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.
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Steven Mosher,
I stayed completely out of the Steve Goddard kerfuffle. In fact, to this day I don’t know what ‘bad science’ you’re referring to.
What I do know is that without the scientific method it’s pseudo-science. There can be no compromise. Reference Prof Richard Feynman on the scientific method. Is that view being “tribal”?
A few words on violent words.
There is a pathway to violence in this debate.
it BEGINS with statements that indicate that talking is over.
the debate is over
Incompetant [sic] science cannot be tolerated.
If the debate is over, then what? time for action. And if you disagree? well we will find ways to muzzle you. first we moderate you. then we disemvowel you ( see tim lambert’s policy) then we will make films were we blow you up. Shut up or else.
THAT is what ‘the debate is over’ means. shut up, or else.
And we hear in response that certain scientific behavior will not be tolerated. or what? stop doing that kind of science or what?
I’ll say this tallbloke, the girl took her beating from cowboy with a lot less whining than the cowboy took poke in the eye from professor, however undeserved. Hell, I’ve called you a sun nut and nostradamus and you didnt get your panties in a wad, well too much of a wad.
Jerome Ravetz says:
February 25, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Looks lucid (and poignant) to me.
I am late to this debate – which is my favourite territory, but for which I get little time ‘cos I am out there doing policy (and some science). Its all very familiar – I spent some time at Oxford in the ’70s doing some research on the linguistic anthropology of perception..initially how tribal peoples perceived environment, causality and healing (very shamanic), but then with an interest (frowned upon by my superiors) in the way anthropologists as scientists peceived themselves and eventually broadening that to how scientists in general perceived themselves. Their language gives then away.
They do present an image – Mike Haseler got it perfectly – ‘fundamentally a scientist is a dispassionate objective interrogator of the evidence’…..and many do actually believe their own image. But many don’t. They know it is a cover. Behind the scenes, they carry the older scientific tradition of a more passionate embrace of reality, like the alchemist fathers of the Royal Society, who had learned to hide their passion from the Churches. This is the passion – an inordinate love, of order and measurement, law and prediction that goes way further back than any of the current religions. It is a deeply patriarchal system of thought. Obvious enough, I know – but when you take a look at the climate science, not only do you find the expected levels of deception – but at the highest political levels of the science (like the IPCC and the modelling community) you find a complete lack of appreciation of cycles, periodicity, waves and rhythm, harmonics and the sheer power and unpredictability of Nature, with its chaotics and spirals and lack of repitition (in space and time, nothing actually repeats!).
Science as we know it (normal or post-normal) is betrayed by the word – from the Latin scindere, to divide (and the secret societies to which many top scientists belong has the dividers as their most sacred symbol!)….to separate, and hence masure and manipulate. That is far removed from Knowledge – gnosis, the Ancient British canawan, to really know something. This is what the ancients knew as Sophia – wisdom, and it was dark not light.
Hence climate science completely downgraded the ‘dark side’ of the Sun – its magnetics and mood swings, not to mention its almost orgasmic tendency to wind itself to a climax. Unconsiously of course, because very few climate scientists – and very few of any scientists, get to study their own rites and rituals, gender, social conditioning and linguistic heritage and the manners in which these forces condition the making of an hypothesis in the first place, let alone the energy and funding to elevate it to a worthwhile question to answer.
Dear Al Gore urges everyone, like an old conjuror, to focus on carbon – and resonate like all carbon life-forms with complexity and recycling – like certain death (as well as his carbon taxes!). Be afraid because you have a limited lifespan and whatever you do don’t look at the Sun! Where the frequency is simpler, like hydrogen and plasma and closer to spirit and eternal life. Who so rooted in their essential inner nature – as a fractal of the long-time creative Sun, would be afraid of the climate?
Every scientist has this gender bias built in, and sadly most women scientists fail to break the conditioning.
And of course, it is not just a gender bias. There is the pride in all that expensive equipment. There is a sense of command and control in all this prediction. And there is what I once called the lure of the ‘Merlin’ position….the government’s chief advisor. In former centuries it was an alchemist or an astrologer. In Oxford, I reckoned the social anthropologists really desired it most, but from a suitable distance – like a Marx or a Durkheim casting spells of theorem upon the political psyche. But mostly my government appointed chemists, physicists and the like.
Then, on top of all that bias, there is the bias against consciousness itself. The dividers ruled that the material world and the world of consciousness were separate. If the old shamans and witches had still been around (the latter had been burnt and the former were hiding in the woods) they would have had a right laugh, though perhaps with some foreboding as to what would happen to the Earth. And some of them might have seen that this also was a deception – because behind the scenes, the old alchemists and astrologers, believed nothing of the kind.
