Christopher Booker on BBC and The Royal Society bias, ClimateGate, The Met cold winter forecast and 2010 hottest year ever:
Horizon’s “Science Under Attack” turned out to be yet another laborious bid by the BBC to defend the global warming orthodoxy…… Hours of film of climate-change “deniers” are cherrypicked for soundbites that can be shown, out of context, to make them look ridiculous…… Although Sir Paul presented himself as the champion of objective science, he frequently showed that, for all his expertise in cell biology, he knows little about climate.
The fact that someone is an expert in one particular field – even if he is President of the Royal Society – gives him little more authority to pronounce on issues with which he is unfamiliar than a man holding forth in a pub……. the BBC has been turned, in Peter Sissons’ words, into a mere “propaganda machine”……. Comparing the actual data…… shows that for four years the original figure has been adjusted downwards. Only for 2010 was the data revised upwards, by the largest adjustment of all, allowing the Met Office to claim that 2010 was the hottest year of the decade……
h/t to Amino Acids in Meteorites
Galvanize,
I’ll pay that one as an earlier spot. I don’t look at the Grauniad, and it choked my browser now when I went to look. The important point is that the howler was so obvious, yet missed. It was like shooting fish in a barrel, yet Sir Paul swooped on the through ball and and slotted it past the keeper – if I can mangle a metaphor or two.
I do agree Delingpole merits support. The zombies from CACC have been given their orders and are on the march. (Actually, I quite like the metaphor I used in my book of white blood cells, despatched to deal with any infectious ideas).
Re: Collin Maessen says:
January 30, 2011 at 10:49 am
“Also Booker who wrote the column is again someone who also says that second hand smoking and asbestos don’t cause cancer…….Suffice to say this is not someone that helps your argument”
This is a straightforward misrepresentation of what Booker has said regarding asbestos – his arguments have been with UK legislation that categorises all minerals called ‘asbestos’ as being equally hazardous, he has stated that the ‘blue’ and ‘brown’ are known to be highly hazardous, but that ‘white’ asbestos is not.
As a regular reader of his column, I have never seen him argue that asbestos does not cause cancer, quite the opposite, his argument is that expensive government-licensed contactors have to be hired to remove all forms of asbestos, regardless of the actual hazard.
@ur momisugly eadler
January 30, 2011 at 4:24 pm
It is possible that he was referring to volcanic emissions only with that figure of 1 Gt. In fact, after Nurse questiond it, he said “I” twice, almost as if he realised his error. But he decided to go ahead and confirm the grossly misleading statement he had just made. If not an outright lie, it’s very close.
He is Dr Bob Bindschadler, described as ‘Senior Research Earth Scientist NASA’.
A good point about the original question, as it does put it in context. I went back to the recording and added that to the transcript. Here’s the full version:
Nurse: “The scientific concensus is of course that the changes we are seeing are caused by emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But, given the complexity of the climate system, how can we be sure that humans are to blame for this?”
Bindschadler: “We know how much fossil fuel we take out of the ground.We know how much we sell. We know how much we burn, and that is a huge amount of carbon dioxide, about 7 gigatons per year right now.
Natural causes can only produce through volcanoes popping off and things like that and coming out of the ocean, only about 1 gigaton per year, so there’s just no question that human activities is producing a massively large proportion of carbon dioxide”.
Nurse: “So 7 times more?”
Bindschadler: “That’s right”.
Nurse: ” I mean why do some say that isn’t the case?”
Bindschadler: “I, I dont know….”
The original question makes the context very clear. Bindschadler’s ‘proof’ depends on a comparison between human and natural emissions. The last item he mentioned was the oceans, so one would reasonably assume that he was either referring to all items mentioned or just to the oceans. He also says “…. so there’s just no question that human activities is producing a massively large proportion of carbon dioxide”.
Yes, it might have been an honest mistake – but who would decide to show that clip, as the whole point of the program was to defend climate scientists? At the very best, this scientist comes over as incompetent. Possibly Nurse and the BBC team didn’t realise there had been a blunder. But Bindschadler must have known. The very fact that he said “I” twice when questioned might suggest that he understood what he had said. If he had a shred of honesty he would have made sure that the blunder was corrected, otherwise it would be a gift to the sceptics – which it certainly is!
If I were a cynic – which thankfully I’m not – I might think this ‘blunder’ had been carefully designed. It would work in most cases, as the vast proportion of the audience would take it as gospel – as Nurse obviously did. Of course, if challenged he could always claim that his figure referred only to volcanoes. And they probably assume that nobody listens to sceptics, anyway.
Of course, Bindschadler played another trick on the gullible Nurse. He showed animations of the weather system, comparing real data with a climate model. Nurse was suitably impressed, obviously forgetting his advice given elsewhere that scientists should question everything. If you look carefully, they don’t match perfectly. Also, I suspect that these weather systems tend to occur in similar locations in a given season. If he had changed one of the animations to one taken at another time period, I suspect they would still look pretty similar.
