Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Judith Curry posted here on WUWT regarding rebuilding the lost trust we used to have in climate science and climate scientists. This is my response to her post, an expansion and revision of what I wrote in the comments on that thread.
First, be clear that I admire Judith Curry greatly. She is one of the very, very few mainstream climate scientists brave enough to enter into a public dialogue about these issues. I salute her for her willingness to put her views on public display, and for tackling this difficult issue.
As is often my wont in trying to understand a long and complex dissertation, I first made my own digest of what Judith said. To do so, I condensed each of her paragraphs into one or a few sentences. Here is that digest:
Digest of Judith Curry’s Post: On the Credibility of Climate Research, Part II: Towards Rebuilding Trust
1 I am trying an experiment by posting on various blogs
2 Losing the Public’s Trust
2.1 Climategate has broadened to become a crisis of trust in climate science in general.
2.2 Credibility is a combination of expertise and trust. Trust in the IPCC is faltering.
2.3 The scientists in the CRU emails blame their actions on “malicious interference”.
2.4 Institutions like the IPCC need to ask how they enabled this situation.
2.5 Core research values have been compromised by warring against the skeptics.
2.6 Climategate won’t go away until all this is resolved.
3 The Changing Nature of Skepticism about Global Warming
3.1 Skepticism has changed over time.
3.2 First it was a minor war between advocacy groups. Then, a “monolithic climate denial machine” was born. This was funded by the oil industry.
3.3 Because of the IPCC reports, funding for contrary views died up. It was replaced by climate auditors. The “climate change establishment” didn’t understand this and kept blaming the “denial machine”.
4 Climate Auditors and the Blogosphere.
4.1 Steve McIntyre’s auditing became popular and led to blogs like WUWT.
4.2 Auditors are independent, technically educated people mostly outside of academia. They mostly audit rather than write scientific papers.
4.3 The FOIA requests were motivated by people concerned about having the same people who created the dataset using the dataset in their models.
4.4 The mainstream climate researchers don’t like the auditors because Steve McIntyre is their arch-nemesis, so they tried to prevent auditors publishing in the journals. [gotta confess I couldn’t follow the logic in this paragraph]
4.5 The auditors succeeded in bringing the climate establishment to its knees because people trusted the auditors.
5 Towards Rebuilding Trust
5.1 Ralph Cicerone says that two aspects need attention, the general practice of science and the personal behaviours of scientists. Investigations are being conducted.
5.2 Climate science has not adapted to being high profile. How scientists engage with the public is inadequately discussed. The result is reflexive support for IPCC and its related policies.
5.3 The public and policy makers don’t understand the truth as presented by the IPCC. More efficient strategies can be devised by recognizing that we are dealing with two groups: educated people, and the general public. To rebuild trust scientists need to discuss uncertainty. [“truth as presented by the IPCC? say what?]
5.4 The blogosphere can be a powerful tool for increasing credibility of climate research. The climate researchers at realclimate were the pioneers in this. More scientists should participate in these debates.
5.5 No one believes that the science is settled. Scientists and others say that the science is settled. This is detrimental to public trust.
5.6 I hope this experiment will demonstrate how the blogosphere can rebuild trust.
Having made such a digest, my next step is to condense it into an “elevator speech”. This is a very short statement of the essential principles. My elevator speech of Judith’s post is this.
Climategate has destroyed the public trust in climate science. Initially skepticism was funded by big oil. Then a climate auditing movement sprang up. They were able to bring the climate establishment to its knees because people trusted them. Public and policy makers don’t understand the truth as presented by the IPCC. To rebuild trust, climate scientists need to better communicate their ideas to the public, particularly regarding uncertainty. The blogosphere can be valuable in this regard.
OK, now what’s wrong with Judith’s picture?
Can The Trust Be Rebuilt?
First, let me say that the problem is much bigger than Judith seems to think. Wiser men than I have weighed in on this question. In a speech at Clinton, Illinois, September 8, 1854, Abraham Lincoln said:
If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
So it will not be easy. The confidence is forfeit, that ship has sailed.
The biggest problem with Judith’s proposal is her claim that the issue is that climate scientists have not understood how to present their ideas to the public. Judith, I respect you greatly, but you have grabbed the wrong end of the stick. The problem is not how climate scientists have publicly presented their scientific results. It is not a communication problem.
The problem is that 71.3% of what passes as peer reviewed climate science is simply junk science, as false as the percentage cited in this sentence. The lack of trust is not a problem of perception or communication. It is a problem of lack of substance. Results are routinely exaggerated. “Scientific papers” are larded with “may” and “might” and “could possibly”. Advocacy is a common thread in climate science papers. Codes are routinely concealed, data is not archived. A concerted effort is made to marginalize and censor opposing views.
And most disturbing, for years you and the other climate scientists have not said a word about this disgraceful situation. When Michael Mann had to be hauled in front of a congressional committee to force him to follow the simplest of scientific requirements, transparency, you guys were all wailing about how this was a huge insult to him.
An insult to Mann? Get real. Mann is an insult and an embarrassment to climate science, and you, Judith, didn’t say one word in public about that. Not that I’m singling you out. No one else stood up for climate science either. It turned my stomach to see the craven cowering of mainstream climate scientists at that time, bloviating about how it was such a terrible thing to do to poor Mikey. Now Mann has been “exonerated” by one of the most bogus whitewashes in academic history, and where is your outrage, Judith? Where are the climate scientists trying to clean up your messes?
The solution to that is not, as you suggest, to give scientists a wider voice, or educate them in how to present their garbage to a wider audience.
