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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“Revkin Dot Earth”
What did you expect from Revkin? He knows in his heart of hearts that CO2 does not drive the climate and the doubling of CO2 amounts to a hill of beans. But he has got a family and a career to protect. It tough to come clean once you sell your soul for a piece of gold.
All this behavioural psychology! Quick fetch Pavlov… I think my head is about to explode!
LOL. Read some Dostoyevski: the average person is not anywhere near as stupid as the elitists think they are. That is exactly why the AGW scare is over.
JPeden says:
October 15, 2010 at 4:42 pm
“Ropeik has trapped himself within his own schema: how does he know that he is not doing the same thing over and over again when he tries to escape this “hard wired” mechanism to try to evaluate what is a scientific fact or method?”
Very well said. Of course, Ropeik could not know that. These Marxist theses yield a hardcore ideological relativism. That is one reason that Marxists are totalitarians. The last ideology standing is by definition the truth.
Theo Goodwin: “The only folks in the world who continue to claim that a scientist’s “world view” shapes their experience of the evidence are the hardcore Marxists.”
Leaving aside your ad hominen argument, to suggest that certain beliefs can influence other beliefs is not the same as saying that beliefs shape experience.
Nevertheless, in the above example you concede that some people can have their experiences “somewhat” shaped by their beliefs, so I guess you’ll be doing some work on that item of Marxist psychobabble.
More to the point, there is no reason to suppose that Lewis is any more or less free from cognitive bias than any other human being.
This is especially the case given Lewis’s appeal to staple items such as the “global warming scam”, “pseudoscientific fraud”, “global warming bubble” and his accusations of greed and glory-seeking.
This sort of rhetoric is hardly novel and certainly not “unique to Lewis”. Rather, the above are fairly shopworn examples of the genre, indeed just more of the same.
“What a difference a couple of decades can make, “ Revkin says. Man fears time, time fears Revkin.
Brendan H says:
October 15, 2010 at 7:49 pm
“………This is especially the case given Lewis’s appeal to staple items such as the “global warming scam”, “pseudoscientific fraud”, “global warming bubble” and his accusations of greed and glory-seeking.
This sort of rhetoric is hardly novel and certainly not “unique to Lewis”. Rather, the above are fairly shopworn examples of the genre, indeed just more of the same.”
======================================================
While I agree with most of what you stated, it doesn’t make Theo Goodwin’s nor Dr. Lewis’ claims any less true.
After over 20 years in the spotlight, it would be very difficult to claim many prominent climatologists are not “glory seekers”. For example Hansen, Mann, Jones(for a while) etc. More, it would be very difficult to claim “pseudoscientific fraud” didn’t exist in climatology, also. Witness the ludicrous inclusions in the IPCC report of the vanishing Himalayan glaciers or the heat evaporating the Amazon. As to the scam accusation, just look to the carbon credit scheme or the Nobel prize winning Gore for his work of fiction. As far as Theo’s reference to Marxists, just go here. Or simply consider the solutions to the alleged problems for a bit and then try to state they don’t carry some remarkable Marxist characteristics.
Shopworn, perhaps. Nailed to the wall, truth…….yep. Sorry if you find that a bit mundane.
Mods, my comment got sucked into the black hole again……..would you? Thanks ahead of time!
REPLY: Done, Anthony
To invoke Kuhn is to do a disservice to his philosophical argument. There must exist a paradigm theory before we can even talk about Kuhn and normal science. With all of the squabbling and jockeying occurring in this field I’d say that climate science is in a pre-paradigm phase in the same way experienced in chemistry before Lavoisier’s paradigm theory of combustion.
The author overreaches when talking about the state of climate science and weakens his argument.
FWIW, my response to Revkin (currently in moderation):
Andrew Revkin wrote [in reply to a comment in the thread-hro]:
“Interestingly, a member of that panel was Stephen Schneider, for decades a strong proponent of action to limit greenhouse gases.”
Quite so. But unless I’m very much mistaken, prior to adopting advocacy of this particular “cause”, Schneider was banging another alarmist snare-drum: alerting the world to (for want of a better term) catastrophic global cooling.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I’m merely a fairly recent and occasional reader of dotearth. But considering your inquisition of (and rather shallow conclusion regarding) Dr. Lewis, I wonder if you have a post in which you report on a similar exchange with Schneider.
