Guest Post by Jerome Ravetz
First, let me respond to Willis. I owe him a huge apology. Yes, I was reading his mind, when I had a vivid memory of some strong statements he made about Judith. Checking those, I could see that these were not directed at Judith personally, and that they were made in the context of his respect and admiration for her. That was on the 25th of February, and his comment on the previous day was a model of civility. This is not the first time that I have been misled by a vivid memory, but I do hope that it will be nearly the last. Again, my apologies. Willis is too important a critic of mine to allow these errors to get in the way of a discussion. Of him and of scientistfortruth, I can paraphrase the old Jewish motto and say, with enemies like that, who needs friends?
Second, on the issue of what the alarmists should now do, I would like to introduce another consideration as a justification for non-violence.
The climate issue is not a simple normal-scientific one of verification or refutation of an hypothesis. It has become a ‘total’ issue, involving policy, politics, investments and lifestyle; and it has a history. In that it is something of an ideology, or ‘ism’. In that respect it resembles the belief in centrally-planned economy on the one hand, or an unregulated-markets economy on the other. People become committed to a position, or defect from it, for a great variety of reasons. In one of my essays I distinguished between ‘climate scientists’ who are grappling with the manifold uncertainties of this very young science (of course I agree with Willis here), and the ‘global-warming scientists’, those identified by Mike Hulme as the key insiders for the IPCC. That was useful at the time, but I would say that it is overly simple. Corresponding to the complexity of the issue, there is a complexity of personal positions, each one involved in a personal, private dialogue.
Of course there will be people at the extremes, and they make the most noise. But what is so precious about the blogosphere is that they are brought out into debate (as Gavin now on Judith’s blog), and so those with all sorts of concerns and reservations can witness and assess the arguments. Three things are then in play. First, the ‘demeanour of the witness’ is used as evidence for the quality of their case. Those who bluster and accuse are interpreted as doing so to make up for the lack of good arguments. Then, equally important, those who are perplexed can watch it all, and use the debates as materials for their own reflections. And finally, even those who are deeply committed have a space where they can confront their doubts and reservations, and work their way towards a resolution.
It’s like the old fable about the contest between the wind and the sun, as to who could get the man’s coat off. In more modern terms, when the wagons are circled, all those inside have to conform, but when there is a ceremony of peacemaking, understandings can be created.
There is a question of what to do about those people who are judged to have been really bad in the past. On that I can only offer an example. In Northern Ireland, we have had the astonishing spectacle of a former Protestant bigot and a former Republican terrorist becoming close personal friends. The players were the Rev. Ian Paisley on the one side, and Martin McGuiness on the other. I have no idea what went on inside their minds; but somehow, without any fanfare, they achieved reconciliation.
Now, let’s see where Willis and I still disagree on this issue. (He clearly disapproves strongly of ‘Post-Normal Science’, an issue I do hope to address soon. And there is unfinished business on Truth.) Maybe it’s this. When AGW scientists (as distinct from climate scientists) are perceived by a broader public and by their less-committed colleagues as engaging in grossly inappropriate practices, their credibility will surely go. On this issue there is now a very effective ‘extended peer community’, with strong roots in the blogosphere but now including some mainstream media.
Of course, given that the climate issue is so total, it gets tangled up in other issues and recruited by people with other agendas; I personally am not comfortable at being on the same side as Sarah Palin, though others in the debate might be OK with this. So the issue will be decided, or is being decided, in the messy and highly imperfect way of all politicised issues. For me, the job of those of us who are involved, in one way or another, is to keep our debate as clean as we can, and that is why I consider my task to be promoting non-violence.
Dear Dr Ravetz
Instead of trying to spin your way out of all this (otherwise known as carrying on digging deeper when you are in a hole) may I with all due respect simply suggest that you retire gracefully from the public arena.
