Guest post by Steven Goddard
There is no question that some of the greatest minds have been scientists. Da Vinci, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Edison, Einstein, Fermi, Feynman are a few names that come to mind.
But how about the consensus? One of the most famous cases of consensus science gone ridiculous involved the theory of Continental Drift. In 1912, a German scientist named Alfred Wegener introduced the theory that the continents were not stationary, but rather moved.
Any child can see that the continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, yet the scientific community took over 50 years to stop ridiculing Wegener and accept his theory.
“Utter, damned rot!” said the president of the prestigious American Philosophical Society.
“If we are to believe in Wegener’s hypothesis we must forget everything which has been learned in the past 70 years and start all over again.” Geologist R. Thomas Chamberlain
“further discussion of it merely incumbers the literature and befogs the mind of fellow students.” Geologist Barry Willis
Sound familiar?
http://travel.state.gov/images/maps/brazil.gif
http://www.globalkids.info/v3/content/africa.jpg
Several earlier scientists had also observed the obvious – from Wikipedia :
Abraham Ortelius (1597), Francis Bacon (1625), Benjamin Franklin, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini (1858), and others had noted earlier that the shapes of continents on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean (most notably, Africa and South America) seem to fit together. W. J. Kious described Ortelius’ thoughts in this way:[1]
Abraham Ortelius in his work Thesaurus Geographicus … suggested that the Americas were “torn away from Europe and Africa … by earthquakes and floods” and went on to say: “The vestiges of the rupture reveal themselves, if someone brings forward a map of the world and considers carefully the coasts of the three [continents].
Not only do the continents fit together, but Wegener observed that their geology matched.
http://www.scientus.org/Wegener-DuToit.jpeg
And the fossils match.
. 
http://www.scientus.org/Pellegrini-Wegener-1.gif
We see a parallel to global warming. The earth is not warming out of control. Sea level is not rising out of control. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are not collapsing. The IPCC documents have been shown to be littered with junk science and fraud. The hockey team has been shown to be misusing their positions. Yet the consensus hangs on to the ridiculous, for the same reasons they did from 1912 to 1960. No one wants to “forget what they learned and start over again.”
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Peter Hearnden,
No one is claiming that humans can’t influence the climate. Anthony works tirelessly to demonstrate that they can with his Surface Stations Project, as does Roger Pielke Sr. etc. with his discussions of land use changes.
What I object to here are ongoing claims of 2-6 meter sea level rise, 6C rise in temperature, etc. Things that clearly are not happening.
Your straw man is dishonest.
I am surprised your article does not mention Henrik Svensmark.
Any child can see that the sun influences our climate and that clouds have a huge effect on surface temperature.
Why not investigate and try to find out how these pieces fit together?
Could cosmic rays be the link?
Wegener’s opponents from c. 1912 made an unstated assumption, to effect that deep-ocean basins are geophysically similar to continental landmasses. On this basis, geologists in good faith posed all manner of hypothetical features to deny “continental drift” despite the patently obvious interface of (say) Africa with South America, particularly when one takes account of continental shelves. Textbooks through the early 1960s continued treating Russia’s Ural Mountains chain as an anomaly, unaware that this marked a subduction zone similar to those engendering the Andes and the Himalayas.
Beginning in 1964 following the International Geophysical Year (1957 – ’58), deep-ocean “bathymetric” surveys discovered that miles-deep basins in fact bore no resemblance to continental “plates”. (The U.S. Navy’s submersible “Trieste” plumbed the Marianas Trench to a depth of 11,000 meters/36,000 feet in 1960). Rather than cling to an outworn hypothesis refuting Wegener in theory, geologists leapt on the new data, plotting “sea-floor spreading” along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge with concomitant magnetic reversals and other features that derived “plate tectonics”, a brand-new scientific discipline, in no more than a few years.
The contrast with today’s so-called “climate science” could not be more plain. Warmists such as Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann,Trenberth et al. have exactly zero basis for alarmist pronunciamentoes. Regardless of whether Planet Earth is undergoing a cyclical rebound from a 500-year Little ice Age following the Medieval Warm, nothing whatever supports their anthropogenic CO2 “greenhouse effect”, an on-paper
assertion based on circular computer models whose spurious data-bases, invalid “adjustments”, bad faith extrapolations render them mere propaganda exercises, the antithesis of objective, rational, scientific method. In fact, extrapolating any such effect is mathematically and physically impossible.
