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.
D. Patterson says:
February 25, 2011 at 4:23 am
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.
Lol. Back on our favourite hobby horse I see. Got any more classic misquotes of Marx for us Mr Patterson?
Geoff Sherrington says, February 25, 2011 at 2:30 am:
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?
(My emphasis)
Indeed it is!
Perhaps we should think of some sort of set-up where pro-AGW and sceptic scientists shared their tents, the housekeeping, and all sorts of physical discomfort for prolonged sessions of field work. Helps enormously with getting along afterwards. Ask any field biologist …
We could even call it P-PNS.
Such as, and what does it have to do with the immediate topic?
Jim Cripwell says:
February 25, 2011 at 3:54 am
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.
Ravetz on WUWT
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/climategate-plausibility-and-the-blogosphere-in-the-post-normal-age/
“And the ‘hockey stick’ picture of the past, so crucial for the strict version of the climate change story, has run into increasingly severe problems. As an example, it relied totally on a small set of deeply uncertain tree-ring data for the Medieval period, to refute the historical evidence of a warming then; but it needed to discard that sort of data for recent decades, as they showed a sudden cooling from the 1960′s onwards! In the publication, the recent data from other sources were skilfully blended in so that the change was not obvious; that was the notorious ‘Nature trick’ of the CRU e-mails.”
He’s uncomfortable being on the same side as Sarah Palin because he knows she is a target for all kinds of baseless attacks and he doesn’t want to get splattered with all the crap that is aimed at her. (or at least that should be the reason)
Here are four examples of inconvenient truths from Australia, all of which demonstrate VIOLENCE.
These egs may pose questions to the readers. The decades of observation and verification by scientists as to their propositions, selection of instruments, methods of observation, verification and reporting of these human events. All these events occurred in nature and not a laboratory.
Australia is legislating for a carbon tax because many believe the science is settled.
I wonder whether Dr Ravetz question is really about shoddy science practice by cabals of individuals rather than positivism and post positivism?
1. An example of emails (p9 fwd) between social scientists who disagree with the science of two experts researching suicide rates and suicide prevention
Submission to Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee – Inquiry into Suicide into Australia
http://www.ic-wish.org/McPhedran%20Baker%20Suicide%20in%20Australia%20Senate%20Submission_Nov%2009.pdf
source: http://www.ic-wish.org/
2. Forensic Physics (Seven case studies – Cliff Fall in Sydney)
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/FORENSIC-PHYSICS/FALLING-FATALITIES.htm
3. Readers will remember that Matt and Janet’ friend committed suicide.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/09/a-waterway-no-fish-will-swim-in/
4. 2062.0 Census Data Enhancement project
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@ur momisugly.nsf/lookup/2062.0Chapter511Oct+2010
After thirty (30) years of scientists studying Aborigines and their habitats, many communities still require a permit to visit and thus the academic publications can not be verified by other scientists.
D. Patterson says:
February 25, 2011 at 4:38 am (Edit)
tallbloke says:
February 25, 2011 at 4:32 am
D. Patterson says:
February 25, 2011 at 4:23 am
Lol. Back on our favourite hobby horse I see. Got any more classic misquotes of Marx for us Mr Patterson?
Such as,
This one.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/09/climategate-plausibility-and-the-blogosphere-in-the-post-normal-age/#comment-321548
and what does it have to do with the immediate topic?
Not much at all, I was just amused at you taking Mosh to task, saying he “mischaracterizes the meaning of the phrasing and the nature of science” when you yourself are unable to admit to mischaracterising the quotes of political texts you deploy.
For quite a long period of time, I visited elderly, much- loved relatives in various places which were generally depressing as there was only one long-term scenario for those people. I became quite comfortable with the ramblings of the very old who had been wonderful, lively intelligent people but who had, sadly, advanced to the terminal stages of senile dementia.
Without trying to be unkind, and I fully acknowledge that I am well past the age of retirement myself, Jerome Ravetz’ musings about an unreal and very odd mental construct about science has a very familiar ring to me. His vivid memories of what Willis did NOT say and the utterly irrelevant comment about Sarah Palin are clues.
It seems to me that the problem is not with actual science but with a number of former scientists who have left the discipline far behind them to become advocates of purely political policy.
Alexander K says:
February 25, 2011 at 5:01 am
For quite a long period of time, I visited elderly, much- loved relatives
1) Ravetz wrote the PNS stuff a long time ago.
2) Having met and conversed with him, I hope I’m as sprightly and sharp minded if I make it to his age.
