Dr. Roger Cohen, APS member, sends this via email commenting on this Dot Earth article.
Where do I start?
Well, maybe the most offensive part of this column is the use of psychobabble to distract and divert attention from the real issue, which is the science, and whether it has been corrupted. Of course Revkin will \”share Ropeik’s view.\” Would there be any doubt? This mumbo jumbo is a symptom of the burgeoning industry of treating global warming deniers as mentally ill, a stark reminder of how easy it was for the Soviet Union to throw dissenters into mental hospitals.
Am I exaggerating? Hardly. Take a look at this piece on a conference held in 2009 at the University of West England http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/6320/ . It was aimed at trying to understand just what affliction plagues those people who simply don’t see or can’t find the \”mountains of evidence\” for serious anthropogenic global warming. Evidently it has spawned a new field — \”ecopsychology.\” Lord help us.
As for the science, Lewis and many others who have bothered to actually look into it cannot find the purported strong case for serious anthropogenic global warming. Indeed the balance of evidence points to a small anthropogenic component, far smaller than IPCC summary conclusions. It will of course take time for this to be widely understood and broadly accepted, but it will. There will be a Kuhnian paradigm shift at some point. Meanwhile the tainted IPCC process and other shenanigans have caused public erosion in the trust it had invested in science and scientists. None of us know how this distrust, which is part of the larger decline of confidence in our key institutions, will resolve.
As for the APS and Dr. Lewis’s beef with it, readers may wish to review the information available at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/13/aps-responds-deconstructing-the-aps-response-to-dr-hal-lewis-resignation/ It sheds a bit more light on what is really going on.
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Who could give some comment on the central criticism Revkin raised in his Op-Ed: how Hal changed his point of view during these years? Are there some turning point or it happened gradually?
Dr. Cohen is far to kind. Revkin is simply showing is true colors and they have nothing to do with science. This is example of why I have not and will not grace Dot Earth with my time.
You say: “Well, maybe the most offensive part of this column is the use of psychobabble to distract and divert attention from the real issue, which is the science, and whether it has been corrupted.”
I disagree, “the science” is not the real issue. The real issue is acquisition and consolidation of political power. The scientific exercise is merely a convenience, no different than the ancient pronouncements of oracles, which also were used for the same purpose. Scientist’s object to being used in this manner, but that is the reality. You should know this.
dahuang:
At October 15, 2010 at 1:01 pm you write:
“Who could give some comment on the central criticism Revkin raised in his Op-Ed: how Hal changed his point of view during these years? Are there some turning point or it happened gradually?”
That is NOT a criticism: it is a question concerning the process which induced Hal Lewis to reach his present understanding of the issue(s).
And only Hal Lewis can answer it.
Jeez! The desperation of AGW-proponents is really reaching a crescendo now everybody can see their hobby-horse is falling apart.
Richard
I am afraid that science may have hit the same tipping point journalism hit as far as trust is concerned. When people had other outlets for information and could look things up themselves they found that the print and television “news outlets” were not being entirerly truthful. I am afraid that some scientists have done the same thing and an entire profession is being tarred with the same brush. Trust is a very fragile thing that sometimes takes years to develop but only moments to erode and may never be built up again or may take decades to re-enforce again.
Revkins’ article reeks of a religious apologetic tract. He focuses not on the issues, but in character assasination of the heretics.
Funny, changing one’s point of view is precisely what most of the debate over
AGW Climate ChangeClimate Disruption is about from those for whom it is not a religion. In the last twenty years much more data and analysis has been performed, much of which has cast doubt on the thesis that man has or is influencing the climate to any great degree. The CRU e-mails lay bare some of the behind-the-scenes machinations that were being perpetrated by some of the scientists involved in climate research, in order to frame the results (and debate) along their preconceived ideas. So, yes, in twenty years, it would be very easy to change one’s mind as new data becomes available.Encore! Encore!
________________________
Ref – WTF says:
October 15, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Very well said!
Richard Courtney has it nailed: we are seeing desperation. Here I will indulge in a little social psychology, courtesy of the academic social psychologist in the family. Unlike Revkin’s pop psychobabble, the following is based on classical models and experiments.
As contrary evidence has accumulated and political efforts have been frustrated, proponents of global warming have shown signs of cognitive dissonance. More than a half century ago, Leon Festinger developed the concept of cognitive dissonance and conducted early studies referred to even today. The idea is that when presented with information that is dissonant from strong beliefs that people have invested in, the easiest way to deal with it is to ignore it, divert attention to something else, or simply avoid that type of information. This helps explain why people can be resistant to new information which should be good news. Why would you get angry if someone tells you, “There won’t be a climate catastrophe.”
