Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Dr. Ravetz, welcome back to the fray with your new post. My congratulations on your courage and willingness to go “once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more …”
You are putting AGW supporting scientists to shame with your bravery, most of them (with some conspicuous exceptions like Dr. Meier and Dr. Curry) post on some site where people will agree with them and pat them on the back and tell them how right they are. Here, nobody is right, everyone gets attacked (including me), and that is the strength of the site.
Onwards to your issues:
Now, many thanks to Willis for reminding me of the challenge to give an example of uncertain facts and high stakes. Let me try. In early 2001 there was evidence of an incipient epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in England. It was not at all certain, how infectious it would be, or what sorts of containment measures would suffice. There were conflicting values, although these were not made clear to the public at the time. These reflected the interests of the different stakeholders, including beef exporters, other farmers, non-farm users of the countryside, and politicians.
For each of them the stakes were high. The best-known stake at risk was the status of British beef exports, as certified FMD-free; this was worth some hundreds of millions of pounds in the increased price for such beef on the world market. But there were other stakes at risk, including the pedigree herds of cattle and sheep built up by farmers, and (largest of all, as it was later realised) the possible harm to all the non-farm activities in the countryside. And what was eventually realised to be the overriding stake was the political fortunes of Tony Blair, with an impending General Election which he didn’t want to have in the midst of an epidemic.
Coming back to ‘the facts’, these were to be determined by experts; but there were two opposed groups of experts. One was the government scientists, who generally had a conservative approach to the risks and to the science. The other was a group of academics, who had developed an expertise in epidemiological modelling. They made ‘pessimistic’ assumptions about the infectivity of the disease, and so their recommendations were on the side of a very aggressive approach. This suited Tony Blair’s political agenda, and so there was a severe quarantine and very extensive slaughtering. However one might criticise the government’s actions, the decision was indeed urgent, and there was a situation of high stakes, disputed values and uncertain facts.
My thanks in turn to Dr. Ravetz for providing the example. I now see the difference between his view and mine. What he sees as an unusual situation (facts uncertain, values in dispute) I see as everyday life.
Facts are rarely certain. Life is like that. Science is like that. It is very, very uncommon that we have scientific certainty about any complex real-world question. Despite that, throughout its history science has been of inestimable value in exactly these situations. This is because, rather than being based on something vague like beliefs or myths or “quality”, it is based on hard evidence and falsifiability and replicability. When facts are uncertain, we need more science, not less.
Regarding values, as long as there is more than one person involved (that is to say all of the time) values will likely be in dispute. Again, so what?
Since science has dealt quite well with these problems for centuries, why do we need a new post-normal “science”? How is the example different from any of the other public issues where science plays a part? Yes, as Dr. Ravetz clearly articulates, science often gets lost in the play of power politics … but that is a political issue, not a scientific issue.
Dr. Ravetz continues:
There is another lesson for PNS in the ‘foot and mouth’ episode. It was presented to the public as ‘normal science’: “here’s an epidemic, let’s apply the science and stop it”. The uncertainties and value-conflicts were suppressed. More to the point, the ‘extended peer community’ was nonexistent. Divisions among the scientists were kept under wraps. Damage to the rural communities was revealed piecemeal, and then as incidental to the noble effort of quarantine. Only the investigative journal Private Eye published the gory details of the exterminations.
I would put all of this under the heading of “transparency”. Again, this suppression and hiding is nothing new, nor is it a problem with science itself. Throughout history the people in power have sought to make their decisions in a way that is shielded from the public eye. See my discussion of the CRU Freedom of Information Act (FOI) debacle for a modern example.
I do not, however, see this as requiring any kind of “post-normal” change. It simply requires transparency, transparency, and more transparency. That’s why we have “Sunshine Laws” in the US requiring public meetings of governmental bodies. Thats why we have FOI laws. Not because of any problem with science, but because of a problem with humans and their power games. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for that disease, not a new kind of “science”.
Dr. Ravetz then discusses a couple of issues that had been raised by commenters in his previous posts.
Possible corruptions of PNS. These are inevitable. After all, what prophetic message ever escaped being converted into a battleground between priests and demagogues? But I should be more clear about which corruptions are most likely to emerge in PNS, and then to analyse and warn against them. It will painful, since I will be criticising colleagues who have been well-intentioned and loyal.
Well, despite his warning of inevitability, “democracy” as a prophetic message seems to have done pretty well. “Liberty” hasn’t fared too badly either. “Marxism”, on the other hand, led to the death of millions of people. Post-normal “science”, like the Marxism that Dr. Ravetz followed for much of his life, is rife with possibilities for corruption. This is because it preaches that, rather than following a hard line of evidence and scientific replicability, we should follow a very soft mushy line of something called “quality”. Me, I agree with Robert Heinlein, who said:
“What are the facts? Again and again and again-what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”–what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”
Or as Homer Simpson said:
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true!
