NOTE: This post is important, so I’m going to sticky it at the top for quite a while. I’ve created a page for all Spencer and Braswell/Dessler related posts, since they are becoming numerous and popular to free up the top post sections of WUWT.
UPDATE: Dr. Spencer writes: I have been contacted by Andy Dessler, who is now examining my calculations, and we are working to resolve a remaining difference there. Also, apparently his paper has not been officially published, and so he says he will change the galley proofs as a result of my blog post; here is his message:
“I’m happy to change the introductory paragraph of my paper when I get the galley proofs to better represent your views. My apologies for any misunderstanding. Also, I’ll be changing the sentence “over the decades or centuries relevant for long-term climate change, on the other hand, clouds can indeed cause significant warming” to make it clear that I’m talking about cloud feedbacks doing the action here, not cloud forcing.”
[Dessler may need to make other changes, it appears Steve McIntyre has found some flaws related to how the CERES data was combined: http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/08/more-on-dessler-2010/
As I said before in my first post on Dessler’s paper, it remains to be seen if “haste makes waste”. It appears it does. -Anthony]
Update #2 (Sept. 8, 2011): Spencer adds: I have made several updates as a result of correspondence with Dessler, which will appear underlined, below. I will leave it to the reader to decide whether it was our Remote Sensing paper that should not have passed peer review (as Trenberth has alleged), or Dessler’s paper meant to refute our paper.
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
While we have had only one day to examine Andy Dessler’s new paper in GRL, I do have some initial reaction and calculations to share. At this point, it looks quite likely we will be responding to it with our own journal submission… although I doubt we will get the fast-track, red carpet treatment he got.
There are a few positive things in this new paper which make me feel like we are at least beginning to talk the same language in this debate (part of The Good). But, I believe I can already demonstrate some of The Bad, for example, showing Dessler is off by about a factor of 10 in one of his central calculations.
Finally, Dessler must be called out on The Ugly things he put in the paper.
(which he has now agreed to change).
1. THE GOOD
Estimating the Errors in Climate Feedback Diagnosis from Satellite Data
We are pleased that Dessler now accepts that there is at least the *potential* of a problem in diagnosing radiative feedbacks in the climate system *if* non-feedback cloud variations were to cause temperature variations. It looks like he understands the simple-forcing-feedback equation we used to address the issue (some quibbles over the equation terms aside), as well as the ratio we introduced to estimate the level of contamination of feedback estimates. This is indeed progress.
He adds a new way to estimate that ratio, and gets a number which — if accurate — would indeed suggest little contamination of feedback estimates from satellite data. This is very useful, because we can now talk about numbers and how good various estimates are, rather than responding to hand waving arguments over whether “clouds cause El Nino” or other red herrings. I have what I believe to be good evidence that his calculation, though, is off by a factor of 10 or so. More on that under THE BAD, below.
Comparisons of Satellite Measurements to Climate Models
Figure 2 in his paper, we believe, helps make our point for us: there is a substantial difference between the satellite measurements and the climate models. He tries to minimize the discrepancy by putting 2-sigma error bounds on the plots and claiming the satellite data are not necessarily inconsistent with the models.
But this is NOT the same as saying the satellite data SUPPORT the models. After all, the IPCC’s best estimate projections of future warming from a doubling of CO2 (3 deg. C) is almost exactly the average of all of the models sensitivities! So, when the satellite observations do depart substantially from the average behavior of the models, this raises an obvious red flag.
Massive changes in the global economy based upon energy policy are not going to happen, if the best the modelers can do is claim that our observations of the climate system are not necessarily inconsistent with the models.
(BTW, a plot of all of the models, which so many people have been clamoring for, will be provided in The Ugly, below.)
2. THE BAD
The Energy Budget Estimate of How Much Clouds Cause Temperature Change
While I believe he gets a “bad” number, this is the most interesting and most useful part of Dessler’s paper. He basically uses the terms in the forcing-feedback equation we use (which is based upon basic energy budget considerations) to claim that the energy required to cause changes in the global-average ocean mixed layer temperature are far too large to be caused by variations in the radiative input into the ocean brought about by cloud variations (my wording).