The solution is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science. The solution is for you establishment climate scientists to police your own back yard. When Climategate broke, there was widespread outrage … well, widespread everywhere except in the climate science establishment. Other than a few lone voices, the silence there was deafening. Now there is another whitewash investigation, and the silence only deepens.
And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes.
And you still don’t seem to get it. You approvingly quote Ralph Cicerone about the importance of transparency … Cicerone?? That’s a sick joke.
You think people made the FOI (Freedom of Information) requests because they were concerned that the people who made the datasets were the same people using them in the models. As the person who made the first FOI request to CRU, I assure you that is not true. I made the request to CRU because I was disgusted with the response of mainstream climate scientists to Phil Jone’s reply to Warwick Hughes. When Warwick made a simple scientific request for data, Jones famously said:
Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?
When I heard that, I was astounded. But in addition to being astounded, I was naive. Looking back, I was incredibly naive. I was so naive that I actually thought, “Well, Phil’s gonna get his hand slapped hard by real scientists for that kind of anti-scientific statements”. Foolish me, I thought you guys were honest scientists who would be outraged by that.
So I waited for some mainstream climate scientist to speak out against that kind of scientific malfeasance … and waited … and waited. In fact, I’m still waiting. I registered my protest against this bastardisation of science by filing an FOI. When is one of you mainstream climate scientist going to speak out against this kind of malfeasance? It’s not too late to condemn what Jones said, he’s still in the news and pretending to be a scientist, when is one of you good folks going to take a principled stand?
But nobody wants to do that. Instead, you want to complain and explain how trust has been broken, and you want to figure out more effective communication strategies to repair the trust.
You want a more effective strategy? Here’s one. Ask every climate scientist to grow a pair and speak out in public about the abysmal practices of far, far too many mainstream climate scientists. Because the public is assuredly outraged, and you are all assuredly silent, sitting quietly in your taxpayer funded offices and saying nothing, not a word, schtumm … and you wonder why we don’t trust you?
A perfect example is you saying in your post:
Such debate is alive and well in the blogosphere, but few mainstream climate researchers participate in the blogospheric debate. The climate researchers at realclimate.org were the pioneers in this …
For you to say this without also expressing outrage at realclimate’s ruthless censorship of every opposing scientific view is more of the same conspiracy of silence. Debate is not “alive and well” at realclimate as you say, that’s a crock. Realclimate continues to have an undeserved reputation that it is a scientific blog because you and other mainstream climate scientists are unwilling to bust them for their contemptuous flouting of scientific norms. When you stay silent about blatant censorship like that, Judith, people will not trust you, nor should they. You have shown by your actions that you are perfectly OK with realclimate censoring opposing scientific views. What kind of message does that send?
The key to restoring trust has nothing to do with communication. Steve McIntyre doesn’t inspire trust because he is a good communicator. He inspires trust because he follows the age-old practices of science — transparency and openness and freewheeling scientific discussion and honest reporting of results.
And until mainstream climate science follows his lead, I’ll let you in on a very dark, ugly secret — I don’t want trust in climate science to be restored. I don’t want you learning better ways to propagandize for shoddy science. I don’t want you to figure out how to inspire trust by camouflaging your unethical practices in new and innovative ways. I don’t want scientists learning to use clever words and communication tricks to get people to think that the wound is healed until it actually is healed. I don’t want you to learn to use the blogosphere to spread your pernicious unsupported unscientific alarmism.
You think this is a problem of image, that climate science has a bad image. It is nothing of the sort. It is a problem of scientific malfeasance, and of complicity by silence with that malfeasance. The public, it turns out, has a much better bullsh*t detector than the mainstream climate scientists do … or at least we’re willing to say so in public, while y’all cower in your cubbyholes with your heads down and never, never, never say a bad word about some other climate scientist’s bogus claims and wrong actions.
You want trust? Do good science, and publicly insist that other climate scientists do good science as well. It’s that simple. Do good science, and publicly call out the Manns and the Joneses and the Thompsons and the rest of the charlatans that you are currently protecting. Call out the journals that don’t follow their own policies on data archiving. Speak up for honest science. Archive your data. Insist on transparency. Publish your codes.
Once that is done, the rest will fall in line. And until then, I’m overjoyed that people don’t trust you. I see the lack of trust in mainstream climate science as a huge triumph for real science. Fix it by doing good science and by cleaning up your own backyard. Anything else is a coverup.
Judith, again, my congratulations on being willing to post your ideas in public. You are a rara avis, and I respect you greatly for it.
w.
PS – In your post you talk about a “monolithic climate denial machine”?? Puhleease, Judith, you’re talking to us individual folks who were there on the ground individually fighting the battle. Save that conspiracy theory for people who weren’t there, those who don’t know how it went down.
This is another huge problem for mainstream climate scientists and mainstream media alike. You still think the problem is that we opposed your ideas and exposed your errors. You still see the climate scientists as the victims, even now in 2010 when the CRU emails have shown that’s nonsense. Every time one of your self-appointed spokes-fools says something like “Oh, boo hoo, the poor CRU folks were forced to circle their wagons by the eeevil climate auditors”, you just get laughed at harder and harder. The CRU emails showed they were circling the FOI wagons two years before the first FOI request, so why haven’t you noticed?
The first step out of this is to stop trying to blame Steve and Anthony and me and all the rest of us for your stupidity and your dishonesty and your scientific malfeasance. [Edited by public demand to clarify that the “your stupidity” etc. refers to mainstream climate scientists as a group and not to Judith individually.] You will never recover a scrap of trust until you admit that you are the source of your problems, all we did was point them out. You individually, and you as a group, created this mess. The first step to redemption is to take responsibility. You’ve been suckered by people like Stephen Schneider, who said:
To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. Each of us has to decide the right balance between being effective, and being honest. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.
