Readers may recall this story: Nobel laureate resigns from American Physical Society to protest the organization’s stance on global warming.
He’s back.
From the Observations, Scientific American Blog Network
Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting: From the Big Bang to the Big Controversy (aka Climate Change)
Ivar Giaever, who shared the 1973 prize for work on tunneling in superconductors but was to offer a skeptical take on climate change, Molina said that critics aren’t usually the experts. Listening to them, he added, is like going to your dentist when you have a heart problem.
As he took the stage for his turn, Giaever’s immediate remark was, “I am happy I’m allowed to speak for myself.” He derided the Nobel committees for awarding Al Gore and R.K. Pachauri a peace prize, and called agreement with the evidence of climate change a “religion.”
In contrast to Crutzen and Molina, Giaever found the measurement of the global average temperature rise of 0.8 degrees over 150 years remarkably unlikely to be accurate, because of the difficulties with precision for such measurements—and small enough not to matter in any case:
“What does it mean that the temperature has gone up 0.8 degrees? Probably nothing.”
He disagreed that carbon dioxide was involved and showed several charts that asserted, among other things, that climate had even cooled. “I pick and choose when I give this talk just the way the previous speaker picked and chose when he gave his talk,” he added. He finished with a pronouncement:
“Is climate change pseudoscience? If I’m going to answer the question, the answer is: absolutely.”
h/t to Marc Morano of Climate Depot
Molina said that “critics aren’t usually the experts”. In other words the experts aren’t usually critical. There is another word for people who aren’t usually critical – “gullible”
My dictionary defines gullible as: “adjective: easily persuaded to believe something; credulous: e.g. an attempt to persuade a gullible public to spend their money.”
Steve C says:
“Absolutely” – doesn’t leave much room for doubt, that. Doesn’t take a genius to see it, but it’s kind of reassuring when a fully accredited genius agrees with you.
He has a Nobel prize. Whether he is a genius or not is quite a different matter. The Nobel prize is not, and never has been, awarded on the basis of intellectual power.
Several winners have been total idiots when outside their particular field. Linus Pauling managed to get two Nobel prizes (and very nearly a third for the structure of DNA) and still be an idiot when he ventured into medicine.
It’s nice for the sceptic side that Gieavaer is not a believer in CAGW. But let’s not oversell his credentials.
indrdev200 says:
July 4, 2012 at 1:50 am
Of course, it is real science. Physical science. But climate change / global warming due to gases is impossible. Gases actually are helping the earth to cool down by convection method of heat transmission.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well, if that is true, then the moon, which gets nearly exactly the same insolation as earth, ought to be warmer than earth. Except it isn’t.
Climate change is a social science. It is a theory designed to obtain human behavioral changes. It is not grounded in the natural sciences because they are insufficiently amenable to political ideologies.
I came in through a different direction: the global education initiatives to push social and emotional learning and positive psychology and a Wellbeing as the primary purpose of government. But I still ended up at that 2012 UN World Happiness Report that Columbia’s Earth Institute and Professor Jeffrey Sachs was also involved with. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/is-the-global-happiness-and-wellbeing-push-a-means-for-mental-and-emotional-burglary/
But Climate Change as a social science also gets you to that same report and the desire to transition to a UN administered, post GDP Green Economy. In reality education reform and Climate Change are two primary tools for obtaining collectivist political, economic, and social reforms. The Planet Under Pressure policy briefs, the Belmont Challenge, Future Earth Alliance and Global Transition 2012 are all consistent about this new economics and Degrowth and an administered society with a heavy emphasis on getting at human consciousness.
Climate Change creates the alarm and emotions that such a change is necessary and thus must be tolerated. whatever the personal sacrifice.
Calling it a pseudoscience is just hard-science snobbery. Climate Science is simply an a post-hoc science, just like anthropology, sociology, and economics (among others). You will notice hard-science snobbery looking down on all of those fields, and notice how they are all infused with doctrinaire approaches and political positioning.
I don’t think calling names will earn respect for any side of a debate, though, and that was clearly the intent of the use of the word ‘pseudoscience’. Please try to keep to the high ground.
Charles.U.Farley says:
July 4, 2012 at 1:45 am
More chance of cern finding a Higgs-Boson than the “team” finding any AGW.
Be careful what you with for!
