The integrity of our most important tool for understanding is being destroyed and it’s time to recognize and address it.
Guest essay by Walter Starck
![integrity[1]](https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/integrity1.jpg?quality=83)
We humans have a remarkable ability to rationalize whatever benefits us personally or that we find satisfying emotionally. Climate change has found strong resonance with different interests for different reasons. For researcher it offers generous funding, recognition and personal importance. For the media it is dramatic stories. For politicians it’s green votes and popularity. For the financial sector it promises huge profits. For businesses there is the prospect of getting in early on booming growth plus the added bonus of attractive subsidies. For activists it affords attention and donations. For bureaucrats it’s authority and budgets. For everyone it also promises a hard to resist sense of importance and moral righteousness.
Of all the areas of human endeavor science has been uniquely successful in establishing the preeminence of empirical evidence and logical consistency to limit our tendency to self-serving rationalization and our capacity to believe six impossible things before breakfast. The greatest danger of Climate Change is not the threat of climate itself or the socioeconomic consequences of our delusions. These risks are limited compared to the damage being done to the integrity of the most effective tool we have to better understand our world and to continue to improve our lives.
The now endemic corruption of science that has been engendered under the banner of climate change could be easily and effectively addressed by the establishment of a science court resourced to investigate and make determinations on prima facie instances of scientific misconduct. The most appropriate penalty might also be to simply disqualify offenders from any further public funding. This would largely avoid the risk of witch hunts or whitewashes and only a few convictions could effect a miracle cure on the malaise now epidemic in environmental research.
Some argue that true believers will only take the same points and argue they apply to skeptics – i.e. it is skeptics who are the ones rationalizing irrational disbelief and using false evidence to justify an emotional attachment to a contrary belief.
In response I argue that no amount of reason or evidence will convince a true believer to change their mind. Fortunately they are a minority and a majority of the public are unconvinced and receptive to counter arguments. Committed alarmists will of course try to use the “you too” tactic but this is generally recognized as a weak response only resorted to when sound opposing argument is lacking. That there is abundant evidence for skepticism while that for DAGW is far less and more uncertain is a verifiable fact which deserves more emphasis. Despite their huge advantage in funding, media support and political influence, opinion polls clearly indicate alarmists have already lost the public majority and the trend is ongoing. They can say what they want but it is obvious neither the public nor climate itself is being convinced.
In terms of scientific rationale and supporting evidence, climate alarmism involves far more denial than does skepticism. The only way one could honestly conclude differently would be to be blissfully unaware of the hundreds of robust peer reviewed studies which refute or bring into serious doubt virtually every important claim by the proponents of DAGW. In this regard it might be more accurate to discard the deliberately pejorative label of climate change denial and call it the Natural Climate Variability hypothesis. If those who introduced the use of denialism in this matter wish to continue with it they might more honestly apply it to their own position as deniers of Natural Climate Variability.
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What ever happened to catastrophic? By accepting their name changes we are playing their game by their rules.
Yes, the alarmists have already gotten away with changing it from “global warming” to “climate change.” And now we see that any unusual weather event or pattern is being blamed on “climate change.”
The latest example was hurricane Patricia. One media outlet after another couldn’t resist statements like…. “this could be the new normal for hurricanes as global temperatures rise.” It was delicious irony, however, when Patricia fell apart. The alarmists are still shaking their heads over that one.
Any storm, drought, or flood is now “evidence” of the growing threat of a supposed “man-made climate disaster” bearing down on us. A whole generation of children has been subjugated by this way of thinking now.
It will be hard to overcome that.
Every event is reducible to being caused by climate change or at least that is the way I read some of the alarmist press. I tend to call the DAGW folks the pro global warming folks.
“What ever happened to catastrophic?”
The ‘C’ and ‘A’ are both gone. It’s now assumed that any warming, or any change for that matter, is caused exclusively by Man. You have to give them props for their marketing prowess.
No, they’re not gone, nor will they disappear, because a group of skeptics here has been onto to the name-changing, goal-post-moving tactics and antics of the PR dept. of the Green Blob from day one.
Yes. That point has been made here at WUWT many times. At times, some skeptics seem willing to help the alarmists move the goalposts.
Spot on. And this is the 21st Century. What on Earth is happening that it has come to this?
“What on Earth is happening that it has come to this?”
Lying, cheating stealing, manipulating, etc. etc. Why anyone would think such things have passed away is beyond me. Lumping such things in with “bias” is itself a symptom of blossoming psychopathy (which is my short answerr to your question).
This is the first time I have seen DAGW. Does it stand for Dumb Ass Global Warming?
Or perhaps it’s just a letter thing… They got tired of creating real names so now we have CAGW, DAGW, EAGW… Wake me when we get to ZAGW.
OT, but you made me think of it. There used to be a computer language called BCPL. Then one day someone made a better language called B. Shortly after, the defects of B became apparent so they introduced C. Then folk wondered “Are they going through the alphabet letter-by-letter, or are they spelling out the letters of BCPL – so will the next language be D or P?”
But it turned out to be C++. Oh well!
There is “R”….and “Vi”….
Try CMDA-TS (Congential, Malignant,Dumb-Ass, Terminal Stages).
Yeah? Catastrophic AGW always worked for me. D=?
Drastic
Damaging
Despicable
Dreaded
Detestable
Diabolical
Demonic
Disagreeable
Disastrous
Denialistic?
Dishonestly?
“And a few other Dalton Brothers, whose names I forgets!” (Huckleberry Hound 😉
you forgot Dangerous and Detrimental on your list which are more likely what it stands for. I can see them changing to dangerous as fewer people are cognizant of the meaning of catastrophic.
Doubtless
Dumb.