Best regards
Was he being allpost noram in his original article…
Ie, has decided what his opinion was – ie ref Willis..
and completley failed to check the facts 😉
David says:
February 24, 2011 at 10:37 pm
“If it may be urgent, then more resources must be put into normal science,”
More resources *were* put into normal science. But because at the time the ‘best science’ (heh!) said it was a problem with the atmosphere the money went to atmospheric science, partly because of the previous ozone hole issue the sudden expansion caused the recruitment of a lot of scientists very excited at the prospect of discovering something ‘very important for the whole of life on Earth’. Their output reflected that. This skewed the view of the summary makers, and is part of the reason the the climate question ‘went postnormal’. The politicians putting in the extra funding wanted answers ASAP and so they got them, predominantly from one branch of science, energised by a ‘big issue’. This of course produced an imbalanced answer.
michel says:
February 24, 2011 at 9:57 pm
The climate issue is not a simple normal-scientific one of verification or refutation of an hypothesis.
Yes it is! It absolutely is!
Well, no it isn’t. Not yet anyway. As Ravetz has pointed out on WUWT before, there is no ‘crucial experiment’ which can decide the issue. The core problem is that the error band on measurement of energy balance at the top of the atmosphere is wider than the theoretically determined signal from the enhanced greenhouse effect. So the AGW hypothesis can’t be verified or refuted by the metric which is of primary concern. The question of whether it can be verified or refuted by other means such as the localised measured warming in areas of higher co2 concentration or observations of co2 change lagging temperature changes is why we have a two decade long debate raging.
Sceptics are correct to say the IPCC, politicians and policy makers had no damned right to present the issue as being ‘95% certain AGW’ but this is beyond the realm of science and is exactly the ‘postnormal ‘ situation correctly identified and explicitly brought out into the open by the career long experience Ravetz has in being part of the science/policy interface and writing about it.
My personal assessment is that the enhanced greenhouse effect is probably nonzero, but nothing to get too excited about. But that judgment is based on a weighing of evidence that is ultimately more like a legal judgment than a scientific one. That’s why I accept that the climate question is ‘postnormal’ and I’m interested in discovering whether the techniques for assessing uncertainty proposed by PNS practitioners such as Jeroen van der Sluijs have anything to offer or not. Given the strength with which people cling to their judgments once formed, it seems unlikely a non-scientific appraisal is going to be accepted by all parties, but this reflects on all parties, not just PNS.
PNS has got a bad name for itself with the sceptical side because the pro AGW side used their take on it to bolster their side of the argument. What I wish the sceptical side would realise is that there is much in PNS which supports and bolsters our side of the argument too; validity and importance of the ‘extended peer community’, legitimacy in bringing ‘leaked documents’ to the table etc.
Jerome Ravetz find himself as the lightning rod in the centre of a highly charged storm because his philosophical output is taken to mean different things by different people, and because the debate is highly charged, it gets personalised. Added to which Jerome Ravetz is not some godlike perfectly objective oracle who we can gleefully knock down for failing to conform to ideals we don’t match ourselves, but an ordinary human being, with all the usual ingrained artifacts of upbringing, developed attitudes and stances, mistakes and learnings from experience that we all have.
He presents an easy target, but in my opinion the fact that he has long experience of being close to the corridors of power and influence and the people who administrate institutional science policy makes his written work worth examining for much more than the bits which confirm our own prejudices.
Again
There is a world outside of the USA..
I am definetly NOT on the same side as Sarah Palin. I’m on my side.
She means nothing to me, in any context, I live in the UK
That is just an attempt to label someone as something or some idealogy to dismmiss them (similar tacticts are used ,to link AGW scepticism with creationism, 9/11 denial, moon landing, aids denial, tobacco, althus labbeling them as idiots)
How does Salin Palin come into it….. it just shows wooly thinking and a mindset that al sceptics are right wing AGW denying, etc,etc
In the UK, ALL leaders and ALL political parties with represenation in parliamnet are fully signed up to the CAGW consensus. The UK is PUSHING the EU for 30% instead of the proposed 20% reduction..
Yet next winter even more old people will die because they cannot afford their energy bills, because electricity bills have been forced up, by green technology, and massive subsidies, forced onto customers bills.
Post-norma ‘something’ mayhave a place as a tool to use in some circumstance..