It is only when people don’t like facts proving something that is remotely true that they start clamoring for a judgment based on something like “quality”. Dr. Ravetz goes on to discuss this problem of the vague nature of “quality”, saying:
Quality. On this I find myself reduced to arm-waving, that ‘we all know what Quality is’. But I can say that I am well aware that Quality is not a simple attribute, but is complex, influenced by history and context, recursive (who guards the guardians?), fundamentally a matter of morality (if the people at the top are crooked, the whole edifice of quality-assurance collapses), and of course fallible. This may seem a very insecure foundation for the sort of knowledge that we need, but it’s the best we have. And if one looks for better guarantees of truth even in Pure Science, one will be disappointed.
Although Dr. Ravetz claims that “we all know what Quality is”, count me among the ones who don’t have a clue what it is. Dr. Ravetz seems unable to define it, despite my repeated requests for clarification. I disagree entirely that “quality” is the “best we have” as a foundation for the sort of knowledge we need, as Dr. Ravetz categorically states. I don’t want something undefined (and perhaps undefinable) as the foundation for my knowledge. I prefer to build my edifices on data and evidence and mathematics and facts and replicability and falsifiability and the usual scientific foundations, rather than on “quality”, whatever that might be.
Dr. Ravetz then reveals his aversion to the concept of “truth”:
There is another unsolved problem, Truth. I realise that I have a case of what I might call ‘Dawkins-itis’ in relation to Truth. Just as Prof. Dawkins, however learned and sophisticated on all other issues, comes out in spots at the mere mention of the word ‘God’, I have a similar reaction about ‘Truth’. I must work on this. It might relate to my revulsion at the dogmatic and anti-critical teaching of science that I experienced as a student, where anyone with original ideas or questions was scorned and humiliated. I happily use the terms for other Absolutes, like ‘beauty’, ‘justice’ and ‘holy’; so clearly there is something wrong in my head. Watch this space, if you are interested.
I can see why, if that is his reaction to the word “truth”, he might be averse to science. For me, a scientific truth is merely something which we have not yet falsified. And until it is falsified (as most “truths” may be in time), it is our best guide. For me, scientific truth should be the “foundation for the sort of knowledge we need”, as Dr. Ravetz puts it.
Dr. Ravetz then defends himself against a straw man, viz:
Finally, for this phase of the dialogue, I would like to defend myself against a charge that has been made by various critics. This is, that I personally and intentionally laid the foundations for the corrupted science of the CRU, by providing the justification for Steve Schneider’s perversion of scientific integrity. First, there is no record of the guilty scientists ever mentioning, or even being aware, of PNS during the crucial earlier years. Also, shoddy and corrupted science in other fields did not wait for me to come along to justify it. My influence is traced back to a single footnote by Steven Schneider, citing an essay by me in a large, expensive book, Sustainable Development of the Biosphere (ed. W.C. Clarke and R.E. Munn), (Cambridge, University Press, 1986). PNS first came into the climate picture with the quite recent essay by Mike Hulme in 2007. That was a stage in his own evolution from modeller to critic, and came long after the worst excesses at CRU had been committed. I should say that I do not dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand, since some of them are correct! But this one really does seem far-fetched.
I neither think nor have I said that Dr. Ravetz intentionally laid the foundations for the corrupted science of the CRU. However, what he calls “Steve Schneider’s perversion of scientific integrity” fits perfectly into the framework of post-normal “science”. For those unaware of Schneider’s statement, it was:
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.
Call me crazy, but I prefer scientists who are scrupulously honest, regardless of whether or not they are effective. I don’t want “scary scenarios”. But post-normal AGW scientists seem to have no problem with Schneider or his claim. For them, “scary scenarios” are their bread and butter.
Next, as ScientistForTruth pointed out in his comment on Dr. Ravetz’s earlier essay, the influence of post-normal “science” on climate science does not trace to “a single footnote by Steven Schneider”, nor did it come into the discussion “long after the worst excesses at CRU had been committed.” To the contrary, Dr. Ravetz himself linked the two back in 1990, and the link was cited by Bray and Von Storch in their 1999 paper, “Climate Science: An Empirical Example of Postnormal Science”. So the idea that it all came to pass after the CRU excesses is nonsense, it was in play a decade before that. ScientistForTruth provides further examples as well, his comment is worth reading.
