In one of the comments to Daniel’s post on the stolen climate emails, techskeptic points to a wonderful chart at Information is Beautiful. The author did a great deal of gruntwork to lay out the various arguments of “The Global Warming Skeptics” vs. “The Scientific Consensus.” As far as I can tell, it’s a legitimately balanced view of both sides, complete with citations. If you’re confused about the various issues and accusations being bandied back and forth, there are worse places to start. This is a small piece of the full chart.
Of course, there is no such thing as a purely objective and judgment-free presentation of data, no matter how scrupulously the data itself may be collected; if nothing else, we make choices about what data to present. And a side-by-side comparison chart like this can’t help but give a slightly misleading impression of the relative merits of the arguments, by putting the conclusions of an overwhelming majority of honest scientists up against the arguments of a fringe collection of politically-motivated activists. But it’s certainly good to see the actual issues arrayed in point-counterpoint format.
Still, there remains a somewhat intractable problem: when people are arguing about issues that necessarily require expert knowledge that not everyone can possibly take the time to acquire for themselves, how do we make judgments about who to believe?
This problem has been brought home by the incredibly depressing news that James Randi has come out in favor of global-warming denialism (via PZ Myers). Randi is generally a hero among fans of reason and skepticism, so it’s especially embarrassing to see how incredibly weak his reasoning is here. It basically amounts to: “The climate is complicated. And scientists don’t know everything. And I admit I don’t know much about the field. Therefore … we have good reason to distrust the overwhelming majority of experts!” Why Randi chose not to apply his vaunted powers of skepticism to the motivations behind the denialists remains a mystery.
This gets to the heart of why I’ve always been skeptical of the valorization of “skepticism.” I don’t want to be skeptical for the sake of being skeptical — I want to be right. To maximize my chances of being right, I will try to collect what information I can and evaluate it rationally. But part of that information has to include the nature of the people making arguments on either side of a debate. If one side consists of scientists who have spent years trying to understand a complicated system, and the other is a ragtag collection of individuals with perfectly obvious vested interests in the outcome, it makes sense to evaluate their claims accordingly.
By all means, we should apply our own powers of reason to every interesting problem. But when our reasoning leads to some conclusion at odds with the apparent consensus of a lot of smart people who seem to know what they’re talking about — whether it’s on the nature of dark energy, the best way to quantize gravity, the most effective route to health care reform, or the state of the environment — the burden is on us to understand the nature of that difference and try to reconcile it, not to take refuge in “experts don’t know everything” and related anti-intellectual piffle.
MichaelG:
What should have been included? I cannot judge the merit of your claim, without first understanding why you believe that it isn’t balanced. And although I have been “arguing” with you, I’m really not sure that it matters a great deal, anyway. It is one website, with one interpretation. Sean thought that it was a nice illustration, and yes, balanced, and you don’t. As I’m sure that you would agree, it isn’t really relevant to the science or the politics.
However, I do notice that you failed to mention that the “skeptics” arguments are sourced to various books by climate skeptics. Now, it may well be the case that those aren’t the best arguments — although, all of the arguments that would make any difference to the relevant conclusions have been answered — but, again, this is all a matter of judgment.
Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to create your own X vs. Y chart, and then explain in detail why you have chosen the specific arguments. Or you could even send a list of arguments to the owner of that website and ask them to produce another version.
I would imagine, however, that the result may not be terribly different.
I do think the science of climate reconstructions is very shady technically and statistically.
The case for AGW doesn’t hinge upon that, but it does take some of the bite out if you accept that we are not in unprecedented warming periods. At the moment, I have zero faith in any of the socalled independant reconstructions out there, and its pretty easy to see that in fact they are not independant.
As far as the actual warming in this century. That much is irrefutable and more or less troubling by itself.
Damian, how about the issue of feedback? http://tinyurl.com/yjynpev
“But when our reasoning leads to some conclusion at odds with the apparent consensus of a lot of smart people who seem to know what they’re talking about […] the burden is on us to understand the nature of that difference and try to reconcile it, not to take refuge in ‘experts don’t know everything’ and related anti-intellectual piffle.”