Dubious.
Surely it stands for Delusional
Though Daft is possible.
The author offers no explanation that I could find for his DAGW acronym, which he introduces with this sentence:
“That there is abundant evidence for skepticism while that for DAGW is far less and more uncertain is a verifiable fact which deserves more emphasis.”
Hmmm…I think he may be on to something, if only we knew what DAGW stands for.
Under the current circumstances, it could be “delinquent” . . ; )
Duh!
DAGW? What does it stand for? Along with all the other bewildered commenters, I wonder, too. At first I thought it was a typo–a mere finger slip to the upper left of “C” on the qwerty keyboard. But, then Starck repeats the acronym. So that explanation gets tossed.
All of which leads to the bigger question and comment. One of the personally infuriating practices of WUWT is allowing articles to be published with undefined acronyms. Otherwise interesting articles, suddenly start to make no sense, and the puzzled reader is left standing in the dust unable to follow what the author is trying to say. Over time, I eventually found the “glossary” which helped a lot.
I still think it would be courteous and a lot more user-friendly to require authors to define acronyms when they first appear in the text. Yes, I concede, maybe a few acronyms are “so well known” that they can be given a pass. But really, how many acronyms are there in any given article that would make this courtesy onerous? WUWT has an extensive readership with a wide range of familiarity with the jargon.
Also, consider that articles in WUWT are often linked to by other sites and anything that would make an article more accessible would go a long way in promoting the skeptical message. I suspect less knowledgeable readers will not have the persistence to try to figure out the message and they are likely to become turned-off andthrow up their hands in disgust. Furthermore, it gives ammunition to critics to dismiss the message and the site quality.
As to DAGW, I’m not sure how it got past the site editior(s) without question. I know it isn’t true, but In this case,It almost seems as if the article hadn’t been read.
robert_g,
I checked this excellent site, but they don’t have a meaning for ‘DAGW’. I suspect the ‘AGW’ means global warming. But the D? Dunno either. Dangerous? ☹
I am surprised by the amount of confusion as to what the D stands for. Dangerous warming is the new meme.
To an old codger like me what comes to mind is DAGWood (& Blondie).
Bumstead, that is
Thanks dbs
You might be amused that the acronym site ironically yields these definitions for CAGW:
1. “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (climate change)”
2. “Citizens Against Government Waste”
LOL!! That sure describes the lemming-like proponents…
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
A good summary of where we are but we are way to late to stop this match to the cliff the damage is now done as this December at COP21 a new climate treaty will be proposed, a draft version is available http://paristext2015.com/, and it will be sent to the UN and will be approved as has the support of the Pope and Obama.
In my opinion, the best we can hope for now is as the pause should continue until 2035, by my calculations, that we might me able to blame this travesty on the politicians more then the scientists.
Gaining the support of the Pope was a most important element in the climate change affair. Very many well-meaning people will accept the word of the Pope over scientific information.
It’s easier to sell sustainability than to sell global warming to the public.
I’ve been using the term ‘Natural Climate Change Deniers’ for some time.
This is the earliest use of the term that I’ve been able to find so far:
https://www.nolanchart.com/article8117-natural-climate-change-deniers-html
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The problem with creating a science court is you create a concentration of authority, the inevitable corruption of which will do enormous damage to the integrity you are trying to protect.
In computer science this is a familiar scenario – the effort to corrupt a source of authority is proportional to the importance of that authority. We’ve learned through bitter experience not to put all the eggs in one basket.
Exactly right. What’s required is a wider jury.
It requires science to be broadcast to the general (interested) public. Enough curious eyes will soon discern the difference between the possible, improbable and downright silly.
The internet will save us from the narrow-mindedness of arts graduate journalists.
….and arts graduate ‘climate scientists’!
Absolutely correct the problem now is that public financing of universities has made them political tools, we don’t need more government oversight we need less government involvement in the universities, they need to exist in the real world of competition and accountability not in the world of unlimited resources provided by the government and the total lack of accountability that comes with it.
Anyone righteous and impartial enough to make a good impartial judge on such a court would never be able to get to the position. Even the US Supreme Court only works due to deliberately opposing views created by a fierce approval process and alternating administrations appointing justices.
Trying to make a giant court with that kind of authority will be making an inquisition.
I’d rather have monsters like Wakefield running loose than risk having unpopular science be banned
. . . “monsters like Wakefield” . . ???
Please explain, I know of nothing at all monstrous about the man . . I hear him spoken of that way by people who seem to believe that as long as you put a label that says ‘vaccine’ on a vile, it’s magically made safe to inject into everyone . . some sort of cult of incantation or something, as far as I can tell.
Courts will never prevail in the war of ideas. They will simply become irrelevant. Starck’s notion has the all to familiar ring of UN efforts to codify and judge all kinds of nonsense. No… Science will just have to reclaim the lost ground, the public will have to become more informed, and here’s the thing: they have to do it voluntarily which is why WUWT is so valuable.
I agree. A science court would be anti-science, allowing for appeal to authority. A “method review board” might be okay if it limited it’s investigations to whether proper scientific method was applied. But even that is dangerous since many of the papers that “support” CAGW use language like, “might be,” or “could be.” I think a concerted effort to make the major journals reject highly speculative papers might be a better approach. They, like the mainstream media, also profit from alarmism.
So it turns out convenient that al gore invented the Internet to counter inconvenient truth
Eric, what also would be a problem is when they have their ‘Kangaroo Justice Department’ to cover for them, and it never gets to the Court. Kinda like this story.
The Justice Department declined to file charges against IRS enforcer Lois Lerner, who singled out Tea Party groups for scrutiny on political grounds. With no accountability, it’s now open season on dissidents.