He gets a ratio of about 20:1 for non-radiatively forced (i.e. non-cloud) temperature changes versus radiatively (mostly cloud) forced variations. If that 20:1 number is indeed good, then we would have to agree this is strong evidence against our view that a significant part of temperature variations are radiatively forced. (It looks like Andy will be revising this downward, although it’s not clear by how much because his paper is ambiguous about how he computed and then combined the radiative terms in the equation, below.)
But the numbers he uses to do this, however, are quite suspect. Dessler uses NONE of the 3 most direct estimates that most researchers would use for the various terms. (A clarification on this appears below) Why? I know we won’t be so crass as to claim in our next peer-reviewed publication (as he did in his, see The Ugly, below) that he picked certain datasets because they best supported his hypothesis.
The following graphic shows the relevant equation, and the numbers he should have used since they are the best and most direct observational estimates we have of the pertinent quantities. I invite the more technically inclined to examine this. For those geeks with calculators following along at home, you can run the numbers yourself:
Here I went ahead and used Dessler’s assumed 100 meter depth for the ocean mixed layer, rather than the 25 meter depth we used in our last paper. (It now appears that Dessler will be using a 700 m depth, a number which was not mentioned in his preprint. I invite you to read his preprint and decide whether he is now changing from 100 m to 700 m as a result of issues I have raised here. It really is not obvious from his paper what he used).
Using the above equation, if I assumed a feedback parameter λ=3 Watts per sq. meter per degree, that 20:1 ratio Dessler gets becomes 2.2:1. If I use a feedback parameter of λ=6, then the ratio becomes 1.7:1. This is basically an order of magnitude difference from his calculation.
Again I ask: why did Dessler choose to NOT use the 3 most obvious and best sources of data to evaluate the terms in the above equation?:
(1) Levitus for observed changes in the ocean mixed layer temperature; (it now appears he will be using a number consistent with the Levitus 0-700 m layer).
(2) CERES Net radiative flux for the total of the 2 radiative terms in the above equation, and (this looks like it could be a minor source of difference, except it appears he put all of his Rcld variability in the radiative forcing term, which he claims helps our position, but running the numbers will reveal the opposite is true since his Rcld actually contains both forcing and feedback components which partially offset each other.)
(3): HadSST for sea surface temperature variations. (this will likely be the smallest source of difference)
The Use of AMIP Models to Claim our Lag Correlations Were Spurious
I will admit, this was pretty clever…but at this early stage I believe it is a red herring.
Dessler’s Fig. 1 shows lag correlation coefficients that, I admit, do look kind of like the ones we got from satellite (and CMIP climate model) data. The claim is that since the AMIP model runs do not allow clouds to cause surface temperature changes, this means the lag correlation structures we published are not evidence of clouds causing temperature change.
Following are the first two objections which immediately come to my mind:
1) Imagine (I’m again talking mostly to you geeks out there) a time series of temperature represented by a sine wave, and then a lagged feedback response represented by another sine wave. If you then calculate regression coefficients between those 2 time series at different time leads and lags (try this in Excel if you want), you will indeed get a lag correlation structure we see in the satellite data.
But look at what Dessler has done: he has used models which DO NOT ALLOW cloud changes to affect temperature, in order to support his case that cloud changes do not affect temperature! While I will have to think about this some more, it smacks of circular reasoning. He could have more easily demonstrated it with my 2 sine waves example.
Assuming there is causation in only one direction to produce evidence there is causation in only one direction seems, at best, a little weak.
2) In the process, though, what does his Fig. 1 show that is significant to feedback diagnosis, if we accept that all of the radiative variations are, as Dessler claims, feedback-induced? Exactly what the new paper by Lindzen and Choi (2011) explores: that there is some evidence of a lagged response of radiative feedback to a temperature change.
And, if this is the case, then why isn’t Dr. Dessler doing his regression-based estimates of feedback at the time lag or maximum response? Steve McIntyre, who I have provided the data to for him to explore, is also examining this as one of several statistical issues. So, Dessler’s Fig. 1 actually raises a critical issue in feedback diagnosis he has yet to address.
3. THE UGLY
(MOST, IF NOT ALL, OF THESE OBJECTIONS WILL BE ADDRESSED IN DESSLER’S UPDATE OF HIS PAPER BEFORE PUBLICATION)
The new paper contains a few statements which the reviewers should not have allowed to be published because they either completely misrepresent our position, or accuse us of cherry picking (which is easy to disprove).