But to call it Post Normal SCIENCE’ is in my mind on a par with:
Aethistic Religion
Ie meaning less (though, that might describe quiet a few Church of England Bishop, these days (joke)- I have no relgious faith myself)
Judith Curry finally stood up and tackled ‘Hide the Decline’
And it prompted this Professor of Physics from Oxford University to state at Bishop Hill:
Professor Jonathon Jones:
“People have asked why mainstream scientists are keeping silent on these issues. As a scientist who has largely kept silent, at least in public, I have more sympathy for silence than most people here. It’s not for the obvious reason, that speaking out leads to immediate attacks, not just from Gavin and friends, but also from some of the more excitable commentators here. Far more importantly most scientists are reluctant to speak out on topics which are not their field. We tend to trust our colleagues, perhaps unreasonably so, and are also well aware that most scientific questions are considerably more complex than outsiders think, and that it is entirely possible that we have missed some subtle but critical point.
However, “hide the decline” is an entirely different matter. This is not a complicated technical matter on which reasonable people can disagree: it is a straightforward and blatant breach of the fundamental principles of honesty and self-criticism that lie at the heart of all true science. The significance of the divergence problem is immediately obvious, and seeking to hide it is quite simply wrong. The recent public statements by supposed leaders of UK science, declaring that hiding the decline is standard scientific practice are on a par with declarations that black is white and up is down. I don’t know who they think they are speaking for, but they certainly aren’t speaking for me.
I have watched Judy Curry with considerable interest since she first went public on her doubts about some aspects of climate science, an area where she is far more qualified than I am to have an opinion. Her latest post has clearly kicked up a remarkable furore, but she was right to make it. The decision to hide the decline, and the dogged refusal to admit that this was an error, has endangered the credibility of the whole of climate science. If the rot is not stopped then the credibility of the whole of science will eventually come into question.
Judy’s decision to try to call a halt to this mess before it’s too late is brave and good. So please cut her some slack; she has more than enough problems to deal with at the moment.
If you’re wondering who I am, then you can find me at the Physics Department at Oxford University.
Feb 23, 2011 at 10:29 PM | Jonathan Jones”
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/2/23/the-beddington-challenge.html?currentPage=2#comments
I wonder what Physics Professors really think about post normal science?
and yes, Andrew and Judith have confirmed it was the professor.
Here in the UK the perception generally of Palin is that just like George W, she is a right wing loose cannon who is a bit of a thickie and who would be a disaster as a president.
So you Americans disagree with that perception then???
One major step Dr. Ravetz could take to measurably improve the tone of this discussion would be to stop using the word “violence” to mean debate, discussion, and/or dissension. As has been alluded to above and elsewhere, misuse of language to gain an advantage in debate is a tactic that seems to be universally favored by the Left. That is, of course, why those who disagree with the putative CAGW “consensus” have been called “deniers,” in an attempt to equate them with Holocaust deniers. It’s also why a BBC talking head recently lumped skeptics with pedophiles in on-air commentary.
There’s a significant risk in this misuse of language. The very meanings of words become blurred, making it more difficult to communicate precise meanings and rendering us all the poorer for it. Lewis Carroll’s Alice remonstrated with Humpty Dumpty about precisely this behavior:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
In contrast to the light tone of Alice, George Orwell portrayed this behavior in a much more sinister light in 1984, calling the resulting impoverished language “Newspeak”:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
If we reach the point where “violence” means everything from grumbling at your wife because your breakfast eggs are cold and having a heated discussion on the Internet to mass murder, the word will have lost the ability to communicate any meaning at all.
So please, Dr. Ravetz, let’s agree that violence is what Hosni Mubarak’s goons inflicted upon the peaceful protesters in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Violence is what is being visited upon those who oppose Libya’s maniacal dictator, Muammar Gaddafi. No violence is occurring in this space and, as far as I know, none has actually happened in any part of the Climate community (hokey team or otherwise).
Skeptics long for an honest debate, but should shun those who insist on using Newspeak.
condescending, patronizing and totally irrelevent. Post normal I guess.
Who is this Ravetz fellow ?
jason says:
“Here in the UK the perception generally of Palin is that just like George W, she is a right wing loose cannon who is a bit of a thickie and who would be a disaster as a president.”
Well , that’s the BBC’s perception. In the absence of any other information, that would tend to incline me in the lady’s favour …
Colonial says:
February 25, 2011 at 12:56 am
One major step Dr. Ravetz could take to measurably improve the tone of this discussion would be to stop using the word “violence” to mean debate, discussion, and/or dissension.
