Posted by Dee Norris
skep·tic
One who instinctively or habitually doubts, questions, or disagrees with assertions or generally accepted conclusions.
from Greek Skeptikos, from skeptesthai, to examine.
I have been reading a lot of the debates that inevitably follow any MSM story on Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW). In this story at the NewScientist, one of the comments stood out as a vivid example of the polarization that has developed between the those of us who are skeptical of AGW and those of us who believe in AGW.
By Luke
Fri Sep 12 19:15:22 BST 2008
The difference in response between skeptics and scientists is easily explained as the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. Skeptics look for evidence to prove their conclusion and ignore any that does not fit what they believe. This makes it possible for them to believe in revealed religion and ignore anything that disputes it. I guess inductive reasoning can best be classified as deliberate ignorance. My condolences to practitioners of inductive thinking for your lack of logical ability. You don’t know what a pleasure it is to be able to think things through.
I was trained as a scientist from childhood. My parents recognized that I had a proclivity for the sciences from early childhood and encouraged me to explore the natural world. From this early start, I eventually went on to study Atmospheric Science back when global cooling was considered the big threat (actually the PDO had entered the warm phase several years earlier, but the scientific consensus had not caught up yet). One thing I learned along the way is that a good scientist is a skeptic. Good scientists examines things, they observe the world, then they try to explain why things behave as they do. Sometimes they get it right, somethings they don’t. Sometimes they get it as close as they can using the best available technologies.
I have been examining the drive to paint skeptics of AGW as non-scientists, as conservatives, as creationists and therefore as ignorant of the real science supporting AGW – ad hominem argument (against the man, rather than against his opinion or idea). Honestly, I have to admit that some skeptics are conservative, some do believe in creation and some lack the skills to fully appreciate the science behind AGW, then again I know agnostic liberals with a couple of college degrees who fully accept the theory of evolution and because they understand the science are skeptics of AGW. On the other hand, I have met a lot of AGW adherents who fully accept evolution, but have never read On The Origin of Species. Many of the outspoken believers in AGW are also dedicated foes of genetically modified organisms such as Golden Rice (which could prevent thousands of deaths due to Vitamin A deficiency in developing countries), yet they are unable to explain the significance of Gregor Mendel and the hybridization of the pea plant,
In his comment, Luke (the name has been changed to protect the innocent) attributes inductive reasoning to skeptics and deductive to scientists. Unfortunately, he has used inductive reasoning to draw general conclusions about skeptics based on his knowledge of a few individuals (or perhaps even none at all).
Skeptics are a necessary part of scientific discovery. We challenge the scientific consensus to create change. We examine the beliefs held by the consensus and express our doubts and questions. Skepticism prevents science from becoming morbid and frozen. Here are just a few of the more recent advances in science which initially challenged the consensus:
- The theory of continental drift was soundly rejected by most geologists until indisputable evidence and an acceptable mechanism was presented after 50 years of rejection.
- The theory of symbiogenesis was initially rejected by biologists but now generally accepted.
- the theory of punctuated equilibria is still debated but becoming more accepted in evolutionary theory.
- The theory of prions – the proteinaceous particles causing transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases such as Mad Cow Disease – was rejected because pathogenicity was believed to depend on nucleic acids now widely accepted due to accumulating evidence.
- The theory of Helicobacter pylori as the cause of stomach ulcers and was widely rejected by the medical community believing that no bacterium could survive for long in the acidic environment of the stomach.
As of today, the Global Warming Petition Project has collected over 31,000 signatures on paper from individuals with science-related college or advanced degrees who are skeptical of AGW. Someone needs to tell the AGW world that’s thirty-one thousand science-trained individuals who thought things through and became skeptics.
It was Cassandra who foretold the fall of mighty Troy using a gift of prophecy bestowed upon her by Apollo, Greek god of the Sun. So it would seem fitting that I assume her demeanor for just one brief moment –
- The theory of anthropogenic carbon dioxide as the cause of the latter 20th century warm period was widely accepted by the scientific consensus until it was falsified by protracted global cooling due to reductions in total solar irradiance and the solar magnetic field.
I am a skeptic and I am damn proud of it.
[The opinions expressed in this post are that of the author, Dee Norris, and not necessarily those of the owner of Watts Up With That?, Anthony Watts, who graciously allows me to pontificate here.]
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Me too.
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Poor dopey “Luke” – so proud of his supposed deductive abilities that he commits the simple error of assuming his premises are correct. Deduce all you want; if you’re building on quicksand, your house is going to fall down.
“(Skeptics) don’t know what a pleasure it is to be able to think things through.”
Yes, what a warm glow you experience in the bosom of conformity.