I also wonder if you have any comment on the failure of the powers that be at the APS to comply with the organization’s constitutional requirement that on the strength of a petition by a minimum of 200 members they are obliged to (in this instance) convene a Topical Group to conduct an independent study and assessment.
Which, of course, gives rise to the further question:
In light of the APS assertion, in its recent Press Release, that “relatively few APS members conduct climate change research” and the glaringly obvious absence of any due diligence (i.e. the conduct of an independent study and assessment), why should the APS “Statement” – and its authoritative/authoritarian* proclamation – be given any weight whatsoever?
* From the APS”Statement”:
“The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.”
IOW, why the focus on Dr. Lewis – without the context of the APS actions (and inactions)?
And why the exclusion from the APS exhortation that “reduce emisions of greenhouse gases now” =”we can only reduce emissions of GHGs by the draconian (and unproven) measure of (Armstrong’s 10:10 revolutionary certified?!) reduction of activities that result in less Carbon Dioxide in order to (according IPCC honchos, luminaries and videos) “save the world”.
FWIW, I do have some criticism of Dr. Lewis in that, while I understand and fully appeciate his sentiments, I don’t find his (or anyone’s) depiction of the CO2 (primary cause)->AGW hypothesis as “fraud” or “scam” to be helpful.
Nonetheless, I have seen sufficient evidence (not the least of which is Michael Mann’s recent whine-fest at the Washington Post), that I cannot but concur with the inference one draws from Dr. Lewis’s letter of resignation: “climate science” – as it has been practiced and touted over the last 20 years or so – is not “science” … at least not in my pre-post-modernist understanding of the word.
Mods, what am I doing wrong?! This is the second time in as many days that a post of mine has failed to pass go (i.e. to to moderation … and this one didn’t even have any links!) … could it be that WUWT’s spam-trap is [gasp!] anti-femitic 😉
James Sexton: “While I agree with most of what you stated, it doesn’t make Theo Goodwin’s nor Dr. Lewis’ claims any less true.”
Lewis’s claims could be debated loud and long to little resolution, but we’re talking here about whether or not his worldviews could be influencing his views on climate.
And in the wider context, Prof Lewis’s action has been hailed as “an important moment in science history”, with his letter “on the scale of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door”.
In that sense, Lewis’s originality or otherwise becomes important, since in order to make the analogy work, we would have to see some radical or just original scientific views about climate.
Maybe these exist, but so far all I’ve seen is a letter complaining about some internal APS matters and offering a few bromides about climate science.
My comment hasn’t yet appeared under Revkin’s article. Maybe it won’t pass review, so I’ll repost it here:
Andy, you say “I share Ropeik’s view.“.
You neglected to add “…whatever that is.“
Adpack says:
October 15, 2010 at 6:33 pm
I also came into possession of an illustrated booklet that was given to Medical Doctors and certain Party Members, describing the steps to surviving a nuclear war. They believed that they could survive, and were prepared to do so. In 1958 to at least 1962, the Soviets were invested in nuclear war and ready to use it.
Yes, I am sure they were, but they had good reason to; just after WW2 there was a very serious debate in the UK parliament about whether we should drop nuclear bombs on Moscow lest they became a military threat. So Stalin and Krushchev had good reason to be paranoid, and would have been remiss of them to not develop their bomb and seek ways to protect their populations from the all to real threat posed by the west. Looking at it from the Russian perspective, they lost 20 million people in WW2 fighting the Nazis, for which they recieved little gratitude from the west. Instead we aimed all our missiles at them. It is interesting that NATO to this day has always insisted on its right to initiate an all out pre-emptive nuclear strike, whereas I think I am right in saying the Russians have always argued that nuclear weapons should only ever be used in retaliation. It is also one of the reasons why the Russians had so many more tanks than NATO; they much preferred a conventional war scenario, rather than nuclear obliteration. Which brings me back to Hal Lewis, because we all have him to thank for the role he played in convincing the crazies on both sides of the futility of an aggressive (and even ‘successful’) nuclear strike, i.e. that the resulting nuclear winter which would as much cripple the victors as the losers.
Sorry for the OT digression into cold war politics, but that said I don’t think Revkin and Ropeik’s ad hominem is worthy of much comment. Disappointed in Revkin; not being a New Yorker I have never held him in high regard, but AFAIK Anthony has always given him the benefit of doubt so it is sad to see him take an entrenched position rather than rethink his stance as others in the media (at least on this side of the Atlantic) appear to be doing. (AFAIK Monbiot has been very quiet on AGW lately – anyone know if has he made any comment on Hal’s letter)?