Misrepresentation of Our Position
Quoting Dessler’s paper, from the Introduction:
“Introduction
The usual way to think about clouds in the climate system is that they are a feedback… …In recent papers, Lindzen and Choi [2011] and Spencer and Braswell [2011] have argued that reality is reversed: clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on, changes in surface temperature. If this claim is correct, then significant revisions to climate science may be required.”
But we have never claimed anything like “clouds are the cause of, and not a feedback on, changes in surface temperature”! We claim causation works in BOTH directions, not just one direction (feedback) as he claims. Dr. Dessler knows this very well, and I would like to know
1) what he was trying to accomplish by such a blatant misrepresentation of our position, and
2) how did all of the peer reviewers of the paper, who (if they are competent) should be familiar with our work, allow such a statement to stand?
Cherry picking of the Climate Models We Used for Comparison
This claim has been floating around the blogosphere ever since our paper was published. To quote Dessler:
“SB11 analyzed 14 models, but they plotted only six models and the particular observational data set that provided maximum support for their hypothesis. “
How is picking the 3 most sensitive models AND the 3 least sensitive models going to “provide maximum support for (our) hypothesis”? If I had picked ONLY the 3 most sensitive, or ONLY the 3 least sensitive, that might be cherry picking…depending upon what was being demonstrated. And where is the evidence those 6 models produce the best support for our hypothesis?
I would have had to run hundreds of combinations of the 14 models to accomplish that. Is that what Dr. Dessler is accusing us of?
Instead, the point was to show that the full range of climate sensitivities represented by the least and most sensitive of the 14 models show average behavior that is inconsistent with the observations. Remember, the IPCC’s best estimate of 3 deg. C warming is almost exactly the warming produced by averaging the full range of its models’ sensitivities together. The satellite data depart substantially from that. I think inspection of Dessler’s Fig. 2 supports my point.
But, since so many people are wondering about the 8 models I left out, here are all 14 of the models’ separate results, in their full, individual glory:
I STILL claim there is a large discrepancy between the satellite observations and the behavior of the models.
CONCLUSION
These are my comments and views after having only 1 day since we received the new paper. It will take weeks, at a minimum, to further explore all of the issues raised by Dessler (2011).
Based upon the evidence above, I would say we are indeed going to respond with a journal submission to answer Dessler’s claims. I hope that GRL will offer us as rapid a turnaround as Dessler got in the peer review process. Feel free to take bets on that. 
And, to end on a little lighter note, we were quite surprised to see this statement in Dessler’s paper in the Conclusions (italics are mine):
“These calculations show that clouds did not cause significant climate change over the last decade (over the decades or centuries relevant for long-term climate change, on the other hand, clouds can indeed cause significant warming).”
Long term climate change can be caused by clouds??! Well, maybe Andy is finally seeing the light! 
(Nope. It turns out he meant ” *RADIATIVE FEEDBACK DUE TO* clouds can indeed cause significant warming”. An obvious, minor typo. My bad.)
I haven’t read all the comments so this point may have already been made.
It seems that Dessler has conceeded that his quickly written, peer reviewed and accepted paper is flawed in both content and clarity and as such requires significant revision. This seems like a fairly damning criticism of both the journal and the reviewers, I am sure that they are not happy about it.
When does the editor in chief of GRL resign ?
Jim Turner says:
September 9, 2011 at 5:08 am
Editors have resigned over less… 🙂
The term “trust but verify” comes to mind here. Dessler should be quite humbled now and well understand that watchful eyes will be watching him closely. He will likely be under great pressure from the AGW Team and will have to choose between his conscience and more of the same. I feel certain that Dr. Spencer is making the call as he best feels comfortable with, and would guess that he may also be applying the “trust but verify” principle here.
I fully understand the concerns some have as to trusting anyone associated with the AGW Team and I am fully with you. However, Dr. Spencer lead this battle and gained a decisive victory. That said, I stand with Dr. Spencer’s decisions. I will also keep a skeptical eye on Dessler. His credibility took quite a hit on this one.
Fred Bloggs says:
September 9, 2011 at 5:21 am
When does the editor in chief of GRL resign ?