That worked fine for a while, but as Lincoln pointed out, it caught up with you. You want trust? Disavow Schneider, and STOP WITH THE SCARY SCENARIOS. At this point, you have blamed everything from acne to world bankruptcy on eeevil global warming. And you have blamed everything from auditors to the claimed stupidity of the common man for your own failures. STOP IT! We don’t care about your pathetic justifications, all you are doing is becoming the butt of jokes around the planet. You seem to have forgotten the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf. Read it. Think about it. Nobody cares about your hysteria any more. You are in a pit of your own making, and you are refusing to stop digging … take responsibility.
Because we don’t want scientists who are advocates. We’re not interested in scientists who don’t mention their doubts. We’re sick of your inane “simplified dramatic statements”. We laugh when you cry wolf with your scary scenarios. Call us crazy, but we want scientists who are honest, not scientists who balance honesty and effectiveness. You want trust? Get honest, kick out the scoundrels, and for goodness sakes, get a clue about humility.
Because the truth is, climate science is one of the newest sciences. The truth is, we know little about the climate, we’ve only been studying it intensely for a couple decades. The truth is, we can’t project the climate of the next decade, much less that of the next century. The truth is, we have no general theory of climate. The truth is, we don’t know if an average temperature rise of a couple degrees will be a net benefit or a net loss. The truth is, all of us are human, and our knowledge of the climate is in its infancy. And I don’t appreciate being lectured by infants. I don’t appreciate being told that I should be put in the dock in a Nuremberg style trial for disagreeing with infants. You want to restore trust? Come down off your pedestals, forsake your ivory towers, and admit your limitations.
And through all of this, be aware that you have a long, long, long climb back up to where we will trust you. As Lincoln warned, you have forfeited the confidence of your fellow citizens, and you will be damn lucky if you ever get it back.
[Update: please see Dr. Curry’s gracious response below, at Judith Curry (04:34:45)]
[Update 2: Dr. Curry’s second response is here, and my reply is here]
[Update 3: Dr. Curry steps up and delivers the goods. My reply.]
Sponsored IT training links:
Subscribe for 70-290 training and pass your real exam in first attempt. we offer guaranteed success with latest 642-974 dumps and 350-029 video tutorials.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Do you think part of the problem is (this not being physics or mathematics, it being something else entirely quite different) many climate scientists simply aren’t smart enough to be understanding what they claim to be understanding?
Because I do.
Wonderful! Does anyone want to mail a copy of this to Gordon Brown and David Cameron?
John,
I believe you’re spot on! Indeed, I sincerely appreciate passive-aggressives who take themselves off the playing field–probably their most responsible act (albeit unwittingly) ever ! 😉
this is for Judith.
I must say here, if it was not for WUWT, I would never have found out about the whole carbon dioxide scare scam and the fact that there has been little or no warming during the past 15 years. In fact, it was here that I learned why global warming is not even possible or probable. Here were my final conclusions on my own investigations (since Nov. 2009):
FOR MY CHILDREN, & FAMILY AND FRIENDS LIVING IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
You may not know this. For a hobby I did an investigation to determine whether or not your carbon footprint, i.e. carbon dioxide (CO2), is really to blame for global warming, as claimed by the UN, IPCC and many media networks. I guess I felt a bit guilty after watching “An inconvenient truth” by Al Gore, so I had to make sure for myself about the science of it all. If you scroll down to my earlier e-mails you will note that I determined that, as a chemist, I could not find any convincing evidence from tests proving to me that CO2 is indeed a major cause for global warming. As my investigations continued, I have now come to a point where I doubt that global warming is at all possible…. Namely, common sense tells me that as the sun heats the water of the oceans and the temperatures rise, there must be some sort of a mechanism that switches the water-cooling system of earth on, if it gets too hot. Follow my thinking on these easy steps:
1) the higher the temp. of the oceans, the more water vapor rises to the atmosphere,
2) the more water vapor rises from the oceans, the more difference in air pressure, the more wind starts blowing
3) the more wind & warmth, the more evaporation of water (evaporation increasing by many times due to the wind factor),
4) the more evaporation of water the more humidity in the air (atmosphere)
5) the higher the humidity in the air the more clouds can be formed
6) Svensmark’s theory: the more galactic cosmic rays (GCR), the more clouds are formed (if the humidity is available)
7) the more clouds appear, the more rain and snow and cooler weather,
8) the more clouds and overcast conditions, the more radiation from the sun is deflected from the earth,
9) The more radiation is deflected from earth, the cooler it gets.
10) This cooling puts a brake on the amount water vapor being produced. So now it is back to 1) and waiting for heat to start same cycle again…
Now when I first considered this, I stood in amazement again. I remember thinking of the words in Isaiah 40:12-26.
I have been in many factories that have big (water) cooling plants, but I realised that earth itself is a water cooling plant on a scale that you just cannot imagine. I also thought that my idea of seeing earth as a giant (water) cooling plant with a built-in thermostat must be pretty original….
But it was only soon after that I stumbled on a paper from someone on WUWT who had already been there, done that …. well, God bless him for that!
i.e. if you want to prove a point, you always do need at least two witnesses!
Look here (if you have the time):
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/14/the-thermostat-hypothesis/
But note my step 6. The Svensmark theory holds that galactic cosmic rays (GCR) initiate cloud formation. I have not seen this, but apparently this has been proven in laboratory conditions. So the only real variability in global temperature is most likely to be caused by the amount of GCR reaching earth. In turn, this depends on the activity of the sun, i.e. the extent of the solar magnetic field exerted by the sun on the planetary system. We are now coming out of a period where this field was bigger and more GCR was bent away from earth (this is what we, skeptics, say really caused “global warming”, mostly).