All the great founders of western science – Galileo, Kepler, Newton and the founding fathers of the Royal Society, like Elias Ashmole, were practising astrologers giving advice to Kings and Dictators as well as themselves, and most particularly practising alchemists in the sense of pursuing an inner path to raised consciousness (Astrology being then an exalted science of consciousness and its relation to material reality). By then, of course, they had lost track of their divine feminine companions so essential for the real alchemical marriage in the Hermetic tradition (which goes back through Greece to Ancient Egypt) – but soldiered on in Masonic orders that were very happy to do without women as altogether unworthy of the path.
Thus divided, the scientific mind had no chance of understanding climate change. The most subtle and powerful energies of planetary change go way beyond atmospheric and even solar physics – into realms where almost nothing is actually perceivable – such as gravity or dark energy. Science has no way yet of connecting gravity with any other physical force – except by invoking about eleven other dimensions! And the sub-quantum world from which particles move in an out of existance, is by definition, highly creative but totally beyond measurment. How to explore these realms? Could at least one of them be a realm of pure consciousness? And causal? Of course NOT, say the camouflaged alchemists, then they shuffle off to their lodges and enter the realms of ritual magic. Ever wonder why Uranium gives birth to Neptunium and then Plutonium during radioactive decay?….its in the naming, an astrological series.
The old alchemists knew things directly – the process was called gnosis – knowledge through inner perception. The shaman has this- and nowadays is the only real source of public communication…. shamanic vision sees a pulsating shimmering web of the continuum, pregnant with power. And that sight has a fast-forward button that is probably as good as any predictive power drawn from measurement and prediction.
So – the ones who train in secret inner traditions – and there are many, populate institutions that teach that only the outer reality is a valid source of knowledge. Its a dodgy set-up.
But there is a convention…that perhaps Prof Ravetz may be challenging – I am not sure – that afflicts BOTH our houses – sceptic and warmista alike, and that is to keep consciousness out of it. That is la-la land. Woo woo stuff. Then we get to do the Punch and Judy show and have a laugh at each others’ expense. But we stay stuck in the Science paradigm. Neither side cares about the billions of people who are really vulnerable to climate change through natural cycles. The UN invests next to nothing on adaptation, whilst intelligent and creative people get locked up in arguments about prediction.
Tallbloke says:
February 25, 2011 at 4:02 am
Myrrh says: Michel says it best, 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!
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.
So then neither can the hypothesis that AGW is real be proved. It remains an ideology wrapped up in and ever thickening blanket of corrupt science, that has been proved. Time and time again. Let’s quit the pretence that this has anything to do with real Science, shall we?
In Real Science work is discredited immediately it is found to be falsified, but if a claimed proof is found to have been deliberately created by tampering with the data not only does the work loses all credibility, so not worth the effort of attempting to falsify, but those committing such scientific fraud lose their standing and respect, proving themselves in this to be not real scientists at all.
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 assesssing uncertainly proposed by PNS practitioners such as Jeroen van de 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.
So, real Science must been unwillingly drawn into this world and must submit itself for judgment in it? And pre-judged wanting if it doesn’t accept its judgment? Why? Who cares what “Post Modern Science” thinks apart from Post Modern “Scientists”?
The bottom line is that we are dealing not just with corruption of the science, the claims have already been disproved and each new absurd one made is examined if only for the record for posterity and our present sanity, but with the very real problem created by those backing such scientific fraud on a global scale. Imagining yet another mangling of Science as supporters of AGW have already done to further their own ideological agendas, by misappropriating it for this new idea of Post Modern Science, is counterproductive. Because real Science is destroyed in the process. All that’s left is a belief system to be argued about as a matter of faith or enjoyed in Atum moments or whatever, when ‘science’ can be made to fit whatever ideology is next to be paraded on the fashion cat walk in academialand or offered in proof of some replacement God by sincere and devout followers making lives miserable for others but ‘for their own good’ and teaching nonsense to our children. What do such ideologies have in common? They all need to destroy liberty and knowledge by forcing judgment on others and re-education on new generations in order to survive.
Post Modern Science is now struggling to promote itself itself into the ranks of Big Thinking Movements, will it make it? Nah, it’s not interesting enough, it doesn’t have mass appeal and has no USP worth bothering with by those with the political clout to promote it. In other words, the masses won’t be interested in promoting it and tyrants don’t need it, although they might use it to keep the thinking plebs in the subject occupied.
It’s premise is flawed. http://www.jvds.nl/LisbonJvd528Jan2011.pdf Continuing AGW practice it misappropriates the name and takes real Science concepts out of context. Its premise here is that there is Uncertainty in the “Climate Change Debate” and there isn’t. “Uncertainty” in Real Science is leaving room for further knowledge, it can be quite certain of itself and its own judgment when it sees corruption of Scientific Method. And that’s all it’s seen so far in AGWScience; the Null Hypothesis Stands. Disprove it honestly if you can.