The sooner and more strongly these peculating fraudsters are exposed for the agenda-driven ideologues they are, the better will be not only science but political discourse. On a positive note, this sorry episode serves as an historic warning of what happens when incompetent, corrupt, unworthy claques of true believers push ruinously politicized junk-science in worldwide venues during this Communication Age. Individual intelligence is not the issue; like J.B. Rhine, Immanuel Velikhovsky, Trofim Lysenko, Climate Cultists’ “movement” con-job is not smart.
Tom P,
Positive snow anomalies are widespread at low latitudes around the Northern Hemisphere.
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_daily.php?ui_year=2010&ui_day=43&ui_set=2
You claim “one location” of unusual cold and snow. Did you mean North America, Europe or Asia as your “one location?” Or perhaps you meant the Northern Hemisphere?
It is up to “Scientists” to prove “Science”. It is up to each field of Science to prove it is correct in it’s assertions, laws and formulae. One field may challenge another whenever the two (or more) begin to approach (and converge and touch and blend).
The failure of Science and Scientists of the 20th and 21st Centuries (and it has happened in earlier times to a lesser degree) has been the loss of control over what is Science, who are Scientists, what is True and what is Not. Politicians are now in control of Science and Scientists and the Truths and Not-Truths of Science.
The AGW hysteria (or the coming Ice Age hysteria?) is the failure of Science and Scientists. You reap what you sew.
If there are any true “Doctors Of Science” (or Philosophy, or Economics, or -ad infinitum) in the world today who are worthy of the name. It is on their shoulders that the burden rests. It is up to them to fix the mess their predecessors –or they themselves– have created and bestowed upon their craft and trade.
You are what you eat, and Science (and Philosophy, and Education, and Younameit) has been eating a lot of crap lately. (Remember the first Law of Civilization – “Never trust a politician any farther than you can throw them.”)
Unlike other scientific controversies the greater problem with the AGW dispute is that AGW is being used as justification for massive tax increases and redistribution of wealth. Therein lies the basis for such fierce resistance to this unproven theory. It goes well beyond dissenting opinions between different scientific factions and the “see I told you I was right” attitude.
Jeremy,
Svensmark has an interesting theory which may or may not prove to be correct.
We all learned about Wilson’s cosmic ray cloud chamber experiment in school.
When skeptics come accross riduculous AGW theories that they are then supposed to disprove in order to prove them not true, it is easy, but not too polite, to refer to such theories as BS. I would suggest a more refined term, that could be used consistently – just call such theories a bunch of “mooloo.”
DLH (06:11:28) :
Were was I ” Ranting against “creationists” does not establish validity to any supposed “consensus” on abiogenesis. ”
I was merely stating, absolutely correctly, that back radiation in the proposed forms “creates” enrgy / heat / IR out of nothing.
Let me illustrate your misconception.
Two objects one emitting IR object a) at 50w/m2, and object b) emitting 100 W/M2.
The “sum” of this is obviously,
-50 + 100 = +50
It most definately is NOT,
+50 + 100 = 150.
Get the misconception yet. ?
“energy” has been created out of nothing, hence,
perfectly correctly,
“energy creationalist”…………
Ray said: “Def.: Pathological science is the process in science in which “people are tricked into false results … by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions”.”
N-Rays anyone? The parallels are there, same with Cold Fusion, AGW, continental drift, and any number of scientific and engineering issues throughout history, including the present. You can see the same thing in the high end audio world, with people who swear by the effects of magic bricks, exotic wire, etc. Main difference is that if the audio nuts want to believe that, it only costs them money for overpriced, useless junk, the AGW alarmists will wind up costing us not only money, but lives.
Continental drift was rejected not least because it was a ridiculous idea for its time – there was no mechanism for moving continents about. Too much force and too much energy was required. In fact, Arthur Holmes – a top notch geophysicist not a “mere” meteorologist – did propose the substance of the mechanism that is now accepted as correct – mantle convection – as early as 1928. But being a very honest fellow and a proper scientist he recognised that this was just a conjecture, there was no substantive evidence for it. Consequently acceptance or rejection of the conjecture would have to wait upon some evidence. Actual evidence in the shape of the mid ocean ridges and magnetic stripes in the sea floor didn’t come until the 1950s and 1960s. Thus it was by no means unscientific to be sceptical about continental drift until the 1960s.
