The “exoneration” by Climategate investigations (like Muir Russell) that never bother to talk to skeptics, create an impossible conundrum of having essentially a trial with judge, jury, reporters, spectators, and defendant, but no plaintiff. The plaintiff is locked outside the courtroom sitting in the hall hollering and hoping the jury hears some of what he has to say.
Given this, I thought it valuable to revisit this Caltech lecture on the state of science and consensus by the late Michael Crichton.
– Anthony Watts
Caltech Michelin Lecture – January 17, 2003
My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming.
Charting this progression of belief will be my task today. Let me say at once that I have no desire to discourage anyone from believing in either extraterrestrials or global warming. That would be quite impossible to do.
Rather, I want to discuss the history of several widely-publicized beliefs and to point to what I consider an emerging crisis in the whole enterprise of science-namely the increasingly uneasy relationship between hard science and public policy.
I have a special interest in this because of my own upbringing. I was born in the midst of World War II, and passed my formative years at the height of the Cold War. In school drills, I dutifully crawled under my desk in preparation for a nuclear attack.
It was a time of widespread fear and uncertainty, but even as a child I believed that science represented the best and greatest hope for mankind. Even to a child, the contrast was clear between the world of politics-a world of hate and danger, of irrational beliefs and fears, of mass manipulation and disgraceful blots on human history. In contrast, science held different values-international in scope, forging friendships and working relationships across national boundaries and political systems, encouraging a dispassionate habit of thought, and ultimately leading to fresh knowledge and technology that would benefit all mankind.
The world might not be a very good place, but science would make it better. And it did. In my lifetime, science has largely fulfilled its promise. Science has been the great intellectual adventure of our age, and a great hope for our troubled and restless world. But I did not expect science merely to extend lifespan, feed the hungry, cure disease, and shrink the world with jets and cell phones.
I also expected science to banish the evils of human thought—prejudice and superstition, irrational beliefs and false fears. I expected science to be, in Carl Sagan’s memorable phrase, “a candle in a demon haunted world.” And here, I am not so pleased with the impact of science. Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity.
Some of the demons that haunt our world in recent years are invented by scientists. The world has not benefited from permitting these demons to escape free. But let’s look at how it came to pass.
Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains.
In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation: N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL
[where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet’s life during which the communicating civilizations live.]
This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses-just so we’re clear-are merely expressions of prejudice.
Nor can there be “informed guesses.” If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It’s simply prejudice.
As a result, the Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion.
Faith is defined as the firm belief in something for which there is no proof. The belief that the Koran is the word of God is a matter of faith. The belief that God created the universe in seven days is a matter of faith. The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered.There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief. SETI is a religion.
One way to chart the cooling of enthusiasm is to review popular works on the subject. In 1964, at the height of SETI enthusiasm, Walter Sullivan of the NY Times wrote an exciting book about life in the universe entitled WE ARE NOT ALONE. By 1995, when Paul Davis wrote a book on the same subject, he titled it ARE WE ALONE? ( Since 1981, there have in fact been four books titled ARE WE ALONE.) More recently we have seen the rise of the so-called “Rare Earth” theory which suggests that we may, in fact, be all alone.
Again, there is no evidence either way.
Back in the sixties, SETI had its critics, although not among astrophysicists and astronomers. The biologists and paleontologists were harshest. George Gaylord Simpson of Harvard sneered that SETI was a “study without a subject,” and it remains so to the present day. But scientists in general have been indulgent toward SETI, viewing it either with bemused tolerance, or with indifference. After all, what’s the big deal? It’s kind of fun. If people want to look, let them. Only a curmudgeon would speak harshly of SETI. It wasn’t worth the bother.
And of course, it is true that untestable theories may have heuristic value. Of course, extraterrestrials are a good way to teach science to kids. But that does not relieve us of the obligation to see the Drake equation clearly for what it is-pure speculation in quasi-scientific trappings.
The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage-similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example-meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks.
Now let’s jump ahead a decade to the 1970s, and Nuclear Winter. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences reported on “Long-Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations” but the report estimated the effect of dust from nuclear blasts to be relatively minor.
In 1979, the Office of Technology Assessment issued a report on “The Effects of Nuclear War” and stated that nuclear war could perhaps produce irreversible adverse consequences on the environment. However, because the scientific processes involved were poorly understood, the report stated it was not possible to estimate the probable magnitude of such damage.
Three years later, in 1982, the Swedish Academy of Sciences commissioned a report entitled “The Atmosphere after a Nuclear War: Twilight at Noon,” which attempted to quantify the effect of smoke from burning forests and cities. The authors speculated that there would be so much smoke that a large cloud over the northern hemisphere would reduce incoming sunlight below the level required for photosynthesis, and that this would last for weeks or even longer.