As to whether post-normal “science” is totally in tune with and accepted by the AGW proponents, consider the list of recommended blogs in the blogroll at Post-Normal Times. Post-Normal Times is the main website espousing post-normal “science”, and Dr. Ravetz is listed as one of the Editors. Here are the blogs that they think represent good, honest science:
Science & Policy Blogs
A few things ill considered
Al’s Journal [Al Gore]
CEJournal
Climate Progress
ClimatePolicy
ClimateScienceWatch
Deltoid
deSmogBlog
Dot Earth
EcoEquity
Effect Measure
Environmental Economics
Hybrid Vigor
James’ Empty Blog
jfleck at inkstain
maribo
Neverending Audit
Only in it for the gold
Rabett Run
RealClimate
Resilience Science
Skeptical Science
Stoat
The Intersection
Other Science & Policy Links
Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health (NESH)
NUSAP Net
Real World Economics Review
SciDev Net
Stephen H. Schneider, Climatologist
Union of Concerned Scietists [sic]
We have Steven Scheider’s link, and links to RealClimate, Rabett Run, Skeptical Science, Stoat, deSmogBlog, Deltoid, and the rest of the un-indicted co-conspirators. Many of these blogs ruthlessly censor opposing scientific views, in what I suppose is the best post-normal fashion. We have the blog of the noted climate scientist, Al Gore.
But not one blog which opposes the AGW “consensus” is listed. No Watts Up With That, which was voted the Best Science Blog last year. No ClimateAudit, voted the Best Science Blog the year before that. Not one real science blog, just dissent-suppressing apologists for AGW pseudo-science. Color me unimpressed, that is as one-sided a list as I can imagine. How is that scientific in any sense?
So while Dr. Ravetz may disavow any responsibility for the AGW debacle or the CRU malfeasance, it is quite clear that the concepts of post-normal “science” are central to the anti-scientific philosophy espoused on those AGW blogs, and by the AGW movement in general. Coincidence? You be the judge …
Yes, I agree that Dr. Ravetz did not, as he says, “personally and intentionally [lay] the foundations” for the nonsense that passes for science in the AGW camp, from the CRU on down. But his philosophy has most certainly and quite consciously been used as a guiding star by those who would prefer that we do not look at the man behind the curtain … and that is no coincidence at all. Like Marxism, post-normal “science” is a perfect philosophy for those who would propound their own ideology while hiding behind a pseudo-scientific shield of “Quality”.
Finally, you may have noted that I have called it post-normal “science” throughout this essay. This is for a very good reason.
— It may be post-normal … but it is not science by even the most expansive definition of the word. —
Let me close by saying that despite my (obvious) distaste for Dr. Ravetz’s philosophy, he has my highest admiration for putting his ideas out on this forum. That, to me, is real science. Science progresses by people making claims in a public forum, whether in journals or blogs or other media, and other people trying to falsify the claims. At the end, what is left standing is “truth” … at least until it is falsified at some future date. In this manner (if in no other), Dr. Ravetz is following the scientific method, and has my respect for doing so.
On quality – a definition I remember from business in the 80s was “conformance to requirements”. So you set criteria for something and then evaluated how these were being acheived. Not at all complex or abstract.
In everyday usage one of the issues is that the criteria or the evaluation may not be explicit. For example one might say a garment is “quality” but not know what has triggered that response. A bit of inquiry should illuminate the matter fairly easily and indeed the criteria may change according to an individual’s preference.
In the case of scientific work I think quality would be relatively straight forward to define and evaluate in a dispassionate manner. I am totally unconvinced by PNS and I think it is an intellectually corrosive concept.
Buddenbrook;
The likes of al-Qaeda won’t be capable of developing futuristic weapons. Realistically, during this century at least, the PNS framework will apply to USA, China and EU.>>
Wow. I hardly know where to begin.
First you argued that draconian measures may be required to keep some technologies from becoming wide spread and public, and then you argue that only the USA, China and EU could even do it because of the massive resources required. Pick one or the other but don’t switch sides when it suits you.
Now let’s talk some science, starting with the A-bomb. Get yourself down to an antique car museum. Poke your head under the hood of a 1945 Cadillac and have a look. Remind yourself as you look at the clunky relays, the mechanical ignition system and so on, that this was “state of the art” technology when the first nuclear device was tested. Before you protest that what the Manhatten Project had available to them was more advanced, it was, but not by much. The A-bomb is easily within the grasp of most 3rd world countries on a technical basis, they mostly lack sufficient supply of highly enriched uranium.
In regard to the capabilities of China, the EU and the US, you are again dead wrong. The United States holds more world wide patents that any other country. Second is Israel. Japan, India, Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea, Canada and many others have leading edge technical industries that rival China, EU and the US. Further, knowledge is no longer the domain of governments. The specialized knowledge that leads to break through technology rests mostly with private companies. NASA doesn’t build space shuttles or satellites, they assemble them. The high tech pieces are designed and built by sub-contractors. Even the auto makers are only assemblers. They control the over all design, but the specialized design and manufacture of everything from tail lights to on board computers comes from sub-contractors.
