From Lawrence Solomon at the Financial Post:
A cross examination of global warming science conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Law and Economics has concluded that virtually every claim advanced by global warming proponents fail to stand up to scrutiny.
He found that the climate establishment does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined policy preference.”
The cross-examination, carried out by Jason Scott Johnston, Professor and Director of the Program on Law, Environment and Economy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, found that “on virtually every major issue in climate change science, the [reports of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and other summarizing work by leading climate establishment scientists have adopted various rhetorical strategies that seem to systematically conceal or minimize what appear to be fundamental scientific uncertainties or even disagreements.”
Professor Johnson, who expressed surprise that the case for global warming was so weak, systematically examined the claims made in IPCC publications and other similar work by leading climate establishment scientists and compared them with what is found in the peer-edited climate science literature. He found that the climate establishment does not follow the scientific method. Instead, it “seems overall to comprise an effort to marshal evidence in favor of a predetermined policy preference.”
Financial Post
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe the author of The Deniers.
The 79-page document, which effectively eviscerates the case for man-made global warming, can be found here:
Global Warming Advocacy Science: A Cross Examination
U of Penn, Inst for Law & Econ Research Paper No. 10-08
University of Pennsylvania – Law School
Date Posted: May 22, 2010
Last Revised: May 24, 2010
Working Paper Series
Bill Tuttle says:
June 9, 2010 at 12:06 am
Wren: June 8, 2010 at 11:05 pm
I was a surprised that the author has given so little thought to evaluating predictions.
“Policy carrying potential costs in the trillions of dollars ought not to be based on stories and photos confirming faith in models, but rather on precise and replicable testing of the models’ predictions against solid observational data.”
If the author wants to evaluate whether a model’s forecasts are good or bad as a policy guide, he needs to ask good or bad compared to what ?
He didn’t say the forecasts needed to be evaluated as “good or bad” — he said the forecasts needed to be evaluated against the observed data.
=========
Well, of course. Then what ?
sphaerica says:
“The point is that debates are useless.”
The winners of the debates don’t say that. Lord Monckton’s Oxford debate win was reported world wide, and it opened a lot of folks’ eyes.
Debates are very instrumental in exposing the truth by allowing people to hear both sides of the argument. When people are fully informed they usually reach the correct conclusions.
Up to now, those flogging CAGW have hidden out from debating their position, preferring to take pot shots from the sidelines. Al Gore is the quintessential example. Why do they avoid real debates? Because in the few legitimate debates held – Oxford being the most legitimate – they lost.
But now that the CAGW purveyors are steadily losing ground, they feel increasing pressure to debate, hoping to salvage their eroding position. Watch for them to try and stack the debate deck, just like they stacked the peer review process.
Any legitimate debate must have a neutral Moderator and rules acceptable to both sides, a neutral venue, and most importantly, each side must have the exclusive right to choose its own participants.
sphaerica says: You really expect me to waste my time doing so in a series of blog comments?
Yes – why don’t you explain to the vast number of Mathemagicians that frequent your blog why you oppose this paper.
I believe there is some misunderstanding of Johnston’s paper by some commentators based on the rather short notice by Lawrence Solomon.
Johnston is not attempting to arrive at a scientific conclusion regarding the global warming hypothesis (something he is not competent to do). Rather, he is cross examining the “established climate story” by asking “very tough questions, questions that force the expert to clarify the basis for his or her opinion, to explain her interpretation of the literature, and to account for any apparently conflicting literature that is not discussed in the expert report” (page 6).
In other words, he is cross examining the form of the argument: IPCC’s use of evidence on both sides, their critical thinking skills, their logic, and the internal consistency of the report. After juxtaposing conclusions from numerous scientists he concludes that “a rhetoric of persuasion, of advocacy that prevails throughout establishment climate science” (page 9).
Enneagram says: June 9, 2010 at 9:51 am
As someone who does not accept the CO2 causes warming theory I donot know why you sent this under my name. Send to sphaerica.
And I know all of the info you wrote. Arrhenuis thought a drop in CO2 caused ice ages and an increase in CO2 was wholly beneficial.
Smokey says:
June 9, 2010 at 10:03 am
Thank you. I couldn’t have made my point better myself.
Can we apply this test methodology to Nobel Peace Prize winners?
sphaerica says:
June 9, 2010 at 7:38 am
….