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| The Drake Equation. Pure science -or Pure Hooey? |
The following year, five scientists including Richard Turco and Carl Sagan published a paper in Science called “Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions.” This was the so-called TTAPS report, which attempted to quantify more rigorously the atmospheric effects, with the added credibility to be gained from an actual computer model of climate.
At the heart of the TTAPS undertaking was another equation, never specifically expressed, but one that could be paraphrased as follows:
Ds = Wn Ws Wh Tf Tb Pt Pr Pe etc
(The amount of tropospheric dust = # warheads x size warheads x warhead detonation height x flammability of targets x Target burn duration x Particles entering the Troposphere x Particle reflectivity x Particle endurance, and so on.)
The similarity to the Drake equation is striking. As with the Drake equation, none of the variables can be determined. None at all. The TTAPS study addressed this problem in part by mapping out different wartime scenarios and assigning numbers to some of the variables, but even so, the remaining variables were-and are-simply unknowable. Nobody knows how much smoke will be generated when cities burn, creating particles of what kind, and for how long. No one knows the effect of local weather conditions on the amount of particles that will be injected into the troposphere. No one knows how long the particles will remain in the troposphere. And so on.
And remember, this is only four years after the OTA study concluded that the underlying scientific processes were so poorly known that no estimates could be reliably made.
Nevertheless, the TTAPS study not only made those estimates, but concluded they were catastrophic. According to Sagan and his coworkers, even a limited 5,000 megaton nuclear exchange would cause a global temperature drop of more than 35 degrees Centigrade, and this change would last for three months.
The greatest volcanic eruptions that we know of changed world temperatures somewhere between .5 and 2 degrees Centigrade. Ice ages changed global temperatures by 10 degrees. Here we have an estimated change three times greater than any ice age.
One might expect it to be the subject of some dispute. But Sagan and his coworkers were prepared, for nuclear winter was from the outset the subject of a well-orchestrated media campaign. The first announcement of nuclear winter appeared in an article by Sagan in the Sunday supplement, Parade. The very next day, a highly-publicized, high-profile conference on the long-term consequences of nuclear war was held in Washington, chaired by Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich, the most famous and media-savvy scientists of their generation.
Sagan appeared on the Johnny Carson show 40 times. Ehrlich was on 25 times. Following the conference, there were press conferences, meetings with congressmen, and so on. The formal papers in Science came months later.
This is not the way science is done, it is the way products are sold. The real nature of the conference is indicated by these artists’ renderings of the effect of nuclear winter. (Not Shown)
I cannot help but quote the caption for figure 5: “Shown here is a tranquil scene in the north woods. A beaver has just completed its dam, two black bears forage for food, a swallow-tailed butterfly flutters in the foreground, a loon swims quietly by, and a kingfisher searches for a tasty fish.” Hard science if ever there was.
At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now?
Ehrlich answered by saying “I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists”
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world.
In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.
In addition, let me remind you that the track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.
In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever.
In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.
Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra.
The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.
Finally, I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.
Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.
But back to our main subject. What I have been suggesting to you is that nuclear winter was a meaningless formula, tricked out with bad science, for policy ends. It was political from the beginning, promoted in a well-orchestrated media campaign that had to be planned weeks or months in advance.
Further evidence of the political nature of the whole project can be found in the response to criticism. Although Richard Feynman was characteristically blunt, saying, “I really don’t think these guys know what they’re talking about,” other prominent scientists were noticeably reticent. Freeman Dyson was quoted as saying “It’s an absolutely atrocious piece of science but who wants to be accused of being in favor of nuclear war?” And Victor Weisskopf said, “The science is terrible but—perhaps the psychology is good.”
The nuclear winter team followed up the publication of such comments with letters to the editors denying that these statements were ever made, though the scientists since then have subsequently confirmed their views. At the time, there was a concerted desire on the part of lots of people to avoid nuclear war. If nuclear winter looked awful, why investigate too closely? Who wanted to disagree? Only people like Edward Teller, the “father of the H bomb.”
Teller said, “While it is generally recognized that details are still uncertain and deserve much more study, Dr. Sagan nevertheless has taken the position that the whole scenario is so robust that there can be little doubt about its main conclusions.”
Yet for most people, the fact that nuclear winter was a scenario riddled with uncertainties did not seem to be relevant. I say it is hugely relevant. Once you abandon strict adherence to what science tells us, once you start arranging the truth in a press conference, then anything is possible.