But why would anyone be interested in bringing Postmodernism into Science?
Postmodernism: The Failure to Understand True Knowledge of Reality
Post-modernism is arguably the most depressing philosophy ever to spring from the western mind. It is difficult to talk about post-modernism because nobody really understands it. It’s allusive to the point of being impossible to articulate. But what this philosophy basically says is that we’ve reached an endpoint in human history. that the modernist tradition of progress and ceaseless extension of the frontiers of innovation are now dead. Originality is dead. The avant-garde artistic tradition is dead. All religions and utopian visions are dead and resistance to the status quo is impossible because revolution too is now dead. Like it or not, we humans are stuck in a permanent crisis of meaning, a dark room from which we can never escape. (Kalle Lasn & Bruce Grierson, A Malignant Sadness) http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Postmodernism.htm
There again, perhaps it’s the only place left for Global Warmers to go having lost all touch with reality in science and humanity itself in its overpopulation scares…
..they now have their very own philosophy!
Seems perfectly capable of telling about himself without referencing Sarah Palin.
===================
Well, I’ve read the article now, and the responses, my thanks to all. First, let me clear something up:
JDN says:
February 25, 2011 at 6:47 am
I am neither “courting” nor “not courting” this sort of contact. I have responded to Jerome Ravetz’s postings here, as he has to mine. I think that the PNS worldview is a dangerous concept because there are no clearly defined lines … and as world history has repeatedly shown, if there are no lines, people will definitely cross them to our detriment … I also think that communication is generally a good thing. So I communicate with him.
Next, michel said:
To which tallbloke replied
I’m with michel on this one. Tallbloke, nothing that you say is outside of normal science. Yes, we don’t have direct measurements that can settle the question. And yes, AGW proponents are looking for a minuscule signal (0.02°C per year) where the daily swings are three orders of magnitude larger than the signal. But that’s all part of normal science. It just means that someone has proposed a hypothesis that’ll be really, really hard to establish.
And in normal science, people would say “man, good luck establishing that hypothesis, bad historical data, inaccurate current measurements, no overarching theory, tiny signal, they’ll never be able to show that their beliefs are correct”. Then it would be put on the shelf until they could at least falsify the null hypothesis and show some evidence that their ideas are true.
But in climate science, instead a host of folks followed the lead of James Hansen and Stephen Schneider (an early adherent of Ravetz’s ideas) and politically and publically hyped a climate theory that couldn’t even falsify the null hypothesis as though it were a clear and present danger.
This, of course, played right into the PNS mantra that “decisions urgent” was somehow a signal that we should abandon the search for scientific truth, and replace that with a larger idea of “quality”. Hogwash. If decisions are urgent, that’s not a time to start ignoring science, quite the opposite. But once the climate hypesters were up and running with the “action is urgent” mantra, they were able to fool people like … well, like Dr. Ravetz, into thinking that actions really were urgent, and thus we were in a post-normal situation …
Hansen started banging the “actions are urgently needed or New York will be underwater in twenty years” drum about a quarter century ago … so the claim that the actions were urgent was simply scare tactics. Ravetz was sucked right in, root and branch, he declared that it was a PNS situation, other authors concurred saying that climate science was absolutely a clinical example of PNS … whereas the whole time, there was ABSOLUTELY NO URGENCY AT ALL.
Now, you’d think a guy like Dr. Ravetz, who built a system around “decisions urgent” and then got totally duped, sucked in and spat out by false urgency might say “Hmmm … perhaps ‘decisions urgent’ might not be the best criterion to have used, I need something with more teeth …”
But I see no sign of that. I see no sign that Ravetz has recognized that the “facts uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent” criteria didn’t work, and that something must be wrong with the formulation. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in our criteria.
One problem that I have with the PNS construct is that it is both descriptive and proscriptive. On the descriptive side, Ravetz says:
The first question this raises is, how is this different from everyday life? I face that kind of situation occasionally. Many, perhaps most decisions faced by the leader of a country have those attributes. Fat King Henry faced those same things. Having been in and out of that situation for millennia, why does Ravetz say that this situation requires some special treatment or recognition?
The second question is, decisions are urgent according to whom? When I talk to the used car salesman, he thinks that I should make a decision right now … but then he has a stake in the outcome, doesn’t he. Unfortunately, Dr. Ravetz being a decent guy, it doesn’t seem to occur to him that if the scientist pushing the URGENT! button stands to make money or gain scientific fame by pushing the button, he is much more likely to do so …
The one aspect of Marxism that Dr. Ravetz seems unable to shake is a curious one. It is an abiding belief in the goodness of man, that Michael Mann and I can forgive and forget like some Irish guys I never heard of, that nothing is impossible for people of goodwill.