All science relies heavily on inductive reasoning. We make a bunch of specific observations and try to come up with a general rule. That’s inductive reasoning.
Deductive reasoning is the opposite. You take general rules and apply them to specific circumstances.
Inductive and deductive reasoning are both appropriate if done in a reasonable way. Both are subject to the GIGO rule. Garbage in, garbage out.
If you start from shaky premises, deductive reasoning is likely to yield unreliable results. That’s one of the problems with climate modeling. Some of the premises built into computer models are based on issues which are not understood very well. This generates uncertainty in the results. With each iteration of the computer model, the uncertainty feeds on itself and grows. You are left with a result which is wholly questionable.
At the same time, one can observe that in the past, attempts to simulate and predict complex systems have not done very well. As a result one should be skeptical of an untested computer simulation which is advanced as making valid predictions.
Inductive reasoning to be sure, but very solid, IMHO.
Yep…. No warming for ten years and a Tropical Troposphere that hasn’t warmed in accordance to AGW models.
AGW falsifies itself.
Eventually Luke will be overwhelmed by the cognitive dissonance that surrounds him.
Unlike Luke… I tend to use my eyes, as well as my ears. An open mind is a great thing… But only if your brain doesn’t fall out. 😉
An embarrasingly short time ago I accepted AGW, since I had never done any serious reading about it. But it didn’t take many months of study to become skeptical. However, the true believers will not change their beliefs based on just a decade or two of fasification, and they will claim that CO2 will drive temperatures over centuries, forget the short term.
I am optimistic the ordinary citizen will see the light (and the cooling), and these articles and these blogs will help turn the tide.
Dee,
What a wonderful posting; and as a trained scientist I agree with you entirely. I wish I could have put it so succinctly. I am very tired of the New Scientist position of accepting as gospel and without any evidence, all the AGW mantra.
Phillip
[…] at Watts Up With That?, Dee Norris states that she is a […]
Cool Post
I am in awe.
Steamboat Jack
I was under the naive belief that scientific theories were built on empirical data from which they could be developed and proven.
If a theory is contradicted by further empirical data, then it shows that the theory is wrong.
However, it seems with the AGW believers insist that when contradicting data turns up, they simply say that “we know our theory is correct but the contradicting data show us that we need to tweak our computer models”
Hmmmmm……
Obviously as a sceptic I am completely unqualified to have a view. I first wrote a program for the mathematical modelling of coupled chemical and physical phenomena more than 40 years ago. I spent my career not only writing mathematical models but also conducting experimental science, including rather a lot of temperature measurement. Hey ho. But “Luke” has at least one merit; he reminded me why I gave up regularly reading New Scientist decades ago.
You realize that this petition, which has gone through various names (see the Oregan Petition Project) was variously funded by the Heartland Institute and the George C. Marshall Institute, both which are themselves companies founded by Exxon.
It’s also circulated with a cover letter from Dr. Fred Seitz (see the site you link to for the Petition Project), who also was a denialism paid for years by the tobacco industry to tell the public that there is no scientific consensus that tobacco increases chances for cancer drastically.
Also attached to the petition was an apparent “research paper” titled: Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide. The paper was made to mimic what a research paper would look like in the National Academy’s prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy journal. The authors of the paper were Robinson, Sallie Baliunas, Willie Soon (both oil-backed scientists) and Robinson’s son Zachary. With the signature of a former NAS president and a research paper that appeared to be published in one of the most prestigious science journals in the world, many scientists were duped into signing a petition based on a false impression.
The petition was so misleading that the National Academy issued a news release stating that: “The petition project was a deliberate attempt to mislead scientists and to rally them in an attempt to undermine support for the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was not based on a review of the science of global climate change, nor were its signers experts in the field of climate science.”
The end result is that the Petition in question is a clever sham. Get a list of names together of scientists (rarely in the correct field to be of value, but that doesn’t matter to most people), put together a mock scientific journal article, and attach other things to give the appearance of credibility.
Ha! I gave a lecture in my University Intro Biology class last week about the dangers of consensus and used many of the same examples you have.
Go skeptics!
Excellent posting.
Science is never settled; once it does so it becomes dogma. Based on knowledge we possess, a theory may seem solid today yet be thrown out tomorrow based on the acquisition of new knowledge.
So am I.
By the way, if you wanted further confirmation that Mann et al. are on the money with the hockey stick reconstructions, they have a new paper out: Proxy-based reconstructions of hemispheric and global surface temperature variations over the past two millennia.
More comments on the new paper (published this past week) is in Nature:
The simple fact that the AGW “Climate Scientists” did not check any of the World’s temperature sensors to see if they were up to specs means that these self-annointed “Scientists” are just not doing Science. And that’s only the tip of the ice berg involving what is instead merely a gigantic AGW propaganda op., complete with its intentionally panic-inducing disasterizing.