In one context, maybe you will get some mobilization against nuclear war. But in another context, you get Lysenkoism. In another, you get Nazi euthanasia. The danger is always there, if you subvert science to political ends.
That is why it is so important for the future of science that the line between what science can say with certainty, and what it cannot, be drawn clearly-and defended.
What happened to Nuclear Winter? As the media glare faded, its robust scenario appeared less persuasive; John Maddox, editor of Nature, repeatedly criticized its claims; within a year, Stephen Schneider, one of the leading figures in the climate model, began to speak of “nuclear autumn.” It just didn’t have the same ring.
A final media embarrassment came in 1991, when Carl Sagan predicted on Nightline that Kuwaiti oil fires would produce a nuclear winter effect, causing a “year without a summer,” and endangering crops around the world. Sagan stressed this outcome was so likely that “it should affect the war plans.” None of it happened.
What, then, can we say were the lessons of Nuclear Winter? I believe the lesson was that with a catchy name, a strong policy position and an aggressive media campaign, nobody will dare to criticize the science, and in short order, a terminally weak thesis will be established as fact.
After that, any criticism becomes beside the point. The war is already over without a shot being fired. That was the lesson, and we had a textbook application soon afterward, with second hand smoke.
In 1993, the EPA announced that second-hand smoke was “responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths each year in nonsmoking adults,” and that it ” impairs the respiratory health of hundreds of thousands of people.” In a 1994 pamphlet the EPA said that the eleven studies it based its decision on were not by themselves conclusive, and that they collectively assigned second-hand smoke a risk factor of 1.19. (For reference, a risk factor below 3.0 is too small for action by the EPA. or for publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example.)
Furthermore, since there was no statistical association at the 95% confidence limits, the EPA lowered the limit to 90%. They then classified second-hand smoke as a Group-A Carcinogen.
This was openly fraudulent science, but it formed the basis for bans on smoking in restaurants, offices, and airports. California banned public smoking in 1995. Soon, no claim was too extreme. By 1998, the Christian Science Monitor was saying that “Second-hand smoke is the nation’s third-leading preventable cause of death.” The American Cancer Society announced that 53,000 people died each year of second-hand smoke. The evidence for this claim is nonexistent.
In 1998, a Federal judge held that the EPA had acted improperly, had “committed to a conclusion before research had begun”, and had “disregarded information and made findings on selective information.”
The reaction of Carol Browner, head of the EPA was: “We stand by our science; there’s wide agreement. The American people certainly recognize that exposure to second hand smoke brings a whole host of health problems.”
Again, note how the claim of consensus trumps science. In this case, it isn’t even a consensus of scientists that Browner evokes! It’s the consensus of the American people.
Meanwhile, ever-larger studies failed to confirm any association. A large, seven-country WHO study in 1998 found no association. Nor have well-controlled subsequent studies, to my knowledge. Yet we now read, for example, that second-hand smoke is a cause of breast cancer. At this point you can say pretty much anything you want about second-hand smoke.
As with nuclear winter, bad science is used to promote what most people would consider good policy. I certainly think it is. I don’t want people smoking around me. So who will speak out against banning second-hand smoke? Nobody, and if you do, you’ll be branded a shill of RJ Reynolds. A big tobacco flunky. But the truth is that we now have a social policy supported by the grossest of superstitions.
And we’ve given the EPA a bad lesson in how to behave in the future. We’ve told them that cheating is the way to succeed.
As the twentieth century drew to a close, the connection between hard scientific fact and public policy became increasingly elastic. In part this was possible because of the complacency of the scientific profession; in part because of the lack of good science education among the public; in part, because of the rise of specialized advocacy groups which have been enormously effective in getting publicity and shaping policy; and in great part because of the decline of the media as an independent assessor of fact.
The deterioration of the American media is dire loss for our country. When distinguished institutions like the New York Times can no longer differentiate between factual content and editorial opinion, but rather mix both freely on their front page, then who will hold anyone to a higher standard?
And so, in this elastic anything-goes world where science-or non-science-is the hand maiden of questionable public policy, we arrive at last at global warming. It is not my purpose here to rehash the details of this most magnificent of the demons haunting the world. I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established.
Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron.
Next, the isolation of those scientists who won’t get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and “skeptics” in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nut-cases.
In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done. When did “skeptic” become a dirty word in science? When did a skeptic require quotation marks around it?
To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: “These results are derived with the help of a computer model.”
But now, large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world-increasingly, models provide the data.
As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs. This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well.
Richard Feynmann called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands. Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we’re asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?
And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?