The people who wrote the US Constitution had the diametrically opposite view. They held that humans would do anything to seize power and money and abuse their authority if given the chance, so institutions had to be designed to thwart that and keep them from excess power. That’s why the US Constitution is full to the brim with “checks and balances”, to prevent anyone from getting out of line.
A perfect example of the problems of an institution based on “men of goodwill” is the appointment of Michael Mann as lead author of an IPCC chapter. This was a position of great power with virtually no checks and balances. He used it to push his fraudulent “Hockeystick” view of climate history … which would come as no surprise to Benjamin Franklin and the other Founding Fathers. He then used the Hockeystic as an excuse to push the URGENT button, and voila! It’s values in dispute, facts uncertain, huge imaginary future stakes, false urgency, PNS at its finest, starring Michael Mann!
Science is built on checks and balances, with all “truth” subject to revision. PNS and its “mantram”, on the other hand, are wide open to all kinds of abuse, distortion, and chicanery. That’s a huge problem.
I said at the beginning that PNS was both descriptive and proscriptive. Above I show that the description is so vague and has so few checks and balances that it is an open invitation for abuse. It is also so vague as to encompass much of life.
On the proscriptive side, Ravetz says (as I understand it, it’s difficult to decipher) that when we are in a PNS situation, that we need to replace the idea of scientific truth with a vague and poorly defined idea of “quality”. This is the dangerous part.
See, if we had held to the idea of scientific truth, we wouldn’t be in this mess. If the scientists had been honest about the uncertainties of their climate results and forecasts, nobody would have been concerned. But nooooo, Stephen Schneider’s admonitions about making up scary scenarios took full hold, and before long the inmates were in charge of the asylum. Little that was churned out would pass normal scientific criteria (still true today, as the latest two Nature papers show), but that didn’t matter, because the scientists assured us that this was high quality research … and besides, the precautionary principle said if there was the slightest danger on the horizon we should spend billions, or something like that, it wasn’t real clear.
My explication of the Precautionary Principle (PP) is here. I think it is almost always misunderstood and misused. But Jerome is an enthusiastic supporter. Why? Because using the PP, you can justify a decision which is obviously foolish using any other metric. No one in their right mind would spend hundreds of billions of dollars to possibly cool the planet by three hundredths of a degree twenty years from now … but according to AGW supporters, the PP says do it on the off chance that Chicken Little is right and the sky is actually falling …
That’s the issue with description/prescription. Sure, under the PNS definition we are in a “Post-Normal” situation … but since there’s every chance that the claimed urgency is 97.6% hype, are we really in a PN situation? And if we can’t even tell if we are in a PN situation, what good is the description? It seems the value of the description is that it allows PNS adherents to argue than in a PN situation, we need to apply PN prescriptions about quality and precaution and the like. I reject that entirely. Even if the the description is correct, it is so vague as to be valueless. But even if it is correct, why should we adopt some weird prescription of “quality” and overblown caution in response? I say that if there are PNS situations, we need to recognize the dangers, double down on the science, and not substitute “quality” and excessive caution for science.
So that’s the issues I have with PNS. On the plus side, Ravetz has spoken out against bad science, and by all accounts is a good guy (although with social skills of someone unused to rough and tumble). But on the minus side, he has created a system that seems to be specially designed so that it can be “twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,” a system that thinks that caution and quality are a substitute for scientific truth.
w.
PS – Dr. Ravetz, as someone who voted against both Bushes, against Reagan, and against McCain/Palin, I’m hardly a conservative of any stripe. My view is that Sarah Palin is a contradiction, a curious mix of the strong Alaskan women I’ve fished with commercially where she and her husband fish (Bristol Bay) who was also a contentious mayor, a governor who quit, and a failed presidential candidate. She doesn’t seem overly burdened with intellect, experience, or introspection, none of which is a bar to US public office.
However, in some ways she is the “third rail” of American politics. (This is an allusion to the New York underground railway system, which is powered by an exposed “third” rail carrying high-voltage electricity … touch it and you’re dead.) Palin is many things, but one thing she is not is low-voltage … people have strong opinions about her. So mentioning her is very bad tactics. No upside, huge downside, to touch that third rail of politics.
Beyond that, however, I’m mystified why you’d be embarrassed that you and Sarah Palin disagree on topic X. I can only assume that you are indirectly referring to the general association of skeptic with conservative and AGW supporter with liberal in the US, with “Sarah Palin” as a very poorly chosen token standing for “Very Conservative”. In the best 60’s fashion, it seems you don’t want to be seen as agreeing with the man …
I don’t care in the slightest what political group might agree or disagree with my views. I am generally socially liberal and strongly fiscally conservative … so what? Either my scientific claims and analyses are valid or they are not, whether I’m a Zoroastrian or a skinhead.