Theo Goodwin says:
October 15, 2010 at 5:38 pm
“The only folks in the world who continue to claim that a scientist’s “world view” shapes their experience of the evidence are the hardcore Marxists”
While the notion of a “constructed reality” has certainly been helpful to both Marxists and their leftist critics (e.g. the idea of “false consciousness”) there is a great deal of evidence to support the idea that world view shapes the experience of facts. That is precisely my explanation for why people like Revkin, Hanson and Mann cling so desperately to AGW. Our views of reality are not compartmentalized but rather integrated; scientific views and political views and religious views are integrated and mutually reinforcing. Culture provides us with templates telling us which perceptions we should pay attention to, which we should ignore and how we should interpret them. The very structure of our language is part of the template: in the Indo-European family of languages, for example, we have the words “yes” and “no” and have elevated them to fundamental principles (“just say no!” or “yes, we can!). It took me two years to finally accept the fact that you just can’t say “no” in Chinese… there are no words for “yes” or “no” in the language, merely affirmations or negations of verbs. The linguistic structure leads the Chinese to think of reality not so much in terms of shades of grey as paradoxes. Closer to home, Benjamin Lee Whorf, a part-time linguist and full-time fire safety engineer, noted in the 30’s that industrial fires seemd to start most often in empty rooms; specifically, the empty drum room. No one would light a match around a drum full of volatile chemicals, but where better to sneak a smoke than in the safe, inert “empty drum room”?
In 1950 David Riesman published “The Lonely Crowd”, an examination of what he called “character”, differentiating between “inner-directed” individuals who seemed to to be embued with a set of moral guidelines and operated on auto-pilot afterward, and the “outer-directed” who took their moral cues from the people around them. Riesman argued that the older, inner-directed American was being replaced with the other-directed type. I would suggest that Dr. Lewis is one of the last of the inner-directeds, infused with a value system to look at the facts as objectively as possible and then act accordingly. Revkin and Mann are the outer-directeds. Is it any wonder that for them the consensus is the important thing?
Brendan H says:
October 15, 2010 at 10:22 pm
James Sexton: “While I agree with most of what you stated, it doesn’t make Theo Goodwin’s nor Dr. Lewis’ claims any less true.”
Lewis’s claims could be debated loud and long to little resolution, but we’re talking here about whether or not his worldviews could be influencing his views on climate.
And in the wider context, Prof Lewis’s action has been hailed as “an important moment in science history”, with his letter “on the scale of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door”.
In that sense, Lewis’s originality or otherwise becomes important, since in order to make the analogy work, we would have to see some radical or just original scientific views about climate.
Maybe these exist, but so far all I’ve seen is a letter complaining about some internal APS matters and offering a few bromides about climate science.
========================================================
I don’t agree. First, I gave you some pretty clear examples to the validity of Dr. Lewis’ claims. Also, in the analogy, do you think Martin Luther was the first to express those thoughts? And did the orthodoxy change the next week?
The action isn’t specifically about his views on climate science, nor his body of work, or anyone else’. Neither is it simply about APS.
It is about the state of science and its many facets and organizations. Brendan, you are learned enough to know science has taken a huge hit in credibility because of the recent antics of the climate scientists. But much more than that, the entire scientific community is indicted because of their silence and lack of willingness to engage.
I’m sure by now you’ve read the APS’ response to Dr. Lewis. They freely admit they have very few actively engaged in climate science. But they steadfastly refuse to entertain the thought they could be wrong about their endorsement of that field of study. Its not about the science anyone is doing. Its about the science that isn’t being done! If climate science has a valid hypothesis, then doesn’t it behoove the great APS to engage and set about the work of scientists? If the hypothesis is invalid then would not the APS feel an obligation to set about the work of scientists to show it to be as such? Instead, they take lunch, have a few drinks and put a stamp of approval on a statement. That statement holds about as much weight as a CO2 molecule. It is vapid, devoid of value and holds no meaning.
To me, it is unfathomable that several thousand physicists would endorse a science of which they assert they have no real knowledge. To me, it is unfathomable, to Dr. Lewis, I can only imagine it is unforgivable. Recall, Dr. Lewis has devoted his life to science. He has been a member of this group, literally, before many of them were ever born. This group held great meaning and brought esteem to Dr. Lewis and Dr. Lewis esteem to the APS. Now, Dr. Lewis is in the twilight of both his career and life is forced to witness the mockery of all that he’s devoted to his life’s work. There isn’t a person reading this that shouldn’t feel outrage, I know I do.
