects from tobacco. That’s why people still eat unhealthily, even though experts have been saying for years that a balanced diet increases overall health and longevity.
I think you’ve put scientists on a pedestal if you think some aren’t involved with politics. James Hansen, for example.
I don’t need to fully understand the proof, though, I just need to be able to understand it enough to accept it as true. I’m not looking to be able to debate the mathematicians on the validity of each step along the way, or even have friendly conversations over brandy discussing the finer points of the proof.
You seem to be confusing the difference between becoming an expert in a field and being convinced that the conclusions are valid.
I don’t want to “win” against those promoting anthropogenic global warming, I want them to convince me that they’re right. In a sense, it’s like each side in a chess match making three moves, and the chessmaster saying “I’ve won this game” and expecting me to to accede.
And I think you underestimate hobbyists. I’d bet that there are a few out there who could hold their own against a chessmaster, they just never became professionals.
Then I would hesitate to make the move.
Allow me to expand the analogy slightly. Instead of a single chessmaster, there is a panel of 10. 3 say that I must make this move or I will definitely lose the game, but some of their explanation seems counter-intuitive. 4 say I could make a couple of different moves and still be fine, and provide a little bit better explanation, although incomplete. 2 say I could make the first suggest move or one I favor, but are unable to be certain which is best. One is adamant that I make a move I understand, and explains why, in his estimation, it’s a better move, and this one makes the most sense to me.
The 3 claim consensus because 9 out of the 10 masters support that move in some manner, even though the level of support varies, and not all 9 hold the view of the 3. They then claim that the consensus means that no further discussion should take place.
Furthermore, assume that I didn’t get to pick the panel of chessmasters, that some could possible gain personally if I lost, and I have no way of determining who is who or which are the “better” experts.
Is it still so clear-cut?
However, my inability to be convinced (or his inability to convince me) leaves me in a position where I would want to trust their judgement, but find myself unable to believe them. And given that there are scientists whose views I have an easier time accepting (because they coincide with my personal beliefs), I have a harder time accepting the position of the consensus.
Consensus is not unanimous.
I’m saying that while a move is not required, I would side with the dissenting grandmaster (in my revision of the analogy) whose view I can understand and accept until and unless a move is required or the consensus can convince me that they are correct.
But I’m not just trusting my own judgement, I’m trusting my judgement along with some scientists who are not a part of the consensus.
You can propose that challenge all you like, and it would probably be a good deal of fun, but that’s not equivalent to what I’m looking for in the matter of anthropogenic Global Warming. I don’t want to be able to discuss the finer points of ocean current theory, jet stream impact, permafrost CO2 and methane concentrations, et al. I just want to be able to understand it well enough to be able to accept it.
Because the conclusion they’ve reached doesn’t resonate with my own intuition (I considered science before going into the computer field). Because valid questions I’ve seen raised have been brushed aside. Because I see conflicts of interest. Because I doubt they know enough about how the Earth’s climate really works to have made a valid model that extends out 100 years.
It’s not that I know something they don’t, it’s that they claim to know something I won’t ever be able to understand, but I must follow their instructions on how to live my life based solely on their word that they have the best intentions at heart. I am unable to place such trust in the scientists, who are merely men, fallible, gullible, biased, imperfect.
Right now, the basis for your position seems to be that I should trust their authority (a valid appeal to authority, not a fallacy) combined with what IS a fallacy…an appeal to popularity, although within the limited population of scientists in fields related to climate studies.
Then I might as well get up and let Kasparov play in my place. I’m not doing the thinking, I’m just being a conduit for moving the pieces on the board. While I have a personal stake in the outcome, I have nothing to do whatsoever with the actual moves made, other than blindly accepting Kasparov’s moves as the best. And it’s not good strategy if you use the modifications to the analogy I made above.
If all I’m going to do is defer to the experts, then I should relinquish my position of authority to those experts, because I’m being nothing more than an unthinking automaton. No, if I’m in a position of authority, it’s my duty to make sure, to the best of my ability, that the experts are correct. That means they’d have to convince me, not just assure me that they’re correct.
Matthew,
Tomorrow the IPCC synthesis report comes out, which will complete the latest series of reports. It is freely available only. I encourage you to read it. There is plenty of non-consensus with it and the IPCC has been accused by many of being too conservative in their predictions. There are 2000 scientists who contributed to it and it remains the best repository of the data that is out there. It is also highly readable. Then you should rejoin a forum like this and tell us exactly what it is that doesn’t convince you.
Because I find your spinach analogy telling. You have compared yourself to a stubborn child. I presume your mother told you why spinach was good for you, that it had vitamins or would make you grow up strong and healthy. But tell me, as a four year old, *why* weren’t you convinced by that and exactly what makes you convinced now. What data do you have now that you didn’t have when you were four years old? What data wasn’t available to you when you were four years old that has convinced you? Or was it simply years of experience that has convinced you that spinach is good for you? Because do you know who, besides your mother and now you, have the collected wisdom of years of experience? The experts.
What I hear is someone who is stubbornly refusing to listen to the experts for reasons that have nothing to do with science or data or methodology. The factors that make a child choose not to believe his mother, or a smoker continue to smoke, have nothing to do with objectively inadequate arguments. They have to do with the subjectivity of the person needing convincing. And when you are in a position of power, and you are in a position of power because you are a voter, that is stubbornness, not incredulity that is governing your position.
But if the appeal to the authority of scientists is troubling without convincing, what about appealing the Pope. When the Vatican issues a statement that we can no longer pretend that man’s actions are not affecting the climate and that the Vatican is promising to be the first “green” state, perhaps the community of faith should take heed.
This article has some interesting thoughts on consensus and the political motivation of scientist.
Excerpt:
Then consider the quotation I posted earlier about the U.S. climate observing systems used to gather the data were found inadequate and deteriorating a decade ago.
“Yet, ten years later, even the most basic beginning of a recovery program has not been started.”
At least for me that gives me plenty of reasons to doubt the self-proclaimed experts.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Michael Underlined,
What do you make of the comments made by The Masked Chicken?
He’s had a lot of insightful things to say that bear upon the substantive points of the matter.
On that note, I am rather curious though —
Who is this Masked Chicken anyway?
Esau,
“Who is this Masked Chicken anyway?”
My guess is Henry Cabot Henhouse IV.
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Inocencio,
Thanks for that morning humour! ;^)
Part of what has formed my opinion on global warming has been reading the thoughts of those like the Masked Chicken. These have been people who; A) know what they are talking about, and B) have well-reasoned reservations about the science behind anthropogenic global warming.
That doesn’t mean that I can recall everything they said, or that I can re-construct their arguments and articulate them, but I have read enough of them to give me serious doubts about *man-made* global warming.
On that note, I am rather curious though —
Who is this Masked Chicken anyway?
Who is this Esau?
Part of what has formed my opinion on global warming has been reading the thoughts of those like the Masked Chicken. These have been people who; A) know what they are talking about
Tim J,
How do you know that Masked Chicken knows what he’s talking about? I’m not saying he doesn’t, but how do you know that he does? He’s just an anonymous poster on a message board…
Some things just make me want to whack myself in the head, which is exactly what just happened.
Michael (the underlined), I was not comparing my resistance to the idea of anthropogenic global warming to that of a 4 year old resisting the order to eat his spinach. The analogy had to do with personally being able to accept something as the truth. It’s not the stubborn refusal of a headstrong child, it’s a matter of being unable to accept the word of the experts without question.
Years of education, including biology, nutrition, etc. Lack of opposition to the declaration that spinach is a good source of iron and folic acid. In other words, unopposed unanimous consensus (if there have been any dissenters, I haven’t heard of them). Those years of education have built upon propositions that I can not only understand, but accept.
In other words, I accept what the experts say in that field because I’m able to accept it…because it makes sense, it follows from previous points. I’m convinced.
Of course, I also doubt some things that come out in the nutrition field. “Eggs are bad! Beef is bad! All soy all the time is good!” Just because an “expert” in a field says something, it isn’t automatically true and worthy of being believed.
I question the conclusions of the IPCC. I want more than “we’re scientists, and we say it’s anthropogenic”. I also doubt the claims of “consensus”. Several scientists have come out and stated that their names appear as a part of the consensus even though they themselves don’t agree that the anthropogenic nature of global warming is definite. (i.e., their research shows that the earth is warming slightly, and that was included in the IPCC data set, but their research doesn’t explain why it’s warming…somehow they become a part of the consensus that global warming is anthropogenic.)