So in addition to Sarah Palin being a poor choice, the whole issue is nothing but a giant distraction. It has no place in the exposition of your ideas.
I am embarrassed to be lecturing to the professor, as it were, but next time you write a piece such as this one you might profitably:
1. Tell people in a single paragraph what you are going to tell them in the essay.
2. Then tell them what you have to say.
3. Then tell them what you just told them.
Take a look at my discussion of the Nature Magazine study Wales flooding here. I tell people what I am going to tell them, as a question and answer (How much river gauge data was analyzed in the study? None.) That’s my whole thesis there, that the entire study has nothing to do with reality. That’s what I’m going to tell them in the essay.
Then I tell them what I have to say about the study, in all of the gory details.
Finally, rather than summarizing at the end, because the study involves a complex construction of models, I summarized several times. But the same principle applies.
That completed the section about their study. I went on to apply the same three steps listed above to the next subject, which was what the data says about the question. Repeat ad lib., as they say.
Next, restrict yourself to a single idea at a time, for which you are supplying preferably several lines of supporting evidence. Do everything you can do to focus attention on and elucidate and explain and support that one idea. Eliminate everything superfluous to that goal. Generally this explanation will not include the words “Sarah Palin” … or “Willis” for that matter.
In structuring your exposition, two concepts that have been of use to me are the “matchbook statement” and the “elevator speech”. The “matchbook statement” is when you boil your central idea down so small you could write it on a matchbook cover. For my Nature article that might be “The results are entirely based on a model of a model of a model.” The “elevator speech” is if you get in the elevator and recognize someone important. You have the duration of the elevator ride to convince them of your you-beaut PNS idea, thirty seconds, go …
Finally, the real art is not in what you write. It is in what you cut out. I chop out words, sentences, paragraphs, and sometimes even whole sections, and even then I know I should cut more.
Anyhow, you are going to write an exposition of PNS. Given the content of many comments here, you need to streamline and simplify your words. I offer that advice in the spirit of better understanding just what the heck you are trying to say.
w.
I was surprised to think you a Quaker… Sorted. “Selfless sharing” doesn’t exist in AGWScience…, that is the problem.
I think, with respect, you’re only amusing yourself, you clearly haven’t taken anything on board to rock your boat from those critical of your presentation here. You glibly continue to justify your ignorance of the science involved when it’s clear the arguments are about the lack of real Science in AGW which has already put them out of the Scientific community. They too have tortured what Willis said to now claim the null hypothesis no longer exists ..
There is a great deal of incontrovertible truth in Science, it’s what makes your washing machine work, and the bog standard litmus test for a real scientist is that the weremen and women presenting their work share all their information for testing against the rule, Garbage In Garbage Out.
Neither AGW nor the political puppets supporting it by distracting from the core objection to it, measure up to the rule.
If there was real committment on your part to offer a solution you would have to begin by understanding the argument, but instead you continue to promote the AGW political solution regardless its premise is already proven baseless, but you don’t hear this. Your avoidance speaks volumes to those practiced in discernment, scientific or otherwise, your solution excludes us.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/02/a-challenge-from-dr-roy-spencer/
That’s the simple proof we’re asking for, which can be proved if such exists.
The climate issue is precisely that it is a simple normal-scientific one of verification or refutation of an hypothesis.
Do you even hear us? Repeat the above real Science version until you’re able to zone in on the community asking for it. And asking. And asking. And asking…
If we hear you repeat your version, or variations on the theme, we’ll know you have deliberately chosen to ignore us.
And you’ll become just another specimen in our collection.
The more articles by Willis that I read, the more convinced I am that Willis is a worthy successor to the late, great John Daly. Like Daly, his articles are clear, concise and very understandable to the average reader. And they are very difficult to refute, as the comments indicate.
Dr Ravetz’ articles are harder to understand, and they can sometimes be read in more than one way. I would add to the free advice Willis gave him by quoting [from memory, IIRC] a comment by Elmore Leonard: “I take out the parts people don’t want to read.”
People don’t want to read about fuzzy concepts. Part of the difficulty comes from terms such as “quality,” which seems to have no defined parameters. Once a proper definition is agreed, then we can have a meaningful discussion. But without a substantive definition, Dr Ravetz holds the joker. Maybe he likes it that way.
Jerome Ravetz;
Thanks for bearing with me through all this, and thanks for stimulating me to a better understanding.>>>
And thank you Dr Ravetz, for responding, and demonstrating once again for all those who are still following this thread, just who and what you are.
Your long, well written, articulate and sometimes even poignant response speaks directly to all that is hollow and false about PNS.