But there’s something else. The period shown is probably for a few days. In other words, what he was showing was weather. It wasn’t climate. In no way could this demonstrate the ability of computer models to predict climate. But that didn’t seem to occur to Nurse. And, of course, with our Met Office experience, we know that the models are incapable of predicting the weather just a few weeks ahead.
I think this appalling Horizon program does demonstrate quite well why science, and climate science in particular, has fallen in the estimates of the general public. But not in the way Nurse expected. These two clips are a perfect example of why many climate scientists are not to be trusted.
Sadly, I don’t think Nurse is part of the solution. I think he’s part of the problem.
Chris
Actually it was the NASA scientist who lied.
I watched part of the program but missed the significance of those statements about the carbon cycle. Fortunately, I recorded it and I’ve taken another look.
I’m utterly astounded. Here we have a NASA scientist lying on an almost biblical scale. I think serious complaints should be lodged with NASA and the BBC. I’ve made a transcript:
Scientist: “We know how much fossil fuel we take out of the ground.We know how much we sell. We know how much we burn, and that is a huge amount of carbon dioxide, about 7 gigatons per year right now.
Natural causes can only produce through volcanoes popping off and things like that and coming out of the ocean, only about 1 gigaton per year, so there’s just no question that human activities is producing a massively large proportion of carbon dioxide”.
The problem is that the scientist interviewed was a little confused. At first, he was referring to volcanoes popping off, which do produce about 1GTon per year. The rest of his phrase was awkward and inaccurate, “and things like that and coming out of the ocean” seems to me an unfortunate slip of the tongue. It opens up the interpretation that oceans emit only 1 GT of CO2 per year which is certainly incorrect. I would have edited this out of the program.
Who was this scientist? Was the scientist answering a specific question posed by Paul Nurse, or was he making a statement in response to an open ended invitation to comment? If it was a specific question, can you tell us what it was?
It is true that human emissions are smaller than the total of natural emissions, but larger than volcanic emissions. If I were editing the video, I would not have included that statement because it was ambiguous and prone to misinterpretation.
Bart appears (ironically) to go 0 for 3 in his attempt to identify logical fallacies in Collin’s posts.
1) Collin says:
“However more snowfall is consistent with global warming as warm air can hold more moisture.”
Bart’s assessment: Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (conclusion based on consistency) and Affirming the Consequent (If P, then Q. Q. Therefore P.)
This is clearly not an instance of “conclusion based on consistency.” Collin offered his claim as a response to the claim that heavy snowfall shows “that all the computer models based on the assumption that rising CO2 means rising temperatures have got it wrong.”
The form of argument to which he’s replying is:
If P then Q [if heavy snowafll, then global warming theory is false]
P, therefore Q
Collins’ reply has the form:
Possibly, P & Not-Q [heavy snowfall is consistent with global warming theory]
That reply, if its premises are true, would refute the argument, since the first premise would be false. It would not establish not-Q, of course; but, given the context, it was very clearly not intended to (he says this several times). So, there’s no fallacy there. (I’m also not sure where you see Affirming the Consequent happening, so I can’t comment on that.)
2) Collin says:
“Also Booker who wrote the column is again someone who also says that second hand smoking and asbestos don’t cause cancer.”
Bart’s assessment: “ad hominem”
There are fallacious and non-fallacious instances of arguing ad hominem. If Collin’s claims are true (and that’s not obvious – some have clarified what Booker meant), then that seems like relevant evidence concerning Booker’s competence and/or agenda, which of course are relevant to an overall assessment of their claims. If we found out that some prominent AGW theorist also defended conspiracy theories about the moon landing not having occurred, Bigfoot, and the Loch Ness monster, that shouldcolor how we assess their views about AGW. By contrast, if we found out that someone was an adulterer, that ought to have no bearing on how we assess their views about AGW. The latter (but not the former) is fallaciously ad hominem. Collin’s claim is more like the former. (You may be right that his comment was a red herring, however.)
3) Collin says:
“One of this would be that the arctic wouldn’t be experiencing the current melting. And if it wasn’t anthropogenic we wouldn’t be seeing the changes in the infrared absorption patterns in the atmosphere we are currently seeing.”
Bart’s assessment: Denying the antecedent (If P, then Q. Not P. Therefore not Q.)
Wrong again.
Collin was responding to the question of what, if true, would falsify global warming theory. His answer: If we didn’t see current melting and changes in infrared absorption, then global warming theory would be called into question. He did not draw the conclusion, from this, that global warming theory is therefore true. Instead, the obvious implied conclusion is that global warming theory is falsifiable. But that conclusion does validly follow from what he said.