The question is why there is so much talking past each other an so little useful discussion and debate. Ravetz thinks toning down the rhetoric thus making it possible to listen to each other will improve the situation, even if we still can’t agree about the science or politics.
The debate is polarised. The more polarised it gets the more vicious the rhetoric gets. The more vicious the rhetoric gets, the less people are prepared to listen to each other. The less people are prepared to listen to each other, the more polarised the debate gets.
It’s a vicious circle.
From a UK perspective the throwaway comment on Ms Palin is relevant. Science is not left or right wing and yet Palin is a politician. She is not a climate scientist.
I happen to agree with her on Global Warming because the balance of physical evidence does not support the Millerite catastophism of the East Anglians. But I believe in left wing ideals like the welfare state, the NHS and an international community of liberal values. I doubt many Americans agree with me.
It must be embarrassing to a Tea Party republican to be on the same side as myself on climate science. Yet the planet doesn’t care and the world changes according to a physical not a political reality.
The climate change scare is a political reality. It will not go away so long as opposition is associated with only one side of the political spectrum.
Sorry, but that’s why the skeptics lose out in the mainstream media.
My Dear Dr. Ravetz,
before you proceed, remember,
Sitting on the fence, can, amongst other things, severely damage your hemorrhoids.
tallbloke,
I’m not the first to observe that for many people the whole of life is a series of spirals; success in finding a point where the spiral can be stopped from turning is an esssence of life.
Medical examples are common. An accident leads to an operation that leads to pain that leads to analgesics that lead to narcotics that lead to pain when one wakes in the morning, that leads to more narcotics to relieve the pain but these make you more susceptible to adventitious illness that requires drugs that have a nasty side effect and help you to crash your car, so back to (a).
How to break the cycle? Sometimees it’s cold turkey.
Is there a cold turkey cure for this incesssant theorising that happens when people should be out measuring? Is it called field work?
I’d just like to point out as someone who lives in Ireland, and who thankfully was never really directly affected by the “Troubles” until I moved to London, that the “violence” was very real. People died, people had their lives routinely disrupted, and were never able to realise their full potential unless they got out of the situation completely.
The “violence” done in the climate debates is mostly to people’s reputation, an altogether different prospect.
Another thing that differentiates the two, is that with Northern Ireland, the end goal was peace between the two communities, and no more deaths as a result of people’s beliefs. I’m not seeing a similar concrete end goal in the climate debates. It still seems very nebulous at the moment.
This was done by getting the extremists on both sides to actually state what it was they wanted to achieve, what would make them stop, and then a compromise was sought over a long period of time between the two positions. I’m talking about the equivalent of Schmidt and Mann on the one side and probably Morano and Inhofe (although there are plenty who are even more extreme than them), on the other.
It was also done by a voluntary ceasefire by both sides which largely held. The ceasefire in the case of the climate debate is no more new pronouncements on AGW, no more dodgy models desperately looking to blame humans, no more brainwashing of our children, no more new taxes until it can be absolutely ascertained what role humans play in the climate overall, and whether that role is positive or negative.
The skeptics are not the protagonists in this debate. We are not proposing that people upturn their lives on a hunch based on a guess. We are not proposing that people give up any ambitions of progress in their lives, and we are certainly not the ones who are guilt-tripping our children for breathing out.
Until that is done, and it is at the political level that it will have to be done, then the “violence” to people’s reputation will continue. Climate “scientists” have placed themselves in the middle of a battle that has always raged between progressive and classic liberals, a place where they were never equipped to be. They need to get out of there and get out of there fast.
“I had a vivid memory” = PNS for “I was wrong”.
As an observer the only useful thing I see in Ravetz’s contributions is exposing the wordsmithing drivel for what it is. But perhaps I’m just being “vivid”.
How can your participation in the debate be regarded as “promoting non-violence” when it promotes the policies of the IPCC and other governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations engaged in compulsory adoption of AGW political agendas under the threat of force and punishment by states, academic institutions, and compliant corporations?
Let me see
Sarah Palin or Al Gore?
Al Gore hoping to make billions off the backs of dirt poor Americans.He’s already made millions from gullible people.