With dozens upon dozens of comments shredding the facts and the logic of your full article until it retains not even a pretense of credibility, your response addresses directly not a single criticism save those regarding Sarah Palin. You defend your comments about her with the excuse that it says more about you yourself and the complexities of life than it does about her. One would have thought that a skilled word smith such as yourself could have easily demonstrated this concept simply by likening it to those instances we’ve all experienced when we agree on an issue with someone with whom we dislike. How easy it would have been for a silver tongued devil such as yourself to make your point even clearer than you did by presenting it in such a manner? Instead you slide a comment about her into your diatribe in such a manner as to ensure that your contempt for her is quite obvious, and then retreat before the storm of protest to the position that you were just trying to explain the complexities of life. Congratulations Dr Ravetz, you’ve managed to explain the complexities of life as well as make clear your contempt for Sarah Palin while apologeticaly withdrawing it, knowing full well that the message it was meant to convey has been delivered loud and clear.
You continue to present PNS as some logical, ingenious construct designed to deal with the complexities of the world in an effective manner, driven by processes you articulate so well that they seem almost a logical outcome that gives credence to the notion of public policy being set on matters of science by those who are not scientists and based on the opinion of scientists who have no science to actually support their opinion. When pressed to address the gaping hole…nay chasm… in the sheer audacity of your position, you beat a hasty retreat, claiming that you are not a scientist, that you do not have the expertise to judge matters such as these, and point to actual scientists like Connor who do the same for reasons of their own, and thus this justifies you yourself declining to engage the scientific facts yourself.
May I summarize Dr Ravetz?
You know nothing about science per your own statements.
You have no clue what science is fraudulent and what science is sound as a consequence.
And yet you argue that you, and others like you, have some sort of magical, mythical, refined and carefully thought out construct by which you should be granted some level of influence and authority over the science you do not understand.
You provide a smoke screen of words, logic fragments, unrelated stories and fables tied together in a meaningless fashion from which conclusions equally divorced from the stories and fables as they are from each other. And you use the influence and authority you have granted yourself, to in turn use that smokescreen to enable the fraudulent science to not only continue, but advocate public policy be implemented in favour of the fraudulent science you admit you don’t understand. Then, with a perfectly straight face, claim the moral high ground, present yourself as a neutral party, a conciliator, who will build a bridge to allow the two warring sides to make peace and shake hands with one another as friends, standing in the centre of the bridge. To you, the victory has everything to do with building the bridge and being the one responsible for the former combatants to cross it and reach their hands out to each other.
Tell me Dr Ravetz, please. Will you be the first to set foot on the bridge? And as you walk alone to the centre of the bridge, looking down at the deep chasm below, will the thought cross your mind…
Who built this bridge I am trusting my life to?
The aggrieved scientists and engineers who demanded that designs, conclusions, construction and policy be based on properly collected data, accurate measurements, proven designs, tested components and solid, practical, real world decisions?
Or was it built by PNS scientists and engineers who were not constrained by the need for such discipline and accuracy, because your PNS enabled them to build the bridge without the need for proven data or theory.
Sadder still, you can’t tell which group it was, because you admit you don’t understand any of the science they are arguing about. So you have no idea if the bridge will stand your weight or not, you have no idea if you will plunge to your death because it turns out it was a PNS designed and built bridge and worst of all, you don’t care.
Because you aren’t setting foot on that bridge, are you Dr Ravetz? You will proudly proclaim that it was your work that enabled the bridge to be built, but you are too humble to take the spotlight and walk the bridge yourself. And when the first few scientsts begin to cross, and the bridge collapses because it is a PNS bridge, what does Dr Ravetz say as he watches them fall to their deaths?
“Well, there goes THEIR credibility, they did it to themselves, and I’m glad I’m not associated with them”
Chutzpah, Dr. Ravetz. The man who, having been convicted of mudering his parents and then asking the court for mercy because he is an orphan, will have to step aside a the centuries old example of unmitigated gall that is the definition of Chutzpah.
We shall replace it with Dr. Ravetz and PNS.
Well, I don’t know JR and I’m sure he did a good thing in apologising but I’m getting very tired of hearing about the ‘violence’ in the argument on agw he repeats here, yet again. The only violence being offered, indeed promised, is by the alarmists and their shrill activist believers – some of whose threats and wish-fulfilment dreams of destruction of their critics has been linked above. Don’t keep trying to get sceptics to shoulder the blame for this situation Mr Ravetz, the plank full of hate and violence has to be removed first from the warmist eye. I suspect you’re atempting to characterise us thus:
‘Cet animal est tres mechant. Quand on l’attaque il se defend.’
Steven, Tom
Apologies. True, I wrote in haste and should, in this case, have addressed my comment to Jerome rather more than those who picked up on his Sarah Palin comment.