Pharmaceutical companies know more about the human body and what various agents can do to it than most governments. Despite massive embargoes, Sadam Hussein managed to build and use chemical weapons against his own people. Don’t even get me started on the size of lab required to start fiddling with anthrax. There are start ups fiddling with everything from designer genes to nano-technology to powered exoskeletons.
So I am afraid that Pandoras box has long since been opened and its contents dispersed far and wide. The next break through could come from a controlled lab at the center for disease control in Atlanta, or from inside a makeshift boxcar hidden in an African jungle.
The notion that draconian measures could put a halt to this should be as embarassing for you as the fact that you continue to argue your position without pants. The stupidity of trying to suppress and control these kinds of advances gaurantees that the really evil people will acquire them first, and that we will lack the knowledge to develop counter measures in time.
Your arguments amount to nothing more than a convoluted justification for draconian measures, suppression of knowledge, government control, a police state and an incredibly naive belief that once granted those powers, the people who hold them will, for even a moment, consider relinquishing them. This is coupled with the even more naive belief that the next break through will only come from a massively funded government lab.
Innovation doesn’t come from governments or even large corporations. It comes from small groups of people who have an idea and obtain the resources to develop it. If they can’t get their ideas on the table in the free world, they will will go elsewhere. Why are you trying to facilitate that?
Buddenbrook (16:30:42)
Ravetz was a Marxist, or a neo-Marxist, I can’t keep the flavors straight. He never made any secret of it. The Usual Font of Misinformation (Wikipedia) says:
From The Marxist Critique of Capitalist Science:
I also find, in the Encyclopedia of International Political Economy:
In addition to being a Marxist, Ravetz is also the developer of post-normal science. I suppose one could believe those two are not related, but that would require that we ignore the facts … oh, wait, I forgot, facts are unimportant, quality is our new goal. I guess showing that someone who is a conservative has been seduced by PNS is high quality information that shows that there’s nothing of Marxism in PNS …
From Joe Bastardi
Something from my pro site, but I thought you would like to ponder this:
SOME PRETTY COMPELLING EVIDENCE ON WHAT IS DRIVING CO2 The table below shows c02 increases on Mt Loa since 1959. One can notice the spiking of co2 when el ninos occur, and how the co2 increases were higher when the PDO went warm. This further supports my idea that we are going to get our answer as to what is causing the warming.. cycles of c02 and the evidence that the co2 RESPONDS to warming not causes is is pretty straightforward with co-ordinating the data. The real kick in the teeth of co2 being the driver is the big fall with the Pinitubo cooling! Anyway look for yourself
check this out: COLD PDO YEARS year ppm/yr 1959 0.95 1960 0.51 1961 0.95 1962 0.69 1963 0.73 el nino starts 1964 0.29 el nino ends 1965 0.98el nino starts 1966 1.23el nino ends 1967 0.75 1968 1.02 el nino starts 1969 1.34 el nino 1970 1.02el nino ends 1971 0.82 1972 1.76 el nino starts 1973 1.18 el nino ends 1974 0.78 1975 1.10 1976 0.92 el nino starts
WARM PDO STARTING: 1977 2.09 el nino ends, starts 1978 1.31 el nino ends 1979 1.68 1980 1.80 1981 1.43 1982 0.72 el nino starts 1983 2.16 el nino ends 1984 1.37 1985 1.24 1986 1.51 el nino starts 1987 2.33 el nino 1988 2.09 el nino ends 1989 1.27 1990 1.31 1991 1.02 el nino starts 1992 0.43 PINITUBO! EARTH COOLS!!!! el nino ends 1993 1.35 1994 1.90 el nino starts 1995 1.98 el nino ends 1996 1.19 1997 1.98 el nino starts 1998 2.93 super nino ends 1999 0.94 2000 1.74 2001 1.59 2002 2.56 nino starts 2003 2.29 nino ends 2004 1.55 el nino starts 2005 2.52 el nino ends 2006 1.70 el nino starts 2007 2.16 el nino ends 2008 1.66 Cold PDO starting 2009 2.02 nino starts 2010 —– nino ends when you put if against the global temps, the co2 is plainly following the Pacific.. the new cold pdo should see a flattening out of the rate of rise http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
It would appear the co2 spikes are occurring with warming that is caused by the natural drivers of the warm PDO and the el nino. The most damming of the evidence against co2 being the driver was the drop around 1992 with Pinitubo cooling To the rationale, objective person, does this look like co2 with its erratic up and downs around the times of el ninos, is the driver, or the driven. The answer is obvious, it is responding to spikes that occur with warming episodes, the driven, not the driver. You can see the response in co2 with and after the nino. So my idea of seeing how all this turns out using objective satellite measurements with the cold pdo seems perfectly logical. To NOT see this as a possibility, if not a likelihood, and not being willing to see how this plays out seems disingenuous to me. Another little fact that escapes people, or is not talked about. Many more people live within 40 degrees in the equator than within 40 degrees of the poles. Why. Because its easier to live where its warm. Combine this with the fact that we never hear what a defined optimum temp for the earth is, or for how much co2 we should have, should ring alarm bells. The trees you see outside did not pull earth out of the ground, but through the cyclical nature of growth pull nutrients out of the AIR and ground, and much of the weight of that tree had its origin in THE AIR. But these side issues to me are not the main issue. A forecast has been made by me for the next 20 years, and its a simple experiment, backed up with sound ideas on this. It is not ridiculous, but instead not understanding why this should occur, and not allowing this to play out, is what is ridiculous. thanks for reading, ciao for now.