Robert E. Phelan says:
October 15, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Heh, that was an articulate way of telling people to take their children to church and
beatimbue them when they’ve done something wrong.Brendan H says:
October 15, 2010 at 10:22 pm
Your argument is a tired variation on “well why don’t you skeptics publish an alternative explanation?”. The alternative explanation is “natural variability” and our modern crop of climate scientists have no idea of what drives natural climate change, let alone being in a position to tell us that what is happening now is NOT natural. CAGW, the APS and Hal Lewis would be interesting footnotes in the history of science except that alarmists are demanding that the world act now and spend trillions, fundamentally change life styles, give up basic freedoms and chain hundreds of millions to pre-modern living conditions. Sorry. The science is far from settled and the precautionary principle a post-modernist load of drivel.
“…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… ”
With all due respect Mr Revkin (which is a polite way of saying “none”) this quote from your article demonstrates by itself that your argument is hollow. The very purpose of scientific investigation is to determine the facts by EXCLUDING factors related to perception and world view.
In your own article you point to Dr Lewis being a supporter of AGW 20 years ago and having a different opinion today. Do you propose that Dr Lewis changed is world view over that time frame? Or that review of the facts lead him to alter his conclusions?
Dr Lewis was very specific in his letter of resignation that the processes and manipulation exposed by the Climategate emails were not science in any way, shape or fashion. This does not represent a “world view”, this represents a review of the manner in which climate “science” has been conducted, and he has condemned it for what it is. Fraudulent misrepresentation of facts and suppression of contrary evidence and opinion.
Dr Lewis is a renowned scientist with a list of credentials that can only be described as jaw dropping. To suggest that on this one issue Dr Lewis has abandoned a lifetime spent meticulously separating facts from perception in order to arrive at SCIENTIFIC conclusions due being a victim of his own world view, is as insulting an attack on both his credentials and his ethics that one can imagine.
Perhaps in journalism Mr Revkin it is permissable to rely on ones perception of facts, or as you put it, how the facts feel. Dr Lewis is not a journalist however, and such an approach is simply not permissable in his world. That you would suggest otherwise when your own article is confirmation of this makes clear who has a world view that makes them a victim of their perception and how the facts “feel”. To ensure that you have not misconstrued my point, it is not Dr. Lewis. I suggest you review the remaining input to your assasination attempt on Dr Lewis’ accomplishments to determine who that self deluded individual might be.
I wrote this piece a long time ago and should probably update it based on my better understanding today of climate “science”. That said, though it be a year or so old, for those who have followed Dr Lewis’ resignation from the APS and the things he boldly said about the state of affairs revealed by Climategate, I think it appropriate to repeat my presentation of:
The Physicist and the Climatologist
Climatologist; I have a system of undetermined complexity and undetermined composition, floating and spinning in space. It has a few internal but steady state and minor energy sources. An external energy source radiates 1365 watts per meter squared at it on a constant basis. What will happen?
Physicist; The system will arrive at a steady state temperature which radiates heat to space that equals the total of the energy inputs. Complexity of the system being unknown, and the body spinning in space versus the radiated energy source, there will be cyclic variations in temperature, but the long term average will not change.
Climatologist; Well what if I change the composition of the system?
Physicist; see above.
Climatologist; Perhaps you don’t understand my question. The system has an unknown quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere that absorbs energy in the same spectrum as the system is radiating. There are also quantities of carbon and oxygen that are combining to create more CO2 which absorbs more energy. Would this not raise the temperature of the system?
Physicist; there would be a temporary fluctuation in temperature caused by changes in how energy flows through the system, but for the long term average… see above.
Climatologist; But the CO2 would cause a small rise in temperature, which even if it was temporary would cause a huge rise in water vapour which would absorb even more of the energy being radiated by the system. This would have to raise the temperature of the system.
Physicist; there would be a temporary fluctuation in the temperature caused by changes in how energy flows through the system, but for the long term average… see above.
Climatologist; That can’t be true. I’ve been measuring temperature at thousands of points in the system and the average is rising.
Physicist; The temperature rise you observe can be due to one of two factors. It may be due to a cyclic variation that has not completed, or it could be due to the changes you alluded to earlier resulting in a redistribution of energy in the system that affects the measurement points more than the system as a whole. Unless the energy inputs have changed, the long term temperature average would be… see above.