The Higgs-Boson has just been found (probably).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/large-hadron-collider/9374788/Higgs-Boson-announcement-from-Cern-LIVE.html
“Very few physicists would privately argue that this is not a Higgs particle.
Half a century after it was first proposed, and after a monumental effort by generations of physicists around the world, the discovery of the Higgs represents a major breakthrough in our fundamental understanding of nature.”
Prof Higgs has said: “I’m rather surprised that it happened in my lifetime – I certainly had no idea it would happen in my lifetime at the beginning, more than 40 years ago, because at the beginning people had no idea about where to look for it, so it’s really amazing for me to find out that it’s really enough… for a discovery claim.
I think it shows amazing dedication by the young people involved with these colossal collaborations to persist in this way, on what is a really a very difficult task. I congratulate them.”
davidmhoffer I think you will find that the moon periodically goes behind the Earth and is totally shielded from the sun where the Earth is always basking in the sun enough to make a vast difference in insolation.
“I suspect that an honest and competent dentist might do me less harm that a crooked and incompetent cardiologist..”
Overheard while doing contract work at one of the “big three” Pacemaker firms in Mpls/St. Paul, 6 years ago. A comment from a couple of the engineering directors to a Vice President from the “Mother Ship” visiting the “plant”,they were explaining why the soon to be issued new pacemaker design had enough computing power to adjust ALL it’s parameters ACCORDING TO THE DATA IT WAS SENSING FROM THE PATIENT while in operation.”Well Dr. BLANK …t(he man was a Medical Doctor), since we have had access to the telemetry data (about 6 years on that matter), we’ve determined that less than 30% of cardiologists adjust the devices beyond default settings after implant.”
Yep, every DENTIST I know by force of the nature of the work, does every bit of work “tailored” to the patient. Cardiologist? Heck…pick one of the 30 models by the manufacturer (covering the 30 most common cardiac conditions..i) mplant, turn on, and tell the patient, “Take two aspirin and call me when I’m back from golfing”.
INDEED, if I could get my DENTIST to do my CADIOLOGY, I’d do it in a heartbeat.
Max
Peter Whale says:
July 4, 2012 at 5:22 am
davidmhoffer I think you will find that the moon periodically goes behind the Earth and is totally shielded from the sun where the Earth is always basking in the sun enough to make a vast difference in insolation.
>>>>>>>>
Well Peter, that’s what I thought at one time. Instead of shooting my mouth off though, I did some research, figured out what the difference actually amounted to, discovered that is wasn’t vast at all, that in fact it was so teeny tiny that it couldn’t even BEGIN to explain the difference in temps between the two, and changed my mind accordingly.
Was that snippet snipped by Mark Morano? He’s usually not so sloppy picking out his standard one-sided quote. I guess it comes from working with too many politicians. Two full relevant paragraphs:
Of course, being in a Scientific American blog, it’s already filtered by their slant on things.
@ur momisuglyMooloo – Of course, all prizes are political to some degree, but I think the Physics Nobel is probably less compromised than (esp.) the Peace one. Also, though venturing out of his field (certainly out of his scale!), Giæver appears to have stayed on the Physics farm. I’ll still give him the benefit of any doubt for now, while agreeing with your point.
Of course, it is real science. Physical science. But climate change / global warming due to gases is impossible.
Or rather, climate change and global warming due to gases is not only possible, it occurs all the time and is the fundamental reason that the earth is warmer (on average) than the gas-free moon. The proper skeptical question — the one supported by even a cursory understanding of the physical science involved — isn’t “is there a Greenhouse Effect” — of course there is, one can directly measure it in action — it is “is the climate sensitivity great enough to lead to catastrophic warming”, followed by “is the feedback to CO_2 forcing net positive or net negative”. Even most climate scientists, surveyed, agree that the answer to the first question is probably no at this point. One in seven climate scientists think that the answer to the second question is barely positive to somewhat negative, effectively neutral.
rgb
Is climate science pseudoscience? Yes. Also known as “bunkum.”
However so is psychology, but that has never kept psychologists from making money.
What is it that is born every minute?
The problem with a good scam is that too many people hop on the bandwagon, and eventually the wheels come off and the wagon tips over.
That is the true “tipping point.”