Sarah Palin..Wants to take away some of the burden the dirt poor carry by cutting Government spending.
Don’t know if she’s made millions from gullible people,maybe the ones criticising can answer that.
Couldn’t the joker who wrote this ramble just be on the side of truth?
I commend Anthony for giving Dr Ravetz space on this blog, and I commend Dr Ravetz for continuing to comment here. I was a vocal supporter of Dr Ravetz’ first article on WUWT amidst a flurry of criticism. By the end of his second article I was a critic, and since then, I’ve come to regard Dr Ravetz as a shining example of exactly the intellectual elitism that enabled the total and complete corruption of science in the first place.
Even my kid, a twenty something with none of Dr Ravetz lofty degrees or vaunted world experience sees right through you Dr Ravetz. Read his comments because he nailed you to the wall with your own words, as did many other commenters. And here come some more.
I remember reading articles in once pretigious magazines arguing that we should take action on climate not because the science is clear, but because it isn’t. Had I not read your explanation of “Post Normal Science” on this blog, I would have thought it just a very odd leap of logic that coincidently was mirrored in more than one journal. But I’d read your PNS theories, and having done so, recognized those articles for what they were. Nothing more than a justification for a political position with no facts to support it, and the spectre of fear (yes FEAR) of the unknown dressed up as some sort of next generation science. A new kind of science in which the frauds who demand action, having been exposed as frauds, can continue to demand action under a smokescreen of pseudo science called PNS. Nothing but a fraud to cover a fraud.
It was you, Dr. Ravetz, who urged taking action because the situation was urgent, the stakes high, the facts uncertain. But whose recommended actions did your attempt to convince the public that there was some sort of next generation science upon which to base decisions support? The fraudsters sir. Instead of demanding quality work from them, you provided a cleverly worded argument to instead implement their hysterical ravings as policy because despite their fraud, they might be right. You argued to give legitimacy to the shoddiest science in decades, perhaps centuries, and so advanced the arguments of the alarmists who could now with the pseudo science of PNS behind them, continue to push their case with NO SCIENCE AT ALL to justify their position.
For shame.
And now, though I again applaud you for having what it takes to continue to publish in this forum, and I urge you to continue to do so, you have committed what may be an even worse sin. Since your first articles on this blog, much has changed. Your first articles argued that climate action was justified even though the science wasn’t complete. Since then “not complete” has been exposed for nothing more than a seive with giant holes in the screen being held aloft with people screaming that it is a pail, and full of water. Where has the intellectualized, articulate, no need for science, let’s act because we’re frightened of the unknown Post Normal Science flag bearer, Dr. Ravetz, gone with his world view since then?
Suddenly, he’s preaching non-violence. Reconciliation. Suddenly he is distinguishing between “AGW scientists” and “climate scientists”. You were not long ago urging that the “AGW scientists” be given credence despite the holes in their science, and now you say they are “less-committed colleagues as engaging in grossly inappropriate practices, their credibility will surely go.” Nicely done Dr. Ravetz. Distance yourself from them and throw them under the bus at the same time. I wonder if any of them are reading your quote that with friends like these, who needs enemies, and thinking exactly that?
And now let’s shine the glare of the spotlight on your argument for reconciliation. You speak of a fable about the sun and the wind arguing which can get a man’s coat off, and then present that as the modern equivelant of the wagons having been circled and all within the circle must conform. Excuse me? That logic follows exactly how? The lesson of the fable is that the wind blows as nastily as it can, and the man holds his coat ever the more tightly about himself as a result. The sun shines beneficently on the man and he takes his coat off. From there we got to the modern equivelant…the defence mechanism used by settlers two centuries ago to fend off attacks by native warriors…and from that imply that the modern equivelant, the science clique defending itself, is somehow to be forgiven for demanding conformism from within their ranks. Again. Excuse me? The settlers were fighting for their lives, if they lost they would ALL be killed, so any settler inside that circle of wagons had only one way to stay alive, even if he had a sudden epiphany and decided the settlement was wrong. He’d either stay alive by helping to win the battle, or die if the battle was lost. In just a few lines, you’ve managed to establish the demand for conformism by a clique of incompetant and/or fraudulent pseudo scientists as somehow being reasonable and understandable. It is neither. The settlers encircled by their wagons were facing actual death. The science clique was not. The settlers had no defectors within their ranks, only an insane man would in the midst of a pitched battle change sides and kill the only people who can save his life. This wasn’t a case of a clique of scientists demanding conformism from within their circle of wagons. This was a clique of scientists who, safe from withing their circle of wagons, sent assassins and snipers out to kill off their detractors. To complete the circle of the analogy you began with, who were those detractors? The ones who said see, the Sun shines benificently upon the man and he takes his coat off, that’s who. Because the people inside the circle of wagons claim that the man took his coat of because he had become too tired to hang onto it anymore and the Sun had nothing to do with it. For shame for sending the assassins, and double shame for trying to justify it.