But apparently now the solar geomagnetic field is heading for an all time low.
Look here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/07/suns-magnetic-index-reaches-unprecedent-low-only-zero-could-be-lower-in-a-month-when-sunspots-became-more-active/
Note that in the first graph, if you look at the smoothed monthly values, there was a tipping point in 2003 (light blue line). I cannot ignore the significance of this. I noted similar tipping points elsewhere round about that same time, (e.g. in earth’s albedo, going up). From 2003 the solar magnetic field has been going down. To me it seems for sure that we are now heading for a period of more cloudiness and hence a period of global cooling. If you look at the 3rd graph, it is likely that there wil be no sun spots visible by 2015. This is confirmed by the paper on global cooling by Easterbrook:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/29/don-easterbrooks-agu-paper-on-potential-global-cooling/
In the 2nd graph of his presentation, Easterbrook projects global cooling into the future. These are the three lines that follow from the last warm period. If the cooling follows the top line we don’t have much to worry about and the weather will be similar to what we had in the previous (warm) period. However, indications are already that we have started following the trend of the 2nd line, i.e. cooling based on the 1880-1915 cooling. In that case it will be the coldest from 2015 to 2020 and the climate will be comparable to what it was in the fifties and sixties. I survived that time, so I guess we all will be fine, if this is the right trendline.
Note that with the third line, the projection stops somewhere after 2020. So if things go that way, we don’t know where it will end. Unfortunately, earth does not have a heater with a thermostat that switches on if it gets too cold. Too much ice and snow causes more sunlight to be reflected from earth. Hence, the trap is set. This is known as the ice age trap. This is why the natural state of earth is that of being covered with snow and ice. This paper was a real eye opener for me:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/hockey-stick-observed-in-noaa-ice-core-data
However, man is resourceful and may find ways around this problem if we do start falling into a little ice age again. As long as we are not ignorant and listen to the so-called climate scientists whose agenda’s depend on money. A green agenda is still useless if it has the wrong items on…
Obviously: As Easterbrook notes, global cooling is much more disastrous for humans than global warming.
Note that in Easterbrook’s projection graph, the line showing the increase and decrease in global temperatures of the northern latitude is dashed. It looks like the northern hemisphere is always getting the brunt of the extreme weather.
So if you get tired of all that ice and snow, you may know that you are always most welcome to come and stay with us here, in the southern hemisphere!
Blessings from your child, brother, dad, friend,
date: 24 Jan. 2010
Dear Dr. Curry,
“So I would like to ask all of you to stop second guessing my motives, and discuss my arguments.”
Just for the record, I have no idea what your motives are now, or have been in the past. I for one am glad to see you here, and as I’ve already intimated in a previous posting, I think you are showing considerable courage. FWIW, I think your motives are honourable.
You say you want us to discuss your arguments. But I’m not quite sure what arguments those might be, in the sense of what it is you are arguing for in the science. What do you believe to be true based on your own research, for example? Has that changed in a “post-climategate” world? Are you now any more sceptical than previously about AGW? I ask that because you say: “I am angry as a scientist, since I may have been using unnecessarily inaccurate surface temperature data in my research”.
I mean, if that is the case, then presumably, there’s a chance that some of the conclusions you have come to in your own past work could, through no fault of your own, be undermined. And, I suppose, since many other honest scientists may have relied on this data, they could be feeling the same anger as you, but, not possessing your courage, not be poking their heads above the parapet.
I’m not interested in venting my anger on you, which, I have to be honest, I think some here have been doing (albeit that I understand that after the years of abuse they might have suffered from other scientists). I’m much more interested in what you can do for the cause – not “pro-“ or “anti-“, but simply for the cause of truth, whatever that might be. I personally don’t give a damn what that truth is. If the world is warming, if that is due to anthropogenic CO2 production, and if it could prove catastrophic, then so be it.
It’s just that so far I have seen nothing to convince me that is the case. I’ve never even seen an explanation of how the necessary positive feedbacks might work, or any experiments proposed that might be able to test that. It seems very unlikely to me that for ages the world has been only a hairsbreadth away from runaway warming, just waiting for a comparatively small amount of anthropogenic CO2 to come along and bring Armageddon.
And why would runaway warming stop once it started? The maximum claims for temperature increase seem to lie around 6 degrees centigrade. So evidently, there seems to be an idea that eventually, the positive feedbacks would be countered by negative ones. Well, if that’s the case, then the possibility of negative feedback seems implied – so might it not kick in earlier, after, say, a 2 degree rise? Might it not, indeed, have already kicked in?
I have a science degree, albeit not in a very numerate discipline (zoology), and even did a few years postgraduate research, so maybe I’m a tad more able to grasp the science than the average Joe Sixpack, but I don’t actually think you need a science degree to start wondering about AGW theory, and certainly not to doubt its credibility in light of climategate, revelations about the IPCC process, explanations on blogs like this of how temperature data is collected and manipulated, the potential influences of UHI and the dropping of rural station data, and so on.
It all sounds very fishy, and it doesn’t help when a few influential scientists have been shown to be less than highly principled, nor when politico-economic interest groups have been buzzing around this issue for years like flies on dung.
If you want to rescue the credibility of your field, Dr. Curry, then you just need to work towards the discovery of the truth, whatever it might be. And that could include the possibility that AGW is an incorrect theory. If you are seen to be doing that, then you will be demonstrating your own credibility. Dr. Spencer, who posts here occasionally, has demonstrated his, and been well-received even when he recently posted satellite data suggesting that January global average temperature was high despite all the NH snow. By and large, he was warmly received, and his results accepted. There appears to be a great deal of respect for him here.