Stepping back, I have to say the arrogance of the model-makers is breathtaking. There have been, in every century, scientists who say they know it all. Since climate may be a chaotic system-no one is sure-these predictions are inherently doubtful, to be polite. But more to the point, even if the models get the science spot-on, they can never get the sociology. To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.
Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?
Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horse****?
Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport.
And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t know what an atom was.
They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.
Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.
I remind you that in the lifetime of most scientists now living, we have already had an example of dire predictions set aside by new technology. I refer to the green revolution. In 1960, Paul Ehrlich said, “The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines-hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”
Ten years later, he predicted four billion people would die during the 1980s, including 65 million Americans. The mass starvation that was predicted never occurred, and it now seems it isn’t ever going to happen. Nor is the population explosion going to reach the numbers predicted even ten years ago.
In 1990, climate modelers anticipated a world population of 11 billion by 2100. Today, some people think the correct number will be 7 billion and falling. But nobody knows for sure. But it is impossible to ignore how closely the history of global warming fits on the previous template for nuclear winter.
Just as the earliest studies of nuclear winter stated that the uncertainties were so great that probabilities could never be known, so, too the first pronouncements on global warming argued strong limits on what could be determined with certainty about climate change.
The 1995 IPCC draft report said, “Any claims of positive detection of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.” It also said, “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of observed climate changes to anthropogenic causes.”
Those statements were removed, and in their place appeared: “The balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate.” What is clear, however, is that on this issue, science and policy have become inextricably mixed to the point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, to separate them out. It is possible for an outside observer to ask serious questions about the conduct of investigations into global warming, such as whether we are taking appropriate steps to improve the quality of our observational data records, whether we are systematically obtaining the information that will clarify existing uncertainties, whether we have any organized disinterested mechanism to direct research in this contentious area.
The answer to all these questions is no. We don’t. In trying to think about how these questions can be resolved, it occurs to me that in the progression from SETI to nuclear winter to second-hand smoke to global warming, we have one clear message, and that is that we can expect more and more problems of public policy dealing with technical issues in the future-problems of ever greater seriousness, where people care passionately on all sides.
And at the moment we have no mechanism to get good answers. So I will propose one. Just as we have established a tradition of double-blinded research to determine drug efficacy, we must institute double-blinded research in other policy areas as well. Certainly the increased use of computer models, such as GCMs, cries out for the separation of those who make the models from those who verify them.
The fact is that the present structure of science is entrepreneurial, with individual investigative teams vying for funding from organizations that all too often have a clear stake in the outcome of the research-or appear to, which may be just as bad. This is not healthy for science.
Sooner or later, we must form an independent research institute in this country. It must be funded by industry, by government, and by private philanthropy, both individuals and trusts. The money must be pooled, so that investigators do not know who is paying them. The institute must fund more than one team to do research in a particular area, and the verification of results will be a foregone requirement: teams will know their results will be checked by other groups.
In many cases, those who decide how to gather the data will not gather it, and those who gather the data will not analyze it. If we were to address the land temperature records with such rigor, we would be well on our way to an understanding of exactly how much faith we can place in global warming, and therefore with what seriousness we must address this.
I believe that as we come to the end of this litany, some of you may be saying, well what is the big deal, really. So we made a few mistakes. So a few scientists have overstated their cases and have egg on their faces. So what?
Well, I’ll tell you.
In recent years, much has been said about the post-modernist claims about science to the effect that science is just another form of raw power, tricked out in special claims for truth-seeking and objectivity that really have no basis in fact. Science, we are told, is no better than any other undertaking. These ideas anger many scientists, and they anger me. But recent events have made me wonder if they are correct.
We can take as an example the scientific reception accorded a Danish statistician, Bjorn Lomborg, who wrote a book called The Skeptical Environmentalist.
The scientific community responded in a way that can only be described as disgraceful. In professional literature, it was complained he had no standing because he was not an earth scientist. His publisher, Cambridge University Press, was attacked with cries that the editor should be fired, and that all right-thinking scientists should shun the press. The past president of the AAAS wondered aloud how Cambridge could have ever “published a book that so clearly could never have passed peer review.” (But of course, the manuscript did pass peer review by three earth scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, and all recommended publication.)
But what are scientists doing attacking a press? Is this the new McCarthyism-coming from scientists? Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts.
The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was “rife with careless mistakes.”
It was a poor display, featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocaust denier. The issue was captioned: “Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist.”
Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to? When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn’t enough, he put the critics’ essays on his web page and answered them in detail.
Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down. Further attacks since, have made it clear what is going on. Lomborg is charged with heresy. That’s why none of his critics needs to substantiate their attacks in any detail. That’s why the facts don’t matter.