And then the worst sin of all. The call for reconciliation with the “Protestant Bigot” and the “Republican Terrorist” not only ceasing their hostilities, but becoming friends held out as the model for what could be if only we could put aside our hate. How much warmer and fuzzier could it get? All hail the reconciliator, the peacemaker, the anti-violence crusader, Dr Ravetz. Having urged as all to act on the recommendations of the conformist clique, Dr. Ravetz now throws the worst of them under the bus, justifies the actions of the rest as some sort of acceptable human flaw, and presents himself as the peace maker working hard to bring both sides together.
The example is just as much a sieve held aloft and presented as a pail of water as was the science of those who you cleverly distanced yourself from and threw under a bus. The bigot and the terrorist both acted out of their beliefs. Their ACTUAL beliefs. They reconciled because their beliefs changed. They reconciled because they each arrived at a belief system sufficiently compatible with the other’s that there was no longer need for them to be mortal enemies, and even room for them to be friends.
Do you suppose they would have reconciled if it turned out that the terrorist just liked killing people, he’d never actually believed in the Republican cause? Do you suppose their would have been reconciliation if it turned out the Protestant bigot wasn’t a bigot at all, he just said he was to get a position at a bigger church and agreed to preach bigotry as part of the deal? Neither of them would be seen for anything than criminals guilty of fraud and murder and rightfully convicted and jailed if that had been the case.
Which brings us back to reconciliation within the science community. Note, I didn’t say within the climate science community, I said the science community. The sins commited in the name of alarmism, the presenting of fraudulent science as undisputed fact, the smokescreen of PNS used to support the alarmism in the face of unsubstantiated and unwarranted claims, is not some sort of unintended consequence of two groups of climate scientists with differing belief systems. It is a sin of fraudulent misrepresentation committed against science as a whole, and nothing more than a deliberate scam to fleece the entire world of their wealth.
Incompetant science cannot be tolerated. If a bridge should collapse because the engineer was too lazy to calculate all the shear planes correctly, the lives of those who died are on his head. There can be no reconciliation. Fraudulent science cannot be tolerated. If a bridge should collapse because the construction manager saved money by using a fraudulent bill of materials knowing it would result in a collapse, the lives of those who died are on his head. There can be no reconciliation.
But the most egregious sin of all is when he, who having defended the incompetance and justified the fraud, rises up at the criminal trial and begs the judge to stay proceedings to give reconciliation an opportunity to succeed, and then, to quote another saying Mr Ravitz, the CHUTZPA, to present himself as the conciliator who will bring the aggrieved families together with the criminals and ask them to love one another, for is it not as obvious as the fable of the Sun and the Wind and the man with the coat that they should?
For every scientist in every field of science who has been appalled at the incompetance, fraud and deceipt of the alarmists and their charlaten enablers, for every hard working tax payer dedicated to building a better place for their family and community who has been taken in by the charlatans and their Post Normal Science enablers, if I had the authority to speak for them, I would say this about reconciliation:
No.
And if I had the authority to speak for them, I would say this about he who proposes himself as conciliator:
No. Stand in the docket with the rest of the accused whom you defended and enabled, you deserve to be judged as much or more as they. A thousand times:
No.
Ravetz’s obvious speciality shown in this apology is PR.., he’s already moved the goal posts to protect his own interests*, because the only real violence here is that coming from the AGW side, and, as has already been noted, he’s intrinsic part of the problem. He’s attacked by dismissing the very reason for the movement against the pseudo-science of AGW and its use by the political/ideological/business interests against the well-being of the common man.