—————————–
Good question! 🙂
I am sure the Dr. Spencer and others here are operating under the goal of finding truth. However, one cannot help but wonder if we are damaging Dr. Spencer’s work (at least how it is perceived) by offering free, on-line peer review service of Dessler’s work before it is published. It appears to me that pre-publish critiques offer Dessler the opportunity to “fix” his problems (or at least to provide more skillful “explanations” and justifications) in the paper that he was in such a rush to publish .
Perhaps Dr. Spencer’s work would be better served in the long run if we let the original get published as it was “peer reviewed” then address it point by point in another paper.
A parable for our times
– Spencer and Brasswell published a paper (S&B 2011) showing that clouds play a larger role in global warming than previously thought
– Dessler did not agree with all of S&B 2011 and left to his own devices he would have probably bided his time and written a measured response when he was ready after having thought it all through
– When S&B 2011 got big media hype, he became more annoyed and jealous
– At that time Kevin and almost surely many others, not having actually read S&B 2011 properly, contacted Dessler telling him they needed a serious rebuttal ASAP.
– Kevin Trenberth let the editor of Remote sensing know that he was far from happy that this paper had been published. Wagner got scared for his career.
– Dessler then got to work on a fast response. He cut corners, sexed-up the language and did not take time to read and understand S&B fully
– He then submitted it to GRL where it was fast-tracked by a favourable choice of reviewers hand-picked by the editor of GRL (S&B who would naturally be allowed to be one of the reviewers were omitted purposely)
– Trenberth continued to persecute Wagner for his “sloppiness” in allowing S&B 2011 to be published. After all, the “team” did want to “redefine what peer review means”
– Wagner, in a move to get back onside, announced his resignation with a massive PR campaign intended to discredit S&B 2011 despite the fact that no-one had done anything wrong.
– GRL published Dessler’s paper with a fanfare riding on the back of Wagner’s resignation. This was meant to be a PR coup for the alarmists.
– Dessler’s paper which was not reviewed carefully if at all is unravelling now that it is being subjected to the scrutiny it never received and S&B 2011 is looking more credible than ever.
This is the state of modern climate science.
How refreshing to find Roy Spencer refusing to take the opportunity to gloat over Dessler’s errors. What a contrast to the previous comments emanating from the “other side”.
Roy Spencer and Andy Dessler,
I applaud your recent public example of professional discussion and gentlemanly discourse regarding your critical scientific work.
You enhance the idea of an open and transparent scientific process.
Please keep us included in your future discourse. Thanks in advance.
John
What does Wolfgang think of Spencer’s paper now given that the author of the refutal paper is amending his paper in light of Spencer’s comments?
I told y’all a couple of days ago that Steve McIntyre confirmed Spencer did everything right and Dessler was the one whose analysis left the reservation. McIntyre also renewed his call that real statisticians be involved in these analyses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics
‘Tis a sad day for science and it’s going to get even sadder before it’s over as more and more of the general public find out they’ve been played like a fiddle by climate boffins and others with vested finanical and political interests in catastrophic anthropogenic warming charade. The sad part is that this hoodwinking spills over onto the reputations of other scientists not involved in climate science even though they deserve it for naively trusting in their peers who are involved in the climate science. This has been the core problem all along. Climate scientists are a tiny subset of all scientists but the way the science community works, the way it must work, is scientists expert in one discipline trust those who are experts in other disciplines. In this case the climate boffins were not deserving of that trust yet those outside the core group just blindly went along with it signing petititions and such supporting the AGW narrative and thereby manufacturing a consensus without exercising any due diligence that what they were agreeing with was good science – they signed off on it with blind faith in their peers. The few that actually took the time to look into it close enough to see that the emperor was wearing no clothes mostly just went silent because the political situation was such that anyone rocking the CAGW boat could kiss his career goodbye in exactly the same way that a cop who snitches on another cop is ostracized – its traitorous.
Wade Poziombka says:
September 9, 2011 at 6:05 am
“I am sure the Dr. Spencer and others here are operating under the goal of finding truth. However, one cannot help but wonder if we are damaging Dr. Spencer’s work (at least how it is perceived) by offering free, on-line peer review service of Dessler’s work before it is published.”
We were told Dessler’s paper was in press and given a firm publication date.
In fact Dessler, GRL, and the rest of the usual suspects in the climate science pal-review community jumped the shark (again) and now they’re paying for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
First rule of holes: When you find you’ve dug yourself into one the first thing to do is stop digging.
