I’m pinched for time, so I’ll unashamedly pinch this from Bishop Hill (who I don’t think will mind):
A devastating paper by Jane Goodwin on Iowa State university is discussed at Judy Curry’s blog. The subject is the IPCC consensus:
We shall argue that consensus among a reference group of experts thus concerned is relevant only if agreement is not sought. If a consensus arises unsought in the search for truth and the avoidance of error, such consensus provides grounds which, though they may be overridden, suffice for concluding that conformity is reasonable and dissent is not. If, however, consensus is aimed at by the members of the reference group and arrived at by intent, it becomes conspiratorial and irrelevant to our intellectual concern.
Both the paper and the blog post are must-reads.
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Judith Curry has linked Jane Goodwin’s name to her webpage at Iowa State: http://goodwin.public.iastate.edu/.
Jane Goodwin is not a scientist, but a Professor of English. It looks as if she teaches top-notch courses:
Courses:
Graduate seminars
Eng 489: Undergraduate seminar/Rhetoric of reconciliation
Sp Cm 412: Rhetorical Criticism
Eng 350: Rhetoric & the History of Ideas
Sp Cm 324: Legal Communication
Hon 321: Honors seminars
Sp Cm 322: Argumentation, Critical Thinking & Debate
Sp Cm 305: Language, Thought & Action
Sp Cm 212: Fundamentals of Public Speaking
This sounds like one Prof. who realizes that critical thinking is not the same thing as critical theory, and she makes her students tackle real problems. She also has a website:
Between Scientists & Citizens:
http://scientistscitizens.wordpress.com/
She describes it as “my blog on what happens when scientists enter policy controversies” However, it is not regularly updated: her last entry relates to Steve McIntyre’s response of last year to Cuccinelli’s investigation of the University of Virginia from last year and there are no comments.
Read it at Judy Curry’s.
Brought a smile of content to my face.
Thanks, Anthony, this is a very important lesson to stress.
Consensus in science? Ask Galileo about that, the consensus of the time was that the universe revolved around the earth. If you want a more recent example, look at the “scientific consensus” we observed regarding the imminent danger of “bird flu,” H5N1, which threatened to perilously break out from Asia and sweep the globe, killing millions (of people, not birds) in its path.
Haven’t heard much about H5N1 in the news lately, have we?
If I get this right, a claim of consensus necessitates the consensus group to defend it’s knowledge base as the minority has a legitament place in the dialogue. Given that time has elapsed, and a diverse group of interested scientists, engineers, accountants, statisticians, and social thinkers have become involved, the science has demonstrated a divergence as opposed to convergence of the veracity of any projection, let alone understanding. Consensus then becomes akin To conspirator, the fewer involved, the longer the consensus view can be held. Once the dialogue becomes wide spread, inclusive of opposing views, a minority report becomes mandatory before policy recommendations are enunciated. The policy should reflect both the predominant as well as alternative viewpoints.
it does not appear that “devistating” is an appropriate title here – for several reasons.
It is worth noting that the writer talks about “scientific proof” – which shows a lack of understanding of even basic scientific principles – but in any case it does not appear that the paper here is exactly the critique claimed. From the last section “And the ultimate success of the consensus has produced no discernable policy results, since there remain plenty of ways of arguing against mitigation or adaptation, even in the face of undeniable global change”
It appears she is making a case that simply have scientific consensus is not enough to move policy action forward. There is nothing in here that invalidates the science.
Bystander, the since has been invalidated over and over again, why should someone else do it again?
I’m having trouble finding this paper “devastating.” Are we supposed to be amazed by her revelation that the IPCC manufactured consensus is worthless? My reaction is “No sh1t Sherlock!”
The devastating paper says it is by Jean Goodwin not Jane Goodwin!
Nice to see the “yoof” are getting it, too 🙂
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fembed%2FAybBEuIpy44&h=XAQATy29F
I like the quote, but it is not to be found in Jane Goodwin’s paper. It is from Keith Lehrer circa 1974 and is quoted by Judith Curry in her concluding comments relating to Goodwin’s paper.
Have to agree with Chilli – no shit, Sherlock. She rightly refers to the irrelevance of a “sought” consensus. Well, she says “sought,” others before her have said “manufactured” – same difference. She’s saying nothing new.
@ur momisugly Bystander (and apologies to everyone else for stating the bleeding obvious): the phrase “undeniable climate change” says nothing about the cause. Now do you get it?
Consensus = anti-science…
http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/07/midnight-train-to-middle-ages.html
And the basic laws of human stupidity – well worth a read if only for this one quote:- “…one notices among those in power an alarming proliferation of the bandits with overtones of stupidity”
http://wwwcsif.cs.ucdavis.edu/~leeey/stupidity/basic.htm
Jean Goodwin, not Jane…
Data accepted or taken by consensus?