Sean, I completely agree! Which is why I think it continues to bother me when scientific New Atheists such as yourself, Dawkins, and PZ Myers (among others) completely dismiss the subtleties and complexities of sociological and theological approaches to religion as so much fluff and sloppy wording. Of course, I’m not suggesting that simply because 90% of the world believes in some kind of spiritual existence that you are obligated to believe it, too. I’m merely pointing out that there are areas of expertise beyond the realm of the hard sciences, and many scholars who have devoted their lives to studying the amazingly diverse and complicated issues of religious belief and identity, most of which are completely overlooked or misunderstood by the simplifications found in the New Atheist arguments. I look forward to a time when we can agree that more than scientists belong in the set of “a lot of smart people.”
(I realize this response barely touches on the main focus of this post, but I saw this particular paragraph quoted elsewhere and, as a long time reader of this blog and a big fan of the science though not of the often myopic lecturing about religion, I simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to point out a wonderful example of irony.)
>>If one side consists of scientists who have spent years trying to understand a complicated system, and the other is a ragtag collection of individuals with perfectly obvious vested interests in the outcome,..
Science vs vested interests. How simple and easy! So why would those nice guys interested only in understanding complex system would temper with the data? Here is one big news from Russia:
(from http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/16/climategate-just-got-much-much-bigger/)
On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.
The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. …The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.
The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations. …
IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.
Here is the Russian report (in Russian, but the graphics should be clear)
http://www.iea.ru/article/kioto_order/15.12.2009.pdf
>>>by putting the conclusions of an overwhelming majority of *honest* scientists up against the arguments of a fringe collection of *politically-motivated * activists.
RE : *honest*
from http://climateaudit.org/
On Mar 31, 2004 Jones wrote to Mann as follows:
“Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.”
Climategate emails show that Phil Jones of CRU, acting as a reviewer of the CRU data used in the HadCRU gridded temperature, “went to town” to block the publication of criticisms of his handling of Russian data.
On Dec 15, 2009, it was reported that the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report “claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.” (h’t Jeff Id) There is an online technical report dated Dec 15, 2009, which states that it considered data released by the UK Met Office on Dec 8, 2009 in response to “increasing public pressure”.
>>>by putting the conclusions of an overwhelming majority of *honest* scientists up against the arguments of a fringe collection of *politically-motivated * activists.
RE : *politically-motivated * activists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McIntyre
http://www.galaxy.gmu.edu/stats/faculty/wegman.html
Grad Student – you made my point by not saying how much – just that it is
the difference . If the difference is 5 percent then nobody cares, if it is 95 percent
then maybe we worry. The subject has been politicized – I remember letters in Science
taking an alarmist stance – long ago. What is the proper baseline anyway –
no humans ? Should civilization have no effect on the planet ? If volcanos have an
effect, why can’t we ?
Here is one big story from Russia
Sigh. Here is comment 41 again:
Delingpole fails at journalism. Again.
A solitary Russian newspaper (Kommersant – lit. “The Businessman”) reported claims by “the Institute of Economic Analysis”, based in Moscow, that the Hadley Center for Climate Change cherrypicked Russian meteorological data.
This story was gleefully swallowed by “a libertarian conservative who writes brilliant books and brilliant articles, and is really great on TV, radio and the internet too.”
Since Delingpole is, at best, too lazy to check his sources, others will have to do it for him.
So, who the hell are the Institute of Economic Analysis, and what would they know about climate science?
The IEA was created by Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov , a Russian libertarian economist and former economic policy advisor to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. A well known global warming skeptic, Illarionov is currently employed by the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute, a pro-free market, libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The IEA retains close links with the Cato Institute. The IEA website reports on a recent cozy joint conference. Isn’t that nice?
It seems that once again we have a smear story from the rumour mill that has absolutely nothing to do with climatology.
The IEA was created by Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov , a Russian libertarian economist and former economic policy advisor to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. A well known global warming skeptic, Illarionov is currently employed by the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute, a pro-free market, libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The IEA retains close links with the Cato Institute. The IEA website reports on a recent joint conference.
It seems that once again we have a smear story from the rumour mill that has absolutely nothing to do with climatology.
I considered debating the deniers once again, but fortunately I came to my senses. Futile exercise, if there ever was one.
So instead, I will quote this Hilaire Belloc poem, which I dedicate to deniers all over the world:
“Matilda told such dreadful lies,
It made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes;
Her aunt, who, from her earliest youth,
Had kept a strict regard for the truth,
Attempted to believe Matilda:
The effort nearly killed her.”
What always amazes me is that the same people who promote a drastically skeptical attitude towards conclusions they don’t like are utterly credulous when it comes to any reported result that they think supports their own views.