You must be reading somebody else’s posts, then. I’ve articulated numerous reasons for questioning the experts. Some have nothing to do with science, data, or methodology. What biases exist in the scientific community that could color the conclusions? What policy changes are people like Hansen pushing for, and why? Others have everything to do with science, data, and methodology. Why discount solar radiation completely, instead of assuming it could have a partial effect? Is the data collected from the ground-based weather stations valid? What is the methodology used to account for urban heat, and is it the correct methodology? Why do some scientists show a CO2 lag but others claim it doesn’t exist? How can dissenting scientists who raise what seem to be valid questions just be brushed aside?
What I’m hearing from you and Jason, on the other hand, is simply “we must put absolute trust in the consensus”, which is something I refuse to do.
I do. Do you? I’ve never said that man has had no effect on the climate. I’ve never claimed that we shouldn’t take care of the environment, try to pollute less, recycle, etc.
I drive 10 miles each way to work. I can’t commute because 1) Metro Detroit’s mass transit is a joke and b) I sometimes have to drive up to our plants in Saginaw, 100 miles away. My major appliances are EnergyStar compliant. I’ve recaulked my windows, recycle my garbage as much as possible, mulch my lawn clippings instead of bagging them. Our TV is rarely on, my computer has a flatpanel display that’s usually off (CRTs use more energy). Air conditioning and heating are dictated by medical needs of my wife (asthmatic) and 3rd daughter (micro-preemie with BPD). My garbage output with 5 kids (3 in diapers) is 1 30-gallon can per week, plus recyclables. We rarely eat out, most meals are made from scratch. Lighting is admittedly a problem right now (still teaching the kids to turn off lights when the leave a room….give them a break, though, the oldest is 5), but any lights that are left on for long periods are low-energy bulbs. Water is also a problem (3 year olds take forever to wash their hands, and of course the water is on full blast).
Tell me…what else should I do? What hybrid can I buy that will fit 4 car seats and a booster? Because, honestly, that’s about all I can see right now that I can improve on. Other than maybe replacing my old windows with new ones, and improving insulation in my house (57 years old), or making sure my grocery store is using primarily locally-grown produce.
Now, why should I listen to the likes of Al Gore?
Should I vote for policy measures that I’m not comfortable with, ones that I think are a waste of money and could possibly do more harm than good? Should I get behind scientists who think their solution will work, based on a known incomplete model of the climate, when I fear that their intentional meddling with the climate will be worse than any unintentional impact we’ve had? Should I support a theory I can’t yet accept, solely based on the word of experts who have cried wolf numerous times? I’m willing to listen to arguments that support the anthropogenic hypothesis, but I’m not ready to react as if it were incontrovertibly proven.
Who is this Esau?
Gn 25:25:
And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau. (KJV)
Smokey– it’s usually pretty easy to tell when someone is totally blowing smoke online, if the topic is one you care about.
Exactly, why trust an anonymous poster on a message board who may have some physics credentials over the recommendations of every major scientific organization in the country?
A few more responses:
I agree with this point, but the purpose of the chess analogy and the analogy with Fermat’s last theorem was not to say: “Scientific judgments about global warming have the same level of certainty as judgments about chess or judgments about mathematics.” My point was just that, as with global warming, this is a field where making an informed judgment requires a considerable amount of expertise (expertise which, as chicken points out, needs to span a variety of disciplines). I actually agree that it is unlikely that any one individual is expert in all of those disciplines. That’s why we should defer to the consensus views of the scientific organizations whose members derive from all of the relevant disciplines.
If you don’t trust the scientists, who do you trust? Yourself? Anonymous posters on this blog? Anyone who makes an argument that seems reasonable to you? But why trust your own ability to judge the reasonableness of scientific arguments which you obviously don’t have the training to assess? This is where the chess analogy comes into play – just because you find the justification for a particular move compelling doesn’t mean you shouldn’t defer your judgment to a better player if you have the option. In the same way, you should defer your judgment on the issue of global warming to people who are more informed than you about the relevant science – i.e. the scientists.
This is a complete cop-out.
Obviously, in some fields the expertise of certain individuals is disputed – no one thinks that movie critics are the final word on the aesthetic value of any movie. But this is simply not the case in math and science! It is obvious who the experts are – the people with the technical training in the relevant fields.
Now, in the case of global warming, there are many relevant fields, but in every single one of them the vast majority of scientists believe that anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that their are steps we can take to mitigate it (evidence: surveys of published papers, endorsements of all scientific organizations).
Just because art critics don’t always know better than you what constitutes good art doesn’t mean scientists don’t know better than you what constitutes good science! If you don’t think scientists are more qualified than you to assess whether global warming is occurring, then you’re flat out wrong and you’re deluded about your own competence.
What’s your alternative? That we just guess when we make policy? Or that we just assume that it’s more likely that nothing will happen? This is just an unjustified status quo bias. You either go with scientific models (tenuous as they may be), or you go with guess work.
It’s your judgment against all the scientists who say that despite the difficulties of measurement, the global warming is very likely occurring, caused by human action, and possible to mitigate. Why should anyone believe you? Why should you even trust your own judgment since you don’t know anything the scientists don’t know while they know quite a bit that you don’t know?
I beg to differ, but this is a topic for another thread.
No, it’s just to pretend that you know more than them when in reality they know more than you.
You’re confusing the media’s overblown rendition of what scientists say with what they actually say. The national academy of sciences never endorsed any Malthusian theory, nor have they ever claimed that a plague of invincible bacteria is imminent. They’re quite careful to only endorse claims that there is substantial scientific evidence for, such as anthropogenic global warming. If you disagree, then please – give me one example of a claim endorsed by the national academy of sciences that has been shown to be wrong or even cast into doubt. Your skepticism of scientists is based only on the caricature you get from the media on not on anything organizations of scientists have actually said. It is pure hearsay.
Chicken,
I agree with much of what you say, but I don’t see how any of it justifies the level of skepticism that you profess.
First, let me start with some questions. In determining policy recommendations on this question, economists build models where they consider many different scenarios. They test the robustness of their conclusions to different assignments of weights, but ultimately, the recommendations they arrive at are based on the probability distributions that the joint committees of scientists from many disciplines who have studied the question believe are most plausible.
Do you think this is an error on the part of economists? What would you recommend they do instead? Should they simply guess? Should we simply abandon any attempt to do rigorous analysis because of high degree of uncertainty surrounding climatological models?
This strikes me – and would strike any economist – as an insane viewpoint. Just because there is uncertainty doesn’t mean that rigorous analysis isn’t substantially better than guesswork or simply assuming with no justification that things will work out fine if we do nothing even when all the models say otherwise.
This is actually a good question – I think it’s partially addressed by literature reviews – not all of the published papers on climate change are written by climatologists. Nonetheless, in the survey I reported, all of the papers that took a stance endorsed the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming.
That said, I agree with you that it would be even more compelling if we knew exactly what experts in each sub-discipline thought about the questions relevant to their subdiscipline. I think this knowledge exists anecdotally within the scientific community and is imperfectly captured by interdisciplinary scientific organizations like the NAS.
If we had a survey of scientific opinions at this level of detail, it would be an excellent source of information. Lacking such a survey, we have to go with what we’ve got. And everything we’ve got suggests that scientists from across many disciplines think that anthropogenic global warming is very likely occuring and that we should take steps to mitigate it.
I think it’s quite important to distinguish the recommendations of organizations like the UN and the IMF from organizations like the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS is not immune to politics, but they are much less susceptible to political influence than the former two organizations. Every instance that has been cited so far in this thread which purports to show the political slant of scientists has actually been evidence that a political organization or a media outlet trumpeted scientific claims beyond what the evidence supported. Where is the evidence that the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the National Research Council or any of the myriad other professional organizations that have endorsed anthropogenic global warming are prone to exaggeration?
Esau, I have no idea what you’re talking about here.
Matthew, actually Andrew Wiles only proved a special case of the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture – that of semistable elliptic curves. The full conjecture was not proven until 1999 by Christophe Breuil, Brian Conrad, Fred Diamond, and Richard Taylor.
Matthew – sorry if you’re latest post (Nov 16, 2007 6:30:01 AM) answered some of the questions I raise above – I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but it’s next on my list of posts to respond to…
Dear Jason,
This will be my last post in this particular thread. I have little left to say that would be of use. The best thing we can all do, really, is hold a good thought for the scientists and policy-makers who are on the front lines in this whole mess. They will need it. I think everyone here would agree that the truth will out, however painful that process may be. I also think that, although there are rogues in every area of life, by-and-large, most experts try to be worthy of the trust that they are given, be it by society or academia. There are also real, human, limitations of knowledge and judgment and they are sometimes difficult to defend against.