A lawyer said it, and everyone knows how trustworthy and truthful lawyers are, so we can all stop thinking here. Check your own brain at the door, and trust this authority.
Who is making this argument? No one. Are you just making it up?
Meanwhile, there is no opposing argument in the document. It’s a “cross examination” that presents only one side of the debate.
The “opposing argument” is what is under cross-examination! It is there, and then challenged. Did you read it?
Disingenuous and misleading. Just because it says what you want it to say doesn’t make it right. Imagine if this was done on the AGW side, how you’d be howling.
I’d howl only if it misstated “my side.” As long as “my side” is stated fairly, I have no problem with laying out the strengths and weaknesses of the arguments of either side. That is what an adversarial process (with which I’m intimately familiar, as an “expert witness” who has been cross-examined numerous times) is all about.
You do not know me, and are in no position to imply that I care only about something because “it says what [I] want it to say.” I do like to “win” my adversarial battles, and sometimes do not. I’m okay with that, as long as the battle was fought “fairly.” That attitude is what I expect to see in scientific discourse and disagreement, and frankly, that is not what we see in “climate science.” We see a handful of people trying to game the system and determine the outcomes, through perversion of the “peer review” process, and through a political process masquerading as “scientific review,” i.e. IPCC. In “climate science” the “consensus” is not about “truth” but is about stymieing the very procedures that are designed to lead to “truth.” When that happens in the legal arena, it is called “obstruction of justice.” Here it is “obstruction of truth.”
My comments are about the process, and not about the outcome — i.e. whether or not someone agrees with me, or presents a view I subscribe to. If you cannot understand that, then perhaps you should keep your comments to yourself.
janama says:
June 9, 2010 at 10:16 am
I already have… because a paper by a lawyer, fabricating the illusion of a fair judicial setting while arguing only one side of an issue, against prefabricated and pre-structured “witness testimony”, with no opportunity for rebuttal or true adversarial judicial process, is itself a misleading hoax. The content and validity of the arguments are not the issue. It’s a tactic, not used to arrive at the truth or further debate, but instead to mislead the weak minded and win points.
The contents of the paper are irrelevant, and quite honestly, have been bandied back and forth for a long time. You can find rebuttals to any particular issue anywhere on the Internet, if you care to look. On the other hand, if you don’t want to look, if you’ve made up your mind as to what you believe, and want to cover your eyes and look only at those things that agree with your predetermined position, then nothing I write is going to change your mind, because you are already lost in a sea of “I am a skeptic, I know all, and what you are saying is false, I know it, I don’t have to actually look or think, because I am a skeptic…”
Or from having bet against them about the future temperature trend, as can be done on https://www.intrade.com
sphaerica says…
June 9, 2010 at 10:45 am:
You are doing an awful lot of “useless” debating for someone who says debating is useless.
The authors stumble at the starting gate. Below the first item in the table of contents, followed by the beginning statement :
“A. What do we Really Know about Global Mean Surface Temperatures, and Can we Really be So Sure about the Purported Warming Trend? ………………………………… 11
“There seem to be significant problems with the measurement of global surface temperatures over both the relatively short run – late 20th century – and longer run – past millennium – problems that systematically tend to cause an over estimation of late 20th century temperature increases relative to the past;”
————-
The fact that land-based (GISSTEMP and HADCRUT) and satellite-based (RSS and UAH) measurements of global temperature show almost identical warming trends in the late 20th Century is evidence (see link) there are no significant problems with these measurements and the warming is not overstated.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1980/offset:%20-.24/trend/plot/rss/from:1980/trend/plot/uah/from:1980/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1980/offset:%20-.15/trend
The agreement between the metrics is a significant problem for those who don’t want to believe the warming occurred or is overstated.
@Wren:
“The agreement between the metrics is a significant problem for those who don’t want to believe the warming occurred or is overstated.”
This is simply wrong. The correct statement would be ‘adjusted RSS and UAH agree with adjusted GISSTEMP and HADCRUT. One must examine the possibility that confirmation bias has resulted in adjustment methods that manufacture the conclusion that the funding bodies seek: namely agreement between the two. So long as the adjustment methods and code are kept secret, it is impossible to ascertain whether these adjustment methods are appropriate.
Basilb says:
June 9, 2010 at 10:50 am
The authors, and the document, by implication.