3) He’s a provocative thinker, and not shy of courting controversy. So if he has a bone to pick with someone’s ideology, he’ll come right out with it. This is a lively mind at work, not a senile one.
artwest says:
February 24, 2011 at 9:01 pm
“To those complaining about the Palin comment:…”
“If we aren’t able to show that this is really about Right and Wrong rather than Right and Left then it will take all the longer to overthrow CAGW.”
I think that is exactly what they are complaining about. Mr Ravitz made it a right/left issue with that comment.
I’m not sure what Mrs. Palins’ stance is on CAGW or why Mr. Ravits is uncomfortable being on her side. But he brought in the politics.
steven mosher says:
February 24, 2011 at 11:31 pm
Mosh I really didn’t expect you would take out a single word and misrepresent what I said.
I didn’t have any religious thoughts in my head at the time.
However I’ll be sure to keep a thesaurus handy next time.
p.s. my mother tongue is Turkish. ‘Seni kandirmislar’
tallbloke says:
February 25, 2011 at 4:39 am
Thanx for that HoN, I’m glad to read that, I really am, even if it is some years too late. Hope to read more of that sort from Dr Ravetz in a timely fashion.
“I personally am not comfortable at being on the same side as Sarah Palin”
Well Ravetz, if you weren’t an insignificant nobody beneath Palin’s notice I’m sure the feeling would be mutual.
Reading your drivel is three minutes of my life I’ll never get back.
David Davidovics, check the archives. Dr. Ravetz has written significantly on his PNS views here in the past.
Sorry, Jerome, but you still don’t get it. Climate scientists have conspired to lie to the public about the results and reliability of their scientific findings. That behavior is unforgivable. It will be punished as soon as Scott Walker is president, which will be shortly. Your PNS does nothing but provide cover for the past, present, and future behavior of climate scientists. Your PNS is a colossal Red Herring. It distracts from the genuine and important questions of scientific method. You might have been raised as a Quaker and you might have studied Ghandi but all of your instincts point to control of everyone by an elite. In my humble opinion, that would be a John Kerry elite or Stalin-Mao-Alinsky elite. I am not sure which is worse.
If you would really like to engage Willis in conversation, you must learn at least the basics of scientific method. Your writings reveal that you have not a clue about scientific method. That can be overcome. Judith Curry is in the process of learning about scientific method. Her steps are baby steps at this time but she has learned enough to suggest that “hide the decline” might qualify as criminal conspiracy. You need to get to the same place. Quickly.
” …I personally am not comfortable at being on the same side as Sarah Palin, ”
“I am not altogether on anybody’s side , because nobody is altogether on my side” Treebeard
Sums up my position with respect to Sarah Palin. There is much we would disagree about, but not everything.
Ed
Biography __________Jerome Ravetz
After World War II, the United States was swept into a period of anti-communist McCarthyism. Ravetz grew up in a left-wing family and although never a member of the American Communist Party he was what was then called a fellow traveler. He went to England on a Fulbright Scholarship, and had returned to complete his studies, marry, and take a job when in 1955 his U.S. passport was withdrawn. It was returned in 1958 after a ruling by the Supreme Court, and he has since visited the U.S.A. many times starting in 1962. He has visited at Harvard University, the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of California, Santa Cruz, the University of Texas at Dallas and Carnegie Mellon University., wiki.
________________________________________
If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a “peace conference,” you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes.
Joseph Stalin
_________________________________________
MANIAC (“Mathematical Analyzer, Numerical Integrator and Computer”)
aka
global circulation models
or
Maniac AGW.
_____________________________________________-
Post-Normal Science. It is an outdated concept.
The term currently used is undoubtedly PARANORMAL Climate Science
Baa Humbug says:
February 25, 2011 at 5:18 am
Thanx for that HoN, I’m glad to read that, I really am, even if it is some years too late. Hope to read more of that sort from Dr Ravetz in a timely fashion.
Welcome.
How about these?
“The examples of shoddy science exposed by the Climategate convey a troubling impression. From the record, it appears that in this case, criticism and a sense of probity needed to be injected into the system by the extended peer community from the (mainly) external blogosphere.”
“The total assurance of the mainstream scientists in their own correctness and in the intellectual and moral defects of their critics, is now in retrospect perceived as arrogance. For their spokespersons to continue to make light of the damage to the scientific case, and to ignore the ethical dimension of Climategate, is to risk public outrage at a perceived unreformed arrogance. If there is a continuing stream of ever more detailed revelations, originating in the blogosphere but now being brought to a broader public, then the credibility of the established scientific authorities will continue to erode.”
“Within a mere two months of the first reports in the mainstream media, the key East Anglia scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were discredited. Even if only a fraction of their scientific claims were eventually refuted, their credibility as trustworthy scientists was lost.”