As for we poor peons in the comboxes, we should probably be doing what we wish most of the rest of society would be doing – actually reading the research articles, discussing them, (instead of blindly arguing amongst ourselves) and asking questions, lots of questions. We need to seek the truth in as direct a fashion as we can, within our particular limits of competency. We do not have a very scientifically literate society in the US and those who are aware of this have a responsibility, both to ourselves and to others, to be as well-informed as possible. If we reach different judgments after our studies, then, so be it and let us at least show that men of good will can maintain that good will in the face of the difficult struggle for truth.
A few points I wish to clear up for my own conscience’s sake:
1. I did not mean to give the impression in my post, above, that I know anything about paleobotany, per se . My colleague in paleobotany would hit me over the head with an ice core if I tried to assert that. She is the expert. We collaborated in trying to reconstruct the million year old fossil fern. I do have some expertise in botany. I am one of a handful of experts on a common, but exotic, grass.
2. The UN paper I mentioned was released sometime in the last few years. I don’t know where I got the 2003 date, but the paper was probably released more recently.
3. I am, primarily, an interdisciplinary researcher. I was making comments on the interdisciplinary nature of the research in climatology, above. I do have a home base in the hard sciences and it might be possible to figure out which by my partial list of areas of studies in the post, above, but the Masked Chicken wants to keep his identity a secret to preserve the dignity of chickens, everywhere.
I look forward to discussing with you other topics on this blog as they interest you.
The Chicken
Jason –
“For one thing, experts grow on trees. You can find experts with diametrically opposed positions on almost anything. Expert witnesses at a trial, for instance. In my field, the arts, expert opinion is often worse than useless.”
“This is a complete cop-out.”
Well, no, not complete – and of course I am aware that what passes as expertise in one field doesn’t remotely translate to another. I’m only saying that we have been told for a long time to trust the experts, and I have found through experience that this is a crap-shoot. You failed to deal with the real point of that post, which was that scientists are no more immune from the effects of world view, paradigm and politics than are the rest of us. They *are* human.
The science of global warming – especially the emphasis on whether it is man-made – is so new that I don’t see how anyone, at this point, could have a high degree of confidence in these first tentative assessments.
The government told citizens for decades – based on scientific consensus – that it is eating fat that makes us fat, until it became apparent over time that it wasn’t true.
We were told to sanitize everything to avoid germs, and now we are told that this may actually make things worse because it doesn’t allow the immune system to develop properly.
By now, I’ve heard of so many things that are supposed to cause cancer that I’m almost of the opinion that everything does. It’s life that causes death. Coffee is bad for you. No, it’s good. No, now it’s bad again.
I’m not listening, now. Pass the coffee.
I know a lot of this has been the press ginning up non-stories almost out of thin air, based on one or two studies that are debunked or put in doubt later, but a good deal of it has been simply the common wisdom of the current scientific paradigm.
Trusting the experts is not a sure bet. Look at what education experts have done to education in the U.S..
True, but a the proof of the special case was enough to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. I apologize for mistakenly saying he had proved the conjecture for all cases.
Just to be clear, I wouldn’t necessarily include you in the group of people who believe scientists to be infallible.
I never made such a claim. Politicians and lobbyists are asking me to support their position which is backed by these scientists. I refuse to do that until I believe what the scientists are saying. It’s not a matter of knowing more than them, it’s a matter of believing them. I don’t. I don’t like what I’ve seen of the science, which seems to be mostly based on the assumption that humans caused the warming trend, and then looking for possible ways we could have done that.
And how am I to know that that’s not the case again? The IPCC is not purely scientific, there’s a great deal of politics involved, too. Mix politics and media, and I have very little trust for anything I hear. That’s yet another reason to want to see data and proofs to support the claims made. I may not be an expert in the field, but at least I have the opportunity to base my opinion on more than what the media tells me to believe. For crying out loud, Gore got an Oscar for a slide show presentation full of lies.
Esau, I have no idea what you’re talking about here.
Did you not read my comments in their entirety?
Note a part of the comments you wrote in response:
My point was just that, as with global warming, this is a field where making an informed judgment requires a considerable amount of expertise…
That’s just it —
Further to my comments:
“Concerning the Kasparov analogy you presented here, that, I must say, is a poor one.
Consider that chessplayers have an extensive view of the entire landscape of the environment, enabling him to account for practically every variable possible due to the omniscience given him by virtue of being able to look at the entire plain, as the ‘world’ is essentially presented to him in the palm of his hand or, rather, his gaming table.
However, where the global environment is concerned, scientists do not have the same omni perspective. They are unable, therefore, to account for practically every variable there is (in a chess game, all the pieces are present and accounted for), the identity of certain aggressors that may be threatening the environment (while the aggressor is yet to be determined for who actually is causing GW; in a chess game, the threat is obvious given the fact that one is able to see the opponent’s pieces) and, thus, would not possess the very same level of certainty as that of an expert chessplayer (whose probability of being correct in his hypothesis may very well be as high as 99.99% given the fact that all possible variables can be accounted for as well as their subsequent solutions).”
There is also the fact that a child prodigy can beat a grandmaster!
Where is the expertise there?
Again, why this is possible is because of the fact that a chess game is a closed environment where both players have a near ominscient view of the landscape and the threats are defined and visible although, at various times, subtle.
That is why even when I go against formidable opponents, I can play even the riskiest gambit, having played with opponents who possess similar playing styles.
The Game Theory is not so complex.
However, when dealing with the environment, it’s a whole other story altogether since you’re faced with a multiplicity of variables where even the most expert person in their own respective fields may yet have problems due to the contributive nature of the various variables that ever add to the complexity of the problem.
Smokey– it’s usually pretty easy to tell when someone is totally blowing smoke online, if the topic is one you care about.
Foxfire,
You’re totally wrong here —
Just because somebody cares so much about a topic doesn’t actually mean that this person would be so knowledgeable about it.
I remember somebody at work trying to convince me that the reason why antibiotic-resistant bacteria exists was because people do not use anti-bacterial products.
She kept talking about this with so much passion, with all this ‘data’ she claimed supported her position.
However, I had to explain to here that, on the contrary, it is because of anti-bacterial products that is leading to the significant proliferation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
So much for those who care about the topic and yet fail to comprehend the particulars.
Correction:
However, I had to explain to her…
Further about that subject though, it’s bad enough doctors over-prescribed antibiotics which essentially gave rise to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Now, we are further exacerbating the situation with anti-bacterial products.
Esau,
Another problem is the fact that too many people take the over-prescribed antibiotics until they feel better, not until they are out of the medication. Without the complete course of antibiotics, they don’t completely kill off the offending bacteria, and the surviving bacteria have a better chance of resisting further treatments.
But you’re right…being passionate about a topic doesn’t necessarily mean someone comprehends the particulars.
Another problem is the fact that too many people take the over-prescribed antibiotics until they feel better, not until they are out of the medication. Without the complete course of antibiotics, they don’t completely kill off the offending bacteria, and the surviving bacteria have a better chance of resisting further treatments.
Matthew,
Thank-you for pointing this out!
You are indeed correct!
hey esau,
You want to see something weird? If you want to know what I look like under one pound of white powder, check out http://www.rorysdeathkiss.com/display.aspx and scroll to the photo titled “Joker Stands His Ground.” (it’s about half way down the list)
David B.,
What the … ????
Brutha, is that really u????
U look friggin’ scary!
Scary as in u look like you’re one of those clowns from a Stephen King movie!
Thanks, Esau.
It took me a hour to apply the makeup, and then an hour of photography (thanks to a patient friend) to get the right shot. I must confess I felt strange when a looked that way-“evil”, you might say-and I freaked out my fellow rush-hour drivers 🙂 The funny thing, I received friendly smiles from some elderly folks!
There’s a closer shot a little further down the list called “Mr. J. at War.” I hope Jimmy doesn’t mind my mentioning this, since I wouldn’t recommend reading the whole site (I haven’t checked it all out)!
Some interesting reading.
35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie
Must drink coffee or the clowns will eat me…
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Inocencio,
LOL!
I know what you mean, I couldn’t sleep knowing with those pics in my place 🙂
Correction: I couldn’t sleep knowing those pics were in my place 🙂
Inocencio,
Some interesting reading.
35 Inconvenient Truths: The errors in Al Gore’s movie
Thanks for the link — I’ll have to check it out, but, most especially, the data.
Must drink coffee or the clowns will eat me…
Too late — have you seen Jimmy’s main page?
IT’S ALL GONE!!! David B and his Stephen King Clowns have eaten it all up!