Is there anyone out there subject to an Internal Revenue Service audit or a multiyear delay in approval for tax-exempt status who won’t be concerned that the process is politically rigged against them?
That’s the message the Justice Department sent when, in a classic Friday night news dump, it decided to not file charges against IRS tax-exempt groups chief Lois Lerner. In a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, Justice said that while it found “mismanagement, poor judgment and inertia,” there was no case for a criminal prosecution.
This is absurd. Lerner was caught red-handed targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups, wrote partisan emails to prove it, then engaged in a massive cover-up effort — with a suspiciously crashed server, an oddly missing BlackBerry and plenty of excuses.
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/102315-777241-irs-lois-lerner-skates-but-an-ugly-precedent-is-set.htm#ixzz3pgOJPzti
This observation also applies to the social sciences, including economics. It’s fed by stupid phrases like “the party of science.” In reality the Dems are not even close to being the party of science, science is apolitical. The Dems are the party of technology and technocrats. They grab on to technologies and pass them off as science to non-critical thinkers. At the same time much of academia has simply immersed itself in technology-related-to-social-cause rather than scientific thinking.
There are some pretty good books on this, including the Flight from Science and Reason, edited by Gross, Levitt and Lewis. It’s not a leisurely read, but it’s very worthwhile.
And thanks Dr. Starck and the Heartland Institute for this arcticle
Agreed, I’m seeing many people who don’t seem to know the difference between engineering and science.
There is no such thing as “Science.” There are only individual fields of study, some of which deserve being called sciences, and others arguably not. They don’t truly fit into one overarching category because the methodologies and criteria for what count as valid findings vary so greatly among them. (A cynic might suggest that people who do research in physics versus those in psychology may not even be from the same planet.)
The panorama can be taxonomized as follows. First divide the fields of study into: A-the natural or physical sciences; and B-the social sciences. Then divide the natural sciences to separate: A1-those concerned with homogeneous entities and deterministic (at least in the aggregate) relationships; from A2-the ones that deal with chaotic processes (like climatology).
Most of the progress in knowledge and technology comes from the A1 category. Although researchers in the other categories would like you to think they are making comparable contributions to society, they are not.
But you can take this even further. Throughout history much of the progress initially came from the tinkerers, inventors and engineers. The relevant sciences were discovered or substantially elaborated after the fact to understand why the things they created actually worked. The Romans built great aqueducts 2000 years ago and the church produced grand cathedrals in the Middle Ages before materials science was developed. “The era of the steam engine … was well into its second century before a fully formed science of thermodynamics had been developed.” http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/engineering-is-not-science
And unlike science, replication is not an issue in engineering. You may be able to get away with “scientific findings” that can’t be reproduced, but not with a product that fails.
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Climate Change – ‘Don’t leave home without it’…
“For researcher it offers generous funding, recognition and personal importance. For the media it is dramatic stories. For politicians it’s green votes and popularity. For the financial sector it promises huge profits….”
“Some argue that true believers will only take the same points and argue they apply to skeptics – i.e. it is skeptics who are the ones rationalizing irrational disbelief and using false evidence to justify an emotional attachment to a contrary belief.”
Ok, good point. That had occured to me. What is the answer?
“In response I argue that no amount of reason or evidence will convince a true believer to change their mind…”
Er, that does not address the question of how we know it is the alarmists, not the skeptics, that are rationalising disbelief. It could apply to either.
“…Fortunately they are a minority and a majority of the public are unconvinced and receptive to counter arguments.”
Er, that is the fallacy of appeal to popularity. Most people think X, therefore X is true.
“Committed alarmists will of course try to use the “you too” tactic but this is generally recognized as a weak response only resorted to when sound opposing argument is lacking.” I don’t know what this means. but it does not address the point. Could be a straw man – i.e. proposing a weak argument as the one the alarmists would propose, then knocking it down. I think committed alarmists would point to the evidence rather than use the “you too” tactic.
“That there is abundant evidence for skepticism while that for DAGW is far less and more uncertain is a verifiable fact which deserves more emphasis.” Begging the question. This assumes the conclusion is right in order to make the conclusion that the alarmists are wrong. It is also factually wrong, as there is a vastly more abundant literature that supports AGW than refutes it.
“The only way one could honestly conclude differently would be to be blissfully unaware of the hundreds of robust peer reviewed studies which refute or bring into serious doubt virtually every important claim by the proponents of DAGW.”
A there are many thousands of robust peer reviewed papers saying the opposite, simply being aware of the hundreds that argue against AGW is not enough to be convincing on its own. This is begging the question again. The conclusion must be right for the argument to work.
This does not address that important question at all. I am not saying here that AGW is wrong or right, just that this article does not further the argument that it is wrong.
WE don’t have to prove it wrong; empirical data, not computer models, can prove it right, or wrong.
Published studies prove nothing.
In the end facts trump belief.
The problem is that we have used science and real dedication to real facts to construct a society in which the vast majority of people survive (and via socialism, prosper) to breeding age (Darwin’s Criterion) without ever needing to encounter reality or a fact.
Imagine if the requirement to own an I-thing were to pass a basic examination in quantum physics, material science, electronic construction and software engineering…
Imagine if the requirement to vote was to pass a basic examination in Civics and Government.
CAGW is no more and no less a creature of government funding. If you would clean up the mess, you must first fix the source of the mess.
“In the end facts trump belief.”
But … “For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.” ― Stuart Chase
“In the end facts trump belief.”
Unfortunately, in investigations of complex phenomena, there are always facts that appear to support any given hypothesis, while there are others which contradict most of them, and you get cafeteria-style science, where dishonest or inept researchers pick and choose which facts to focus on, and which to ignore.