That’s why they can attack him in the most vicious personal terms. He’s a heretic. Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I’d see the Scientific American in the role of Mother Church.
Is this what science has become? I hope not. But it is what it will become, unless there is a concerted effort by leading scientists to aggressively separate science from policy.
The late Philip Handler, former president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that “Scientists best serve public policy by living within the ethics of science, not those of politics. If the scientific community will not unfrock the charlatans, the public will not discern the difference– science and the nation will suffer.”
Personally, I don’t worry about the nation. But I do worry about science.
Sources:
Michael Crichton’s speeches and essays at these two URLs
http://www.fileindexer.com/find/Michael-Crichton-Speeches
http://www.fileindexer.com/find/Michael-Crichton-essays
Crichton’s official web page:
how bizarre is this website, allegedly the official michael crichton website, but “State of Fear” topic is the only one locked plus further down there is:
The Science Forum
Discuss the science behind Michael Crichton’s books and films OTHER THAN THE SCIENCE DISCUSSED IN STATE OF FEAR.
http://crichton-official.com/phpBB3/index.php
but I guess if you are politically inclined to accept Crichton’s opinion, listening to easy words is comforting.
I’m not politically aligned to Crichton. I don’t find his words comforting.
It is a cheap shot to assume all that disagree with you on AGW do so because of their inherent political leanings. I am solidly left-wing and not socially conservative. I’m not religious and am very pro-science. I should be a candidate for belief in AGW.
However, I do have a post-graduate qualifications in Chemistry and I don’t believe the evidence for AGW so far presented to me. My political leanings are irrelevant.
DCC says:
July 9, 2010 at 10:36 am
But was it peer-reviewed?
____________________________
Given the number of scientists who visit this site, it is not only yes it is HELL YES.
Dave H, GeoFlynx, and no doubt others,
Would you please stop it with the ad hominems, please. If you have a critical comment about something Crichton says in the lecture, and you are willing to seriously explain your criticism rather than taking cheap shots, then make them. If not, stop acting like teenagers who resent coming to class.
It was MC’s brilliant work in “State of Fear” that first alerted me to the fallacies of the AGW movement. I am an Geoscientist of long experiences and I had not examined their claims until then. Once I looked around a bit, I found a house of cards ready to drop. I work with computer models frequently and I’m here to tell you that models are interpretive, not predictive.
Dave H says:
“I accept the evidence for AGW, which – like an awful lot of science – is based on sound physical principles, experimental results, empirical observations…”
Please post your ‘evidence’, your ‘experimental results’, and your ’empirical observations’ [eg, raw data], showing that AGW is a testable hypothesis.
By doing so you will have instantly solved the problem of the climate sensitivity number in a single post, by quantifying the effect of CO2 on temperature [if any], and you will be on the short list for the [now worthless] Nobel prize.
Ball’s in your court. Stay on point. And don’t keep us in suspense. Thanx.
Dave H writes:
“Hmm, well its a long speech and its been analysed thoroughly elsewhere over the years – I imagine anything I say here will be lost in the noise so I’ll keep it brief. Personally I take issue, for starters, with his casual dismissal of consensus and reliance on the Galileo gambit.”
“> Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. ”
“Nonsense. The history of science is a story of gradual shifts toward consensus on a variety of subjects. The work of science has *everything* to do with consensus.”
Galileo is the father of scientific method. Because experimental science cannot be understood except against the background of scientific method, Galileo is also the father of experimental science. If you haven’t studied Galileo’s original works then you have not experienced the birth of scientific method and experimental science. By the way, though they are highly rewarding, Galileo’s works are not for the faint of heart.
As a philosopher, I revere Galileo because he introduced critical method to science and introduced science to critical method. All non-specialized logic courses contain an introduction to scientific method. They must if they cover the fundamentals of critical reasoning. Science is a critical enterpise. Anyone who tells you differently is not a scientist but a salesman of “things scientific.”
Galileo made science critical. Before Galileo, science had proceeded within a framework of “consensus.” The scientists in the Inquisition were asserting their belief in scientific consensus against Galileo’s critical method. Copernicus had avoided the Inquisition by claiming that his work was “mere mathematics.” Kepler served a Protestant prince and thumbed his nose at consensus. So did Newton. There is no overriding authority in science and, for that reason, no consensus. We owe Galileo for that revelation. Einstein saluted when he said that one experimenter could prove him wrong. Today we understand that the idea of consensus belongs to politicians and other controlling bodies, not to science. Scientists answer only to the critical method of experiment.