Though Naomi Oreskes is generally barking, she’s written quite a good book about how the politics of science and the theory of continental drift interacted :
http://www.amazon.com/Rejection-Continental-Drift-American-Science/dp/019511733
At present, the Arthur Holmes approach is the only scientific one for global warming too. There are some interesting conjectures, but there is just insufficient evidence to how much of a problem global warming might turn out to be.
Please allow me to write the above down more clearly.
object a) emitting at 50 w/m2
and,
object b) emitting at 100 w/m2
Object a) emits (minus) 50, and recieves (adds) 100 = net gain of +50.
ie, -50+100=+50
Object b) emits (minus) 100, and recieves (adds) 50 = net loss of -50
ie, -100+50=-50
IF there were a third object at absolute zero inbetween,
then it might just recieve,
object a) (adds) 50, and object b) (adds) 100 = net gain of +150.
ie, +50+100=+150
But there ain’t an “object c)”, so that is ridiculous.
That’s a pithy quote, but it doesn’t quite explain the process. He also said something to the effect that there are no revolutions in science, rather the old guard die off and a new group who have learned to think differently take their place.
With regard to how rapidly the theory of seafloor spreading went mainstream. In 1961 someone who believed in it was probably considered a nut, and by 1963 if one didn’t believe in it they were considered a nut.
Often a few influential people maintain the status quo. There were stirrings of a theory of continental drift in the 1930s (the geographer Philip Lake for instance), but Sir Harold Jeffreys was set against it, in much the way that Lord Kelvin was set against an earth that was more than a few millions of years old in the 1890s–eminent scientists too certain of their own correctness.
@Mooloo (20:21:05) :
“Quantum theory never had to put up much fight. ”
You are quite wrong there. Remember the famous exchange between Einstein and Max Born where there is the famously paraphrased exchange of Einstein and Born (note they never actually said this)
Einstein: “God does not play dice with the Universe.”
Born: “Don’t tell god what to do.”
It may not have put up the fight that other theories have, but it hit a lot of resistance from a lot of physicists.
Mooloo
“If you want to prove AGW is wrong, then you need to prove AGW is wrong. Nothing else will do.”
We haven’t been SHOWN that AGW might be credible. In fact we haven’t been shown that “Global Warming” is true, or to put neutrally, we don’t have a credible record of the earth’s temperature(s) over the last 150 years.
With this available, work could start on the science, with theories being proposed and discussed. Only after that, with probably several interations, would credibility grow. Without that, it’s not science. And if it is not science, then post-normal science does not come into it; that would be only for those who have “believed”, perhaps!
In many science experiments, the ‘experiment’ can be repeated independently by different people, using different equipment, in a different country at a different time of year. We could go on ….! But for AGW, we cannot go back in the past and measure temperatures – from anywhere, so we need the raw temperature data that has already been collected and the associated information. Until that, we are not skeptics, just data poor.
PS: nearly speaking of poor data, why hasn’t http://www.surfacestations.org initiated a reaction by the authorities to improve the quality of the weather stations – or have I missed something? Or are they ‘climate stations’?
The inability to explain a dynamic mechanism was no excuse. The geologic, geomorphological and paleontological records demonstrated unequivocally that Wegener was correct about the former relative positions of the continents.
Did scientists doubt the existence of life before DNA was discovered?
Wegener’s critics demonstrated a lack of critical thinking skills.
John Whitman (22:56:00) :
I am working on a chart that shows data flow from sensor to product for all ocean buoy, satelite and ground based processes, etc, etc.
++++++
Verrrrry cool! I hope Anthony will agree to publish it when you’re done. We’ve really needed a flow chart on how these things aggregate, and which data goes where! All those acronyms are confusing as hell, particularly as folks go acronym hopping from USHCN to GHCN to CRUTEM to GISS to etc etc
“Mooloo (20:21:05) :
[…]
If you want to prove AGW is wrong, then you need to prove AGW is wrong. Nothing else will do. Going off on a tangent about how other scientists were wrong in the past is totally and utterly irrelevant.”