Without a firm commitment to fundamental integrity, science is rendered arbitrary. What we need isn’t a Court, per se, but a Constitution. Fundamental principles for accepting or rejecting a given hypothesis need to be codified.
The entire AGW scam is almost entirely built upon a foundation of well cataloged logical fallacies, ad verecundiam, ad populum, ad ignorantiam – you name it. The proponents have left no logical fallacy behind. Said Constitution would provide prohibit these fallacies from being considered in evidence.
“In the end facts trump belief.”
That’s an irrational statement to me. What one can rightly call facts, make belief, it seems blatantly obvious to me. Isn’t that what they do in you?
But it seems to me a great many who fancy themselves scientific minded, are not, because they have abandoned basic reasoning in favor of authority worship, what to me is “man worship”. And some men have declared that belief is wrong/dopey, and a great many extremely gullible people have accepted this (to me) utterly insane gibberish.
What good would facts even be, if they did not result in belief?
True, my friend. I agree, we must always be aware that the principles of self-deception run both ways and that we are not immune to such biases.
However, I think that you are asking too much of a single article. There are many arguments against catastrophe and panic on this site, and many more elsewhere. A single page to state a point cannot and should not try to make the entire case by itself.
Bart
“Without a firm commitment to fundamental integrity, science is rendered arbitrary. What we need isn’t a Court, per se, but a Constitution. Fundamental principles for accepting or rejecting a given hypothesis need to be codified.”
The Supreme Court uses Daubert to weigh the validity of a scientific opinion. It’s not perfect, but is a good point of departure. They did weigh in on CO2 and revisiting this decision is critical.
Plenty of cites to dive into if you want to read what they wrote. Folks here probably already know it.
Perhaps it’s time to improve on Daubert?
Seaice said, “It is also factually wrong, as there is a vastly more abundant literature that supports AGW than refutes it.” You moved the goal post.
Few informed skeptics deny Anthropogenic Global Warming, they, like me, only doubt that it will be bad or dangerous. There are only two lines of evidence supporting dangerous warming, a rapid rise in global temperature in the 1980’s and 1990’s, which is as likely to be natural as not, particularly given the facts that the warming stopped after about 1998 and, if we look at the satellite record all the warming actually occurred in the great El Niño of 1998. An El Niño does not add heat to the system, it just releases to the atmosphere heat that was stored in the ocean.
The other line of evidence is the climate models but they don’t constitute scientific evidence unless they show predictive skill, and the only models with predictive skill are those that show very little warming. So little that it could not possibly have a negative effect on the biosphere that we are a part of. Sea levels are rising and glaciers are melting but they have been doing that for hundreds of years and there is no evidence of any acceleration.
Seaice….you keep talking about AGW….please be more specific. There are twice as many humans occupying earth than 50 years ago, each person putting out more heat and running more engines, motors, etc. Is that the AGW you are talking about?
Do you mean nominal AGW?
Do you mean meaningful AGW?
Do you mean catastrophic AGW?
Do you mean ‘fossil fuel’ warming only?
Do you mean CO2 caused warming only?
Do you mean Carbon caused warming only?
What is AGW for you?
Please more specific than just AGW.
seaice. It only takes one verifiable, observed fact to kill a thousand peer reviewed papers. The amount vs. the amount is not relevant.
Seaice said, “I….. there is a vastly more abundant literature that supports AGW than refutes it.”
Follow the money.
I support your take on this piece. Thanks for pointing out some of the flaws.
“It is also factually wrong, as there is a vastly more abundant literature that supports AGW than refutes it. ”
Since most of the rest of your arguments about logic are pretty good, I suggest for consideration that AGW is not confirmed merely by the amount of literature that has been purchased to support it.
“I am not saying here that AGW is wrong or right”
It looked to me like you are doing exactly that. But I’ll grant that perhaps you, like me, would like an answer and would like it to be convincing and uncontaminated by politics or even the confirmation bias of well-funded global warming research that found exactly what it was looking for.
Agree. My reading suggests that 700 years ago there was ‘vastly more abundant literature that supports a flat earth than refutes it.”
While I like the idea of an unbiased court of scientific objectivity, I am concerned that there could
be a litmus test for appointment which actually could be used to further slow the publics understanding of the facts. A robust open forum is the best tool.
Wouldn’t it be great to live in the parallel universe where solving the problem is that easy?
Excellent essay, especially the opening paragraph in which you point out the attraction of AGW for so many groups. You could add professional doom-mongers to that list.
Exactly. I was writing a more deep essay – never completed – tilted ‘Convenient Lies’
AGW has been a hugely convenient lie for so many people…
As a Chemistry professor I an continually amazed how students and who know nothing of science come into class actually telling me that I am stupid because they know more about global warming and, of course, anthropogenic global warming is a certifiable fact. I have argued with huge numbers of people in person and on the internet about global warming. In virtually every case, these are people with little to no education past the 12th grade, could not tell the difference between empirical evidence and hand waving, logic vs. wishful thinking, causal vs, casual evidence, and/or opinion vs. ignorance. The truly horrifying part of all of this is that they believe they are completely correct, that anyone who disagrees is an idiot, and no contrary opinion should ever be allowed. How has this country become so arrogant while being so stupid?
You’re seeing the power the “argument from authority” has over people’s minds, Cleetus.
With such, I usually start the erosion by asking the same question one asks a science seminar speaker: ‘How do you know?‘ Make them defend their opinion. Just keep asking.
Eventually, unless they walk away, such people will discover for themselves that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Self-discovery of ignorance is a far more powerful inducer of introspection than an external disproof.