I’m not a scientist myself–as a technical writer and editor I’m more of a fellow traveler. I do read the journals regularly, however, so I learned long ago not to be much impressed by any single paper or even small number of papers. In practice the sciences advance by fits and starts with many failed tries and brief enthusiasms. Nevertheless, the amoeba eventually gets there. I’ve particularly followed the debate about climate change as it unfolded in umpteen articles, papers, and letters in the journal SCIENCE and therefore know that all sides of the debate engaged in an exhausting, drawn-out, and often acrimonious running battle before a consensus emerged. Emerged it has, however, and were this issue a normal scientific matter like, say, a question of whether a particular order of mammals is monophyletic, everybody would have long since moved on to another problem. What keeps the argument going in this case, as with cancer and cigarettes or the theory of evolution, is something extraneous to science, i.e. powerful ideological and financial interests that are never going to be convinced by evidence.
@59 Dave H:
I don’t care who created it or who they are linked to. People on all sides of this argument have vested interests. I’ll be skeptical of the IEA’s claim until we have access to the data from stations that are not collected in the measured temperature records. It is known that there was a massive loss of Russian stations in our global temp records around 1990. If many of those stations are still accurate and show significantly different trends from those shown by nearby stations that are counted or different from how the global temp records filled in data at that point between other counted stations, then I’ll put more weight into their claim. If we never see the data for those stations, I’ll throw this article out as propaganda. But to just accept or throw out claims based on who people are associated with is extremely closed minded.
“If one side consists of scientists who have spent years trying to understand a complicated system, and the other is a ragtag collection of individuals with perfectly obvious vested interests in the outcome, it makes sense to evaluate their claims accordingly.”
But…but…that hypothetical situation doesn’t have anything to do with the global warm…, er, the climate change controversy, so why mention it?
As a certified super-duper in-depth thinker kinda guy, I ask: Is it possible for something to be true even though Al Gore says it’s true? Any examples?
I don’t care who created it or who they are linked to.
Then you are foolish. Non-scientists linked to libertarian think tanks are not of equal credibility to scientists on this issue.
People on all sides of this argument have vested interests.
Except no-one has really explained how the climate scientists are getting rich, or how AGW suits the vested interests of the political leaders of the top industrial nations!! Clue – It doesn’t, but we have one planet, and millions of people living beside water.
But to just accept or throw out claims based on who people are associated with is extremely closed minded.
Pull the one with bells. All opinions are not equal. Credibility of a news source is always pertinent to the rational person. There is no science involved in the story. It’s pure spin.
Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov is the man who in a 2004 interview with the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman claimed, contrary to basic physics, that there was no link between carbon dioxide and climate change (by citing two old IPCC reports that did not back him up, and ignoring two more recent IPCC reports that even more strongly contradicted him), and then went on to say that the Kyoto protocol “violates the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens.”
That is narrow minded.
Understand this: The party is over. Reality does not endorse the extremes of Laissez-faire ideals. That is not reality’s fault. It is not even the left-wing’s fault. It’s how the fuck it is. We have realized we have limited fossil resources and that the environment does not feel any obligation to provide ideal conditions for human life.
So forget your equal weight, listen-to-all-sides-“valid”-0pinions, teach the controversy crap and pay attention to what the scientists are telling you about the planet your grandchildren will be living on.
DaveH #59,
Your opinion as usually is based on solid science: argumentum ad-hominem and guilt by association.
But it is easy to check out and for sure we will soon see if the Russian report is false or Brits fudged the data.
>>>by putting the conclusions of an overwhelming majority of *honest* scientists up against the arguments of a fringe collection of *politically-motivated * activists.
RE[2] : *honest*
How a person who deletes data and asks collegues to delete implicating emails 3 weeks after the data and emails were requested via FOIA can be “honest” rather than a criminal?
How people who put “fudge factor” in code and talk about “completely artificial adjustement” of time series after 1961 can be honest?
>>So forget your equal weight, listen-to-all-sides-”valid”-0pinions, teach the controversy crap and pay attention to what the scientists are telling you about the planet your grandchildren ..
When the question is about statistsics I would listen to a statistiticians as Ed Wegman:
‘It is important to note the isolation of the paleoclimate community; even though
they rely heavily on statistical methods they do not seem to be interacting with
the statistical community. Additionally, we judge that the sharing of research
materials, data and results was haphazardly and grudgingly done. In this case
we judge that there was too much reliance on peer review, which was not
necessarily independent. Moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that
this community can hardly reassess their public positions without losing
credibility. Overall, our committee believes that Dr. Mann’s assessments that the
decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was
the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.’