Don’t panic, the main page is still there…it’s just displaying a picture of an albino monk in a blizzard.
Thanks, bill912!
I still haven’t received my Opus Dei Decoder ring and so I can’t even look at the secret message yet!
Oh well!
Here is what the National Academy of Sciences says about global warming on page 17 of their Report on Climate Change.
“Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established. The fact that the magnitude of the observed warming is large in comparison to natural variability as simulated in climate models is suggestive of such a linkage, but it does not constitute proof of one because the model simulations could be deficient in natural variability on the decadal to century time scale.”
If I’m not mistaken the posts on the main page disappeared one by one until finally there were none left. Weird.
“There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda”
Written about a UN scientific agency. Not the IPCC yet, but UNAIDS this time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/19/AR2007111900978_pf.html
No, it is I who will eat you!
Watch out, Esau. I’m coming for you next!
🙂
Been a bit busy to respond the last few days. Let me start with Matthew’s post from Nov 16, 2007 6:30:01 AM.
This is incorrect. Very few people smoke because they’re unsure about whether smoking has ill-effects; if that’s the case they’re either ignorant, or aware of what experts think and simply mistaken in illegitimately privileging their personal opinion over that of experts. People smoke because they’re aware of its ill-effects and they judge them to be too distant to override the current pleasures of smoking or because they lack the self-control to quit.
The broader point being – you don’t have to be able to appraise scientists arguments to agree that smoking has ill-effects. You just have to know that all of the qualified scientists agree with this. Even if you were qualified to address the evidence, if you came to a different conclusion than scientists you would have to just assume that you were wrong unless you had some further reason for thinking that you know something most of the scientists who have thought about the question don’t know.
My point is that you will never reach a level of understanding where you can say, “Mathematicians believe this is true; I do not believe that their conclusions are valid.” (I realize you don’t expect this to occur regarding Fermat’s Last Theorem, but even if it did occur in that case, your opinion would simply be unfounded). For you to be able to say that, you need to have some reason why you think your opinion is better than the scientists’ opinions. If you don’t have such a reason, you’re irrationally weighting your own first-hand assessment of the evidence too heavily.
This is incorrect. Grandmasters are rated over 2500. I consider a chess hobbyist to be someone with a rating below 2000 (this is around “expert” level; of course, to play chess professionally one would need a rating around the grandmaster level!). The probability that someone with a rating below 2000 beats someone with a rating above 2500 is vanishingly small (probably substantially less than 1%).
Just to be clear, let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing here. Contrast two claims:
1) Anthropogenic Global Warming is occuring
2) We should do “X” to combat anthropogenic global warming
I agree with you that everything hinges on whether the supposed consensus really exists – do the vast majority of experts really agree with the claim in question?
If the claim is 1), a more accurate analogy would be:
“You consult 100 grandmasters. Of these, 20 have studied the position in detail. Of those 20, 19 say that you don’t make move X, you will probably lose the game (i.e. anthropogenic global warming is probably occurring). The 20th says, “That might be right, but the reasoning of the first 19 doesn’t convince me – I think there are holes in their analysis, and that Y and Z might be just as good.”
Your life depends on the outcome of the game. What move would you make?
If the claim is 2), obviously the appropriate analogy depends on the particular policy recommendation we’re considering. For some recommendations – i.e. massively increased research funding (or more generally, that we should do something rather than nothing), the consensus is nearly as complete as that described above (this view was endorsed in the statement of the joint national academies). In either case, I claim that my analogy is far more appropriate than yours.
Again, I don’t think you realize what a small minority of scientists hold this view (and even those scientists are more likely to believe that the evidence is uncertain than to conclude that anthropogenic global warming is not occuring). As I noted earlier, the fraction of scientists who dispute anthropogenic global warming is comparable to the fraction of priests who have spent time in jail for sexual abuse (the point of the analogy is not that scientists who doubt global warming are morally culpable! The point is that there aren’t very many of them as long as we restrict ourselves to people with PhDs in the relevant fields).
I also disagree with you that even if 10% of scientists held the same view as you that you would then be acting rationally in siding with them. Unless you have some further reason for thinking that you know something the 90% of other scientists don’t know, you’re being totally arbitrary in siding with the 10% rather than the 90%. Why should the fact that you’re assessment of the evidence suggests something actually have weight in determining what you believe? I agree in practice that it surely does – but I’m saying – to the extent that it does, people are making a serious error in judgment.
Doing nothing is still a move! Consequences will still result. Even if there were a “pass” option in chess, this would not necessarily be advisable just because there is the slightest amount of uncertainty. In the presence of uncertainty, we still need to evaluate the likely consequences of doing nothing and compare them to the consequences of doing something. You are unreasonably privileging the status quo.
But you’re only siding with those scientists because of your own judgment – it’s your own judgment that was ultimately decisive here. I’m saying, the only judgment that should be decisive here is, “What most of the experts think is probably right.”
Again, see the above points – unless you think you know something the scientists who understand these matters better don’t know, you have no basis for giving your personal judgment any weight.
I’ve addressed many of these claims above, but regarding the conflicts of interest, the biases that scientists face are not substantially stronger than the biases you yourself face in arriving at a judgment. I’d bet you typically vote for Republicans. Is it just a coincidence that you agree with them in this case? And even if that’s not the case, I’m sure we could find particular aspects of your personality profile that would lead you to doubt that anthropogenic global warming is occuring. Of course, the same biases are present for me, but I’m not just going with my own judgment – I’m deferring to the judgment of the vast majority of experts.
There is one particularly compelling reason scientists should be less biased than others: the more you know about something, the more your judgment is based in evidence and the less it is based on prior influences.
I’m not making an appeal to popularity except insofar as the view is popular among those qualified to assess it. And that most definitely is not a fallacy.
Let’s assume you’re the President. You need to make a decision and you can’t resign and appoint a climate scientist in your place. You’re saying you would go with your own first-hand assessment of the evidence over the vast majority of experts? I think George Bush would as well. And if you were in that position, I would think you were making an arrogant and foolish decision to illegimately privilege your own judgment over that of those more informed than you (I’m not calling your current position arrogant; it would only be arrogant if you were in a position of responsibility).
Inocencio, regarding your post from Nov 16, 2007 10:21:44 AM:
Ironic that you link to an article on Townhall.com to demonstrate that scientists have a political bias! Townhall.com couldn’t possibly have a political agenda of its own… regarding the substance of the article’s points, Stossel links to one scientist who disputes anthropogenic global warming. No one is arguing that such people don’t exist; just that they’re a tiny fraction of the total scientists researching the question.
If by consensus you mean, “Everyone agrees, let’s stop doing research!” Then of course no such consensus exists!
If by consensus you mean, “The vast majority of scientists believe that doing something is preferable to the status quo” then there is a very real and very important consensus among scientists.
Again Inocencio, this would be compelling if it weren’t for the fact that I have pointed out many, many times before: scientists are aware of the uncertainty in their judgments. No one is claiming that these judgments aren’t uncertain. What I’m claiming, and what scientists are claiming, is that taking action now is likely to produce better outcomes than doing nothing. If you think otherwise, what do you think the scientists who disagree with you are missing? Why are they getting the wrong answer?
Also, aren’t you personally subject to biases? I have not seen anyone who claims that scientists are deliberately distorting the facts to make money (and if you do claim that, this is an extremely serious charge and I’d like to see some evidence!). At most, one might claim that particular incentives cause scientists to have unconscious biases – but there are equally good reasons for you to think that your own opinion is biased in this way. I would bet there are all kinds of social pressures behind your personal belief (think for a moment about whether your opinions are more common among your demographic group than among mine – for reference, mine is graduate students in Cambridge). These don’t invalidate any judgment; they just mean that you have no good reason for trusting your personal judgment over that of the vast majority of scientists.
“You consult 100 grandmasters. Of these, 20 have studied the position in detail. Of those 20, 19 say that you don’t make move X, you will probably lose the game (i.e. anthropogenic global warming is probably occurring). The 20th says, “That might be right, but the reasoning of the first 19 doesn’t convince me – I think there are holes in their analysis, and that Y and Z might be just as good.”
Jason,
Did you not read my comments to you?
Your Chess analogy fails for the very reasons I keep reiterating to you in my previous posts:
“Consider that chessplayers have an extensive view of the entire landscape of the environment, enabling him to account for practically every variable possible due to the omniscience given him by virtue of being able to look at the entire plain, as the ‘world’ is essentially presented to him in the palm of his hand or, rather, his gaming table.