Climate boffins have not only not stopped digging they’re digging even faster with rather predictable results. Rather than just fade away into insignificance they’ve chosen to go down in flames. So be it. Either way it’s a lost cause.
Messenger says:
September 9, 2011 at 6:26 am
Admirable of Spencer to be sure. Personally I’m not the committed Christian willing to turn the other cheek. Dessler is a puppy who piddled on the floor and should get his nose rubbed in it to teach him a lesson and set an example to his peers. Fight fire with fire I say. Wagner was coerced into resigning to set an example for other editors of what happens when they publish a paper from a CAGW skeptic. Now it’s our turn to make an example out of Dessler and GRL. Tough break for him and GRL but both were willing patsies and I have no sympathy for them.
If the editors of GRL want to avoid possible law suits and loss of credibility, they will publish a joint paper as an ongoing debate with their readers given the opportunity to pose questions and make comments. It need not go through selective peer review and an editor could serve as moderator. They should be able to sell more articles. Three or four more timely issues could be published before the 2012 elections. I think that even Nature and Science would jump at that opportunity.
The reasoned discourse we are seeing between Spencer and Dessler shows how science should work, and so frequently does not in this field. That doesn’t mean people will end up completely agreeing; there are always different ways to analyze data and develop explanations, but at least each side will understand the point of view of the other. Very commendable on both sides.
Ryan
“I must take issue with your claim that Spencer “cherry picked” the models he used in his paper. Spencer makes it quite clear that effectively he was interested in disputing those models that showed high senstivity of global temperature to CO2. So he picked the three highest. However, to show balance he felt compelled to include the three models with the weakest sensitivity. I don’t see that as “cherry picking”. He was focussed on showing that the climate is not very sensitive to CO2 and so he focussed on attacking those models that show high sensitivity. Seems like a reasonable approach to me.”
However, the models that best fit the data have climate sensitivity in the middle of the range. If nothing else, this appears to show that climate sensitivity (which after all is a separate question from matching short term variations) is the wrong criteria for this comparison.
“The models he missed out that model ENSO better are actually not “better” at all. They still don’t model ENSO very well…”
Apparently they do – the reference is to Lin 2007, Interdecadal variability of ENSO in 21 IPCC AR4 coupled GCMs, GRL. Note that the plot in both SB11 and Dessler 2011 is a lead-lag plot, not a time series, and you wouldn’t expect to see the time series sinusoid there.
“Well they aren’t because we are not interewsted in ENSO at all in this case – we are looking at what is left after ENSO is taken into account, and in that case the models still differ substantially.”
Neither Spencer nor Dessler attempted to remove the ENSO from the computations.
“Dessler has tried to “tune” the models to fit the data by introducing a 4month lag – but this is just an exercise in numerology.”
You have perhaps noted that Spencer’s paper is all about lead/lag relationships to cloud forcing???
The issue here is that model climate sensitivity does not correlate with 10 year ENSO lead/lag matching, despite Spencer’s assertions to the contrary.
—
Richard S Courtney
Ah, yes, the “it was accepted too fast” argument. Dessler’s paper timeline (four weeks?) is actually close to average for GRL, I believe the range goes between about three days and six months with a mean around five weeks. Geophysical Research Letters is a journal specifically intended for short, clear articles (not literature reviews, for example), and Dessler’s five page paper fits those criteria. Short articles are much faster to review, oddly enough.
But it’s absolutely a science paper, reviewed by people in the field of climate studies, whereas the Remote Sensing staff don’t have a lot of expertise there, and may not have chosen very qualified (or unbiased) reviewers for Spencer. In fact, given the publicity Spencer’s paper received, it may have been easier to review Dessler’s, as many potential reviewers would be familiar with the work.
“…Spencer’s recent paper is a scientific report and, therefore, its illustrations present the reported work in a clear manner.”
In a clear manner? Yes. In a complete manner, including data run by Spencer that did not support his hypothesis?
No.
Richard S Courtney @ur momisugly
September 9, 2011 at 1:27 am
I think “Climsci” should be “Clym-sy” you know like ” Sci-Fi” became “Sy-Fy” when it stopped doing Sci-Fi and became a wrestling channel?