But how can a belief be held so strongly when most people do not have the training or the inclination to make a personal scientific assessment? Well, it is easy for people to fold their global warming cognitive into their political cognitive or their too-many-people cognitive, or whatever. There it becomes hardily resistant to new information.
Past studies give us insight into today’s debate dynamics. One study followed people who bought bomb shelters during the Cold War. It found that they tended to exaggerate the threat of nuclear war and to discount peace proposals, almost as if they were invested in nuclear war. Also, Festinger’s book, “When Prophecy Fails,” tells of a doomsday cult that predicted the end of the world on a particular date. When the day came and went, paradoxically the believers became even more determined they were right. They became louder and proselytized even more aggressively.
So as more evidence continues to mount against serious global warming, we can expect ever more strident, bizarre, and opaque defenses — and attacks — from proponents.
And a consequnce of these observations is is that someone who has indeed changed his mind on a matter of substance has had to have overcome his dissonances at some point. It is a credibility enhancing proposition.
Psychobabble, meet physics.
WTF says:
October 15, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“Trust is a very fragile thing that sometimes takes years to develop but only moments to erode and may never be built up again or may take decades to re-enforce again.”
If the erosion of trust leads to people thinking for themselves, then that’s a good thing.
What strikes me as irrational is that an intelligent person like Dr. Lewis, who has devoted his professional life to science, would either pay no heed to, or dismiss, the mountains of scientific evidence, from neuroscience and psychology and economics and sociology, that demonstrates beyond any serious question that the way we perceive risk is affective… Our fears are a combination of the facts and how those facts feel.
And Revkin agrees with this drivel. What Dr. Lewis is pointing out is that the facts just aren’t there, but the catastrophists have been pushing the affect (fear) for all they are worth. Just read the litany of disasters from the first commenter:
The clustering of bigger floods and more drought, more extremes, loss of water supplies, ocean acidification, spread of disease, increase of insects as warmer seasons lengthen is so obvious
The she has the chutzpah to lament the spread of disinformation. Pathetic.
The organisers say the conference will explore how ‘denial’ is a product of both ‘addiction and consumption’ and is the ‘consequence of living in a perverse culture which encourages collusion, complacency and irresponsibility’
I’ve been much, much, worse than they think, but I’m better now.
Though there are many things wrong in Revkin’s post, there is one egregious blunder. Quoting Ropeik who writes:
“Our brains are hard wired to do it this way. It seems Dr. Lewis is demonstrating the very phenomenon he laments, letting his affect and worldviews interfere with taking all the reliable evidence into account in order to make a truly informed and fair judgment.”
Revkin writes: “I share Ropeik’s view.”
What Ropeik wrote is a gross ad hominem directed at Lewis. The claim made in the ad hominem is itself an example of the worst kind of pseudo-science. I will be blunt about this. Only communists believe that our ideas cause our perceptions. Only communists attempt to decipher the “ideology of the proletariat” so that they can control the proletariat. And to the extent that Thomas Kuhn still believes this nonsense then he might be one of them. In his addresses during the middle seventies, he had backed away from this stuff. In the philosophy of science, we went through all this nonsense in the sixties and the seventies. Figuring out the puzzles that Kuhn posed was fun. But all this is finished for serious thinkers. Maybe the pro-AGW-AGCD folks are so enraged and so desperate that they are falling back on their underlying communism at this point.
I have a standing challenge to pro-AGW thinkers and I extend it to Revkin in particular. State the evidence for serious manmade climate warming from manufactured CO2 and state it in your own words. You cannot do it. There is no evidence.
Robert E. Phelan says:
October 15, 2010 at 1:51 pm
Just read the litany of disasters from the first commenter:…
She also said:
Andy, if you wonder why people quit commenting here…
After reading her second lengthy, rambling post I had the answer!
As Mr Courtney quite correctly points out above:
“And only Hal Lewis can answer it.”
but I could offer opinion upon it. And that would be that everyone can and often will, change their minds as they learn new things.
When I was a child, during my formative years i was taught about global climate and it was quite a scary thing. You see that many of today’s warming alarmists ( and many now departed ) were telling me via the TV, radio and my school curriculum, that we were headed for a particularly nasty ice age and that there was nothing to be done about it.