No, that’s the whole point. By presenting it as a cross-examination, the authors get to cherry pick the arguments, and their presentation, to give the illusion of something that is fair, when it patently is not. If you can’t see this, then you have no chance of reasoning your way to the truth on your own.
And you don’t see the irony in this statement? You have no fear that the other side, and so your understanding of the other side, and many others’ understanding of the other side, is being warped?
Which is my point. This isn’t fighting fair. It’s a trick, to fool the unwary. If you are who you say you are, you should be in complete agreement with me. If you only care to see arguments that support what you already believe, then you should think this document is a giant leap forward.
You choose.
Smokey says:
June 9, 2010 at 11:11 am
For every Smokey that sees what he wants to see, there are a thousand thinking people who can see through the “Smoke.”
The fact that you want people who disagree with you to simply shut up sort of crystallizes things, doesn’t it?
Wren says:
June 9, 2010 at 11:14 am
Most persons like myself agree that the world has warmed since the lows of the LIA. But what is the cause and what is the harm? Ah that’s the rub.
tarpon says June 9, 2010 at 10:50 am “Can we apply this test methodology to Nobel Peace Prize winners?”
If you are referring to the “test methodology” of legal or rhetorical debate, then we’ve already had two decades of its lesser surrogate – shameless propaganda – from the one-way megaphone of the mass media.
@sphaerica:
I don’t want you to ‘shut up,’ I am simply pointing out an inconsistency.
You stated: “The point is that debates are useless.” Yet you incessantly debate many others here. Why would you engage in a useless activity?
mpaul says:
June 9, 2010 at 11:38 am
@Wren:
“The agreement between the metrics is a significant problem for those who don’t want to believe the warming occurred or is overstated.”
This is simply wrong. The correct statement would be ‘adjusted RSS and UAH agree with adjusted GISSTEMP and HADCRUT. One must examine the possibility that confirmation bias has resulted in adjustment methods that manufacture the conclusion that the funding bodies seek: namely agreement between the two. So long as the adjustment methods and code are kept secret, it is impossible to ascertain whether these adjustment methods are appropriate.
=====
The only adjustment is putting GISSTEMP and HADCRUT on a common baseline with RSS and UAH. If you don’t do that, they aren’t comparable.
mkelly says:
June 9, 2010 at 11:48 am
Wren says:
June 9, 2010 at 11:14 am
Most persons like myself agree that the world has warmed since the lows of the LIA. But what is the cause and what is the harm? Ah that’s the rub.
=====
1. AWG is largely the cause since the last Century. No other non-cylical drivers have been found.
2. No harm so far, but potential for harm in the future.
Wren says:
Your #1 is a classic example of argumentum ad ignorantiam: the fallacy of assuming something is true simply because it has not been proven false.
#2 is its corollary.
When you start with a fallacy the result is a false conclusion.
@Wren:
“The only adjustment is putting GISSTEMP and HADCRUT on a common baseline with RSS and UAH.”
The satellite adjustments are numerous and complicated and the methods lack adequate disclosure. Adjustments are made to compensate for the variety of sensor types of the different satellites, for *assumed* drift in calibration, for orbital decay and asymmetries, for changes in equatorial crossing times, and a whole host of non-disclosed adjustments (like the 1992 adjustment).
Smokey – Probably because no one visits his blog .
I have a dream! I hold these truths as self-evident!
*ANY* person correctly applying the scientific method is a scientist.
*ANY* -ologist correctly applying the scientific method is a prejudiced scientist.
*ANY* -ologist not functioning correctly under the scientific method is an advocate.
For a logical dissertation such as this, best for the lawyer to analyze logically and on first principles. To make valuable conclusions about complex subjects needs only transparency and logic, iteration provides the rest.
A lot of his analysis points out logical contradiction, misuse, improper documentation, etc. Some of it is opinion which he is unqualified to put for as evidentiary to his conclusion.
I applaud public figures publicly dissenting, as this will create the equivalent forum from which science functions most efficiently. Moving forward through the upcoming tumultuous times (as AGW falls from public favor,) we must be careful to hunt causes, not witches.
sphaerica says:
June 9, 2010 at 9:36 am
But the information is available to anyone who is truly skeptical, with an open mind, and seeks to understand and resolve before they seek to prove, and who asks questions looking for answers rather than confirmation.
Exactly. All the more pity that you still cling to your CAGW/CC beliefs. The information, as you say, is certainly available.
“Debates are useless”. Said by losers of debates everywhere.