I kind of get the feeling that Michael Crichton would consider the phrase “scientific consensus” an oxymoron, or at least consider that with any given “scientific consensus” and five bucks, you could get a cup of coffee at StarBucks.
pat says:
July 9, 2010 at 6:45 pm
how bizarre is this website, allegedly the official michael crichton website, but “State of Fear” topic is the only one locked plus further down there is:
The Science Forum
Discuss the science behind Michael Crichton’s books and films OTHER THAN THE SCIENCE DISCUSSED IN STATE OF FEAR.
I suspect this only demonstrates, and sadly so, that the issue is so politicized — and even tinged with a religious fervor on the pro-AGW side — that it is impossible to maintain any semblance of reasoned discussion or debate on that topic. If that is the case it only proves, ironically, Dr. Crichton’s point that the current climate change debate is more cultural than scientific.
Dave H – brave of you to comment here and credit to Anthony and moderators for having a site that supports open dialogue.
Great set of comments on the role of consensus and more eloquent than I can provide, so I will just add this. Consensus is a by-product of other processes, some scientific, some political and financial, all psychological. Fundamentally consensus is just not very important (to the validity of the science anyway).
Dave H you would do yourself a favour if you didn’t try to use consensus to defend the science. Try to use science to defend the science. From my observations, you will get a fair hearing here but your “physical principles, experimental results, empirical observations…” better be good, because what we have seen from others so far just adds to the uncertainty.
Karl Maki: No, sorry, it is not hopeless. I don’t surrender my house because some whack job moved next door.
Paul Daniel Ash says:
July 9, 2010 at 10:00 am
I think the independent research institute is a great idea. If there was research, done with open access to data sets and methods, that both ‘warmists” and “skeptics” could agree was rigorous and free from bias… well, we might actually get somewhere.
REPLY: No argument there, but keeping such a thing truly independent of government and/or the hated/imagined “big oil” influences is a tall order in today’s world. -A
Government requires accountability for the taxes it allots for something, or at least it should, and other influences would also require such accountability, and justly so.
As I see things, the only time a piece of research should be taken as completely credible, is:
[A] when it has been independently researched, and the findings have been successfully repeated using both the same as well as different methods to arrive at the same conclusion(s).
OR
[B] The same research has been conducted elsewhere by other entities, not connected in any way with those of the original source(s) of funding.
AND
[C] No political connections of whatever sort may be seen as the driving force for the research and the results.
LarryOldtimer said — July 9, 2010 at 3:09 pm
One thing I do find rather amazing, however. Individuals or small groups who are really guilty or culpable of doing wrong in the eyes of society will most often deny their guilt or culpability, however guilty or culpable they might be, no matter the evidence against them, to their dying breaths. Yet how easy it is to get large groups of people to, in unison, beat their breasts and pronounce loudly, “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa,” for that with which none of them could have had anything to do at all.
I have never thought of it, but now that you’ve pointed it out, I can’t help but see how true this observation is. I feel sure that there is something of real, psychological significance here. Of course, we hate being wrong and will do almost anything to avoid looking wrong, regardless of the evidence — so that part’s not too puzzling. But it doesn’t explain why so many people who’ve done nothing wrong are yet so willing to take the blame.
I wonder if there can be a kind of “survivor’s guilt” mechanism at work here. Generally speaking, these mea culpa types are fairly well off, live comfortable life styles, and enjoy a great deal of personal freedom. As communications have become more global, and more immediate, it is almost impossible to remain unaware of all those millions of people who do not have the same standard of living. In fact, we are bombarded with this knowledge on a daily basis. The response might be to feel guilt at our fortune and to try assuaging this guilt by breast-beating and insisting that everyone should “live more simply.”
Don’t know, but you got me thinking, Larry.
Dave H says:
July 9, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“…There is broad agreement that observational data shows the earth is warming, and that the principle cause is human emissions of CO2…”
Actually, the complete opposite is true. Carbon dioxide has no effect whatsoever on climate, besides which at least 95% is produced naturally. In ancient times, when carbon dioxide levels were 10 times greater than today, there were ice sheets spreading down to the equator.
“The whole pitch is distrust anything that is presented to you as a consensus in science. This is illogical, and unfounded. Do you disagree that there is a consensus that smoking causes cancer? Do you disagree that much of the health legislation surrounding smoking emerged precisely because there was a broad consensus on this issue, despite disagreement and uncertainty about specific details and risks? Should climate scientists pretend that there *isn’t* a consensus about the basics of AGW? Would that make the science more sound?
The existence of a consensus is not a sound basis for rejecting science.”
