Early reports from the Lisbon conference

I think that Richard North, at his EU Referendum blog, has a priceless comment which I think applies to this conference and the attendance of skeptics.
His comment is about the BBC documentary which set up James Delingpole to be humiliated, and I quote “Delingpole’s mistake was in trying to play a bent game straight.”

John Phillips says:
January 26, 2011 at 7:26 am
‘I think the word violence is being mis-used. A vigorous and even rancorous debate is not violent.’
Including a debate that includes this?

Civility and being civil is much in the news lately, especially after the shootings in Arizona. The President had as a theme, “civility” in his State of the Union Address. I have read this thread and Judith Curry’s Climate Etc. blog and I decided to copy what I had written there, here:
Civility can not be imposed. Civility is also defenseless in the face of violence. Civility and non-violent actions occur in an community which values civility and shames violence and violent behavior. Therefore it is altogether fitting and proper that a meeting, whose objective is reconciliation, is predominately attended by the social and political scientists who embrace civility, and will carry that conciliatory mind-set back to their community. A community is larger than the perpretators of violent speach and violent actions. So, reconciliation will blossom in a community where violence is shamed; and the violent perpretator is left unheard no matter how clairvoyant their message, and relegated to the dustbin of history. Climate science is no more or less vulnerable to such community influences or potential outcomes. The arguement for the righteousness of a radiative transfer model cannot nor will not be sustained by an angry or violent delivery.
It really doesn’t matter what the “Truth” is in Reconciliation at least at this point as there is no way to know for certain what the truth looks like. What matters is having a dialogue, in this case a civil dialogue. If the community shames those who speak violently or act violently, the eventual truth will become known. Let the data catch up with the rhetoric, and, as my mother said “..keep a civil tongue in your head!”

It will be a talkfest achieving nothing.

I agree with Chris Riley. We are surrounded by people who want us to do what they ‘know’ is best for us, and it’s all just power-seeking over others.

The lead in post quotes Judith Curry,

” The meeting is being run under Chatham House rules. A few points that have caught my interest so far:
• dealing with complex problems using complex tools, ideas
• the idea of reconciliation in scientific debates is to try different approaches in an experimental meeting for attempting nonviolent communication in impassioned debates where there is disagreement
• Reconciliation is not about consensus, but rather creating an arena where we can have honest disagreement
• violence in this debate derives from the potential impacts of climate change and the policy options, and differing political and cultural notions of risk and responsibility.
• disagreement in climate science is more violent than other fields where there is much disagreement and high societal stakes (e.g. economics). One person attributed the violence of the disagreement in climate science to the propensity of scientific societies to publish position statements, and the IPCC itself; these create animosity and hostility through the exercise of power without sufficient accountability.”

=================
More simply to the point, perhaps just a simple reference to a rational standard for intellectual discourse would have been more meaningful and concise. That standard is simply intellectual integrity.
Having the climate science discourse termed ‘violent’ seems to be some indirect pejorative insinuation. Why waste precious mental energy on trivial sideshows like that?
Reconciliation? I take the intended meaning to be ‘ the reestablishing of cordial relations’ [ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/reconciliation ]. This is simple and means no name calling or ad hominem; it means addressing each other directly in civil discourse. It does not mean changing ones ideas just because there is energetic debate in an open venue. See intellectual integrity suggestion above.
John

geo says:
January 26, 2011 at 2:26 pm
“But that’s not all of it. Economics is a soft science that has been inching its way for centuries towards a legitimate status as a hard science (and still it isn’t there). It knows this about itself. Climate science is a relatively new science, that has not come to terms with how much of a “soft” science it still is. It *thinks* it is a very hard science, with immutable truths, and this leads to intolerance when those “truths” are challenged.”
Well put. Moreover, its a “science” that has grown up with a dependency on the computer, and almost infantile belief in the power of that computer to provide highly accurate results modeling complex systems. Warming science believes that because it operates the computers, it is modeling reality. Maintaining this belief requires a cultivated ignorance of the real world which can only be induced in people who have gone through the ritual of a PhD dissertation (that’s not a knock at PhDs- I happen to have one). Its a “social science” observation about the ritual dimension of higher education.

As scientists they should agree to simply state their findings, leave it to others to prove or disprove their thesis but above all…Stop telling us how to lead our lives!

tonyb says:

…I emailed Dr Trenberth to complain about the use of the word ‘Deniers’… I had a reasonably civil reply back from him… However, it was obvious that he had been innundated with numerous abusive emails which I think had only served to harden his position.

I am aware of the existence of brownshirts (pretending to be?) ON BOTH SIDES whose main activity seems to be to send threats direct to people without posting on blogs to say what they are doing; so blogs are not aware and don’t feel the need to take any responsibility for policing or at least clearly disown such people. I believe this includes death threats to people on both sides. This simply cements divisions into place and makes dialogue harder if not impossible.
We don’t know the content of what was emailed to Trenberth, and I doubt if he will tell. But I think it might help a lot, to have some kind of public disclaimer sent to any appropriate people on occasions like this, disowning any abusive language or threats. I hope this message reaches Lisbon.
It might also help if the skeptics’ community could agree key issues where there is genuine concern and evidence against the “consensus” orthodoxy, and have statements up that not just Smokey but everyone here can point to. A set of counter-statements to those of John Cook – and with the science backup.
It would be a creative alternative to saying lots here, which can become little more than an echo-chamber if good statements are not distilled out. Graham Stringer’s statement is classic in this sense.

Jessie
“Hypatia and her dismissal of empiricism did not do too well.”
Didn’t work out well for Socrates, Galileo, Copernicus and many others . . . . It’s almost as if it is a crime to think rationally.

psi talks about “the infantile belief in the power of that computer”. The New God.
Our son is completing a mechanical engineering course at a good school where the professors still refer to each other as “instructors”. “When you are in the field, a pencil and a piece of paper may help you to solve a problem faster and easer than any fancy computing device”, has been heard more than once in the classroom.