The nature of science, when done properly means that we learn new things every day. Those same climate doomsayers who promised me a glacial ice shelf as far south as London in the 70’s are the same people trying to convince me I’ll be drinking wine from Scottish grapes in a few hundred years.
But I do accept that there will be another ice ag and I accept that it’s inevitable. Just the same as I also accept that we will see ( and IMO are probably nearing ) another peak warming period because that’s just the nature of the thing if the ice core data is to be believed ( and I am inclined to believe it )
They can call it global warming, climate change, global climate disruption or whatever moniker takes their fancy. I’d prefer to coin a new phrase for it.
The climate roller-coaster.
Because that’s exactly what it is and it’s such a huge ride that we are having difficulty pinpointing and agreeing where exactly we are upon it. One thing for sure is that making the guys in the front car rich with a new form of climate financial market won’t make the cars go any faster or slower than the force driving the ride is inclined to allow.
From a paper linked on the Judith Curry’s blog:
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2590-2008.05.pdf
quote:
Aaron McCright and Dunlap (2003) identify the
conservative movement as a central obstacle to US policy
proposals concerning human-induced climate change, and
examine how a small group of ‘‘dissident’’ or ‘‘contrarian’’
scientists lent crucial scientific credentials and authority to
conservative think tanks. McCright and Dunlap (2000)
analyze the discourses structuring the contrarian scientists’
counter-claims related to climate change and how conservative
think tanks have mobilized these claims to
undermine concern about climate change. Carvalho
(2007) found that the American skeptics also have featured
prominently in the British ‘‘quality press’’ in support of a
neoliberal, capitalist agenda.
The above-mentioned sociological work on the antienvironmental
movement establishes the what and the how
dimensions of scientists’ engagement with it. What it does
not illuminate is why such scientists have chosen to lend
their support to this movement: Who are they? Where do
they come from? What motivates them? This paper seeks to
answer these questions with regards to three influential
physicists who joined the backlash, Frederick Seitz, Robert
Jastrow, and William Nierenberg (hereafter referred to as
‘‘the trio’’).
The trio is a subgroup within the dozen or so high-profile
US scientists who have been staunch and public in voicing
their criticisms of environmental concern about humaninduced
climate change and associated policy action. The
contrarians represent numerous disciplines and vary also in
terms of other factors (age, home institutions, status) etc.
but about half of them are physicists.7 This study discusses
the sociological significance of this strong representation of
physicists among the contrarians, but without drawing
conclusions about physicists as a whole.
end quote
And so we finally get to the core of the issue. Mine is a “libertarian” blog, about the science of indoctrination. We knew 25 years ago that Hansen was wrong.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/16/searching-the-paleoclimate-record-for-estimated-correlations-temperature-co2-and-sea-level/
Revkin is still under the mistaken impression that the uber-majority of scientists are proponents of the AGW-CO2 hypothesis. The ‘deniers’ are just a vocal fringe. But see “Six myths about “deniers”” in Quadrant Magazine. http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/03/six-myths-about-deniers
Moreover there seems to be a misperception on his part as to the burden of proof. The null hypothesis is that climate change is driven mostly by natural variations modulated by human induced forcings at the regional level (land use/land cover changes, aerosols, UHIs).
Those who think CO2 dominates climate change must show attribution–not just that the climate is warming. As Lewis points out, to date proof of attribution is tepid at best.
In general, Revkin is a lot fairer than I would expect from the NYT. The article was OK until he brought in Ropeik, who cares what another journalist thinks about it? It would have been cool if Revkin just suspended judgement, just let Lewis speak for himself. It would have been interesting to just let Lewis explain in his own words why he is so angry and what he thinks has happened in academic physics in recent years. By prematurely interjecting his opinion, Revkin risks alienating Lewis and short circuiting what could be a fascinating series. The smart thing is to develop the relationship with Lewis and see where it goes, it might even turn into an interesting book.
Revkin in the comments on the 2nd page:
I think its time that Revkin put up or shut up. Where is the fossil fuel industry/businesses reliant on fossil fuels for profits money supposedly pouring into “global warming contrarianism”? I’ve never seen any. Steve McIntyre is running on his pension and the occasional kindness of strangers. Anthony has certainly lost money as a result of his opinions.
Where are the contrarian Al Gores or James Hansens making large amounts of money (in the millions)?