http://www.accuweather.com/ukie/bastardi-europe-blog.asp?partner=accuweather
I view “PNS” as an independent phenomena (i.e. it is not a social construct that exists only on paper) that is significant, is very much real and will play a crucial role during the course of this century.
When I first came across Ravetz’s writings I had misgivings and doubts, especially when Ravetz’s associate Mike Hulme had so vilely abused the term, using it as a carte blanche to obfuscate and corrupt in his post-modernist climate manifesto “Why We Disagree about Climate Change”. But then reading more on Ravetz’s thoughts I noticed much that made sense and was important, and many similarities with other thinkers that I had read (such as I have mentioned Joy, Bostrom, Fukuyama, Garreau and many others) became apparent. These were also linked to topics that I had been studying myself. So while lot is still unclear and undefined, personally I think it evident that there exist a new emerging framework that many different thinkers from different perspectives have touched upon, and which should urgently be developed further. To this body of understanding Dr. Ravetz has made a significant contribution.
To call his contribution marxism just because he was a marxist decades ago, that is nonsense. Popper would say it’s a poor hypothesis, supported with no evidence whatsoever.
Have you read Einstein’s book on his political views? The greatest scientists of the 20th century was a socialist and an internationalist. His political views were naive, uninformed and silly. Didn’t affect his views on science, did it?
To repeatively bring up the marxist card is cheap. Please stick to the actual debate re: PNS.
Buddenbrook (17:55:08) :
“To this body of understanding Dr. Ravetz has made a significant contribution.”
I agree, but I don’t like what he advocates:
I find Ravetz’s writings to be a successor to Lenin’s.. as Ravetz is advancing a thought process designed to enslave billions of people under the heel of socialism, using any pretext of an emergency. All he needed was the bogus threat, CO2, to launch it.
It cost millions of lives to overthrow Lenins socialist dream, but thanks to the Internet, we now can send photonic ideas towards socialists, not bullets.
R. de Haan (17:38:53) : edit
I would like to ponder it, but not on a thread about Ravetz and post-normal science … please post it to a relevant thread.
Thanks,
w.
Buddenbrook,
If you took the Thomas Kuhn out of Jerry Ravetz, what would be left? Nothing but political posturing. Kuhn was interesting in the sixties and seventies. He posed challenges that were fun to answer. But all that is over now. All you have in a Ravetz is a political thinker trying to find a place for himself in a debate about science. But everything that he has posted on this site screams that he has not a clue about science or scientific method. Yes, yes, I know, he is a POSTNORMAL scientist, at least to you. BS.
Willis Eschenbach (14:23:57)
Still waiting for an answer … I’ll keep asking …
‘Ravetz says we need a new kind of science’
‘you say we need a new kind of science’
There is only science and not science, truth or lie.
Buddenbrook;
Have you read Einstein’s book on his political views? The greatest scientists of the 20th century was a socialist and an internationalist. His political views were naive, uninformed and silly. Didn’t affect his views on science, did it?>>
Per your point above, his politics and his science did not affect each other.
The greatest scientific mind of the 20th century (per your words above) could keep these separate (per your words above). His science was science and his politics were politics. He knew it and the politicians knew it. Now you stand there with no pants on, proposing to seize power from both, and pretending that PNS somehow makes that legitimate. You are exposed for what you are, a fraud. Having no talent as a scientist, nor as a politician, you attempt instead to con both into allowing you to sit in judgment over them.
Einstein, like many of the Jews who worked on the Manhatten Project, was a refugee from anti-semitism in Germany. When Time Magazine printed their 100 greatest minds of all time issue, they noted that World War II ended with German scientists only a few months behind the Americans in building an atomic bomb. As they noted then, and as I repeat to you now in the hopes that you will get off your sanctimonious high horse, had the enormous amount of scientific talent that fled the Nazis stayed in Germany instead of coming to America, it could have well been London, Moscow and Washington that we speak of today instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Which returns me to a point I made in an earlier comment. When science is suppressed and controlled, it matters not if the PNS rears its ugly head along side the hammer and sickle or the swastika. It is a blatant attempt to justify repression and control people. Those who have the capacity to produce brilliant science will flee into the arms of who ever will take them and provide them the means to do their research, be their name America or Al Qaida.