However, where the global environment is concerned, scientists do not have the same omni perspective. They are unable, therefore, to account for practically every variable there is (in a chess game, all the pieces are present and accounted for), the identity of certain aggressors that may be threatening the environment (while the aggressor is yet to be determined for who actually is causing GW; in a chess game, the threat is obvious given the fact that one is able to see the opponent’s pieces) and, thus, would not possess the very same level of certainty as that of an expert chessplayer (whose probability of being correct in his hypothesis may very well be as high as 99.99% given the fact that all possible variables can be accounted for as well as their subsequent solutions).”
There is also the fact that a child prodigy can beat a grandmaster!
Where is the expertise there?
Again, why this is possible is because of the fact that a chess game is a closed environment where both players have a near ominscient view of the landscape and the threats are defined and visible although, at various times, subtle.
That is why even when I go against formidable opponents, I can play even the riskiest gambit, having played with opponents who possess similar playing styles.
The Game Theory is not so complex.
However, when dealing with the environment, it’s a whole other story altogether since you’re faced with a multiplicity of variables where even the most expert person in their own respective fields may yet have problems due to the contributive nature of the various variables that ever add to the complexity of the problem.”
That is, in your latest statement here, wasn’t the fallacious nature of your analogy even evident to you as a child prodigy could perhaps beat a of grandmaster?
Alternatively, those are people whose opinion match your preconceived biases.
My post before wasn’t quite to the point; it’s really not relevant that Masked Chicken is anonymous. What makes you think that you’re qualified to judge Masked Chicken’s well-reasoned reservations? Why would you possibly trust him over the vast majority of scientists who (by his own admission) know more about the matter than he does just because his field is potentially related to some issues that bear on the question?
Esau, I’m answering the post in chronological order so I may well have not read your comments yet – I only skimmed your most recent post so bear with me…
Jason,
My bad…
My post in a nutshell:
“Again, why this is possible is because of the fact that a chess game is a closed environment where both players have a near ominscient view of the landscape and the threats are defined and visible although, at various times, subtle.
The Game Theory is not so complex.
However, when dealing with the environment (i.e., global warming), it’s a whole other story altogether since you’re faced with a multiplicity of variables where even the most expert person in their own respective fields may yet have problems due to the contributive nature of the various variables that ever add to the complexity of the problem.”
Matthew, you act like scientists must not have considered these questions. Most of them are the subject of current research. But it shouldn’t matter to you whether scientists explain that research to you unless you think you know something they don’t know and would be better appraised to assess it.
Alternatively, if you thought they were presenting a deliberately skewed view of the evidence you would certainly want to assess it for yourself, but I don’t see you making that totally unfounded accusation. Instead, you just suggest that there are possible reasons scientists might have unconscious biases while ignoring the many reasons that YOU might have unconscious biases.
I haven’t argued that you should personally do anything differently other than, 1) If your vote hinges on this matter (and it may well not), you should favor policies endorsed by the majority of experts and 2) If you find yourself in conversation with others about this matter, you should try to convince them to do the same.
You keep making this claim and I keep challenging it. What is the evidence that the national academy of sciences has cried wolf in the past? The evidence that when surveys show that all published papers endorse one viewpoint, the opposing viewpoint turns out to be true?
That is the evidence I have provided. Your counter-argument seems to be, “What newsweek said scientists think in the 70s turned out to be wrong!” Show me evidence that the vast majority of scientists were themselves mistaken. Then, show me evidence that this is not an extremely rare exception.
You keep trumpeting uncertainty, but you’ve given no reason to prefer the status quo.
To save time, I’m skipping to the most recent post to me.
It does matter to me, because I want to know. I want to know in order to make an informed decision on the issue. Saying (in effect) “You don’t need to know, unless you think you can contradict it” is a cop out. I want to know so I can either accept it or reject it. As it stands, I have no reason to accept things beyond the authority of the scientists.
I have a very conscious bias…I distrust the absolute declarations of scientists when they contradict what my “common sense” tells me, and therefore want evidence that overrides that distrust.
Part 1 isn’t likely to be there. My vote won’t be based on this issue.
But 2? Why in the world would I advocate something I don’t believe? That’s like saying “Most obstetricians have come to the conclusion that life begins at 3 months gestation, therefore you should accept their expert opinion. You should also go out and convince others to accept their expert opinions.”
The number of scientists doesn’t matter. The groups involved don’t matter. The point is that my trust in the declarations of scientists has been shattered, and I no longer trust reporting on media releases (which throw in additional bias) by scientists…not without questioning the conclusions.
Where have I called for a maintenance of the status quo? I said before that reduction of CO2 emissions would be a good thing. Take care of the environment, be good stewards of the Earth.
But I’ve given concerns about the “fixes” some people promote: doing worse damage with the “medicine” than exists now with the “sickness”. Accomplishing nothing environmentally but damaging/destroying people by damaging the economy. Overzealous application of remedies could have long-lasting and far-flung consequences, and I urge caution in proceeding.
I’m grabbing one thing from the earlier post:
It is an appeal to popularity. It suffers the same problem as a general appeal to popularity…numbers don’t matter. At one point, the experts didn’t accept heliocentricity (i.e. Tycho Brahe and other astronomers of the day). When Galileo published his views, the majority could have made the appeal to popularity among the scientists of the day and declared geocentricity to be proven (and they may have), but they wouldn’t have been right.
Masked Chicken,
I’m sorry to see you go from this thread and I certainly look forward to your participation in many others.
Chicken, I certainly agree with you that it is quite useful for people with scientific backgrounds in related fields (and I would include you among them) to read the research literature and contribute to it if possible; and even if you cannot contribute to it, it will enrich your understanding of the subject.
However, I do not agree that this is a reasonable basis on which to base your judgments about policy if you disagree with the consensus in the literature UNLESS you have some reason to think that you know something that other scientists working in the field don’t know.
For instance, you might think that for some technical reason the conclusions of a particular paper are mistaken. If so, you should do your best to make others aware of these reasons either through publication or simply by sharing what you have found with others.
You would then have to ask yourself: to what extent is the scientific consensus on this issue based in judgments that would be undermined by my technical knowledge? If the answer is, it is strongly based in those reasons, then you have a good reason for thinking your own judgment is superior. If the answer is, there are many independent avenues of inquiry which lead most scientists working in the field to think the way they do and many of those scientists know more about the alternate avenues than you do, then you should continue to think that the consensus opinion is probably the most reasonable one given all of the data regardless of whether it accords with your first-hand assessment.
If, having carefully evaluated the same data, you then come to a different judgment, this is a different story – my claim is simply that you have not looked at all of the relevant data (and I don’t mean every last inkling of data – this is impossible – I only mean the data that scientists in the field would cite as the main sources of evidence in favor of anthropogenic global warming and the papers they would cite as most convincing). There are important sources of data that most scientists claim provide evidence for anthropogenic global warming that you have not personally evaluated. Because of that, you are not qualified to privilege your own judgment over that of the consensus of scientists.
Your comments in this thread have mostly been measured and reasonable – I would ask you (and not rhetorically) – do you think it is reasonable for people like Tim J. to disagree with the view of the majority of scientists based on your reasoning? Do you think that he should consider you an authority on this matter?
Tim J.,
Regarding your most recent post:
I have myself admitted as much many times. The question is not whether scientists are immune from bias. The question is whether deferring to the opinion of the vast majority of scientists is the best way to figure out what to do. I claim it is. You have provided no reason to think otherwise. How else should we make a decision? Should we assess the evidence ourselves? But aren’t you just as biased as scientists? Aren’t you even more fallible given that you know less than they do?
Without taking a position on this particular claim, I’m not asking you to trust what the government tells you. As I’ve said over and over again, I’m asking you to trust what the leading scientific organizations tell you. Can you please show me some evidence that says that the leading scientific organizations endorsed this hypothesis? Or even that the vast majority of scientists working in the field endorsed it as “very likely” true?
This claim is completely baseless on your part. As far as I can tell, you’re just making things up! I don’t know what most scientists working in the relevant fields think about whether coffee is bad for you. But please, show me evidence that most scientists thought one view was “very likely” in the past, but have subsequently changed their views. My guess is that a single study (or maybe a few studies) showed one thing in the past and was referenced in the news media before being contradicted by further studies. And in all likelihood, most scientists thought the initial studies warranted further investigation but certainly would not have agreed that their conclusions were “very likely” true.
It is ironic that your challenge to the evidence-based views of scientists is itself pure speculation with no basis in fact; “the common wisdom of the current scientific paradigm” – the common wisdom as you interpreted it in all likelihood never having read a single technical paper in the field.
Matthew, regarding your Nov 17, 2007 1:16:35 PM post:
This claim basically amounts to saying, “My judgment of the scientific literature is that scientists simply assume the result they are trying to prove.”