Troll feeding time…
Dave H, go read up on your statistical studies before you start to claim climate science today is sound. Until you understand stastistics, how can you understand how the computer models work which is entirely based on statistics? You are taking it on belief that climate scientists are correct. If they told you they proved the existance of eternal damnation, you would believe them on that too simply because it was printed in a “peer-reviewed” journal. You are just one of those following of the religion…the true believers…
But rejoice, there is still hope!
First step in over-coming your ill-formed beliefs is repeating after me…
“correlation does not equal causation.”
do that five times.
Now to be honest, I do disagree with you, smoking does not cause cancer. Smoking increases your chances of developing cancer. In statistics, this is the first crucial step to understanding the math and science that goes into this over-abused field.
You are right, a consensus is not a good reason to reject a scientific theory. A good reason is that the people who made the terrible computer models are immoral idiots just doing what their bosses wanted them to without thinking of the consequences. You do realize that people were convicted of war crimes for just “Following orders.” Should we put the same litmus test to the orders given to these scientists? Those who follow immoral laws should be held to the same standard as those who issued them?
Remember, some of us here study history and remember what happened in the aftermath of WW2.
My question for all the trolls today:
What do you hope to accomplish with your agenda?
1) posting on this site, whats your goals for this?
2) your overall commitment to GW. What is your goal for this agenda?
Troll feeding is done for the day, thank you for your time.
Dave H. –
There are two kinds of consensus: consensus about what should be done (or not done) about something, and consensus about the answer to a question (including “don’t know” and “not sure.”) Scientific consensus is of the 2nd kind. When we say that science does not work by consensus, we mean that it plays no role in finding the answer. Rather, it is an effect of having found the answer. If someone who has not investigated the question agrees with the answer, this is of no significance for whether the answer is correct. Even if, after an answer (right or wrong) has been found, he investigates the question, his agreement is unimportant, because there is no effective way to strongly distinguish him from other agreeing persons, whose agreement would be far less valuable. Indeed, there is not even any scientific way of knowing whether he has adequately investigated the question; agreement does not consist of anything that could be tested.
On the other hand, if he disagrees, this could be important, because his complaint with the answer, or his alternative answer, can be investigated or tested, and this does not depend on any a priori distinguishing of his opinion as valuable, except in the practical sense that we can’t check all complaints or alternative answers. In principle, disagreement is valuable for reaching the right answer, and agreement is not.
You may object to this by saying that science requires replication, and if several scientists replicate a result, this is important. That’s true, but their agreement with it is not what is important. What’s important is the fact that they replicated it. Any of them could recant, but this would not change the fact that he had replicated the result, unless his recanting consisted of showing that he had not.
me: we mean that it plays no role in finding the answer.
I meant to write, “we mean that consensus plays no role in finding the answer.”
In a previous post I made a few month’s ago at WUWT, I pointed out that the percentage of the population that believes that UFO’s are extraterrestrial in origin is approximately the same as the percentage that believes that global warming is anthropogenic in nature. It has been my hypothesis that there is a large overlap in the membership of the two groups. At that time, I was completely unaware of Michael Crichton’s 2003 lecture.
A similar type of delusional thinking is also displayed by many persons in the “conspiracy corners”, you know the types, individuals which will accept every conspiracy theory in the solar system: “911 was an inside job”, “The government is covering up contact with extraterrestrials”, and the latest “The BP oil spill was done intentionally”.
BTW, the Drake equation has it’s detractors, myself included. A more appropriate statement of the Drake equation is as follows:
N = R x wild guess #1 x wild guess #2 x wild guess #3 x wild guess #4 x wild guess #5 x wild guess #6
Dave H says:
July 9, 2010 at 1:45 pm
Vincent says:
July 9, 2010 at 1:16 pm
> They have all been consigned to the garbage as being totally and completely wrong.
And you replied:
“And a *new* consensus formed around the better explanation – so why should we distrust consensus again?”
But surely you have just proved my point, by agreeing that the old consensus was wrong. Ah wait. Are you actually saying that the old consensus was only “refined” into the new consensus, still sharing many features? If this is what you are in fact saying, then I must disagree. Many old consensus’ were not incorporated into the new consensus’ that replaced them. All those rejected consensus’ that have been previously mentioned on this blog have been rejected as 100% baloney. So Crichton and others are quite right to warn us about the dangers of embracing a hypothesis simply because there is a consensus. The hypothesis may be right, but the existence of the consensus does not add to the weight of the science in any way. Indeed, consensus itself acts as a form of positive feedback, further reinforcing believe in the hypothesis, as it circulates throughout society. Rather like the celebrity who is famous for being famous, the AGW hypothesis is pronounced true for no other reason than everyone says it is true. You yourself continue to offer consensus as your argument to the truth of AGW, so this rather proves Crichton’s point.