Ok, if you want it. AGW posits that earth warms. Surface temperature show slight cooling for the last 12 years. Even though we increased athmospheric CO2 by 38 %. So where else can the heat / the stored energy be? In the oceans. Argo measurements show that the oceans don’t accumulate heat since 2003.
QED. There you go.
Well if anything we can lump the error or wisdom of global warming under group-think. The consensus is meaningless.
Steve Goddard (06:26:24) :
“You claim “one location” of unusual cold and snow.”
I claim nothing of the sort – it is rather you who made a spurious point about temperatures in the Deep South. Again, as Spencer said “Northern Hemispheric land, on a whole, is not as cold as many of us thought.”
stephen richards (06:03:30) :
“You’re back again with your usual crap. Arhennius did indeed say that CO² molecules could be heated by incoming IR radiation. What he never got right was how a more energetic CO² molecule would affect the rest of the atmosphere.”
Crudely argued and quite wrong. The major problems with Arrhenius’ original analysis are to do with treating the atmosphere as a single slab and neglecting the effect of water vapour. The kinetic theory of gases shows how injecting energy into one gas will cause heating of the atmosphere as a whole – Arrhenius certainly got the simple thermodynamics right.
The science was settled.
“Danish physicist Niels Bohr proposed in 1913 that the electrons in atoms are arranged in shells surrounding the nucleus, and that for all noble gases except helium the outermost shell always contains eight electrons.[11] In 1916, Gilbert N. Lewis formulated the octet rule, which concluded an octet of electrons in the outer shell was the most stable arrangement for any atom; this arrangement caused them to be unreactive with other elements since they did not require any more electrons to complete their outer shell.[14]
In 1962 Neil Bartlett discovered the first chemical compound of a noble gas, xenon hexafluoroplatinate.[15] Compounds of other noble gases were discovered soon after: in 1962 for radon, radon fluoride,[16] and in 1963 for krypton, krypton difluoride (KrF2).[17] The first stable compound of argon was reported in 2000 when argon fluorohydride (HArF) was formed at a temperature of 40 K (−233.2 °C; −387.7 °F).[18]” – from Wikipedia
In 1963 I presented the Bartlett work at a graduate chemistry seminar and was almost stoned, such heresy, everybody KNEW that the ‘noble’ gases would not mix with the commoners.
They now acclaim the man who they reviled and ridiculed – http://acswebcontent.acs.org/landmarks/bartlett/bartlett.html.
scienceofdoom,
Whether the measurements were taken in the day or at night is fantastically important when you’re claiming to measure downward IR flux. More than half of what we receive from the sun is already in the IR, so a daytime measurement is just measuring spectral lines by shining a light source through a gas. Anyone could do that in a lab with just air. The energy measured is just solar energy.
If at night, what was the upward flux? When talking about IR, the Earth would still be radiating because the IR radiation is thermal. What was the surface temperature and what was the atmosphere’s temperature profile at the time of measurement? What was the humidity profile?
One of the complaints the skeptics have is that you can fling poo on a page, say it proves global warming, and a science journal will approve it for publication within a day.
I live in a street (in Cambridge) populated with fellows and lecturers at the University.
I sometimes wonder if the rarified atmosphere in which they exist bestows upon them an adequate ration of common sense….
Anyway – on the matter of continental drift, I understand that Florida was originally part of West Africa – as the geology is totally different to neighbouring states…
Steve: Svensmark has an interesting theory which may or may not prove to be correct.
Agreed. The CERN CLOUD experiment may help prove or disprove the cosmic ray part. We may have results soon.
My point is that the way the continents fit together like a jigsaw is similar to the sun and cloud cover being screamingly obvious places to look for global climate drivers. From an atmospheric physics perspective, sun and clouds both seem like the best candidates for playing a major role while CO2, a trace gas, is such a poor candidate for a primary driver. This is so obvious that a child can understand it.
The real story here is about the sociological environment of scientific communities.
Even if scientists where infinity intelligent, they’d still be herd animals like the rest of us. If the herd is going in one direction, it is a rare individual that will choose to go the other way. This theoretical herd of infinitely intelligent scientists will apply their intelligence to mock them.
To my mind, the best scientists are borderline autistic (a la big bang’s Sheldon). These people can abandon their own ideas with no thought to social consequences.