Just be like Dr. Spencer. No necessity for any kind of conscious PR exercise. Your best “PR exercise”, and the most use you can be to the cause of disinterested scientific research as it relates to the blogosphere, is the display of disinterested science. And the more scientists that come to sceptical blogs and do the same thing, the more trust will be instilled, providing that everything is seen to be open and above board.
If critiques are made, and errors pointed out by the many very smart people with much better understanding than I, then take them on board. Don’t talk about how to set up the dialogue, simply have the dialogue. Also, don’t have a preconceived notion of what the “satisfactory” outcome might be. I don’t think you’re ever going to be able to simply use rhetoric to persuade people that the science ought to be trusted. Whether one is insulting (as are so many AGW supporters), or nice (as you are), is irrelevant. All that matters is the case and whether the evidence is convincing.
If any scientist thinks that we are just too dim and that it’s all too complex for us, and doesn’t engage at a sufficiently deep cognitive level, then no attempt to build bridges is going to work. Well, okay, I might be too dim, but like I said, there are many who are much brighter than I, and, who knows, than you too. I learn a great deal from them, and so might even you. I teach adults for a living, and many of them, in some areas, know a great deal more than I do. I don’t get defensive about that; I just learn from it and use it to enhance my own expertise. They are my amongst my best allies in my ongoing teacher training.
Judith Curry (17:24:13) :
“Yes we disagree about many things, but perhaps we can find some common ground and maybe some of us will even change our minds based on the arguments, which is the sign of an honest skeptic”
Judy, Judy, Judy, how I hate to get personal in the ARPA NET.
But what a weird statement.
You go first. Be the honest skeptic yourself. You can do it, we can help!
Why don’t we change our minds not on argument but on reality, if it is even perceivable or measurable, go ahead and try that first. Do some measurements yourself, make sure they are accurate, then start wondering about what it all could mean. But keep your mouth shut on what you think it mightoughta couldoughta shouldoughta mean!
Ambiguity and complete uncertainty is just so scary, the possibility of which none of you employed climate scientists seem able to ponder.
I don’t change my mind based on anyone’s argument. Some of the most powerful arguers I know are nothing but starving snake oil salesmen. Some are in jail, or soon will be. Some committed suicide, some died of cancer and car wrecks. Some are narcissistic spouse batterers. Shrug. Que Sera.
I don’t “trust” anyone, especially arguers. Everyone has a price, and everyone has an absolutely secret life.
Why don’t we just not make up our minds at all if we are scientists?
Aren’t the scientists supposed to be the skeptics first and last?
You apparently have no idea of the fury and destruction all of you AGW scientists have caused already through the hysterical tabloid media. To hear a presidential candidate passionately tell the world he is going to lower the sea levels, doesn’t that make you lose sleep too????? Or laugh hysterically?????
I’m glad you have a personal relationship with Willis, I’m glad you posted your attempts at reconciliation, I’m glad the average Joe engineer/scientist/mathematician is expressing himself on the blogs.
Remember, the majority are now older and wiser, not 20somethings you can seduce with a groupie chat at Starbucks, a pizza evening around the ski lodge, or on Realclimate..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I see!’ said the Queen. `Off with their heads!’
“Yeah, I’m angry about a lost decade and countless insults and all the rest, but so what?”
Yeah…I’m angry too, but it’s not like there are evil folks who are using junk science to scam the clueless masses out of trillions and who are plotting to take over the world…oh wait…it’s exactly like that.
KBO!
Dan (23:07:06)
Dan, I am happy to discuss these matters with anyone and answer questions, anytime. Look into a forum. I’m on the West Coast of the US. My email is willis [at) surfacetemps.org
Before we get that far, however, let me ask you a couple questions. First, you say:
Please point to where I said that “errors in one area automatically nullifies any gains in understanding across the science as a whole.” I do not recall ever making that claim either directly or indirectly.
Next, you say:
Same problem. If you think I don’t understand something, what is it that I don’t understand? This kind of vague accusation is unsettling, and unanswerable.
I also am put off by the ‘Don’t mess with me, I’m a climate scientist’ attitude. Either you know what you are talking about or you don’t, and these days if someone is a climate scientist it inclines me to believe the latter …
Before going further, it might be valuable for you to read some of my other writings on climate science. These include:
The Thermostat Hypothesis
The People vs. The CRU
The Unbearable Complexity of Climate
Where Are The Corpses?
When Results Go Bad
Can’t See The Signal For The Trees
Tropical Tropospheric Amplification
Problems With Publishing Scientific Information On The Web: How Unusual Were Temperatures In Svalbard, Norway?
Sinking In Tuvalu
Climate change effect on Lake Tanganyika?
Problems with the Juckes Proxies
A Closer Look At Smoothing Potentially Non-Stationary Time Series
The Steel Greenhouse
A Discussion of Santer Et At. 2006
An Analysis of the TOPEX Sea Level Record
Congenital Climate Abnormalities
Fudged Fevers in the Frozen North
Alaskan Warming Threnody
Forensic Climatology and the CET
But wait! There’s more! If you order in the next fifteen minutes, you can also download, absolutely free, my 12-cartoon magnum opus, Interview With The Prophet. Act now, this is a one-time offer and supplies are limited!
All the best,
w.
Judith Curry, I do not see any way that there will be a meeting in the middle between AGW proponents and people who dispute this. It won’t happen between scientists on either side either.