I said: > Nobody, including Crichton, is making the utterly absurd statement that whenever a consensus exists then it must be false.
You replied:
“No, in fact what he said was:
> If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”
I think you’re agreeing with me then – he isn’t saying that every consensus must be false, only that it isn’t science. I assume you have a problem with that statement. Maybe you think consensus is science? Crichton is quite right to draw this distinction, and it is shocking that it needs saying. Science is based on a methodolgy of hypothesis, evidence gathering, testing and falsification – or not. Consensus shouldn’t come into the scientific method at all. Although we recognise that a consensus exists, it tells us very little, although, as someone pointed out on this blog, it does serve as a model for putting science into text books for children.
Regarding Bjorn Lomberg, I am not well up on the details, so I can’t form an opinion.
Brendan H says:
July 9, 2010 at 5:58 pm
As far as I can see, human beings are stuck with consensus when it comes to the practice and advancement of science.
There is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the earth is spherical, not flat. Yet, you don’t hear any scientists or others saying that. They don’t need to, as the evidence is indeed overwhelming, and quite obvious.
The Warmists however, do proclaim a scientific consensus that significant manmade warming has occurred due to his emissions of C02, and that the warming will continue and become catastrophic if those emissions are not decreased. Their use of the claim of scientific consensus has one purpose only: to shut down, and shout down debate. That is the point Crichton was so eloquently making.
So yes, consensus, as with the idea that the earth is a sphere is useful, but “In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.”
Unfortunately for the Warmists, that is not the case.
An inspiring read – as others have commented, I wish I had read this in 2003! It is a comprehensive indictment of the depths to which science has fallen. Please, can we recover the inspirational heights at which non-scientists such as I had always perceived the scientist? Thanks also for the clarification of the copyright situation – I intend to distribute this widely!!
Mooloo says:
July 9, 2010 at 6:46 pm
(Dave H) “…but I guess if you are politically inclined to accept Crichton’s opinion, listening to easy words is comforting.”
I’m not politically aligned to Crichton. I don’t find his words comforting.
It is a cheap shot to assume all that disagree with you on AGW do so because of their inherent political leanings. I am solidly left-wing and not socially conservative. I’m not religious and am very pro-science. I should be a candidate for belief in AGW.
Not just a cheap shot but a logical fallacy, and only one of many in their bag o’ tricks they use, which includes of course, the argument by consensus. The trolls know, on some level, that the science behind CAGW/CC is extremely weak which is why they need to resort to logical fallacies. They don’t have much else.
This and the equally thought provoking essay about consensus in science published as an epilogue at the end of Crichton’s State of Fear novel that uses the “science” of eugenics as an example of how things can go wrong when such Lysenkoisms are used as a basis for public policy should be an obligatory read for everyone involved in the policy making process everywhere.
Simply brilliant.
As a physicist the only serious fault I must speak out about is his conclusion.
“Science” is not failing us, it is “scientists” who have departed from using real science.
Do Bill Clinton’s or Richard Nixon’s actions lead us to conclude that Democracy or our Constitution are wrong? Hardly. Their failings are only indicative of their individual shortcomings.
Such it is with science.
AGW and other technical matters MUST be subjected to the Scientific Method. That is applying real science.
They have not been, so real science has yet to be applied.
Our choice is simple: sound scientific solutions or palliative political pablum.
So far (due to intensive lobbyist influence) it has been entirely the latter.
See EnergyPresentation.Info.
The most important aspect of science is not whether there is a consensus or not, but the nature of the scientific theories, models and data. There may be a consensus that smoking causes cancer – but the important things are the numerous studies that show this to be the case – the “consensus” is neither here nor there. As a counter example, there is the case of homeopathy, widely believed to be an effective form of medicine. In this case, there are very few convincing scientific studies that support the notion – and plenty of studies that show that homeopathy is no better a treatment than a placebo.
Switching to anthropogenic global warming. There may be a “consensus” amongst climate scientists that increasing levels of CO2 are the cause of the recent increases in global temperatures – but the reality is that the amount of hard evidence to back this up is actually paper thin and is largely based on computer modelling whose relationship to reality is highly questionable. Forget “social and political” resistance to the AGW hypothesis – there are plenty of scientific reasons to be highly skeptical of AGW.
Crichton is right to question the idea of “consensus” being used to bolster any particular aspect of science. To me, any consensus argument causes me to think of a familar catch-phrase: “Where’s the beef?” – i.e. pony up the data and the studies that back up the scientific claims.