Of course they don’t. Their judgments may be mistaken; they may be weighting some evidence to heavily and failing to weight other evidence enough. But they’re not making elementary logical errors. Again, as I’ve said over and over again – I know what your personal opinion is, but I think it’s irrelevant and I think you should agree with me that your personal opinion is irrelevant.
The reason your personal opinion is irrelevant is because you don’t know anything the scientists working in the field don’t know. You don’t have any reason to think that your judgment is better than their judgment. They have ample reason to think that their judgment is better than your judgment.
Neither source that I have cited in support of anthropogenic global warming is a mix of politics and the media. One source is a survey of scientific papers published in the field. The second is the statements of major scientific organizations like the joint academies of sciences. I’ve been intentionally vague about my judgment of the IPCC since I don’t really know much about them. It may well be that only scientists with a particular view are likely to join this organization (I don’t mean to suggest that’s the case; I have no idea). This is patently not true of the national academy of sciences.
How many times do I have to say that I don’t care what Al Gore thinks about science! I don’t care what the media tells you! I only care what scientists think, and I’ve cited evidence which shows that the vast majority of scientists hold the view I have advocated.
Esau, it is true that chess differs from climate scientist because chess is a closed environment. However, this observation is totally irrelevant to my analogy.
My argument is: in cases when making judgments is difficult and requires evaluating many different possibilities, not deferring to experts who have thought about the matter more than you is foolish.
Do you dispute that making judgments is difficult and requires evaluating many different possibilities in chess? How about in the case of global warming?
Now I understand your claim! Do you think if we picked a random 5 year-old if the streeet he could defeat a grandmaster? Not in a million years!
Child prodigies are not people who have never looked at a chessboard before and just immediately have a knack for the game! They spend years and thousands of hours studying chess before they achieve any real proficiency. If you spent an equivalent amount of time studying climate science, your opinion might be worth something, although then my response to you would be something like my response to Chicken in my last post to him.
The fact that there are child prodigies in chess and not in climate science is in part due to the points you mention earlier – there are many different kinds of reasoning relevant to climate science while chess requires a more limited set of abilities. But the fact that many different kinds of reasoning are relevant only strengthens my position. This makes it even more imperative that you defer to experts rather than trying to evaluate the evidence for yourself first hand!
Esau, I love it how you feign understanding of technical subjects.
The theoretical classification of the game is not complex and the theoretical method of arriving at a solution is quite simple to understand (backwards induction since this is a finite game of perfect information).
However, this tells us nothing about how easy or hard it is to actually make an accurate judgment in any given position! Unless you can evaluate about 10^46 positions in your head, you’re unlikely to make progress unless you use sophisticated heuristics based on previous experience. This is why expertise is important. This is why if you played a grandmaster, you would not win or even manage to draw once in several million tries.
But please, since you know so much about game theory, why don’t you explain it to me? What kinds of things is it used for? Would a game of imperfect information require more expertise to play? (what is a game of imperfect information?) Would a game theorist who had never played chess before be any good?
This could be an example in a writing class of what it means to argue for a conclusion by quoting something out of context.
Here are the first few sentences of that report:
“Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century…”
I use strong words here because what you’re doing is promoting a view based on ignorance by selectively quoting from scientific documents even when the thesis of those documents promotes the opposite view (i.e. that anthropogenic global warming is almost certainly occuring and is likely the cause of most of the changes in temperature observed over the last several decades).
No one doubts that there is some uncertainty regarding these issues. But scientists have told us what they believe is very likely true. One could only arrive at the opposite conclusion through a blinkered and selective reading of their arguments. And you accuse scientists of bias! Perhaps you should look for the log in your own eye…
Let me just quote from my above post since I think this point bears repeating:
“No source that I have cited in support of anthropogenic global warming is a mix of politics and the media. One source is a survey of scientific papers published in the field. The second is the statements of major scientific organizations like the joint academies of sciences. I’ve been intentionally vague about my judgment of the IPCC since I don’t really know much about them. It may well be that only scientists with a particular view are likely to join this organization (I don’t mean to suggest that’s the case; I have no idea). This is patently not true of the national academy of sciences.”
Further, it is not at all clear to me that the accusation of bias against UNAIDS is substantiated.
In fact, the problem of projecting the path of the HIV/AIDS epidemic provides another good analogy with the problem of predicting climate change. In each case, there is a range of scientific views but this does not mean that any opinion is valid! Despite the difficulty of prediction, there is a consensus that the number of cases of HIV will continue to grow unless a vaccine is developed but that action could be taken to slow this growth.
Jason, will you at least but me a beer if global mean temperature continues to not rise in the next decade? Two decades?
As for me reading scientific papers, I can’t imagine a greater waste of my time or of dead trees. I couldn’t verify what I was reading unless I made a major career change, and that isn’t likely.
I have been speaking in very broad generalities from the only point of view I have… mine. The examples I tossed out about government nutritional and dietary guidelines (which – I assume – were based on scientific consensus of SOME kind, unless the people at the FDA were pulling things out of their hats) are an indication of what can happen when policy is predicated on incomplete science.
Again, it’s the speed of this whole thing that gives me pause. To reiterate; The science of global warming – especially the emphasis on whether it is man-made – is so new that I don’t see how anyone, at this point, could have a high degree of confidence in these first tentative assessments.
You might want to know, but you just can’t. Unless you spend years studying these issues full time, your judgment will simply not be sufficiently informed to have weight relative to the judgment of the vast majority of scientists.
Why should your “common sense” tell you anything about global climate change? Nothing in your experience should give you any intuition about this question.
Alright, my claim was a bit too strong; short of advocating it outright, you should at least refrain from advocating the opposite viewpoint; i.e. if the topic comes up in conversation, your position should be, “My personal view of the evidence is that I’m very uncertain about whether global warming is occuring, but scientists who know much more than me think it’s occuring and who am I to disagree with them?”
This is such an absurd claim!
“My parents once lied to me about where babies come from. Now I don’t believe anything they tell me.”
“The church once prohibited the teaching of heliocentrism so now I don’t trust anything any religious official tells me” (I think this distrust would actually be justified, but not for this reason)
But more to the point: you have no alternative! You can distrust scientists all you want, but your personal judgment is much, much less reliable. If you go with that over the judgment of scientists, you will just be wrong much more frequently.
Alright, but this is a vacuous claim that no one in the world disagrees with. If you instead are making a criticism of particular policies like the Kyoto protocol, some informed people disagree with this, but I think you’re equally unqualified to assess their arguments (this is the domain of economists, where I am a specialist).
The substantive issues are:
1) What scientific assumptions should economists use as the inputs for their models
2) What further assumptions should economists make in order to arrive at determinate answers about the costs and benefits of a proposed policy?
My claim is: on both points 1) and 2), you should defer to experts unless you think you know something they don’t.
I’d be happy to engage with your particular substantive views on 2) myself since I am a PhD student in economics (although this is not my speciality).
Science has changed a lot in the past 400 years. It’s telling that this is the best example you can come up with of the scientific consensus being mistaken.
And as I’ve said before, the scientific consensus may occasionally be mistaken. But this is by far the exception and not the rule. The lone dissenter is far more often a kook than a genius.
Tim J., I’d be glad to (let’s make it two decades to be safe). Just send me an e-mail (or if it’s been replaced by telepathic communication, send me a t-mail).
Fair enough. The idea that we should be prudent, cautious, careful etc… in formulating policy in response to global warming is not something anyone could dispute.
All I’m saying is: the inputs to our economic models should be the probability distributions that scientists tell us are most plausible (although we should certainly take their uncertainty in these estimates into account in our analysis as we do).
The practical political effect of people saying things like, “Let’s be cautious, prudent, etc…” is to cause politicians to support policies that do nothing even when action is justified by these models. Even if this is not your intention, the innocuous-sounding principle that you advocate is used to justify policies based on ignorance rather than science.
If someone argues for a particular policy like the Kyoto protocol or a cap and trade program, you should either find out what experts think and try to give an accurate summary of expert opinion or you should simply say, “I don’t know enough about this issue to make a judgment.” Calls for prudence fall just short of saying, “This policy isn’t a good idea” which is not a claim you have the knowledge or expertise to make.
Esau, I love it how you feign understanding of technical subjects.
Jason,
Please elaborate —
Where have I feigned understanding of technical subjects?
What credentials of mine do you dispute exactly?
