Guest post by Andi Cockroft
One cannot help but notice the events of the past few weeks (nay months if you include Climategate II), and the ad hominem attacks on both sides.
Fred Singer in his recent post here would have us place Climate Science advocates into three groups; deniers, sceptics and warmistas – but why the need for demarcation?
Way back in 1879, it may not have been evident to Pauline and Hermann that their new-born son would progress through his teenage years as a school drop-out – using a forged Doctor’s note to do so. Although later in life at the age of 16 he did enroll in a Polytechnic – but again failed in just about every subject.
At 17, he and his sweetheart enrolled again at the Polytechnic, stimulating the interest he held about electromagnetism
Married, divorced, married again, he couldn’t even get a job teaching, so ended up working as a clerk in the local Patent Office reviewing patent applications pertaining to electromagnetism. But boredom led to many thoughtful reflections on life, the universe and everything.
In 1905, by thesis, he obtained a Doctorate, and that same year published not one, but 4 ground-breaking papers.
His name of course is Albert Einstein – the amateur who proclaimed to the world the nature of matter, energy and relativity.
OK, so what has this little biography got to do with Climate Science – well I say it should teach us 2 things:
Firstly, an amateur working as a clerk is just as able to present the truth as the most gifted professional. The truth is the truth no matter who presents it. The unwillingness of many main-stream “Climate Scientists” to engage with alternate viewpoints sets them apart from “Science”. To many the science is not settled, and needs a full open and honest public debate.
Of course building on Einstein’s work, a humble Belgian priest Le Maitre (another gifted amateur) proposed a theory now well established regarding an expanding universe. I well remember a revered astronomer from my old school in Yorkshire, England – a certain Fred Hoyle who unwittingly creating a phrase bandied about to this day – in an attempt he states never meant to mock relativity and/or expansionism – he jokingly referred to a “big bang”. That particular phrase seems to have stuck with us somehow.
More recently, over on the Swiss border, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produced some unexpected results when Neutrinos were observed to be apparently travelling faster than light – something Special Relativity states is impossible.
Although I saw some rejection of this notion in various Fora, I saw no ad hominem attacks – simply a startled disbelief and a raging curiosity – could we be wrong after all these years? Do we have to rewrite the physics?
As we now know, a computer cabling glitch has been blamed for the neutrinos apparent haste – but hey – for a moment there it looked real cool – most physicists I know were both incredulous and incredibly excited at one and the same time.
So, my second point – true scientists – in this case physicists – are willing to be sceptical. They are willing – nay eager – to look at new possibilities and alternate explanations.
Compare that to the theatre that is “Climate Science”
Robert Brown says:
March 1, 2012 at 8:29 pm
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Usually, when I see a posting of this length my eyes glaze over and I quickly scroll on. As I originally did with this.
So thanks to the posters who recommended it strongly enough for me to give it the time it deserved and grateful thanks to Prof Brown for posting it in the first place.
I feel privileged to have read it.
Thank you Robert, for that excellent essay on uncertainty in science, a very honest description of the limits of our understanding, an understanding lost or unimagined on those scientists and commentators who strive for mediocrity and sometimes achieve it.
I am still coming to terms with…….
…….but, give me time 🙂
I remember working on the BATSE project on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory as a programmer in the ’90s. The project was implemented due to the discovery of Gamma ray bursters in the ’70s. The physicists on the project were extremely excited, since something new was going on (including the appearance of faster-than-light speeds). I asked one physicist (Brad Schaeffer at the Goddard Space flight center) what the prevailing theories were. He told me that for every scientist there were at least two theories…
That seems to be the difference between physicists and climatologists – a lot more sceptism (even about their own pet theories).
I just love the “appeal to authority” implicit or explicit in much of the defence of AGW.
MY reading of science history (I read Physics in the mid 1960s ) is that many many of the most significant advances in science went against the accepted view of the world – almost by definition. That is why we celebrate the greatest scientists as heroes – they stood up to the conventional wisdom and proved it wrong.
So “the science is settled” is like a red rag to a bull to me. AGW is an incomplete world view ripe for destruction. Along with “Earth, Air, Fire & Water”, the Ptolemaic solar system and Phlogiston to name but a few. And please note that in 1898, Lord Kelvin (President of the Royal Society no less) predicted that “only 400 years of oxygen supply remained on the planet, due to the rate of burning combustibles”.
And the idea that a computer model run is an “experiment” that is anything to do with the physical world beggars belief.
Thank you OP (original poster) (Mr Cockroft).
Exactly why can post on a worldwide forum, be debated if I’m wrong, smile when I’m Wright (seewhatididthere.dwright) and have a good time, that is the SCIENCE that I grew up loving.
The haters are NOT why I dragged my ass up from the middle nowhere Canada, paid my way into University on $50 000 GC.CA loans to find out that my so called “Professers” are life losers.
15 years later I go toe to toe with these a$$holes and they still crawl back into their cockroach holes.
And I still listen to Eminem, mother^u(kers.
dwright
And I paid back every cent of that student loan OWS losers.
That pretty much sums up my position. I would describe myself as a professional PhD level scientist who has, over the years, looked on aghast at the way climate science has been done.
Every experiment I do, I assume that my data is flawed, I wield occam’s razor on every experimental result, I retest and repeat until my only option is to believe the data. Then I go away and design another experiment to try and disprove my first. It’s the only way to not cheat yourself, the only way not to waste effort on artifacts or mis-conceptions.
Climate science fails to do this at every turn, the skeptical side of the debate can be as guilty of this as the believer side, however at least the skeptics adopt the right habit of mind. The believer approach to climate science isn’t science, at least not how I was trained to do it!