We are never told who these rich contrarians are because THEY DON’T EXIST. Its a bullshit talking point by a bullshit-talking journalist uninterested in anything remotely like facts or evidence. Its the same boring lie repeated over and over as a near axiom that somehow, somewhere scientists like Hal Lewis or Freeman Dyson or Sallie Baliunas or Ross McKitrick are being bought with secret slushfunds to proclaim something that they know to be false. We’ve seen climatologists fired from their jobs because of their principled stand – but where is the money for doing so?
And when fossil fuel companies like Exxon Mobil give $100 million dollars to Stephen Schneider’s Stanford University by some miracle it all gets transformed from the Mark of Cain to golden haloes. Does Revkin consider than Stanford’s environmental output is in any way corrupted by the huge flows of money that flow to alarmists and activists from fossil fuel interests? Why not? For $100 million I’d consider endorsing Revkin as a plausible journalist.
Hey Revkin – put up or STFU. Where is this money that is supposedly pouring from the spigot of the nearest oil company into the pockets of contrarians? Lets see the invoices, the flash cars, the mansions, the gold cufflinks. Let’s see if you can actually produce evidence of your preposterous and defamatory statements.
I cannot believe that an intelligent human being would ask Hal Lewis to explain why he changed his views? He changed them because of new experience.
Roger says
—————–
Well, maybe the most offensive part of this column is the use of psychobabble to distract and divert attention from the real issue, which is the science, and whether it has been corrupted.
—————–
Don’t like offensive psychobabble?
Then why do you like; thousands of physicists are committing fraud that is motivated by trillions of dollars.
Do you have any evidence that physicists are motivated by trillions of dollars? Can you point to an experiment that proves that it is true? The psychologists you disparaged have done experiments.
So did you just make up this motivation theory to suit yourself?
Remind me again what you call physicists who just make stuff up. Frauds wasn’t it?
The whole motivation theory that is being used by you and Hal Lewis is psychobabble. And there is no doubt that it is beyond offensive, it’s despicable.
And by the way I am not a physicist.
dahuang says:
“Who could give some comment on the central criticism Revkin raised in his Op-Ed: how Hal changed his point of view during these years? Are there some turning point or it happened gradually?”
To quote another famous person ” When the facts change, I change my opinion. What do you do, Sir?”
Twenty years ago we thought that CO2 increased prior to warming (from early work on ice cores). With better analysis, this was shown not to be the case and the further critical analysis of Arrhenius’ “greenhouse” theory has shown that there are not only limits to the effect that CO2 can have, but that there are also many more factors affecting climate. As any scientist would, Prof. Lewis changed his opinion.
Prof. Lewis’ central thesis (in his resignation letter) is that as people became financially involved in responses to AGW, they ceased to be scientists and refused to accept that the new evidence refuted their position. In that sense, they became frauds and he felt no compunction in referring to them as such. In his response to Revkin, he said exactly this – any time a scientist goes beyond the evidence (or does not review the whole body of evidence) he commits scientific fraud. The only caveat is where he compares the outcome in terms of cost (and, one may presume, benefit to the perpetrator) as to whether the fraud is damaging or not.
DitelHead says:
October 15, 2010 at 2:19 pm
And so we finally get to the core of the issue. Mine is a “libertarian” blog, about the science of indoctrination. We knew 25 years ago that Hansen was wrong.
And society still taught me through the media, and the schools how right he was…what a shame…oh wait, I became such a great alarmist with all of that indoctrination…guess it really does not work out as much as they think it does. People who learn how to think can not be lied to like that.
Then again, I did get into trouble for being sarcastic starting in the sixth grade about saving the rainforest. I asked the teacher wouldn’t it be better to save starving children in Africa? And she said that I can do that on my own time, and then it started with me just ruining the lesson plans. Goes to show, education and thinking are something you can’t teach out of every child…and I even took the token climate science class at my college where despite being very vocal I still made an A because as the professor said, “you made your point well, which is what science is about.” I might say look at the grades Al Gore made in environmental science…and compare them to me, but that misses the point too.
The point being, indoctrination does not work. The harder you push it, the more people will slip through the cracks…its the general idea from Star Wars that is correct, the harder you curtail liberty, the more people who will slip through in the process. I am not scared for our children, I am scared for these doom-sayers who see their numbers coming up and a younger generation telling them they are retarded and need to go back to school. We might take one step back, but in reality this is really two steps forward as the next generation does its own thing. Just wait and see is what I got to say.