Deciding which scientist’s work conforms with observations of nature by consensus?
Funding science by consensus?
The review process for papers by consensus?
Deciding whose science is put into UN reports by consensus?
Having knowledge and generating creativity of new approaches by consensus?
No, no, no, no, no and no.
There, fairly straight forward and I am speaking only for myself . . . you know . . . the individual . . . the anti-consensus of the one (1). If all scientists agreed with me by happenstance . . . it would not be a consensus; it would be agreement of a temporal nature; it would be a marker in time that could be used for advancing science in a certain direction for a period of time (of unknown length).
John
There is genuine scientific consensus about undeniable climate change. The evidence does support the fact of climate change, however when scientists from many different scientific disciplines all work on the cause, rate and extent of climate change, then the only remaining consensus is contrived and backed up by nothing more than threats, intimidation, money and an insidious ‘groupthink’ of like-minded co-religionists.
The phrase, “The climate is changing” is about as controversial a statement as the claim “The air we breathe contains oxygen”. Where concensus begins to break is when we examine the primary and underlying causes, the multiple feedbacks, what sort of feedbacks they are and what rate and extent of effect they may have on climate. When you get into the actual detail, there is NO consensus whatsoever, but lots of competing theories and ideas.
From the paragraph above, I think the author is getting at an important distinction. There are times when a consensus is reached in the normal course of scientific development. (Who now disagrees with the theory of heat as molecular motion? I.e. there is a general consensus now that this idea is correct. The same goes for the heliocentric as opposed to the geocentric interpretation of planetary motion.) But when a “consensus” is the result of an apparent intent to achieve it, then (at the very least) flags should be raised.
In this context, it is worth noting that when dubious claims about the physical world are made, these are always done in a way that mimics the trappings of genuine scientific discourse. But in these efforts there is always a false note; there is always something exaggerated, a sense of unnecessary exertion, which, as I’ve said before, gives the game away.
A simple example: if 2010 really was the “hottest year on record” why should it be necessary to amass a set of record-breaking temperatures and catalogue a series of extreme events? If the temperatures were really so extreme, then by now (after 20 years of warming!) this should be a universal experience. There should be no need for all these convoluted arguments. QED.
I use the following when anyone invokes the ‘consensus’.
“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
The above was written by Michael Crichton, who, apart from being a renowned author was a medical doctor and a post doctoral fellow at the Salk Institute of Biological studies and also taught anthropology at Cambridge University.
Crichton was as qualified as anyone to define the work of science.
Bystander says:
July 16, 2011 at 11:41 am
“It appears she is making a case that simply have scientific consensus is not enough to move policy action forward. There is nothing in here that invalidates the science.”
Ok, i can invalidate it for you if you have a moment.
a) Climate Change predictions are based on Climate models.
b) Climate is the long term average of weather.
c) weather is chaotic.
d) it follows from b) and c) that climate is chaotic.
e) The definition of a chaotic system is that the deviation of two runs with slightly different initial conditions becomes exponentially larger over time.
f) It follows from e) that forecasting the chaotic system with a model runs into a computational complexity problem; doubling the computational effort will only buy you a linear increase of forecasting horizon for a desired precision.
g) It follows from f) that projections to the year 2100 are ridiculously unscientific. Even if you average 20 runs.
h) It follows from g) that the practitioners of said projections are knowingly deceiving the public.
I know that Steven Mosher will protest but that’s because he spent a lot of time running models and now needs to rationalize his effort. Sorry, Mosh.
I like the post by DirkH, That should be on the front page of the newspaper.
Australia is about to change its whole economic system based on thin lies. It seems that there is none in the ruling elite that can understand the consequences.
As i have seen it written before “The best weatherman can’t tell us what it will be like on Tuesday, how can they tell us what it will be like in 100 years.”
@DirkH
Yes, weather is chaotic, but I can confidently predict that the the Sahara will be warmer than England and that summer will be warmer than winter, even in 2100.
I’ll be away for three weeks, but we’ll be doomed for the entire time.
Consensus, is a requirement for admittance unto the gravy train of “other people’s money”, there is no fee, other than the loss of ones soul.
I read the paper and consider it gobbledegook: So ambiguous, fuzzy, and confusing as to be valueless.
“Noblesse Oblige says:
July 16, 2011 at 6:36 pm
I read the paper and consider it gobbledegook: So ambiguous, fuzzy, and confusing as to be valueless.”
Funny, that’s how I describe most of Michael Mann’s papers.
Consensus is NOT science!