This put down is itself therefore violent. Smooth as it is he’s the one violating others here by creating the straw man that this movement anti corrup science/etc., which is at last beginning to make itself heard, is using violence in the debate; he does this by putting the blame on the victims, us.
Clever if intentional, but if sincerely unaware of what he’s doing he doesn’t take into account the corrupted moral integrity of the science and its backers creating AGW.
Michel says it best, Feb 24, 9:57 in his answer to you Mr Ravetz – this the club you’re beating us with:
The climate issue is not a simple normal-scientific one of verification or refutation of an hypothesis.
Yes it is! It absolutely is!
The choice is yours Mr Ravetz, stay with those promoting corrupt science to manipulate our lives and personally continue adding to the arsenal of weapons continually being used against us by AGW promoters, see the video 10/10 to understand the true source of violence here in this debate if you don’t already know, or stop.
*http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/21/ravetz-on-lisbon-and-leading-the-way/
This debate has not just been about the science of climate change It also concerns policy, for reducing the emissions of Carbon Dioxide worldwide. This requires a very large, complex and expensive project.
The hypothesis has been refuted, it didn’t even have legs to begin with. The hypothesis is FALSIFIED.
There is no problem with Carbon Dioxide that needs any “policy for reducing the emissions of Carbon Dioxide worldwide”, that “requires a very large, complex and expensive project” which “extends into lifestyles and values, as the transition out of a carbon-based economy will require..”
It’s an illusion.
The problem isn’t Carbon Dioxide, but is those promoting the Con as you’re doing. You say you are a Quaker –
“Consensus is commonly understood to require mutual compromise — shaving away at positions until we find a core which objectionable to none. The Quaker approach tries instead to reach toward a higher and greater Truth that speaks to all concerns in ways that could not have been forseen. We discover what God wants for us, as opposed to what we thought we wanted. “Consensus is the product of an intellectual process. Sense of the Meeting is a commitment of faith.” This difference is more than semantic. In resisting the word “consensus” we refuse to allow our Sacrament to become secularized. Preferred terms would be “Unity” or “Sense of the Meeting”. The latter emphasizes the goal for the Gathered Meeting, and the former evokes the core of theological affirmation of God’s will for humanity.”
http://www.edengrace.org/quakerbusiness.html
Here we see something in common, between the Scientific community and Quakers, that Truth isn’t arrived at by Consensus.
The real Scientific community has been marginalised by those promoting the corrupted science of AGW under the lying banner of “Scientific Consensus”. If you really believe that Carbon Dioxide, the food source of all our carbon based life, is a problem, then please recognise that you are as much a victim of this lie as we who already know it isn’t.
What sets us free from this bondage of manipulation, at times by overwhelming forces, is whatever we call or think our means of access to reason in our common humanity against abusers of it, for the Light of Truth in Science is what this argument from us is all about.
It’s depressing seeing all the pointless political point-scoring going on in these comments. Anyone from Mars who chanced across them could be excused for thinking that Earthling science was in some way dependent on the individual’s personal view of certain other Earthlings – oddly, those with no scientific credibility at all, to boot.
It brings to mind a comment made on TV by Tony Benn (non-UK readers: now retired, Benn was a stalwart of the leftmost of the UK left) following the resignation from Parliament of David Davis (non-UK readers: a member of the (right-wing) Conservative party) in defence of “British freedoms” in 2008. (The issue was the proposed (then) Labour gov’s extension of the time that “terrorist suspects” could be held without charge or trial.) Asked by the TV interviewer whether it wasn’t a little unusual to find left- and right-wingers taking the same position on a subject, Benn pointed out that, on some major issues such as freedom, the left and right wings “sort of meet round the back”. He recognised, as too few of us seem to, that the axis in politics these days is not between “left” and “right”, but between “authoritarian” and “libertarian” – between those who believe that a stupid populace need to be driven where the prevailing government wants them, and those who believe that a properly educated and aware populace will, by and large, do the right thing anyhow and need no such harassment.