– Excerpt from Wegman report
So, if these guys are not good at statistics, then what good you can expect from their models?
You are right DaveH, the party is over! After Climategate everyone in US will realize that IPCC science is massive fraud, it is junk-science , not science. And btw Rajendra K. Pachauri is just a former railroad engeneer :-), he would have done better if remained with his old job. IPCC is toast.
Your rumbling about future of our children have no scientific basis whatsoever and no one is going to take it seriously in any case . We won, you lost, now get a life.
So, some people are strongly proposing that world policy should be dictated by an elite scientific community, to put things clear.
“Then you are foolish. Non-scientists linked to libertarian think tanks are not of equal credibility to scientists on this issue.”
If this was some complicated scientific issue, I might agree. The counting of stations and how their temperatures are spread between each other to fill in the missing gaps is mostly statistics.
“Except no-one has really explained how the climate scientists are getting rich, or how AGW suits the vested interests of the political leaders of the top industrial nations!! Clue – It doesn’t, but we have one planet, and millions of people living beside water.”
Millions of people, all in competition with each other. Copenhagen is a good example of that. Scientists are interested in their funding. Politicians (on both sides) get their money from lobbyists. The top industrial nations will have more control over green energy sources than they do over fossil fuels. Personally, I think that’s a worthy goal, just that we should go about it in a completely different way. I promise you, most of the politicians aren’t concerned about all those people living next to water (which we should be moving away from anyway in any cyclone vulnerable areas).
“Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov is the man who in a 2004 interview with the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman claimed, contrary to basic physics, that there was no link between carbon dioxide and climate change (by citing two old IPCC reports that did not back him up, and ignoring two more recent IPCC reports that even more strongly contradicted him), and then went on to say that the Kyoto protocol “violates the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens.”
That is narrow minded.”
I can go find some narrow minded opinions of IPCC reviewers too. Does that disqualify all of their reports from consideration? Again, I leave it up to the Russians to demonstrate their claim.
“Understand this: The party is over. Reality does not endorse the extremes of Laissez-faire ideals. That is not reality’s fault. It is not even the left-wing’s fault. It’s how the fuck it is. We have realized we have limited fossil resources and that the environment does not feel any obligation to provide ideal conditions for human life.”
I didn’t mention any Laissez-faire ideals. This is your political bias speaking. The way to fix our energy problems is not by just letting the free market fix it. Personally, I think we should use these fossil fuels to mass produce nuclear plants and invest in other renewable sources where they are efficient. We should also completely rebuild our power grid in the US to eliminate waste. In the very long term, we should focus on fussion power which would solve all of our energy problems (if the NIF is successful next year, it may be sooner).
I do find it strange that you mention limited fossil fuel resources next though. If they were that limited, some of those Laissez-faire ideals would have already kicked in. It is true that we will need different sources of energy though. That should be our focus, not simply reducing CO2 emissions. And, can you tell me what are ideal human conditions? Nature has never been obliged to provide them to us whatever they are. It’s been up to us to adapt to nature. The key is, what is the best way to do this? Can you point me to any resource that takes a look at all of the possibilities for future warming, both the good and bad things it would cause, and a valid cost/benefit analysis of our various options to take? I’ve never seen it. I’ve only seen hyperbole that makes the base assumption that just because we are effecting our climate means we need to stop completely.
“So forget your equal weight, listen-to-all-sides-”valid”-0pinions, teach the controversy crap and pay attention to what the scientists are telling you about the planet your grandchildren will be living on.”
So, instead of reading papers and making my own opinions, I should simply trust scientists. No matter what assumptions they make to come to their conclusions. No matter what errors they’ve been shown and refused to admit. Sorry, I’ll remain skeptical of all sides. Until the thourough, unbiased, analysis is done to make sure the choices politicians will make will most likely be best for both the planet my grandchildren will live on and the lifestyle they will be able to have, I have to.
Sergey, when are you going to stop wrongly invoking logical fallacies? I can’t say you’re the only person on the internet who does it, but it makes you look like an idiot.
When trying to find the truth of a matter, there is actually nothing wrong with examining credentials and disclosing interest. “Ad Hominem” is Latin and a fallacy, so it must be wrong to examine credentials and disclose conflicts of interest, right? WRONG.