By the way, one of my brothers is associated with a California State University. Fully 50% of the entering students are not up to educational speed and require remedial work before they can enter college-level courses. The wages of social promotion. The stupidity and arrogance you notice are symptomatic of the socially cultivated ignorance now rampant in primary and secondary education.
Bravo
“Self-discovery of ignorance is a far more powerful inducer of introspection than an external disproof.”
Some call it the flashlight technique. It’s a gee whiz sort of thing. All humans are biased. ALL. Is there any one of us who are so evolved that we didn’t have to learn some very important things the so called “hard way” ?
Critical thinking is a tool. Self awareness to your own pattern of bias is the journey. You can’t see others if you don’t see yours. If your lucky, you learn a few things and then you die.
“How has this country become so arrogant while being so stupid?”
Which country do you mean by “this country”? The Internet is an international forum, so unless you specify the country you mean, “this country” tells us nothing.
“The integrity of our most important tool for understanding is being destroyed and it’s time to recognize and address it.”
That is a statement that is very true and applies to much more than just the debate over the “evil CO2”. From our personal lives to our work lives, we must be honest. Humanity is not blessed with physical attributes for survival like most of the animal kingdom. We don’t even have fur to keep us warm. We live by our brains and we have civilization to store knowledge for the next generation. We must be able to trust the knowledge that we are given. Each individual can not start at zero and personally prove every fact of life. We must be able to trust some people.
For a while there, we could trust the scientific method since the idea was to try our best to disprove any hypothesis. We would run experiments set up to disprove our own ideas. We worked hard not to fool ourselves or anyone else. That seems to be gone now. Long gone.
I think you are looking back with rose-tinted glasses on a past that never existed. It was always like this, with many competing interests all looking to make a quick buck or name for themselves, rushing from one popular thing to the next.
Remember Freudian psychology and the nightmare of “repressed memories”, where psychologists concocted fictional abuse through abuse of their psyche? Then got people sent to prison over it?
Routine lobotomies of troublesome children?
Cold fusion?
The world isn’t going to heck in a handbasket. It’s always been troubled, and pretending that we are universally worse in scientific integrity is just as bad as pretending that we’ve never had a drought or storm before.
Right you are. Do you recall the incident in Washington State a few years ago in which a number of people were sent to prison based on the testimony of children who were prepped by the social services folks? I couldn’t believe that any rational person, not to mention Attorneys General, would believe such nonsense as (for example) cannibalism. Geeze. Where do we get these idiots. Oh, yes, now I recall. Public education from grade one through law school.
JImInHouston
“We must be able to trust the knowledge that we are given.”
I disagree. We should never trust and should subject everything to, at least, a simple smell test. I would never take a prescribed medicine, or make a recommend investment, without spending at least an hour or two researching both sides of the issue.
I used to believe that all universities educated their students within history of science, logic and scientific methods. Now – I get this creeping feeling that it is possible, at many universities, to achieve a university degree and even become a professor without such education.
Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.
– Edmund Burke
I saw an interesting lecture recently in which it was stated that peer review used to happen AFTER papers were published, and the current system was promoted by the federal government around 1950 so government could steer researchers in the direction they wanted things to go.
Currently, authors have to get their papers past a group of colleagues, any of whom may have personal reasons for stopping their publication. In addition to discriminating against ideas and conclusions (instead of scrutinizing data and methods), this has led to the belief that papers that get published must be “true” because they have been expertly approved. It’s also led to the deception that popularly published theories become facts by the weight of their supporting paperwork.
Of course, that’s absurd. Richard Feynman lectured that scientist just guess and test, and that the validity of their theories had nothing to do with their fame, titles, institutions or numbers. And Karl Popper said that false theories were the most valuable BECAUSE of the vast amount of data and research that was generated by people trying in vain to validate them.
In order to restore science, journals need to remove the ideological firewalls and return to the days when editors simply tried to ascertain whether basic standards and methodologies were followed, and then publish the damn papers and let the worldwide scientific community peer review the research.
Your comment prompted me to have a look, and it is likely that peer review became much me widespread after the invention of the photocopier in 1959! Before this it was just too difficult to distribute copies to several people. Peer review certainly existed before then, going back at least to 1750’s in some form, but mostly editors rather than reviewers made the choice about publication.
By the 1960’s the number of papers and the number of specialisms had grown to such an extent that editors could not possibly make informed choices about publications, so expert reviewers were used, the photocopier making it possible. This became the peer review process we are familiar with today.
There are problems with the process today. I personally think that the author as well as the reviewer should be anonymous. That way the referee has to look at the quality of the work, not just put it through (or reject it) based on reputation. However it is not possible to go back to editor based choices as there are just too many and too diverse papers.
Open access publications could publish everything submitted, and we could use citations as a system of review. Papers that did not get cited would simply disappear.
seaice,
There is no doubt that the velocity of information increased with the invention of the photocopier, but the same thing happened with the invention of computers and then the Internet. And that’s all part of an evolution that started when chisels gave way to quills, which gave way to printing presses.
But if peer reviewer’s stop ideas they dislike from ever being published in the first place, the velocity of whatever the current technology is irrelevant.
seaice,
Speaking of the velocity of information, wasn’t it Confucius who said:
“Ideas that don’t get published get nowhere fast.”
Good thing I’m sitting down, because I agree with seaice:
I personally think that the author as well as the reviewer should be anonymous.
But try convincing Michalel Mann et al. They’ve bragged that they control the climate peer review journal/system.
Larry Fine is correct, too. By censoring scientific views they want silenced, the climate journals have become mere mouthpieces for the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ narrative.
That’s not science, that is advocacy; it’s anti-science.
No, it wasn’t Confucius.