For the topic, I would like to thank Spence and Dess (that’s an 80s cop show 🙂 ) for the
fascinating gentlemanly discussion. It’s great to see science happening in real time! Way to go guys!
davidmhoffer says:
September 8, 2011 at 11:52 pm
I’m in complete agreement with your comment.
I do hope that Dr Spencer will insist that Dessler take down his video while the paper is being revised.
KR, passim
You think that your pet models would better make your point for you, Spencer disagrees, and he has chosen the models which he thinks are the most significant. Why don’t you do the calculations yourself and post the results, instead of spamming the thread?
Dave Springer says:
September 9, 2011 at 7:20 am
I’m in complete agreement with your comment.
————–
Dave & David,
: ) My lame humorous attempt => A conspiracy of Davids? : )
John
Too much us versus them on this thing. The objective is not to win and gloat, the objective is to get the science right. Spencer and Dessler talking can only help serve that end. This is not about compromising to an intermediate position. This is about getting the science a little closer to the truth. Yes, the bashing by Trenberth and Dessler earlier was a travesty. But letting that get in the way of advancing the science is too much about ego and not enough about common sense. Again, I can only see Dessler and Spencer talking as being a good thing.
Chris: “I do hope that Dr Spencer will insist that Dessler take down his video while the paper is being revised.”
I was glad that the video was there. The comments for it are moderated, but I took a bunch of quotes from Spencer and submitted them to the comments section of his video. I don’t know if Dessler reads WUWT, but I figured that he couldn’t ignore the comments on his video, even if he moderated them out.
KR:
Your reply at September 9, 2011 at 7:11 am to my post at September 9, 2011 at 1:27 am proves that you did not read my post or – if you did – then you failed to understand it.
Your self-imposed refusal to understand the issues is a pity because it can only prevent you from understanding the importance of the hoped-for cooperation of Spencer and Dressler.
Please note that the hoped-for cooperation is intended to correct the errors in the Dessler paper: there are no discerned errors in the Spencer paper. This is important because this is the first time a member of the Team has openly admitted errors despite many such arrors by the Team being blatant.
Many people (including me) have great hopes that the cooperation could be the start of an important change. It could be the first phase of the demise of climsci and a return to real science in climatology. Some (including me) have worked for that for decades.
Richard
It seems to me there is an expectation from the Team that problems will only be imagined and calculated in a certain manner, which critics point out can result in predetermined types of answers.
Here is a reminder from Alexander Callandra in times past that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
I have made [insertions] a couple of times.
Crispin
++++++
Angels on a Pin
A Modern Parable
by Alexander Callandra
Saturday Review, Dec 21, 1968.
Some time ago I received a call from a colleague who asked if I would be the referee on [peer review] the grading of an examination question. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed he should receive a perfect score and would if the system were not set up against the student: The instructor and the student agreed to submit this to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.
I went to my colleague’s office and read the examination question: “Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer.”
The student had answered: “Take a barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower the barometer to the street and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building.”
I pointed out that the student really had a strong case for full credit since he had answered the question completely and correctly. On the other hand, if full credit was given, it could well contribute to a high grade for the student in his physics course. A high grade is supposed to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try at answering the question I was not surprised that my colleague agreed, but I was surprised that the student did.
I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said no. He had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on. In the next minute he dashed off his answer which read:
“Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop that barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then using the formula S = ½at², calculate the height of the building.
At this point I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and I gave the student almost full credit.
In leaving my colleague’s office, I recalled that the student had said he had many other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were. “Oh yes,” said the student. “There are a great many ways of getting the height of a tall building with a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer and the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building and by the use of a simple proportion, determine the height of the building.”
“Fine,” I asked. “And the others?”
“Yes,” said the student. “There is a very basic measurement method that you will like. In this method you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units. A very direct method.”
“Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of ‘g’ at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference of the two values of `g’ the height of the building can be calculated.”
Finally, he concluded, there are many other ways of solving the problem. “Probably the best,” he said, “is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent’s door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: “Mr. Superintendent, here I have a fine barometer. If you tell me the height of this building, I will give you this barometer.”
At this point I asked the student if he really did know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think, using the “scientific method,” and to explore the deep inner logic of the subject in a pedantic way, as is often done in the new [post-normal] mathematics, rather than teaching him the structure of the subject. With this in mind, he decided to revive scholasticism as an academic lark to challenge the Sputnik-panicked [CAGW-panicked] classrooms of America.