My post of about 2 hours ago never materialised – I just wanted to commend Robert Brown’s post and suggest like many others that it be elevated to a full article. “The science is settled” is what first got me interested in MMGW – I remember the impending ice age from the seventies. It was the dodgy statistics uncovered by Steve Mcintyre as described in the Wegmann report that made me realise that we weren’t really dealling with scientists at all and that the whole scam is now about money, politics and power
Dr. Brown,
Thanks for your March 1, 2012 at 8:29 pm post. I have filed a copy of your post (using the tried and true cut and paste approach) into my Climate realists folder. I concur with wermet that the WUWT community would find value it discussing the concepts you so elegantly expressed.
John F. Hultquist says:
March 1, 2012 at 7:16 pm
“– but why the need for demarcation?
A. Al Gore,
B. Maurice Strong,
C. Barack Obama,
D. Rajendra Pachauri,
E. Albert Einstein
Place a check by the non-scientists.
**********************************************************
John, did you mean “Place a cheque by the non-scientists?” We already are doing!
Very good analysis. We want open minds not closed thinking.
Mariss says:
March 1, 2012 at 10:21 pm
Well, Eisenstein did eventually make some famous films . . .
Thanks to Andi Cockroft for producing this guest post. But to Robert Brown, “Wow!!” That was possibly the most lucid and well-argued description of the correct approach to science which I have ever read. It should be compulsory reading for anyone involved in science, whether a student, a researcher, or simply an interested layperson like myself,
…… and for anyone not involved in science such as the politicians who are taking us back to pre-industrial times and the sheeple who passively go along with it.
Robert Brown says:
March 1, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Wow! great.
hows about making this a POST so it gets the attention it deserves?
Nice read. However, Mr Brown’s comment seem to deserve it’s own post. Maybe other physics profs, and students, then dare stand up and go off the reservation against the squashing of supposed dissent that, apparently, higher education are engaged in these days.
From my understanding it used to be: Go out and make a fuzz, to get students interested to join. Now it’s: STFU! So as not to ruin the big green climate gravy train!
Alas, I also now understand what was sorely lacking from the physics course I took, an actual coherent professor. Thank you for that, I thought you guys were mythical legends only. 🙂
Robert Brown says:
March 1, 2012 at 11:24 pm
“Not a completely terrible interface, but I do so miss not having an “edit” button on the articles and replies I write, when I discover errors…”
Robert… typing directly into the post box will bite you sooner or later. I found long ago that using something like Word or OpenOffice to type your comments into so you have all of the special characters, spellchecker, and most importantly… when you least expect it… the mods or WordPress does sometimes drop a comment in the bit bin. Having that copy can say you some pain. And here I am, typing directly into the comment box and breaking my own rule! 😉
BTW, that was a great and detailed comment above. Couldn’t say I disagree with anything in that one.
“Keep your hands off of my money while the theory is still unproven and not in terribly good agreement with reality!” @Robert Brown, they can keep their hands off my money after that, too. And yeah, what King of the World died and made the UN the great decider of politically based science?
“Further, drawing lessons from a single case isn’t what I would call a reliable method.” @steven mosher, a single case can never the less be illustrative. And how many specific instances of falsity are required to prove that it is a mistake to equate authority with science? Further, the single case cited isn’t the only case in existence. It is probably unnecessary to create and belabor taxonomy of deniers, alarmists, and skeptics. The most useful taxonomy is that there is science and then there are human beings.
“To many the science is not settled, and needs a full open and honest public debate.”
What it needs is DATA, and EXPERIMENTS, and OBSERVATIONS in support of AGW. The tally so far is NIL. Until the AGW crowd has something substantial to debate, debate is argument. The example of the recent observation in the LHC re: neutrinos was based on an OBSERVATION.
“Robert Brown says: It was that little phrase that brought me into this insanity “settled science”. Those two little words uttered by scientist flew in the face of everything I was ever taught.”
Those two little words were a wake up call, they were the wake up call for alot of people. I’ll wager most people who frequent this blog were brought into this insanity for the same reason, those two little words.
In a similar vein, two years before Einstein published his famous papers, two bicycle mechanics from Dayton Ohio were able to design, build, and fly the first working airplane, while Dr. Samuel Langley and other well funded academics had failed. Much of their success was because of their ability to test prototypes in a self designed and built wind tunnel. In summary, theory is rarely useful, unless proven by observation.
I recall a documentary about Einstein that indicated Einstein had some early problems with Special Relativity. He realized this before an experiment could be carried out that would have revealed his mistakes with the math. A series of events, including WWI, prevented the errors from being discovered before Einstein could correct them.
Sorry about the lack of references here.
Proofreading in the “Leave a Reply” box is a bitch. As wayne suggests above, however, use some actual WP program first if you want to create a long post. One of these days I may actually do so myself, though admittedly, I have not put together anything of substance of late, at least, anything that I would care to proofread before submitting.
Either way, pretty good for a “shooting from the hip” comment. Yours seems to have drawn more attention than the head post, which has its own merit as well.
Mark
I enjoyed this article. Well done.
John Blake says:
March 1, 2012 at 9:30 pm
“[… very good comments..]
Next question: If Pasts are fixed, immutable, and Futures are indeterminate, unknowable, what existential zero-point may lie between? Stay tuned.”
All of them (not being funny here). That’s why we are constantly puzzling about them. No one can see the spot they are standing on but they can see the spot where they stepped from and they can see the spot where they will step to next.
Outstanding comment, Robert Brown!
Anthony, I believe this should be elevated to head post status. I almost didn’t bother to read it. because it looked too long for a comment on a not particularly interesting subject.