The reason is that AGW has been used as a Trojan horse into civil societies all over the world to force major changes in lifestyle, including more taxes. In England, for instance, there is now talk of people not being able to afford electricity charges and going off the grid, back to burning coal to keep warm, candles for lighting, and so on. It will get worse when older coal fired stations are closed instead of renewed, which has been ordered by the EU beaurocrats.
AGW is used to curtail our freedom politically, and to push for a world government (as was exposed by Lord Monkton in examining the first draft of the treaty). It is intruding regulations into our lives in every area.
There is no way that there can be anything but a complete routing of the politics, and the scientists who propose this. Your scientific stance is the foundation of this. When you hear and read of elderly people unable to keep themselves warm, do you not feel some responsibility?
By the way, there was a report released the other day which completely debunks your own position on hurricanes. As your whole career seems to be about promoting the idea that there are going to be more fierce storms and hurricanes and wild weather in the future, where does this study leave you?
Prof Curry, my reading of your essay suggests to me that you have spent too many years with your students, pontificating, and not enough time with adults in industry. Your essay reeks of complacent superiority with a sop to us ignorant masses.
People whose lives are made more difficult by you have a right to be angry and to forcefully speak and write to reject your theories.
I repeat, there is no middle ground. This false hypothesis needs to be defeated and eliminated.
Now the blowtorch is being put to the whole of your scientific discipline that you have been happily working in for years, with no thought to the many bad things that are happening from this AGW theory and the political repercussions to real people.
I guess if I were a well paid Prof in a academic well paid job I wouldn’t be worrying either. You say yourself that you have no worries about position or funding.
Therefore, you probably have not experienced having to keep a room unlit because that week you could not afford the new lighbulbs mandated by the Government on your AGW theory, which cost 100 times more than ordinary incandescent bulbs.
However I have, and I have had enough of this nonsense, so now I am pushing back. Take responsibility Judith Curry for the damage you have done to ordinary people with your selected theory based on dodgy statistics and temperature readings as now acknowledged by yourself.
Oh, and that in itself shows what sort of a scientist you are. Didn’t you check the basis of your studies yourself? Didn’t you take responsibility for all your research? How come it was left to Steve McIntyre to check the figures?
About motivations and why they are relevant and why they are not:
All science is done by people following methods to arrive at objective facts about the real world. Although the goal is always to reveal an objective fact, the practice of these methods is always performed by people, who are subjective — and in groups, people who teach other people how to perform these methods and which methods matter and which don’t. So whist there is a real world, our approach to it is always partially subjective.
Be careful not to confuse this with an extreme-postmodernist notion that no real knowledge is possible. Rather, it is merely acknowledging that everything we know is partly subjective.
How does this relate to motivations? Motivations are subjective, but they are not the only thing that’s subjective. Even one’s own personality can exert a subjective influence. If all the researchers in a field are shy introverted geeks who like sitting in a comfy office chair and eating pizza, you’ll probably find that they, as a group, favour “computer modelling” methods. If on the other hand your group is mostly composed of adventurous tough guys who love nothing more than attacking an obstacle course before lunch, then you’ll probably find that this group favours collecting data on remote field trips in dangerous terrain. Subjective preferences influence the chosen methods of research, and therefore which data they reveal.
So, motivations are just one part of subjective bias. It may seem like stating the obvious, but I wonder that everyone has overlooked this (apologies to those who haven’t). Everything that is said is said by someone. So we always have to try to take the subjective component into account — it cannot be removed entirely. Every scientist and every scientific group will suffer and always suffers from subjective bias. It is a fact of life. We are all individuals and we are all members of cultures.
The cardinal sin committed by the climate scientists, IMHO, was that they worried far too much about other peoples’ subjective bias — “you’re funded by oil companies” — but they failed to take into account their own personal biases. That’s what’s so grating about the “we’re experts in the field” story. Yes you’re experts in the field, but you are first and foremost human beings and always have been and always will be, and whilst you can wax lyrical about everyone else’s bias, the first place to look for bias is within yourselves.
So yes, motivations count, because we have to try to get past them to the truth. But the motives neither prove nor disprove that truth. Even if oil companies were trying to prove the science wrong — let them!!! — let them try to prove the science wrong. If the data they produce can be verified independently, then they are advancing science!
And if the data from climatologists can’t be independently checked, then they are not advancing science because independent verification is the only way we have for adjusting for the inherent bias that every human being suffers.
If you want objectivity, start by dealing with the subjectivity. Climate scientists got this wrong. They thought the way to deal with subjectivity was to ignore the objectivity of any subject who’s personal beliefs they didn’t personally agree with. That’s a subtle but f****** awful confusion. No, the way to deal with it is to receive the findings of others, and then duplicate them — if you can and their subjective and your subjective parts are wholly incompatible — you hate each other’s guts — but you can nevertheless replicate the same results by employing the same methods, then THAT is OBJECTIVE.
I agree with the gist of Judith Curry’s letter (calling for openess, transparency, building bridges), but think that her view of the “skeptical” blogosphere is naive. Making unsubstantiated accusations that are demonstrably false is not constructive, yet this is commonly done here on e.g. this blog. See eg http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/02/25/shame/
See also Anne van der Bom’s reaction on RC:
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=2808#comment-162787 and
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=2808#comment-162908
Not that I want to focus on the d-discussion, but she offers some salient points about choice of words:
“The terms ‘alarmism’ and ‘denialism’ are opposite sides of the same coin. The first implies making up a problem that doesn’t exist, while the latter means pretending that a real problem does not exist. She should therefore treat the terms equally.”
xyzlatin (00:22:32) :
I could be writing this to others as well, but consider a possibility. Suppose that in the past Dr. Curry genuinely believed that some of the vital data she used in her work was accurate. No: better – suppose you were in her position and believed that all that temperature data was accurate.