@ur momisugly LarryFine October 26, 2015 at 5:36 am, “I saw an interesting lecture recently in which it was stated that peer review used to happen AFTER papers were published.”
I like the idea except that we then leave all the decisions about what to publish or not publish up to the editor. Actually, it’s pretty much in the hands of the editor anyway because they pick the reviewers, and I’m sure they know which reviewers to pick to make the point they personally want made. Otherwise much of the trash that fills the journals would never have passed.
The genesis of the problem really lies with government funding. The decision of central planning bureaucrats to fund climate science, or any science, is sure to lead to mountains of junk research. I say cut the government funding. This will decentralize funding decisions. Activists organizations on both sides of an issue can fund what they want and businesses can fund what they want. If the government is to be involved at all it could be to do thorough reviews and opine as to whether or not a particular claim is supported by the underlying research. That’s a policing function and governments make the least worse police.
Thomas,
You’re correct that government funding is what is largely responsible for the corruption of science. President Eisenhower warned about that in his farewell speech, and he blamed the rise of the military-industrial complex on this very thing.
But thanks to this system of limiting the peers who review research to just a few select people, now even scientists who can still get private funding are often locked out of contributing to their field when their conclusions don’t advance the underlying political agenda.
The bias has gotten so bad that researchers whose conclusions are “correct” by government standards don’t even have to show their peer review buddies the data to get published.
Remember this famous quote?
“Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to find something wrong with it?”
LarryFine,
Phil Jones will never live that down. It is so anti-science that Zombie Richard Feynman must be spinning out of his grave (that’s OK, it’s almost Halloween). ☻
If stand-up comedians ever appear at conventions of science PhD’s, they could get a really big larf just by quoting him:
We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?
“Haw, haw haw!! Try the veal!”
@ur momisugly dbstealey…has that veal been peer reviewed?
I always love when someone says the ClimateGate emails are taken out of context. When read IN context they are even MORE damning. You just can’t make this stuff up. 8^D
As long as we are on the topic of restoring integrity and prosecuting wrongdoers in science…
Any update on the felony forgery prosecution of Peter Gleick in the Heartland case? It seems the US Govt. is now incapable of prosecuting any of “it’s own” in any area, as the Lois Lerner case dramatically shows.
Make no mistake, CAGW alarmists at NCDC, NSIDC, GISS, at NASA, NOAA, and a slew of alphabet soup agencies are the “Govt’s own”.
A ‘science court’ is a terrible idea. The establishment True Believers will run it, and it will become a science Inquisition.
We’re not far from that already, with academic scientists afraid to voice a hint of skepticism (lest they lose their grants and jobs), with science organizations proclaiming their unanalyzed adherence to the Alarmist party line, and with congressmen calling for prosecution of ‘d*niers’.
The only hope is for real scientists, i.e. the ones still devoted to the Scientific Method no matter where it leads, to rebel against the theocratic scientistic orthodoxy that now controls the money and the power.
Maybe organizations like CFact and Heartland could create a foundation to financially support scientists who are willing to stand up against the establishment. “Can’t get tenure? Can’t find a post-doc job? We will support you and your family until we have turned the tide and re-established the rule of reason and the scientific method.”
/Mr Lynn
Agree 100%. Thanks.
Me, too.
I like it, but how to fund it?
Are there no wealthy skeptics? Once established, perhaps with seed money from organizations like Heartland, it should be possible for such a foundation to to attract donors. And after all, since skeptical scientists are routinely accused of receiving endless largess from coal and oil interests, not to mention the Koch Brothers, why should skeptics not seek to attract at least some of the alleged bounty in reality?
To mount a rebellion against entrenched money and power requires not just zeal, but resources. So instead of endlessly lamenting how impotent we are, we need to discover how to put lead in our pencils.
/Mr Lynn
Mr Lynn, yes that would work. That would be excellent.
Look to E.M.Smith:
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2015/10/23/pondering-a-funding-campaign/
the time is Now! put your money where your mouth is…:-)…pg
p.g.sharrow: The admirable EM Smith is looking for funding that will enable him to continue his data-collection/research work rather than getting a day job that will probably make that impossible. There are suggestions on the thread you linked for ‘crowd-funding’, which seems a promising direction.
I have suggested something much larger: a Foundation that will help to fund the necessary revolution against the Eco-fascist establishment that is pushing climate alarmism at the highest levels. Funding people and projects like EM Smith’s would be an important part of the Foundation’s activities, as would creating a financial safety net for scientists and others who are subject to reprisals from the establishment if they speak out against the Alarmist Liturgy.
It will take resources, large ones. Alas, I am not wealthy, nor are most here. But there are people who are, and who might be convinced to underwrite such a Foundation, that could serve as the core of a rebellion and ultimately a revolution. I’d certainly be willing to roll up my sleeves, pitch in, and help. But we need leadership, people with impeccable credentials, high prestige, and influence, willing to put their names on the line. Perhaps the GWPF in the UK could help with organizational expertise and contacts. Do we have anything comparable in the USA?
/Mr Lynn
Mr Lynn, this would make an excellent article and would lift this idea out of comments and into the spotlight. I do think this idea is hugely important.
I will work on it, though there are doubtless many more qualified than I to elevate this proposal, and to lay out a roadmap for proceeding. Feel free to chime in. Perhaps we can get something going.
/Mr Lynn
Mr Lynn, I agree that there are those able to make such a proposal work. What if you took your comments here, laying out your ideas, and posted them under “submit a story” or in “tips and notes” if you prefer. As a plan of action it is excellent, and as an article it would reach the right audience and generate a strong discussion as to how it might come together.
Anthony Watts might have an idea of how it might be proposed – or someone like Christopher Monckton – both so very busy, I know, but there are other movers and shakers out there who might know the way forward.