It saddens me that I must defend your right to drivel aloud. But it is my right also to call it what it is. You can have your pants back. At first it was fun demolishing your arguments. But now I understand that you mean what you say and there are fools who will listen to you. It is no longer fun. It is a responsibility.
i think it’s hilarious that scientology ads and green investment ads are chosen by google to be shown on WUWT. THey obviously think we’re all gullible idiots who have no idea. the irony is of course self-apparent – as is the sun in the sky
REPLY: Yep, just as ironic as the super spy toys that appear on your link http://www.whatreallyhappened.com – heh, -A
Some comments on the Eschenbach, Dagfinn and Buddenbrook:
(Apologies for a rather long post but I am hoping it might refocus some issues…)
Uncertainty and Urgency:
The main concern with PNS analysis is that it encourages the policisation of the scientific process and the dismissal of discussion of the evidence-base in a shift to the ‘value-base’.
The ‘Uncertainty’ and ‘urgency’ of the PNS definition excuses the promotion of (pre-scientific) apocalyptic alarm legitimated by the authority of science but yet unsupported by the balance of (scientific) evidence.
Extended Peer Community:
Ravetz’s ‘extended peer community’ is used by Ravetz and followers to justify scientist-activism and the involvement of activist organisations, as well as other stake-holders, not just in review, but in the very processes of science.
The link with Marxism:
As I explain elsewhere, the principle affinity with neo-Marxist social science is summarised in Marx’s own Thesis 11, which is his epitath at Highgate cemetary:
This was widely interpreted by marxist scholars as meaning that “political action as the only truth of philosophy” and “philosophy’s validity is in how it informed action.”
The link with Schneider:
According to the evidence presented so far at WUWT, the link with Schneider is at best an affinity. Schneider (as Hansen) always advocated scientist-activism, even from his Ice Age Alarmism days. Ravetz’s philosphy of Enviro/ClimateChange Science supported this, but also answers a problem that had emerged for Schneider and others (after the EDF and Ehrlich etc) in the late 1980s and early 1990s in pushing this new form of enviro-alarmism. As this 1988 article by Revkin shows, Schneider was presented with the problem of advocating urgent action on uncertain knowledge — but resolved it mostly by resorting to the ‘precautionary principle’ — as he does to this day.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s Ravetz began to offer a new narrative to meet the needs of Ehrlich-esque scientists including Climate Change Alarmists. So, Willis, its not so much “coincidental” but an affinity…or that Ravetz was marketing a new rationale for what they were doing, but it was Hulme, not Scheneider, who took it up.
PNS is not Kulnian but post-Kulnian:
Dagfinn and Buddenbook are at risk of confusing PNS with Kuln’s theory of scienific revolutions. Ravetz is not claiming that the post-normal sciences (ie Enviro Sciences) are in a state of ‘revolution’such that we are moving to a new paradigm, as per Kuln. At best we could say that he is doing to Kuln what Trotsky did to Marx, that is, he is proposing a “permanent revolution” with no anticipation of ever settling into a new paradigm inwhich normal science could then start over (as per after Newton and Einstein). This is a departure from Kuln, who defended-to-the-end his ‘realism’ against Post-modernist interpretations that pushed towards absolute relativism.
I see no abuse of the term in Hulme’s book, nor in his Guardian article, and so it is Hulme who provides the best evidence of the dangers of Ravetz’s Philos of Sci. It may be that Ravetz is politely refraining from criticising the most prominent promoter of his theory, but I cant see any grounds for criticism. Perhaps Ravetz can clarify?
Strategy against PNS:
My view is that we should avoid purple prose and exaggeration of the error of our opponents. We should not say that PNS is Marxist just because Ravetz once was. What is more tricky is to avoiding the polarisation that they impose on us. An example of this is when they say “you say PNS is all a marxist plot.” It is not, but yet the approach of Ravetz to the natural sciences bares striking similarities to the marxist approach to science in its support of scientific activism – and it has corresponding dangers. I explain and support this more moderate postion here.
berniel (22:29:05) :
Both Ravetz and Hulme seem to have had some revelations recently. Hulme’s book and the 2007 piece from the Guardian might not represent his current views adequately.
Willis Eschenbach (17:26:55) :
“In addition to being a Marxist, Ravetz is also the developer of post-normal science. I suppose one could believe those two are not related, but that would require that we ignore the facts”
I don’t believe you really mean that establishing two facts proves that there is a causal relationship between them.
Dagfinn (23:50:20) : edit
No, you are correct, I don’t mean that. I mean that the similarities between some of the tenets of Marxism and some of the tenets of PNS, along with the fact that Ravetz grew up as an adherent of the one and is the developer of the other, establishes a preponderance of evidence that they are related.