So there you are, you accept this data, can’t imagine why your peers, many of whom you might know personally, would have messed it up. You are carrying out your own work honestly, and everyone around you is accepting the data, too. You have academic credentials, you are a professor at a bone-fide institution, your work is getting funded and published, and all appears to be fine.
As for all those critics out there, well, how could they possibly be right? Surely it’s impossible for there to be some vast conspiracy? If you believe the data is right, and you believe in your work, then you are going to interpret it in line with the accepted narrative. You aren’t being evil, and you aren’t trying to foist junk science on anyone; in your own heart and mind, you sincerely believe you are doing the right thing.
Then along comes climategate, and you see that a few key individuals who have a big influence on the data, and the IPCC process, look to have been involved in dubious practices. You are a reflective person, and you can see how this might look to sceptics and the general public. Your reflex action is to reach out, to defend your field, to reassure. It isn’t so much a case of conscious arrogance, but you are unconsciously going along with another narrative – that you know more, are better qualified than any sceptic ever could be. Everything seems to be reinforcing that.
I believe Dr. Curry is a sincere person. I believe she wants to be helpful. I believe her actions in the past have had good intent. But I also wonder whether she hasn’t underestimated the collective brainpower of the blogs. There are people who also have PhDs, who are also working scientists, and they come from many different fields – maths, stats, chemistry, physics, geology, economics, and so on. Who knows, some of them may be more distinguished in their fields than she in her own. They could be much more than talented amateurs to be given grudging respect.
Acknowledging that could be extremely difficult. Being able to do so might take quite some time. There doesn’t have to be any ill-will or culpability. And if Dr. Curry has swallowed a few myths about a monolithic denial machine in the early days, well, there are not a few sceptics who are also wedded to conspiracy theories.
The whole thing could have an innocent explanation. One doesn’t have to call into question Dr. Curry’s integrity. There could be an opportunity here. Let’s not dismiss it rather curmudgeonly. Let’s have a little charity and understanding, and maybe a little humility ourselves. If we present a wall of hostility, what chance is there that any other scientist will feel encouraged to reach out? There’s a chance that such behaviour would come back at some stage and bite the sceptical movement in the posterior.
There are many, many times in my life where I have regretted my lack of generosity; far fewer when I’ve exhibited it, however difficult that was at the time. Think to your own experience. Ask yourself whether it isn’t the same for you.
It should be noted that the evil skeptics are not the ones having to retract their claims of climate doom and gloom, apologizing for their errors, working behind closed doors, admitting that they didn’t read the IPCC reports, substituting World Wildlife Fund eco-propaganda for scientific studies, losing their original data, manipulating data to fit their political agendas, or preventing other scientists from reviewing the results of their audits. That would be the global warming alarmists.
I think my ignorance of the subject makes for a good filter and I don’t want a Climate Scientist that can “talk better”. I use my ignorance for reading through 10K reports for companies I think I’d like to invest in. My portfolio has continued to grow in a down economy. Here’s how it works:
Did the data come from something objective, a computer program, or an ‘expert’?
– If program or expert, then mental masterbation
Was the data produced in-house or 3rd party?
– In house is suspect, 3rd party less-so. Blind preferred
Can I see the data?
– If no, then it’s a lie
Are the conclusions based on hard numbers or a strong feeling?
– If a feeling, then a lie, but exploitable
Is the legitimacy of the conclusions based on other people’s strong feelings?
– If yes, then a lie and rather exploitable
If Ms. Curry thinks that a smooth talking Climate Scientist is going to slip by business people, then she needs to realize that the moment that decision is made these scientists graduate from academia and enter the business world where they are NOT the experts and are vulnerable to BS meters that are honed sharper daily. Just check out Conico and BP and how they rode the greenies for profit until this whole thing fell through.
Climate Scientists would do better to feed data to the auditors in any and every way they can where it can be chomped on and spit out where the rest of us can evaluate it for ourselves. Observations are nice, but not so nice as tangibles.
Just got round to reading the article http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/climate-change-and-the-death-of-science/, recommended by Jerome Ravetz. There’s another piece I wish I’d known about before! My God, what have these people been thinking? I just hope that this nonsense really can be assigned to the dustbin of history, and that people will start to get back to doing science the old fashioned way, as I think Willis would like.
“Initially skepticism was funded by big oil.”
Does anyone – apart from Guardian readers – actually believe this?
Is there any evidence for it whatsoever?
Willis Eschenbach, I did not have time to comment when your post was fresh, but I see you have engaged 592 comments. I am here to make it 593, depending on what is in moderation. Magnificent response to Judith Curry. Just what don’t these people get about transparency and accountability of their science as required by the scientific method? If it doesn’t have these fundamentals, it cannot be said to have any relevance, period. Discussion over.
Michael Larkin (02:33:16) :
Michael,
Well articulated comment. I can see your logic and your tone is sincere.
In the middle of your third paragraph I could not accept these two sentences, ””” . . .If you believe the data is right, and you believe in your work, then you are going to interpret it in line with the accepted narrative. You aren’t being evil, and you aren’t trying to foist junk science on anyone; in your own heart and mind, you sincerely believe you are doing the right thing.””””
Michael, for a professional to interpret in line with accepted narrative? Then consequently for a professional to sincerely believe he/she is doing the right thing? What about the professional repect of (in this case) independent scientific method?
That sequence opens the path to a fundamental professional tragedy.
If one compromises one’s professional behavior for accepted narrative, then one has weakened the profession that they have sworn(or committed) to devote their life to.
A professional in the above situation needs to recomit to professional scientific behavior and admit past professional errors openly.