Jason,
Think of my position as that of a dissenting member of a jury. I’ve listened to the experts on both sides, neither side convinces me. I’m asked to render judgement. My position, then, is that Humanity has not been proven guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the charge of being responsible for global warming. The expert witnesses on both sides have presented their cases. The prosecution supplied many more experts. But I’m still not convinced.
I would rather get clarification than acquit a guilty party, or condemn an innocent man.
Now, if the “public jury” has decided that it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, so be it. There is nothing that requires that I change my opinion to be in line with the majority.
I can’t know if the accused is guilty, but I can still make a determination of if the evidence is sufficient to convict.
Are you intentionally misunderstanding me? My “common sense” tells me if something makes sense. Does it make sense that increased solar activity wouldn’t impact the climate? (as an example). It’s not a “common sense” understanding of all of climate science, but of specific parts. If the science comes up with a different answer than my common sense does, then I want a better explanation on that specific part.
Think of a courtroom. A computer expert tells you that Enron “shredded” a bunch of e-mail, and you were able to recreate it even though they thought the mail was completely wiped out. Wouldn’t you question the process involved, at least a little? Would you accept “I’m the computer expert, and I say this is the contents of the original e-mail” as valid evidence, or would it cause you to question even more?
My position should be? That’s very presumptuous of you. Thanks for telling me what to think. My position is: My personal view is that I’m very uncertain that any global warming is anthropogenic in nature, and I distrust the alarmism surrounding the issue right now. Therefore, I question everything involved with the science and the agenda.
Once? I’m not talking about once, I’m talking about a pattern of alarmism and sensationalism. Lie to me once, I can forgive and move on. Lie to me (or seem to lie to me) multiple times, and I’ll distrust everything said without additional evidence.
Vacuous? Man, you’re really trying to be insulting, aren’t you?
For the record, I think you’re unqualified to determine how qualified a commenter in a blog may be in evaluating anything. Only experts can be trusted in all things, and the “common man” should have no opinion other than what the experts say? Since we’re being somewhat belligerent, may I say that I’m not surprised to learn that you’re a PhD student? This way of thinking seems to be endemic in the ivory tower crowd, who see themselves as the experts that must be listened to.
Really? Check the recent past. At one point, Global Warming was a “kook” idea held by a vanishingly small number of scientists. Any idea that goes against the accepted norm is, de facto, outside the consensus.
Esau, you argued that “the game theory” of chess is not complex and that this was somehow related to the idea that there are child prodigies in chess or that the game itself involves a narrow range of cognitive abilities.
These ideas are completely unrelated. The game theoretical classification of a game (which I assume is what you were referring to) says nothing about its complexity and very little about what kinds of cognitive abilities it takes to play it. Games of perfect information can be immensely complex and draw on many cognitive abilities and games of imperfect information can be extremely simple and draw on a narrow range.
If you were not refer to the classification (a finite game of perfect information), then chess is a very complex game – why don’t you try and draw the game tree! There is no game theoretical property I know of (being someone who reads papers employing game theory every day) that corresponds to the notion of complexity you are discussing.
Anyone who has seriously studied game theory could never have mentioned it in the context you did. Since game theory is a rather technical topic that few people actually know much about, I suppose you mentioned it to give your comment some extra authority where none existed.
[i]I am a PhD student in economics[/i]
This explains everything…getting a PhD in a discipline whose only purpose today is to justify government intervention into the private sphere. It must be very galling to know that there are people out here in the real world who will never take your pronouncements about how government should be making their decisions for them with anything but disregard, even after you get your PhD.
If you want to look at the affect that unspoken assumptions and prejudices have on a person’s outlook, you need look no further than yourself. You are a statist to your core.
Matthew,
Suppose I found 5 scientists who believe anthropogenic global warming is occuring and 5 who are uncertain or believe it is not occuring and had them testify in a court of law before a jury of randomly selected individuals and argue their case. Do you seriously believe this would be a good way to determine if global warming is actually occuring?
There are many reasons that the jury system is reasonable institution in its context, but I can’t imagine you would answer “Yes” to the above question. The average juror would have no idea what was going on. Their opinion would be completely based in their political views and psychological biases because they simply would not follow the science. If you disagree with this, I think I understand why I’m having such a hard time convincing you. Rest assured, no scientist in the world would think this would be a good method to evaluate the conclusions in their field.
Your opinion after such a trial as a member of the jury would simply be worthless.
Again, I was not misunderstanding you at all – you invoke “common sense” here. As I understand the term, “common sense” refers to the inferences we make based on our ordinary experience (such as your inference that solar activity should impact the climate). I suppose it probably should impact the climate; whether it does, and whether it is responsible for global warming is a question I defer to the scientists because I simply don’t have any experience which informs this question other than the fact that I know the sun is responsible for making a lot heat, light and energy. But how in the world does this knowledge qualify me to assess the arguments of scientists based on real data?
Yes, if a single scientist who was being paid by Greenpeace told me that Global Warming is occuring I would be skeptical. If the vast majority of scientists tell me that, the case is not at all analogous to a single courtroom expert who has obviously been cherrypicked for the purpose.
A pattern you have completely made up! You have still failed to give me any examples where scientists themselves – scientific organizations – and not the media or the UN issued misleading or incorrect statements as the view of the vast majority of scientists.
But your claim was vacuous!
Taken literally, no one in the world would disagree with this claim as a general critique (who could oppose not being “overzealous” or being “cautious”?). However, most people would interpret it as I did as an intended criticism of particular policies. If so, it was completely unsubstantiated because you don’t know enough economics to evaluate those policies even if you did understand the science. So your claim was either vacuous or uninformed; I was being charitable. If you disagree with me, argue with me about the economics of one of these policies and show me that you’re informed.
Yes, it’s possible that the ivory tower eggheads just lack the real world experience to see how their scientific ideas are actually mistaken.
Alternatively, it’s possible they actually *know* something and are simply dumbfounded by those who insist that despite their lack of knowledge, they are still qualified to comment.
There is quite a big difference between being a kook idea and being advocated by a small number of scientists – it all depends on the credentials and behavior of the advocates. If the people in question have the relevant training and make an effort to deal with the relevant objections, they are not kooks. If they’re random people off the street who happen to disagree with the scientific consensus, then they are.
Here is a link with a longer and better explanation:
http://cosmicvariance.com/2007/06/19/the-alternative-science-respectability-checklist/
Actually, if you had ever studied economics, you would know that the conventional wisdom in the field is exactly the opposite of what you have said. The “neo-classical theory”, the underpinning of modern economics, is devoted to explaining how markets work well without government intervention. This is the starting point of any economic reasoning.
Your comment betrays your complete ignorance of the field and underscores my point. Stop having opinions on issues you know nothing about. It is foolish and dangerous.
I think the tone of my comments to Matthew has been excessively hostile and I’ll try to moderate it in the future – but I think the last comment to Michael was completely justified and is quite important. It’s the same thing I was getting at with Esau. Stop pretending to know things you don’t know. Stop bullshitting. That is the thrust of everything I have been saying on this thread.
Jason,
Esau, you argued that “the game theory” of chess is not complex and that this was somehow related to the idea that there are child prodigies in chess or that the game itself involves a narrow range of cognitive abilities.
You make me laugh!
This was NOT at all what I was saying!
All you did was set up a strawman!
It’s so ridiculous — especially since I repeated myself in so many different ways!
Just to make it SIMPLE, I was talking about how chess is a CLOSED ENVIRONMENT and how the variables were very LIMITED & DEFINED & that every threat in this environment is IDENTIFIABLE (although subtle, at times); and that the chess players have an OMNISCIENT view of the landscape — whereas scientists studying Global Warming don’t have any of these advantages!
Here, since I am but a mere CHEMIST and am not such a GIFTED ARROGANT KNOW-IT ALL with such HUBRIS, perhaps if you would provide me, a lowly associate scientist (and not a Staff nor Principle Scientist by any means), with the following, I can then acquiesce to your conclusions about Global Warming:
1. List all possible reactions in the atmosphere.
2. Provide a Thermodynamic Argument for all such possible reactions.
3. Provide a list of all possible thermodynamically favored products.
4. Provide a Kinetic Argument for all such possible reactions.
5. Provide a list of all possible kinetically favored products.
6. Provide a list of all Transition State arguments for all such possible reactions.
7. Provide a list of which reactions would actually occur.
If you could provide these, I will then give you my take on them as a mere and lowly Chemist — There, let’s see who is feigning what!
Esau,
I did not set up a straw man. I answered your objection about simplicity in my post above. I have never claimed any understanding of chemistry. However, you made the claim:
If you don’t claim to understand anything about game theory, then why did you use the phrase “The Game Theory” (capitalized no less)?