“Consideration of those protective plausibilities can help to explain how the illusions could persist for so long until their sudden collapse. The scientists were all reputable, they published in leading peer-reviewed journals, and their case was itself highly plausible and worthy in a general way. Individual criticisms were, for the public and perhaps even for the broader scientific community, kept isolated and hence muffled and lacking in systematic significance. And who could have imagined that at its core so much of the science was unsound? “
tallbloke says:
February 25, 2011 at 5:15 am
Alexander K says:
February 25, 2011 at 5:01 am
For quite a long period of time, I visited elderly, much- loved relatives
“1) Ravetz wrote the PNS stuff a long time ago.
2) Having met and conversed with him, I hope I’m as sprightly and sharp minded if I make it to his age.
3) He’s a provocative thinker, and not shy of courting controversy. So if he has a bone to pick with someone’s ideology, he’ll come right out with it. This is a lively mind at work, not a senile one.”
OK, you think Ravetz deserves respect. Would you please choose one of his theses, articulate it, and then defend it here? I would just love to have the opportunity to engage you. Keep in mind that he has been pontificating here in the last few days. You might want to defend one of those statements.
The good Doctor should have stopped after his needed apology to Willis.
I have yet to see him cite a “violent” act by a sceptic on a CAGW person to then tell us how confrontations should be handled.
So I ask the good Doctor:
When Heidi Clum(sp) of the Weather Channel came out and said every weather person who did not believe in GW should have their credentials pulled, was that a violent act to have someone’s livelyhood taken away? And what should have been done?
When persons like myself, a sceptic, were accused of treason by a proponent of CAGW was that an act of violence and what kind of response should have taken place?
There are others but you should get my point.
When actual debates have taken place in public here and in the UK the sceptical side has been the winner. Isn’t this a good way to start to show where the truth lies?
The good Doctor may have a sharp mind as Tallbloke says, but it does not show through in this matter.
Westcoasttiger says:
February 25, 2011 at 12:00 am
“I’m a life-long Republican but she and her devotees scare the crap out of me!”
What you are is an anonymous coward taking potshots at people who have at least enough courage and integrity to associate their opinions with their real names.
Theo Goodwin says:
February 25, 2011 at 6:07 am
OK, you think Ravetz deserves respect. Would you please choose one of his theses, articulate it, and then defend it here? I would just love to have the opportunity to engage you. Keep in mind that he has been pontificating here in the last few days. You might want to defend one of those statements.
I am proud to count Jerome Ravetz among my friends. I have my own scientific and philosophical position. I am not his spokesman, nor does he need one. If he wants to engage with what you say, he will.
mkelly says:
February 25, 2011 at 6:14 am
When actual debates have taken place in public here and in the UK the sceptical side has been the winner. Isn’t this a good way to start to show where the truth lies?
The good Doctor may have a sharp mind as Tallbloke says, but it does not show through in this matter.
The fact that we had great difficulty in getting the higher profile people from the pro AGW side to attend Lisbon and defend their science on neutral ground speaks volumes by itself, without the organiser having to compromise his diplomatic neutrality by saying so.
steven mosher says:
February 24, 2011 at 11:41 pm
how exactly do you propose to show that? Who will “show” this and how will you force them to “show” it. By forcing them to do the science you want? your way? That sounds like bending the science to your political will.
Here’s the problem. Once science has been politicized you cannot “simply” return to normal science. It takes the use of power to do that. Are you going to force hansen to think differently? defund him? defund all the scientists who believe action is required? Stop all science ( thats way abnormal). Sorry, the return to normal science is not a simple re virgination process. Its inherently political. post normal.
—————————————————–
No bending required Steve. It happens all the time in the private sector. CEOs and Vice Presidents are replaced for doing a poor job. Sometimes they’re replaced simply because “It’s time to make a change”.
Again, no political bending required. Just replace them with better scientists. Of course, the challenge would be to find good climate scientists who are purely science- and data-driven.
Whatever, it would certainly “unconstipate” this field and I would like to believe that it’s going to happen now – not necessarily by defunding, but by the normal termination, early retirement mechanisms prevalent out there in the real world.
Mark T,
“You mean there really are idiots out there like mcates that don’t know the story behind the Palin “quote?” Lots of villages searching for lost…”
Could you clarify this for me? I have researched the quote well. I’m not sure calling someone an idiot is very productive…
tallbloke says: February 25, 2011 at 6:01 am
“…..And who could have imagined that at its core so much of the science was unsound? “
Simple really. Left their profession and communities, were silenced in various ways or silenced themselves or joined the ranks of poor scientific practice.