John
Michael Larkin wrote (02:33:16) :
“consider a possibility. Suppose that in the past Dr. Curry genuinely believed that some of the vital data she used in her work was accurate. No: better – suppose you were in her position and believed that all that temperature data was accurate.”
If she did that, she’d have forfeited her right to call herself a scientist by doing so. At the very bottom of scientific research is the assumption that anything one has to “believe” in (as opposed to things that I verify myself to be accurate) is WRONG – basically the opposite of the legal rule “in dubio pro reo”. After all, if what’s available is to be believed, one wouldn’t need to do further research on the subject.
Believing (or “having faith”) in third-party data or results will lead your own research swiftly into the GIGO trap. Only after one doesn’t have to “believe” or to “convince oneself” any more that third-party-generated data is correct, but has checked thoroughly that this data both is internally consistent AND agrees with observable reality, one can even START building theories and assumptions on that data. “Data” that does not directly relate to reality (e.g. model outputs, interpolations, etc.) by that very definition is NEVER fit to be input data for further studies, unless you are studying the behavior of such models or the methods of your colleagues (like SteveMcI does in his “audit” efforts).
If nothing else, certain climatologists have been proven poor scientists by working with datasets that they neither produced themselves by taking the actual measurements, nor checked thoroughly (that is by old-fashioned reading, manually comparing to the sources or other versions, and at the very least MENTALLY checking every line and every figure for its plausibility). All those little blog entries about this or that station, bringing to light omnipresent differences between the data as recorded originally and the “data” used as source material in the meta-studies, show that even the interested layperson can do this work, so it is nothing short of despicable those who call themselves “experts” and “scientists” are too lazy to do it.
As for the open archiving of data rightly so much advocated here, I don’t think there is great value in publishing, or even keeping, the various “massaged” or “value-added” datasets that have been compiled in places other than the weather stations themselves. It is the original raw data that ought to be collected and made available in whatever form it was produced at the time – from facsimile scans of handwritten observation sheets to the current form of digital readouts, each in its native format, and wherever possible with metadata concisely describing that format. Whoever needs some of the data to do further research on could, and should, then transcribe it directly from these originals HIMSELF into whatever format he needs, rather than relying on earlier transcriptions that might well be (and usually are) compromised by multiple stages of re-formatting, coarsened by rounding and averaging errors, not to mention purely subjective omissions and interpolations.
As an analogy, this is not much different from properly archiving movie films or sound recordings: The original carrier, even if outdated or damaged, is never discarded; any digital dataset derived from it is treated as what it is: a useful, but non-original and temporary (i.e., after some time becoming obsolete because of technical advances that necessitate going back to the original), working or “safety” copy. Re-issuing a 1930s movie today, no restoration engineer worth his salt would willingly use a 16mm or Betamax copy made for TV in the 1970s, even if the engineer “back then” did his best to optimize the picture quality, but he would always try to get back to the original camera negative, or if that’s lost, to an undoctored “first-generation” copy.
RE: Michael Larkin’s response to xyzlatin
The gap between Michael Larkin and xyzlatin is this: if you’re a scientist promoting a position that results in actual harm to real human beings, you had d**n well better make sure you’re working from honest science. Good faith doesn’t cut it when you’re killing people and destroying freedom.
Henry@ur momisugly Andrew
When I was looking for answers on my questions on carbon dioxide I had some discussions with spokespeople from Shell. I was informed that Shell had decided that the “science was settled”. When I asked for the proof of the testing I got some rubbish formula’s from Svante’s time 100 years back that was supposed to prove to me it was all established theory. I also got some more historical graphs and stories but no results of testing. I subsequently found out that Svante Arrhenius’ formula did not work at all and I came back with more questions to Shell. To this date I still have not obtained any answers on my questions. I was puzzled myself about this. If Shell could really be a cause of global warming, would they not want to spend money to research this aspect of the aftereffect of their product?? Then I wondered: why did nobody ever sue Shell or an oil company for causing global warming (like we did with the tobacco companies?
Questions, questions, ….
[quote Judith Curry (17:24:13) : ]
With regards to trust. Many of you have stated in your comments that you don’t trust me.
[/quote]
Dr. Curry, this has nothing to do with you and nothing to do with trust.
It has to do with verifiability.
I could be your biggest fan and trust you with my life, but if I cannot access the data and source code used by you to make some scientific claim, I cannot verify that claim.
More importantly, _no one_ can verify that claim.
And no matter how you want to try to spin it, a collection of unverifiable claims is not science. It’s the opposite of science.
My apologies for very sloppy wording. What I should have said is this: if a position you accept and or promote as a scientist is being used as justification for the implementation of policies that result in actual harm to real human beings, you had d**n well better make sure you’re working from honest science. Good faith doesn’t cut it when the ultimate result is human suffering and the destruction of freedom.
If scientists and other scientists want the people’s trust, they should 1} stop seeking to enshrine their prejudices, which are not universal moral absolutes into law and 2) stop defending the band characters–a high percentage–in their social class. This is what we get from forced subsidy of their livelihoods by government force–corruption. The academy will improve when they must compete for freely given funds.
Willis Eschenbach (10:36:22) : I have made my living variously as a commercial fisherman (the Bering Sea is as cold as it looks on TV), as a musician, as a psychotherapist, as an accountant, as a carpenter, as a consultant in village level development in the Third World, as a marine refrigeration technician, as a cowboy, as a sport salmon fishing guide on the Kenai River in Alaska, as a construction manager for high-end resorts, and as a computer programmer. And a bunch more.
So I’d have to say I’m a generalist.
———————–
A man for all seasons.