Climatologist; AHA! All that burning of fossil fuel is releasing energy that was stored millions of years ago, you cannot deny that this would increase temperature.
Physicist; Is it more than 0.01% of what the energy source shining on the planet is?
Climatologist; Uhm… no.
Physicist; rounding error. For the long term temperature of the planet… see above.
Climatologist; Methane! Methane absorbs even more than CO2.
Physicist; see above.
Climatologist; Clouds! Clouds would retain more energy!
Physicist; see above.
Climatologist; Ice! If a fluctuation in temperature melted all the ice less energy would be reflected into space and would instead be absorbed into the system, raising the temperature. Ha!
Physicist; The ice you are pointing at is mostly at the poles where the inclination of the radiant energy source is so sharp that there isn’t much energy to absorb anyway. But what little there is would certainly go into the surface the ice used to cover, raising its temperature. That would reduce the temperature differential between equator and poles which would slow down convection processes that move energy from hot places to cold places. The result would be increased radiance from the planet that would exceed energy input until the planet cooled down enough to start forming ice again. As I said before, the change to the system that you propose could well result in redistribution of energy flows, and in short term temperature fluctuations, but as for the long term average temperature…. see above.
Climatologist; Blasphemer! Unbeliever! The temperature HAS to rise! I have reports! I have measurements! I have computer simulations! I have committees! United Nations committees! Grant money! Billions and billions and billions! I CAN’T be wrong, I will never explain it! Billions! and the carbon trading! Trillions in carbon trading!
Physicist; how much grant money?
Climatologist; Billions. Want some?
Physicist; Uhm…
Climatologist; BILLIONS
Climatologist; Hi. I used to be a physicist. When I started to understand the danger the world was in though, I decided to do the right thing and become a climatologist. Let me explain the greenhouse effect to you…
James Sexton says:
October 15, 2010 at 11:20 pm
I stand corrected, however “beat” is not part of the definition. You can imbue without beating (although, I suppose, beating can accompany imbuing), and once imbued beating is no longer necessary. Church-going can indeed be part of the imbuing process but is not a necessary element; I can easily imagine other-directed idividuals that have been imbued with a firm belief in atheism. Imbuing may not always be a positive thing: I suspect Revkin and Mann were imbued with a reverence for the consensus.
John A says:
October 15, 2010 at 2:31 pm
It is in the best interests of the fossil fuel industry to have higher energy costs. From a purely logical point of view, this industry would gain more by supporting the AGW viewpoint.
If cap and trade were to become a reality, the Exxons of the world would simply add this new tax onto the price of their products, with a little noticed extra for their trouble.
Out of topic, but I have to comment on this that
Craig says:
October 15, 2010 at 2:10 pm
But I do accept that there will be another ice age and I accept that it’s inevitable.
The climate roller-coaster.
I have to stress that our technology has reached the point where we could stop an ice age if it comes from the regular cycles . All it needs is mirrors in space to increase insolation where needed.
And of course good climate models are needed to know where we have to intervene :; . In this sense the experience gained with the models will be useful, as long as they keep developing them to the point that they have contact with the real world.
The wild goose chasing after CO2 and the destruction of the western society if the cap and trade and taxation are imposed, will of course make this impossible a few hundred years hence. Nineteenth cultures could not put up mirrors in space.
I see an equivalent of a cornered AGW rabid dog here. Who knows what they might do next to proceed with the political agenda they have already spent tens of billions on, and planned for decades. I don’t think it will be pretty.
Robert E. Phelan says:
October 15, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Robert,
Thank you for one of the better posts I have read here.
Just finished reading Outliers: The Story of Success, see http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017922/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287215806&sr=8-1
We are a product of our culture, as much as we would like to believe otherwise. Behind the outstanding successes of our world is not so much the faithful wife, but the hidden advantages imparted by their life experiences.
It is altogether human to claim personal credit for our successes but to blame some flaw in our upbringing for our failures.
As you so clearly explained with the example of the Chinese language, even the subtleties of our mother tongue will affect our thinking.
In Outliers, the author provides persuasive evidence for the inherent advantages granted people raised in a Japanese speaking household in learning mathematics. The Japanese language expresses numbers in a very simple fashion, allowing children growing up in such a household an advantage over those of us using English.
In any event, thank you for the excellent post.