Jason,
And what suddenly makes you an AUTHORITY (your words) on Game Theory?
Do you often contradict yourself so stupidly?
Global Warming, my dear Sir, involves CHEMISTRY amidst all other things.
Yet, in spite of that, you seem to have made yourself out to be such an expert on the matter to the point of putting down folks as myself in spite of my scientific discipline.
I admit, I can probably only render a much more basic understanding as compared to somebody with a PhD; yet, I can assure you that I can run circles around those as yourself who not only lack such academic knowledge and training but, more importantly, its practical applications in the real world.
And here you have put down so many folks just because their opinions run contrary to yours, ever making yourself out to be the “Authority” to be heeded and yielded to; but you have never come to the realization that you, yourself, lack particular knowledge that makes you more of an amateur elementary-school scientist in such matters.
The Game Theory Conundrum proves my point most elegeantly.
You ridiculed me because of your high opinion of yourself as being this sort of Game Theory Expert all because of having some particular knowledge about it.
Yet, likewise, isn’t it odd that, of all things, you actually believe you can glean a better understanding of Global Warming over those who can actually look at it from a more technical perspective as that detailing reaction mechanics?
Believe me — if you can provide the answer to my request above, I can assure you, it will be a more productive discussion for the both of us.
I will present to you a more substantive discussion of various particulars which corroborate my reasons for why I personally feel the way I do about GW and why I actually subscribe to a more conservative point-of-view which even my professor upholds as well.
Just a kind word of advice about convincing people —
There is this tremendous principle scientist that I am working with on a project at the moment who has been responsible for many, many inventions which have propelled the industry he is working in to the very forefront of both business and technology there.
He said to me, ever so humbly, that if I do not agree with any of the things he’s telling me, it would be his job to convince me and if I should remain unconvinced; it would be his fault entirely.
Can you believe it?
This man who possesses several patents in his name and had been responsible for so many inventions (and not the trivial kind, but something of real worth that involve technological advancement in the field) being this humble?
I encourage you — especially since in these matters, you are rather out of your element given the playing field you have chosen — to try, at the very least, to exhibit similar humility!
I’m done. Jason, it’s been enjoyable talking to you, but we’ll never reach a level of agreement. I question the conclusions of the IPCC and other global warming alarmists. You blindly trust them because they are experts. We can argue back and forth until the cows come home, and we’ll never see eye-to-eye on this issue. I refuse to accept the proclamations of experts solely on the basis of their expertise, or their expertise combined with numbers of scientists.
Esau,
I’m not an expert in game theory, but I know more about it than you due to two years of coursework in the subject (a year and half at the graduate level) and due to the fact that I study it every day.
I doubt from your comment that you know the first thing about it, yet you still invoked it to defend your claim that chess is less complex than global warming science (a claim I don’t really dispute).
I don’t think there is much more we can say about this other than: don’t do it again and don’t pretend to know about things you don’t know about.
I don’t pretend to know anything about climate science; I just know what experts think.
Jason
Alright Matthew, I’ve enjoyed our exchange as well.
Let me just make a few more points to sum up where I think we disagree and how it fits into some of the broader issues we’ve been discussing here. I’ll assume that if you don’t respond you agree with everything I say (just kidding 😉 ).
My point about deferral to experts is a quite general one. Let me list some other issues on which I think you and I are not qualified to have personal opinions except insofar as we do our best to figure out what most experts think:
Any medical judgment
Any judgment about how productive further research in a field will be
Social Security Reform
Debt-Financing / Balancing the Budget
Free trade issues
Some issues where I think part of you should defer to experts to figure out the practical consequences although your judgment may ultimately be based in part on underlying normative views:
School vouchers
How to combat terrorism
Welfare reform
Stem cell research
Gay marriage
Abortion
As I’ve argued in a previous thread, I think you should also defer to experts in figuring out your religious beliefs, although in that case I agree a major challenge is in first figuring out who is expert.
The overarching theme in every case is: there are some questions which are hard to answer but which certain people devote large amounts of their time to answering. Those people are experts. In any field where there is a consensus among the experts about a particular view (and in which everyone agrees who the experts are), you should agree with the consensus of the experts unless you have some reason to think that you know something they don’t know which would undermine their position.
In the case of global warming, we agree (roughly) who the experts are and we know what they think. No one knows for sure that anthropogenic global warming is occurring. But our best models which take into account our most plausible projections say that we should do something about it rather than nothing. If you continue to insist on doing nothing, you are dogmatically basing policy in your own biases compounded by your ignorance rather than following the informed views of experts.
Jason,
so you allow the concensus of experts to rule your life? Or is this just rhetoric you use to end debate whent he ‘experts’ agree with you?
As a free society we are all empowered to self-rule. In a democratic society we are entitled to elect leaders to make decisions on our behalf, and while they ought to seek the council of ‘experts’ they take personal responsibility and cede their authority to anyone.
God Bless,
Matt
Matt,
I certainly agree that the view I expressed above should not be legally mandated. There are many good reasons to prefer a democratic society to one ruled by a council of experts. I also certainly agree with you that elected officials are still responsible for the decisions they make – in many cases, that responsibility consists mainly in identifying the appropriate experts. We don’t elect political officials so that they can evaluate the science of global warming – this is well beyond their purview and they are surely unqualified to do so.
I think the view you express is a widely held fallacy – in a democratic society, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but that certainly doesn’t mean that any view someone happens to hold is informed or reasonable!
In particular, people’s “personal” views on many of the issues I enumerated above are often rooted in their ignorance – this is not because they are stupid, but because some issues require a great deal of thought to fully understand and no one can be reasonably expected to exercise that much thought about every single issue.
For this reason, everyone defers to authority figures in deciding what to think. What I’m saying is that we should be more explicit about doing so and not pretend that our views are a product of our own first-hand analysis; if they *are* a product of our own first-hand analysis, we better have some reason to think that our own analysis is likely to be as reasonable or well-thought out as the analysis of experts. Lacking such a reason, we should defer to them.
Jason:
I don’t think there is much more we can say about this other than: don’t do it again and don’t pretend to know about things you don’t know about.
I would caution you to do likewise!
The Game Theory, as mentioned, was a ‘conundrum’ that I employed to make this point!
I’ve taken 5 straight years of Chemistry courses; I doubt heavily that you know anything close to what I know to adequately look at Climate Science from the perspective I’m able to due to my scientific discipline!
I don’t pretend to know anything about climate science; I just know what experts think.
And just who is an ‘expert’ in your pitiful opinion?
How about those climate scientologists (amongst whom, in fact, are also members of the IPCC) that do not agree with human-caused GW?
Do you deny their ‘expertise’ merely due to the fact that they do not agree with this conclusion?
If so, you have indeed, quite arrogantly, made yourself this self-proclaimed ‘authority’ on Climate Science!
And to think you put down people here simply because they do not agree with your conclusion as well when, in fact, you have no credentials of your own to even give credence to support your own authority on the matter!
How about those climate scientologists
Are you suggesting we allow Tom Cruise to make our climate policy now?
Are you suggesting we allow Tom Cruise to make our climate policy now?
Smoky,
Thanks for the correction! ;^)
They were talking about scientologists & Tom Cruise this morning on a news segment (unfortunately, anything ‘celebrity’ is considered news here) and I guess it stuck.
Can’t you just feel the love and Christian charity on this thread? /sarcasm
Memphis Aggie:
With all due respect, Michael (no underline) and Matthew Siekierski had very much conducted themselves with much charity in these discussions with Jason.
Yet, even in spite of this gesture, Jason feels compelled to take all that for granted and spew dog poo all over their opinions on the matter.
The question becomes:
– What makes Jason’s opinion on the matter any more authoritative?
Jason possesses hardly the same credentials as those by the Climate Scientists, so why should anybody give credence to what he says?
If you should answer because there are the ‘experts’ who subscribe to the same conclusion; then just who are these ‘experts’?
– Never mind the fact that there are also ‘experts’ who DO NOT subscribe to human-caused GW!
All in all, I find it ironic that Jason answered the Game Theory ‘conundrum’ in the manner as he did.
Why?
Because he is acting exactly in the same manner as I had demonstrated in the course of the conundrum — yet he has failed to realize this!
Sorry Esau I meant that criticism for Jason
Ineresting video
Global Warming Snowjob
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
Some very interesting developments…
New Report Finds Red-faced Errors by IPCC and Gore
Skeptical Scientists Urge World To ‘Have the Courage to Do Nothing’ At UN Conference
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J
So much for “consensus”…
Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 Senate Report Debunks Conventional Wisdom
Take care and God bless,
Inocencio
J+M+J