It’s certainly time the pendulum swung back the other way.
Cheers!
History is running backwards. Both Democrat and Republican politicians are now lamenting the free flow of ideas (because their own ideas cannot stand up to scrutiny), and they have schemes to isolate everyone from infirmation.
Watch the cases the Supreme Court picks up in 2016.
On my part, I always try to find what is the most important aspect of an issue. People with agendas find that shiny objects off to the side can be lined up to distract the observer and bend their proposed solutions to further the agenda of the moment..
What is the end goal to be sought? I would think that the most existential issue, that is to survival of humanity itself is to make sure we have a healthy biosphere. Otherwise we cannot grow food in the quantities we need.
So, the first concern about our climate and the potential impact of human activity upon the climate must be: what is the optimum climate for the existing biosphere and what is the trend?
But all I see with so-called climate research is an effort to prove the assumption that humans are harming the climate. And all I see are demands that have the effect of increasing statism, that is to increase the size and power of government, to reduce personal liberty and certainly to reduce the production of the energy we need to heat and cool our homes, the energy we need for transportation and the energy we use to make our lives possible. And these people will not take no for an answer. That tells me all I need to know about this gigantic fraud.
A science court is a dangerous idea. I was talking to a retired Internal Affairs Police Officer over the weekend. His take is that even in the police force, the facts take a distant second to politics.
I have to agree.
While the idea that some ruling body of impartial know-it-all’s could settle all of science’s disagreements is tempting to contemplate, the reality is that it would have the net affect of concentrating power in the hands of a few, rather than the many. The opinions of a few people would hold sway over all matters scientific.
Then, once corrupted, all reason is lost, and science and politics are forever melded.
Besides, who would these all knowing deciders be?
Science is bigger and wider than law, and far from certain in the best of cases. The Supreme Court only rules on laws made by men.
IMO, no one is qualified to be a final arbiter of all truth.
establishment of a science court resourced to investigate and make determinations on prima facie instances of scientific misconduct.
…………………………………………….
Your science court will inevitably devolve into a star chamber run by believers to crush dissent.
There ALREADY IS a ‘science court’.
If anyone is committing fraud, the law courts are completely open to being used to adjudicate on such an accusation. That’s what they are there for.
If such an adjudication is not going on now, it will not go on if a ‘science court’ is created. Conversely, if the powers that be decide that such adjudication is needed, they don’t need to invent anything new…
Any science court would quickly be populated with greenies who would dispatch anti-green science with prejudice. To see this in action watch the SCOTUS at work.
Pseudo science and the coopting of science for other purposes does not seem to me to be anything new. I am sure we can all make a list of issues that were mired in faulty science like DDT or that were entirely devoid of science like eugenics but were championed by scientist. There was never a golden age of science and I would argue that people practicing science proper have always been the exception and not the rule. Nonetheless, science has and will continue to improve our ability to deal with the world in which we live. And, while I don’t believe AGW constitutes a new change (perhaps a peak or trough) in the quality of science, it is nice to see more people standing against bad science today than I can remember in my short life time.
What would it take to convince you you are wrong?
Answer that question first. Critical thinking begins at home. Most of us don’t have time to become climatologists, on either side. So we have to choose who to trust. I choose to trust climatologists. I look at claims that climate change isn’t happening, or that it isn’t being caused by human behavior. I am open to being convinced. You’re not convincing. Your models aren’t convincing. Your political arguments are just that, political, opinions not based in fact. As others have noted, you can turn around nearly every statement in this article. My physics degree from MIT and decades of experience as a science tutor do not make me a climatologist. I can however, trivially punch holes in the methodology of papers arguing against the existence and cause of climate change. I try to punch holes in the supporting claims too, and I can’t find nearly as many problems there. I am an equal opportunity debunker. Climate change is at this point a simple fact. I could be convinced I was wrong, if presented with a model that explains the facts better than the current one, with actual numbers and arguments that don’t violate freshman chemistry or physics. So I have to wonder: what, if anything, could ever convince you? If the answer is “nothing”, then you’re not being rational. If your answer is “when X says so,” then please choose your value of X with care. You’re trusting them with your brain, and that’s valuable real estate, no matter who you are.
My view as a complete layman, is that there is no evidence of anything unprecedented occurring now that hasn’t occurred multiple times in this interglacial. We can’t compare proxies with instrument measurements, because they aren’t the same thing. And there are no consistent proxies available that I’ve ever seen.
And of course the averaging chimera gives a false view of both past and present.
So, what would it take to convince you?
No one is arguing that climate change is not happening. Where did you get such a strawman idea? Certainly from someplace called NOT HERE. It is the Anthropogenic component which is hotly contested. The proposed actions and their ludicrous returns are also refuted. Most here have learned to love CO2 for it’s life expanding properties.
You have much to learn… stick around… read and ponder. GK
I will keep reading. So far I am completely unimpressed, but I will keep reading. There’s a lot more politics than reason going on in these posts and comments. As for the “straw man”–Republicans were insisting loudly for decades that climate change wasn’t happening at all while they looked more and more foolish, and then retreated to the second line of defense, “okay, but human beings aren’t the cause”, and make no mistake, lots and LOTS of politicians and pundits and other people are still arguing that climate change isn’t real whenever they think they can get away with it, pushing the propaganda war, forcing other people to have that argument again and win it again, over and over and over. So yes, now I have to fight every single time just to maintain that basic concession to reality, because if I don’t others will try to muddy the waters again, and I can’t tell you apart from them.