I have sympathy for both “left-wing” politics – which, let us never forget, arose in response to the appalling treatment of the workforce in the early capitalist system – and the “right-wing” position that people should mostly be left to do whatever they want, with the usual caveat about not screwing things up for others. There is nothing uniquely “left-wing” about the (currently very evident) power play for centralised, authoritarian global government, nor anything especially “right-wing” about recognising a tyrant as a tyrant.
I admit (as a “soft left-winger”) to feeling uneasy at finding myself on the same “side” as Lord Monckton (hell, the prime minister he advised is still one of my personal demon figures) but, on the matter of climate, he is unequivocally broadly right, and as such merits – and has – my support. Anyone who tries to reduce the complex science involved in trying to fathom out how the world’s climate engine works to an empty “choice” between two political “wings”, each as thoroughly bought-and-paid-for by big corporations and power blocs as the other, is (IMO) simply being deceptive, whether intentionally or not. We really need to stop badmouthing one another and “meet round the back” before the authoritarian, globalist engine crushes us all beneath all those (“left-wing”???) giant corporations and banks which comprise it.
Any views in the UK of Sarah Palin have gone through the BBC filter, which is critical of anything right-wing of socialism.
/Sarc on. I agree 100% with Baa Humbug. But we must realize what an enormous step Dr Ravetz has taken in apologizing to Willis. We cannot expect him to commit the ultimate heresy for a true believer in the Church of the Warmaholics, and say that something that supports CAGW is actually wrong. That is just asking too much. /Sarc off
Myrrh says:
February 25, 2011 at 3:19 am
Michel says it best, Feb 24, 9:57 in his answer to you Mr Ravetz – this the club you’re beating us with:
“The climate issue is not a simple normal-scientific one of verification or refutation of an hypothesis.”
Yes it is! It absolutely is!
Please see my reply at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/24/more-from-jerome-ravetz-response-to-willis/#comment-607111
Thankyou.
The remark mischaracterizes the meaning of the phrasing and the nature of science. A scientist is any person who practices science. The practice of science therefore involves the application of a policy to practice science. Politics is the practice of a policy or policies. The policy of practicing science is therefore a political act regarding the practice of a discipline described and defined as science. A person who fails to practice science while representing himself or herself as a scientist engaging in scientific practices can indeed be “denounced” or more diplomatically characterized in whole or at least in part as a non-scientist for failing to meet the political or policy requirements which inherently define the practice of science. To “de-politicize science” would requre observations of and experimentation with the laws of nature, the scientific method, to no longer be employed as the political means and discipline for practicing science. Consequently, to “de-politicize science” amounts to the practice of all policies such as the scientific method and thereby destroy the fundamental basis of science and its inherent political origins in the laws of nature.
So-called Post-Normal science and its adherents propose to “de-politicize science” by replacing the objective political discipline of the scientific method and its foundation upon the laws of nature with a different political discipline and its foundation upon subjective socialist philosophy.
Denouncing a person who is throwing other people off the top of a cliff because they have a subjective belief that some or all people can fly safely away with hidden angel’s wings is a political act that is not necessarily a religious act, although it is based upon the philosophy of science.
The remark mischaracterizes the meaning of the phrasing and the nature of science. A scientist is any person who practices science. The practice of science therefore involves the application of a policy to practice science. Politics is the practice of a policy or policies. The policy of practicing science is therefore a political act regarding the practice of a discipline described and defined as science. A person who fails to practice science while representing himself or herself as a scientist engaging in scientific practices can indeed be “denounced” or more diplomatically characterized in whole or at least in part as a non-scientist for failing to meet the political or policy requirements which inherently define the practice of science. To “de-politicize science” would requre observations of and experimentation with the laws of nature, the scientific method, to no longer be employed as the political means and discipline for practicing science. Consequently, to “de-politicize science” amounts to the practice of all policies such as the scientific method to be eliminated and thereby destroy the fundamental basis of science and its inherent political origins in the laws of nature.
So-called Post-Normal science and its adherents propose to “de-politicize science” by replacing the objective political discipline of the scientific method and its foundation upon the laws of nature with a different political discipline and its foundation upon subjective socialist philosophy.
Denouncing a person who is throwing other people off the top of a cliff because they have a subjective belief that some or all people can fly safely away with hidden angel’s wings is a political act that is not necessarily a religious act, although it is based upon the philosophy of science.