Still, I think it’s generally true that we do our arguments against CAGW no favors if they can be easily, such as in Jerome’s case here, more likely to come from a Right wing perspective rather than the evidence. No one would even think to be uncomfortable about accepting that gravity exists just because Sarah Palin shares that belief. We have to try to make it similarly politically easy for anyone to be skeptical of CAGW.
artwest;
No one would even think to be uncomfortable about accepting that gravity exists just because Sarah Palin shares that belief.>>>
Exactly. But let’s slightly reword Dr Ravetz statement and supposed retraction to make it even clearer.
I, davidmhoffer, have serious doubts about Sarah Palin. It makes me uncomfortable to know that I am on the same side as Jerome Ravitz on this. Of course I say this only to show the complexity of the issue, this says more about me than it does about Jerome Ravitz.
So….anyone read that and have any doubt as to whom I have a lower opinion of, Palin or Ravitz?
Dr Ravitz, when I say that says more about me than about you, does that feel like a retraction? An apology? What do you suppose that meant? Do you think it was an accidental slur or a deliberate insult?
I’d urge you to consider Willis’ and Smokey’s recommendations in regard to the manner in which you write. Probably applies to me too. Except when I take everything superflous out of my writing, there’s still some facts and logic and reasonably drawn conclusions left behind.
Let’s see you do the same with PNS.
No fables, no analogies, no circular reasoning, no imagery of matters urgent, stakes high, facts uncertain.
Just the matters, the stakes, and the facts.
And I, davidmhoffer, am of the opinion that you will not respond, because without the imagery, the fables, the analogies, there’s nothing left of PNS than the letters P,N,S. The document will be as empty as the concept it purports to make credible.
Of course, that says more about me than it does about you, right?
Some superb posts here, especially Willis’ and Peter Taylor’s.
Some of the misunderstandings and disagreements are finally crystallizing out. Now that the invective has been put to one side clarity becomes easier to achieve. This is in fact the principle benefit of non-violent communication. Be scientific, state clearly and openly what your objections to someones thinking are without stirring up passions which muddy the waters.
To briefly clarify the point Willis raised with me,
“Tallbloke, nothing that you say is outside of normal science. Yes, we don’t have direct measurements that can settle the question. And yes, AGW proponents are looking for a minuscule signal (0.02°C per year) where the daily swings are three orders of magnitude larger than the signal. But that’s all part of normal science. It just means that someone has proposed a hypothesis that’ll be really, really hard to establish.”
Indeed, and that is part of the AGW ‘trick’. Put up a damn near unfalsifiable hypothesis, and then sandbag it with ever increasing numbers of half baked ‘converging lines of evidence’. As fast as we chop ’em off, more spring up, hydra-like from the wellspring of bright young well meaning Phd’s.
But it’s becoming clearer that the ocean heat content is a reflection of the TOA balance, so there is hope that we will be able to nail the central issue once we have more ARGO data (and it’s made freely available), and once we have better understanding or at least a better appreciation of terrestrial amplification of solar variation.
As Peter Taylor pointed out in part of his deeply insightful comment, there are hidden things going on with gravity (and magnetism). We have seen covariances with temperature and motion, but do not yet understand the mechanisms behind the interactions.
The differences between Willis and Jerry’s development of thought to some extent reflect the cultural traditions they each hail from. The actual events point the way to the resolution of the problems which have become all too evident. U.S. American style ‘go-getting’ and the cult of personality. British secrecy, whitewash and autocratic-old boy network behaviours.
These have no place in real science as Myrhh reminds us. But they are there, as Willis and Ravetz remind us. How to get from where we are to where we should be?
Perhaps Ravetz and his exhortation to personal integrity have as much of a part to play as Willis and his exhortation to proper checks and balances.
There’s no doubt a lot of people got suckered in through the best of intentions. They now need to stand up and be counted. Judith Curry, Jonathan Jones, Freeman Dyson, and others on ‘the inside’ have stood up. We need to give them the support they need when they get ostracised by ‘the Team’.
Ravetz started climbing the wall a year ago, but prevaricated when he got to the top, and has been shot from both sides. Such is the fate of philosophers who see both sides of the issue in a more deeply entangled way than most. It can appear as muddled vacillation to many, but I see where he’s coming from, and I’m thrusting out a helping hand to pull him off the wall onto safer ground. If I take some stick for that; so be it.
Thank you Willis a real Shakespeare with the doubtful science,
And to ‘davidmhoffer,’ you get your story across so well, if you wrote children’s text books our modern day “scientists” would understand that the 100,000,000 disciplines that compose our climate are minus another 10,000,000,000
Late to the party, too busy following El Alamein at Judith Curry’s place.