As a retired practitioner of medical science, and a Classical Liberal, I’m pissed! [But for a mere $10 billion I will assemble a bunch of likewise “Scientists” who will “prove” that Global Warming will induce a virtual Heaven-on-Earth state of affairs for us all!]
There is no proven disease, but instead only an obviously disasterous cure proferred by AGW “believers”. Watch Europe closely to see just what havoc this controllist, Communistic “cure” entails. The EU is boldly projecting ~1% GDP growth for its immediate future, while it would take an immediate increase of 40% in its productivity just to catch up to that of the U.S., which also out performs the EU in decreasing the rate of even [AGW-demonized] CO2 production simply by being more efficient.
Strangely, France seems to be the only beacon of reason within the “Old World”, with its one Nuclear Reactor per one million people compared to the U.S.’s one per three million people – and France uses our technology, while Faux Liberals in the U.S. have prevented us from using this same technology for over 30 years. [I’m pissed!] When in the course of Evolution was it ever a successful strategy to let those who are essentially functional Infants run society? When was it ever “Scientific”?
Right on, Dee. Wish I could have expressed it so well.
Poor, delusional “Luke”. As is so typical of AGW believers, he has it completely backwards. It is AGWers who look for evidence to prove their conclusion and ignore any that does not fit what they believe, making it possible for them to believe in revealed religion and ignore anything that disputes it.
I believed the AGW nonsense until I actually started looking for the proof of it. As a Democrat, and former Gore supporter I had every reason to believe it, and no reason whatever to become a skeptic.
A little snip from the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary:
“Latin or Greek; Latin scepticus, from Greek skeptikos, from skeptikos thoughtful, from skeptesthai to look…”
Thoughtful and seeking… Two attributes that are necessary for a scientist.
The reasoning of Luke is seriously flawed. Since I follow the debate on GW, AGW, is it happening or not. I have notice that true believer of the phenomenon deal particularly badly to anything that contradict their belief.
The best example is Michael Mann’s hockey sticks, which gave the true believer their argument that mankind was causing unprecedented harm to the goddess earth.
The demonization Steve McIntyre for having provided proof that the claim didn’t hold under scrutiny showed that believers mind is already made and that nothing unsupportive of their position can be true.
It also leads some “reputable” journals to make that statement:
“Nature 455, 140 (11 September 2008) | doi:10.1038/455140b; Published online 10 September 2008
Climate change: ‘Hockey stick’ holds up
Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 13252–13257 (2008)
A fresh analysis of climate indicators shows that the Northern Hemisphere is warmer now than it has been in at least 1,300 years.
Previous analyses of climatic history by Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University in University Park and his colleagues produced a distinctive ‘hockey stick’ shape; but some of this analysis, and the tree-ring data it used, came under attack.
The latest work by Mann and his co-workers involves various climate proxies, including corals, ice cores, historical records and marine sediments. The authors show that current warming is anomalous even if all tree-ring data are eschewed.”
Shouldn’t they be scared to make such statement since it didn’t turned out so well the first time.
that should read above, “…did not check any of the World’s surface station temperature sensors…”
The difference between the Greek definition (to examine, to be thoughtful) and the modern day take (to be doubtful, to disagree with generally accepted conclusions) is telling.
Even the meanings of words have become politicized.
NOTE: The author broached this first, so I think the comment is relevant.
It’s always ironic that many skeptics of AGW fail to see the same patterns in treatment of those that are skeptics of Darwinism. The mechanisms of materialistic evolutionary change are, in my opinion, completely inadequate to account for much or most of biological sophistication. That’s not a religious position. It derives from what I think has been a fair evaluation of data in which I was not committed to a particular conclusion or inference.
But, Darwinism is orthodoxy. Skeptics are stereotypically and carelessly cast as fundamentalists, and thus the nature of modern skepticism of Darwinism is generally misunderstood. It’s a shame, just as it is in the case of AGW.
Reply – Darwinism was hardly orthodoxy when The Origin of Species was first published. Nor was the Heliocentric model. Nor was Bacterial Disease model… Nor was… Nor was… Nor was… – Dee Norris
Dee,
As a scientist (Ph.D. Chemistry) I really enjoyed your post. A couple of years ago I had a discussion with my father in law about the inevitability of global warming, particularly as he said “all the scientists agree”. My response to him was quick and simple, good scientists are very disagreeable people. (I must admit I am a bit concerned he accepted that disagreeable part so readily.) The concensus argument itself leads me to think “railroad”. Good scientists challenge the status quo.