Look, I don’t think PNS is dangerous because it has Marxist overtones, or because Ravetz is or was a Marxist. Those are irrelevancies. I think it is dangerous because, like Marxism, it is seductive and is easily “twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools”. The memes of “the risks are HUGE, I tell you, HUGE” and “we absolutely must make a decision RIGHT NOW” are endemic among the AGW supporters. But they are leading the discussion astray.
There is no real urgency. Hansen said in 1988 that by now we’d be in sea water up to our knees, and what has happened? Nothing. In 1990 the “doom is only 20 years away” statements were coming thick and fast, as they are today. In 2008, Prince Charles said we only had 18 months to prevent disaster. The hysteria level is rising … but still there is no real urgency.
Nor are the risks huge. The analyses that claim this look only at worst-case scenario costs, and then multiply them by three or ten, then make up imaginary costs, then use MER rather than PPP to get fantastically high emission scenarios, then don’t discount future costs back to the present, and then say “See, I told you, HUGE”. In reality, we’ve seen a couple degrees rise since the Little Ice Age, and most of the results have been beneficial.
In response to these classic PNS claims of “risks large, decisions urgent”, people have been stampeded into asinine actions like the Kyoto protocol. Even had that sucker worked, its proponents admitted that it would not make a measurable difference … billions and billions of dollars poured down a rathole, for nothing. I lay that at the feet of Ravetz and PNS.
Like I said, PNS is seductive, and it is being used in the service of greed and as a quasi-religious justification for the payment of carbon indulgences and alleviation of guilt. It lets people pretend that they’re doing something for the environment, when in fact they are doing something destructive. That’s dangerous. It pushes people into making decisions far, far before they are required. That’s dangerous. It has cost us untold billions of dollars already, and if the PNS advocates are successful, it will cause untold suffering to the poorest of the poor. Those are the folks that need energy, and at present that means carbon dioxide. That’s very dangerous. The wealthy nations can afford this nonsense, we have a huge buffer. A guy living on a dollar a day can’t. That’s lethal.
That’s the issue with PNS to me, not Marxism. Marxism is an interesting sidelight, and the similarities between PNS and Marxism are not immaterial, but that is all far, far from the core of the problem with PNS.
Dagfinn:
This might be true, but my interest is in how the alarmist bubble corrupted climate science before the bubble burst in Dec 2009 — and so in the role of Ravetz, Hulme and their ideas and strategies in this corruption. Any statements after the game was up needs to be taken in a different light.
But, anyway, what change has there been? We have covered Ravetz’s ‘revelations,’ including his revelation that sceptical bloggers are in fact the extended peer community. But I would be interested for you to point to some evidence of Hulme’s change of tune — noting that his concern over the ineffectiveness of exaggeration claims (including by the IPCC) are invoked in his PNS Guardian article (see, similarly, Von Storch’s PNS article back in 1999) as they are in publications and statements dating back some years prior to this.
Here is what I see as the critical way that PNS fitting into this controversy: There were various ways that Alarmists attempted to eschew the proper scientific debate over the evidence-base: the precautionary principle; only by presenting scary senarios will govs act; the science is settled; sceptics are the mouthpiece of Big Oil etc. Each of these draw on various traditions, motifs and strategies, from biblical apocalypsism to modern marketing ‘spin, but then we also have Hulme’s used of Ravetz’s PNS. Where does this come from? It is not at all from Kuln, but, (so I argue on my blog) from the ‘thesis 11’ science-as-activism approach that prevailed among social sciences ‘new’ marxism in English (and Australian and French) universities during the 1970s & 80s.
Now, if Hulme recanted on PNS, that would be of interest. If he expresses some contrition over his abuse of his position as a public scientist and his corruption of the public scientific discourse (in the name of PNS or whatever) then that also would be a change of tune that would be of interest to me and, more broadly, to this discussion.
Willis Eschenbach (02:12:33) :
Thanks, that’s helpful, and I agree with everything you say about AGW hysteria. I read about PNS many years ago, and filed it mentally under “potentially interesting”. I still think it poses some interesting questions but is not necessarily the answer. Also, I think it’s primarily a post-rationalization rather than the cause of all this madness. Here’s a radically simplified dialog to illustrate:
Politicians: “How much will the global average temperature rise by 2100”?
Normal scientists: “We have no idea. Scientifically, there is no way to make that assessment.”
Politicians: “Do it anyway. Here’s $100 million. If you don’t do it, someone else will”.
(Normal scientists do puzzle-solving for a few years by building climate models.)
Normal scientists: “The temperature will increase by 4 plus or minus 2 degrees celsius”.
Other, envious normal scientists: “You can’t do that! There’s no scientific basis for it”.
Normal scientists: “It’s PNS, stupid!”
(Normal scientists upgrade themselves to post-normal.)