That’s not to say that everything Collin said is true, of course, but, as I’m sure you’re aware, that has little bearing on whether what he said was logically fallacious.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/01/fun-and-games.html
Six minutes in, and Meet The Climate Sceptics is already looking like yet another stitch-up job…
And now Greg Craven gets a completely uncritical presentation of his little “risk chart”. Never mind the caricatures of petrolheads and gun enthusiasts, the free pass to Trenberth, the five seconds of Lintzen. Oh, and now we’re suggesting energy rationing and the justification of setting aside democracy from Hillman. Deary me.
Next, a rerun of the 10:10 video and Abraham’s attempt to deconstruct Monckton. Abraham puts across his denials of some of Monckton’s points (no rebuttals there), while Monckton is shown in response to be suggesting that “we” will follow him where he goes on holiday to see if he’s got a secret stash of cash (no mention of the rebuttal paper by Monckton).
So, in summary, the whole show was picking out cranks, ignoring the scientific and statistical arguments against AGW or wilfully failing to understand them. It finished with the presenter saying Monckton had made him a sceptic – sceptical of Monckton’s arguments – and picking him up on semantics, rather than arguing the science itself.
“Until someone can come up with a silver bullet, I’m willing to accept a curtailing of my freedom, says the presenter”. “Queensland had the worst floods in its entire history” (well, for a few decades, anyway…)
Far from taking a more even-handed approach to the climate debate, the BBC is now going full-tilt at pushing CAGW and restrictions on personal liberty for all they are worth. Disgusting.
Keith Wallis says:
January 31, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Six minutes in, and Meet The Climate Sceptics is already looking like yet another stitch-up job…
Six minutes from the end and it`s still a stich-up job, keep well away from the BBC, let the sun the climate and the economy do the talking.
Chris Wright says:
January 31, 2011 at 4:48 am
“@ur momisugly eadler
January 30, 2011 at 4:24 pm
It is possible that he was referring to volcanic emissions only with that figure of 1 Gt. In fact, after Nurse questiond it, he said “I” twice, almost as if he realised his error. But he decided to go ahead and confirm the grossly misleading statement he had just made. If not an outright lie, it’s very close.
He is Dr Bob Bindschadler, described as ‘Senior Research Earth Scientist NASA’.
A good point about the original question, as it does put it in context. I went back to the recording and added that to the transcript. Here’s the full version:
……
Thanks for your post. This was an appalling example of incompetence on the part of the BBC. Paul Nurse appeared skeptical, but did not do his homework . They should be ashamed.
Brian says:
January 31, 2011 at 8:50 am
Really, Brian, that’s just pathetic.
“Man-made global warming is the new butt of jokes in Washington.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/browner-resignation-obama-omission-could
The problem.
@eadler,
I just emailed this to horizon@bbc.co.uk
Dear Sir/Madam,
I’m sorry to inform you that last week’s program, ‘Science Under
Attack’, contained an appalling lie committed by a NASA scientist, Dr
Bob Bindschadler.
Human CO2 emissions, although large, are dwarfed by natural emissions
(known as the carbon cycle). According to IPCC data, natural emissions
are roughly 30 times larger than human emissions. Wikipedia has a useful
diagram that shows a similar ratio. This is not a sceptical claim. It’s
simple, concensus science based on observations. Here’s the Wikipedia
entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
In the program Bindschadler very clearly says that human emissions are
7 times larger than natural ones. I’ve included the transcript below.
Nurse says: “So 7 times larger?” and he says “That’s right”.
Ironically, Nurse then says ”I mean why do some say that isn’t
the case?”
The answer is simple. It is a lie.
Bindschadler says “I” twice, almost as if hesitating, almost as if he
realised the blunder he was making. But he doesn’t make the honest
choice. The figure he mentioned might have referred to volcanic
emissions, which might be about right, but the context makes it very,
very clear that he was comparing overall human emissions with natural
emissions. That, after all, was the whole point of his ‘proof’.
Including oceans, his figure is 1 Gt. In fact it is 90 Gt, according
to Wikipedia. Overall, Bindschadler exaggerated the relative amount of
human emissions by around 300.
Your team must have known this was a lie, assuming they had any
knowledge at all of climate science (clearly Nurse didn’t). If so then
they wilfully took place in propagating this lie.
I suggest that you lodge a complaint with NASA, and possibly with
Bindschadler, because they have brought the BBC, and, sadly, Horizon
into disrepute. I would also be grateful if you could explain how this
disgraceful lapse occurred, and what you intend to do to put the record
straight. I am also considering lodging a complaint with Ofcom.
Do you wonder why many people do not trust climate scientists?
Regards,
Chris Wright
Transcript included….
************ end of email ************
I probably won’t get a reply, but who knows…..
Chris