FAIL.
I need make no apology for disclosing what the IEA is.
Guilt by association is what you are trying to do by incorrectly associating the real science of AGW with a mantra about one scientist allegedly deleting FOIA requests.
we will soon see if the Russian report is false
There is no reason for any thinking person to expect it to be anything other than false.
You want the “other opinion”? Peer reviewed science or STFU.
How a person who deletes data and asks collegues to delete implicating emails 3 weeks after the data and emails were requested via FOIA can be “honest” rather than a criminal?
To ask how a person who deletes data can be honest is to admit to never having handled data.
Besides, as you should know if you were making the slightest effort to keep up, NO RAW DATA WAS DELETED.
As could be explained to a young child, but apparently not you, IF one scientist deleted FOIA requests illegally it would not change the science nor would it change the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists are honest.
In fact, even IF (we have investigations and trials in our country) a scientist illegally deleted FOIA requests it would not discredit him as a scientist, just as an administrator.
http://www.realclimate.org/
Q: How many climate sceptics does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. It’s too early to say if the lightbulb needs changing.
A: None. It’s more cost-effective to live in the dark.
A: None. We only know how to screw the planet.
A: None. Changing lightbulbs is for engineers.
A: None. Eventually the lightbulbs will right themselves.
A: First we need more research and we need more research about what that research will be.
A: I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!
Scientists are interested in their funding.
Meteorologists would be funded whatever. As would oceanographers.
But really, to say that scientists are human and want funding does not invalidate the science.
You cannot equate scientific findings with some libertarian institute’s wanking.
I didn’t mention any Laissez-faire ideals. This is your political bias speaking.
No, this is me pre-empting and speaking past you and being EXASPERATED of finding politically motivated non-scientific crap from yet another group with links to the US extreme right. It took me about twenty minutes to find out that information about the IEA and I am furious that Delingpole if he were genuinely conscientious could have saved me the trouble.
By its nature, there is no endeavour more honest, more amenable to self-correction than science. Yeah, humans are less than perfect.
So, instead of reading papers and making my own opinions
By all means read papers. By scientists.
I should simply trust scientists. No matter what assumptions they make to come to their conclusions.
Question your own assumptions first.
No matter what errors they’ve been shown and refused to admit.
Peer reviewed science or STFU.
Sorry, I have no patience with this anti-science diatribe. WHAT errors they’ve been shown and refused to admit?
Can you point me to any resource that takes a look at all of the possibilities for future warming, both the good and bad things it would cause, and a valid cost/benefit analysis of our various options to take?
Start with the IPCC report, and I imagine also this video, but I haven’t seen the latter myself yet.
http://www.realclimate.org
So, some people are strongly proposing that world policy should be dictated by an elite scientific community, to put things clear.
No, world policy should be guided by reality. Scientists study nature and how it works. Thus they are well qualified to inform us about reality in the natural world.
Scientists are “elite” only in that they know stuff. You do not become a scientist to get rich.
Scientists don’t even have a set political affiliation, so the idea of a ruling scientific elite is fantasy.
Obviously Sean, you are biased. Did you look at the annotated code from the CRU??
If this is indicative of scientific modelling in Climate Science, then it is a pseudoscience.
>> IF one scientist deleted FOIA requests illegally it would not change the science nor would it change the fact that the overwhelming majority of scientists are honest.
DaveH,
I was not talking about science here, I was talking about Seans dihotomy of “honest scientists up against the arguments of a fringe collection of *politically-motivated * activists” How did you miss the subject?
>>Sergey, when are you going to stop wrongly invoking logical fallacies? I can’t say you’re the only person on the internet who does it, but it makes you look like an * idiot*.
What you writte and the way you argue makes me to believe you are a geophysicist/geologist . (All geophisicist whom I met while in University in Russia were unable to understand basics of philosophy or logic; they were almost animal kind. ) So I am really qurious: are you a geologist, David?
>>“Ad Hominem” is Latin and a fallacy, so it must be wrong to examine credentials and disclose conflicts of interest, right? WRONG.
OK, being a liberiterian puts you in conflict of intrerest and you can’t talk about temperature data fraud. Great thinking!
If you are teaching then you probably grade your students based on their political views. All Republicans get D no matter how well they do homework. If they are Republicans they fail just because they are biased. On the other hand if they are liberals then they are neutral and unbiased.. Is that the case?