I fully echo Tallbloke’s appreciation of some excellent posts here, especially those of Willis and Peter Taylor. Ravetz’ inadequate and (to many here) arrogant statements bring forth something of real calibre, so even if nothing more, Ravetz can be thanked for that.
I also applaud Ravetz standing and taking the flak. He comes from where many of the malfeasance crowd come from ie deep lack of appreciation of real science. Gerry, if you can stand the course and listen to everyone, and hear the pain of people’s comments against you in your own soul, to the point that it drives you to steep yourself in the Spirit of Science, you can still do good work.
I say once again, Gerry, please read and absorb my Primer (click my name) because it will help you in this respect, and it complements everything Willis has said. IMHO.
Few here will appreciate Peter Taylor’s luminous statement. Few here will see in this the dogged scientist who had an excellent book, Chill, published all about the science; who has starved himself to stand up for his passion; who was once a Greenpeacer who climbed Big Ben in protest but left that movement when it abandoned true science. I personally owe Peter a huge debt of gratitude: it was his quiet, measured science, as spoken in a radio interview with Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns, that convinced me there was “something rotten in the state of Denmark” which set me on my own trail and touched my own deep passions which I recognize also in Willis and John Daly.
Thank you all.
Thanks Lucy, you may wish to move this to the new Ravetz post. yes there is a third.
tallbloke says:
February 26, 2011 at 1:20 am
“This is in fact the principle benefit of non-violent communication”
Violent communication would seem, at a minimum, to be wrapping a note around a brick and throwing it through your window. Vitriol in and of itself doesn’t seem to fit the bill except perhaps to call it an incitement to violence. In in the interest of accurate communication I suggest we be more careful in choosing our words.
Well, this post does it for me. J. Ravetz strains mightily to find analogies to the “peace” process he’s trying to initiate here, but fails to convince that his mission is anything more than slowing the flood of contrarian evidence assailing the “climate science” community.
For just a moment I was wondering where I put those tie-dyed shirts, where the guitar was, and what is the key for “Kumbaya” (apologies to Gullahs everywhere).
I’m off to find out if Gavin got Ben’s autograph when he appeared on Cash-Cab.
Dave Springer says:
February 26, 2011 at 10:15 am
In in the interest of accurate communication I suggest we be more careful in choosing our words.
Couldn’t agree more.
The Cold War was just one chapter of a conflict which has been going on since before 1848 and will continue for many years to come as Communists continue to foment their takeover of the world’s societies. In the former Soviet Union, the conflict against the Western nations is being pursued with different methods and similar means. Science is simply one of the fronts they are targeting in this conflict.
For some interesting reading, see the interview discussing the KGB defector, Anatoliy Mikhaylovich Golitsyn:
Dark Predictions of a KGB Defector
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/10/19/dark-predictions-of-a-kgb-defector/
tallbloke says:
February 26, 2011 at 1:20 am
Nice post, Tallbloke. I’ve got a clearer idea of where you are coming from now.
Peter Taylor says:
February 25, 2011 at 3:48 pm
You state:
“Science as we know it (normal or post-normal) is betrayed by the word – from the Latin scindere, to divide (and the secret societies to which many top scientists belong has the dividers as their most sacred symbol!)….to separate, and hence masure and manipulate. That is far removed from Knowledge – gnosis, the Ancient British canawan, to really know something. This is what the ancients knew as Sophia – wisdom, and it was dark not light.”
“However, a truly ancient source, the Old Testament of the Bible, says this:
To know the composition of the world, and the operation of the elements; the beginning, end and midst of the times, the alterations of the turning of the sun, and changes of the seasons; the cycles of the years and the positions of stars; the natures of living creatures, and the tempers of wild beasts, the violence of winds and the reasonings of men; the diversities of plants, and the virtues of roots… And should a man desire much experience, she (wisdom) knoweth things of old, and doth portray what is to come; she knoweth the subtleties of speeches and can expound dark sentences; she foreknoweth signs and wonders, and the issue of seasons and times… And if one love righteousness, her labors are virtues; for she teacheth temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude, which are such things as men can have nothing more profitable in their life” (Wis. 7:17-20; 8:8; 8:7).
It goes on:
“And all such things as are either secret or manifest, them I know. For wisdom, which is the fashioner of all things, taught me, for she is a noetic spirit, holy, only-begotten, manifold, subtle, agile, clear, undefiled, harmless, loving of the good, penetrating, irresistible, beneficent, kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, almighty, overseeing all things, and spreading abroad through all noetic, pure, and most subtle spirits… For she is the effulgence of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the energy of God, and the image of his goodness. And though being but one, she can do all things; and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new, and in every generation, entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets. For God loveth none save him that dwelleth with wisdom (Wis. 7:22-23; 26-28)”.
What we have here is an understanding of Wisdom as being a source of light and openess. So which is it?