I would descride Ratz as Evil. He can’t win the game fairly so he tries to change the rules. The World and his Dog knows this AGW nonsense is an attempted tax-grab. If Hulme was writing essays about Post Normal ‘Science’ in 2007 (in the face of strong questioning) I would suggest it was assimilated into his mind as a guiding anti-principle long before. That’s why it’s so obvious to everyone that AGW is a lie. Mr.Ravetz can’t understand it but his continued use of the PN-‘S’ mantra will kill AGW. The only reason Keynesianism survives is that it is never discussed.
Aargh (15:13:38) :
Truth incarnate.
berniel (22:29:05) :
With regards to Marxists, it is imperative to call a spade, a spade. The MO of such types is to infiltrate and pollute by any means. Falsifying reality is taken literally to the extremes as you point out in Marx’s own epitaph:
“Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.”
Such sentiment in the wrong hands is highly dangerous and leaves no room for gentlemanly conduct and polite discourse.
With regards to the link between Ravetz, PNS and Marxism, considering how very high the stakes are, we simply do not have the luxury to afford such characters the benefit of the doubt.
Such doubt invoked by such people should be treated as yet another smokescreen. As surely any doubt will be used as such if there is anyone gullible enough to except it.
Note to mod:
Please do not disconnect the link to my URL in my forum handle. This link is the only reason I would have submitted my URL to WUWT in the first place.
Exchange is no robbery.
Please play fair and I shall endeavor to do likewise.
[Reply: contact WordPress if there is a problem. ~dbs, mod.]
Wow, what a thread!!!
Mod:
WordPress are not the ones who have been playing around with my posts on this entire thread.
My first post is still completely missing and so was the re-post until I complained about it.
I am writing an article about gate-keeping. Would any one on this forum be interested in contributing?
Please go to my website and email me if you would like to make a contribution to this project.
Perhaps WUWT could run it as a thread.
REPLY: Are you dense? After the episode last year when you carpet bombed multiple threads on WUWT with your attempts at getting people to buy your report, I told you in no uncertain terms that your efforts were not welcome and that I would be deleting such efforts. Read the policy page.
Here you are again doing the same thing.
MODS: DELETE THIS PERSON’S POST AT WILL – ANY POSTS WITH LINKS TO SPINONTHAT ARE TO BE AUTOMATICALLY SENT TO THE BIT BUCKET. – ANTHONY
Bob (21:50:34)
Picture is the Royal Scots Greys (Heavy Brigade) at Waterloo (1815), not Harfleur (1415) (obviously) or Balaclava (1854) and not a cock-up.
Wilson Flood (12:05:03)
Harfleur (siege, hence breach in the walls) not Agincourt (muddy field, stakes, arrows and V signs)
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’
berniel (02:20:52) :
I’ve just read your essay on post-normal science and neo-marxism, and I liked it a lot. It’s enlightenting and the Marxist connection clearly does exist. In fact, Ravetz even himself admits the limitations of his ideas in being a “left-wing framework”. In other words, it’s imbalanced. Private interests are not in general “big bad corportations”. It’s ridiculous that so many seem to accept the GreenPeace analysis of “big oil” funding climate skeptics. It’s obvious that it’s a good idea for “big oil” to fund skeptics (even if it were true in a significant way), since it contributes to balance.
On the other hand, it’s not always like that. Climate science with its massive government funding is the exception rather than the rule. Funding from interested parties is potentially corrupting whether they’re private or public, which is why Michael Crichton suggested pooling funds so scientists wouldn’t know who was funding them.
In this sense, the PNS pseudo-marxist analysis was addressing a real problem in an incomplete way.
The influence of PNS may have contributed to the current deplorable state of climate science. On the other hand, it may have been a moderating influence. If the nastiest skeptic-haters including Joe Romm were shown to be PNS-fans, that would be empirical evidence that the influence of PNS has been bad. It doesn’t seem that way to me, but I could be mistaken. I agree that Hulme’s analysis in the book review is a bad slur, but on the whole Hulme seems to be relatively benign compared to the ones who simply say that skeptics are “anti-science disinformers”.
The debate-shunning techniques you mention seem to me to originate from various sources:
“Sceptics are the mouthpiece of Big Oil”: This is “Marxist” and misguided, but has gained wide acceptance only because of historical experience with bias caused by private funding.
The precautionary principle has been developed out of environmental necessity. It’s fine by me as a principle, but it’s been exaggerated. Insurance is OK, but there’s a limit to its cost.
“The science is settled” is typical of arrogant normal science, not PNS. It’s probably been around for as long as scientists have been talking to the public, and tends to become bad when the science is policy relevant.
“Scary scenarios”: “scary” and “calming” have both been pursued in different situations, and the problem with both is that they’re dishonest and assume that people don’t know what’s best for them.