And all this time I’m waiting for SOMEONE on the other side to concede the basic science and START to have an intelligent conversation about what to DO about the problem that isn’t an echo chamber. Are there smart alternatives to just “stop burning fossil fuels”? Is there a way to make most people on both sides happy or at least content? Can we shift oil usage entirely over to plastic and chemistry uses without messing the industry up too much? We’ll never know until multiple viewpoints that are agreed on basic reality sit down and argue and brainstorm. None of that is happening because one side is so utterly vested in pretending the problem isn’t real.
I repeat: tell me what it would take to convince you that you’re wrong, that climate change is caused by human beings and is a big problem. Do that, and I’ll go through the bother of analyzing one of the “refutations” you think is most solid and spell out where it goes off the rails–or I’ll get a big surprise and be unable to, and I’ll thank you for it. But if you’re impossible to convince I should stop wasting my effort and try with other people.
How about looking at the unadjusted ACTUAL data that shows no warming in 18 years and 9 months !! DUH !!
If you’re talking about the satellite data, both of the prominent datasets (RSS and UAH) undergo adjustments.
Which data set would that be, Marcus? I’m genuinely curious. And I repeat: what would it take to convince you?
Robert C.
“I choose to trust climatologists.”
Which ones?
“Climate change is at this point a simple fact.”
No, you believe it to be a fact. Its your belief.. based on something you read from some climatologists you don’t know and can’t even name.
“I could be convinced I was wrong, if ….”
I doubt it.
“You’re trusting them with your brain, and that’s valuable real estate”
Real Estate? I give up.
I said criteria that would convince me. You have failed to do the same. You’re the one who is incapable of changing their mind. Don’t like it? Then prove me wrong: tell me what. it. would. take. to. convince. you. Or I’m the one wasting my time with someone who refuses to think.
Robert C,
” Most of us don’t have time to become climatologists, on either side. So we have to choose who to trust.”
No “we” don’t.
” You’re trusting them with your brain, and that’s valuable real estate, no matter who you are.”
Then why are you declaring we have to chose who to trust?
You seem to be suffering from the “democratic fallacy”–“my opinion is just as good as anyone else’s even if they’ve studied the subject for years and I don’t know anything about it.” Tell me–WHY do you think climate change isn’t caused by human CO2 emissions? Where did you get that idea in the first place? Who first told you about it? Some politician, I’m betting–not a scientist. Why did you believe them? Because their politics align with yours? That’s not a basis for viewing reality. I don’t see what’s so confusing about my basic statement. Either you are working it out for yourself or you are believing it without working it out–you’re trusting that something somebody told you is true. If you think you’ve worked it all out without becoming a climatologist then you’re in the democratic fallacy. So yes, either you believe what you believe for logical reasons, or you believe it for faith, or you haven’t made up your mind yet. Has that not covered all the bases?
Robert C says:
Tell me–WHY do you think climate change isn’t caused by human CO2 emissions?
Robert, you have it exactly backward. “Climate change” (by which I suppose you mean ‘dangerous man-made global warming’, or DAGW) is merely a conjecture. It is a belief, put forth by a certain sub-group of the population, for what they presume is a hypothesis. With me so far?
OK then, their conjecture/hypothesis states that human CO2 emissions are the primary cause of global warming (what you have been taught to call “climate change”).
Per the scientific method, the party that puts forth a hypothesis has the onus of producing convincing evidence that their hypothesis is correct. Still with me?
Every hypothesis or conjecture (and for that matter, every theory) has one thing in common: it must be capable of producing repeated, accurate predictions. Just saying “climate change” is meaningless. You have the onus of producing convincing scientific evidence showing that your conjecture, hypothesis, or whatever, is able to correctly predict. So, can the ‘DAGW’ conjecture make repeated, accurate predictions? The answer is clearly ‘No’.
Not one climate alarmist — scientist or not — was able to predict the current stasis in global temperatures (T). No one predicted that global T would stop rising. But it has been many years since there was any global warming. Thus, they were wrong. All of them.
Planet Earth has falsified your ‘DAGW’ conjecture. Honest scientists admit it. The dishonest ones do what they can to bend whatever factoids they can find to fit their lucrative “climate change” narrative.
You don’t have to be a scientist to understand that. It’s pretty simple, really. The endless predictions of runaway global warming (or of any global warming for that matter), were flat wrong.
Thus, ‘climate change’ (ie: global warming) is not caused by human emissions. QED
DB
Powerfully done.
Clear, concise and zeros in on the singular point of departure. It is the BURDEN of the one who proposes the theory to prove it.
Key missing elements :
1. Replicable data that supports the theory
2. Known rate of uncertainty (error)
3. Experimental design to test the causal relationship.
Am I missing a key element?
Robert C,
“You seem to be suffering from the “democratic fallacy”–“my opinion is just as good as anyone else’s even if they’ve studied the subject for years and I don’t know anything about it.” ”
You seem to me to be suffering from an over-active imagination. I said nothing at all about my opinion being as good as anyones, I said (by direct implication) we don’t have to choose who to trust.
“Tell me–WHY do you think climate change isn’t caused by human CO2 emissions?”
I studied the matter at some length, and concluded that CATASTROPHIC climate change is unlikely to be caused by human emissions.
” Where did you get that idea in the first place?”
From the proposition that CATASTROPHIC climate change is caused by human CO2 emissions. It came right along with that proposition, as generally occurs when I hear propositions . . BECAUSE I don’t trust people I don’t even know.
And that certainly includes scientists, who either praise those who don’t impulsively trust them, or they are demoted to non-scientists, in my estimation, immediately. Science, to me, is about testing things through careful experiment. It is not about trusting people’s opinions, even my own.
” If you think you’ve worked it all out without becoming a climatologist then you’re in the democratic fallacy”
Human authority worship to me . . Kid stuff.