@davidmhoffer
Don’t be so hard on Peter. It can be confusing. There are so many temperatures. For example, one reference has the daytime average surface temperature at 107ºC, which is considerably more than what I’m used to around here. Then, there is the average temperature 1 meter below the surface, -35ºC, which probably has much to do with the extremely long rotational period. So, there are other factors at play, not just atmospheric gases.
bregmata says:
July 4, 2012 at 5:09 am
“Calling it a pseudoscience is just hard-science snobbery. Climate Science is simply an a post-hoc science, just like anthropology, sociology, and economics”
I agree with your sentiment about the high ground but your comparison of climate science with anthropology, sociologly (social sciences?) and economics (and others like psychology? political science?) is ironic. The social sciences have been corrupted for years by leftists precisely because they are malleable disciplines. Economics/sociologly/political science was used as a tool by Karl Marx and his ‘science’ was taken up by the USSR and to a considerable degree by Europe (“Social Democrats”). The science part of economics is still recognizable, though – not so for sociology, which is a ‘take-a-rapist-to-lunch’ blame game – criminals as victims of evil capitalist societies, etc. I and of course others, see a ” …doth protesteth too much” moment when you have to add the word ‘science’ on to the discipline. I was apalled when the elegant, august, and descriptive ‘geology’ was diminished to ‘geological sciences’ by zealous smoke shovelers. An analogous case is the employment of the the word ‘democratic’ to the name of the most despotic countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (‘Peoples’ is still a mystery to me – surely there aren’t other categories). It is interesting that climate science is being used as a tool in exactly the same way, perhaps worse, as it has had its name changed four or five times in a decade (they are trying to disown the word ‘warming’ – its too definite and causing a lot of problems – and it, like the other malleable sciences, has a political agenda to which the ‘science’ is subordinated).
“The scientific evidence is really overwhelming. Most experts agree; maybe two or three in 100 disagree.” He added, “I know who they are and why they are wrong.”
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To bad he did not share. After all the false statements and assertions without evidence in the expanded quote, I see no reason for such garbage to take up space in an article.
****
Peter Whale says:
July 4, 2012 at 5:22 am
davidmhoffer I think you will find that the moon periodically goes behind the Earth and is totally shielded from the sun where the Earth is always basking in the sun enough to make a vast difference in insolation.
****
David, hopefully, he just forgot the /sarc tag.
Climate change science is the modern alchemy. My great grand children will look at climate change science and laugh their asses off…
Is “Anthropogenic Global Warming” Incontrovertible? Or Rejected?
In physics, a 5 sigma signal is considered ‘preliminary” and “consistent with long-sought Higgs boson” per CERN’s announcement today.
Today CERN announced
CERN experiments observe particle consistent with long-sought Higgs boson
See CERN on “Standard Deviation”
Contrast IPCC and the APS executive’s prognostications that “global warming” is “introvertable”.
See: Nobel laureate resigns from American Physical Society to protest the organization’s stance on global warming
Lucia Lilejren at the Blackboard shows major 2 sigma evidence (~95% probability) that the IPCC model mean trend (0.2C/decade) is OUTSIDE the actual 32 year temperature trend. (0.138C/decade).
Ross McKitrickobserves:
To put it politely, IPCC’s 0.2C / decade “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming” (aka “climate change” by equivocation) is “Not Proven”! On common understanding of this evidence, the IPCC’s mean 0.2 C/decade “global warming” prediction would typically be considered “invalidated” or “rejected”!
Correction: Lucia Liljegren at The Blackboard.
Global warming “science” can be positively identified as a pseudoscience because no statistical population underlies its claims.
Does Nobel Laureate Ivar Giaever opinion null Steven Hawkins opinion? Still, one must celebrate heavy hitters coming out of the closet. May their tribe increase. GK
mike g says:
July 4, 2012 at 6:25 am
Don’t be so hard on Peter. It can be confusing. There are so many temperatures. For example, one reference has the daytime average surface temperature at 107ºC, which is considerably more than what I’m used to around here. Then, there is the average temperature 1 meter below the surface, -35ºC, which probably has much to do with the extremely long rotational period. So, there are other factors at play, not just atmospheric gases.
>>>>>>>>>
Calculating an “average” temperature of the surface of a body that is round and spinning in space is pretty much a fool’s game in the first place, but we’re talking orders of magnitude here. Consider that Mercury doesn’t spin at all, and hence has a surface temperature range from -183 C to +427C. It has no atmosphere. Venus on the other hand has a reasonably consistant surface temperature of 480 C. How is it that Venus, which gets LESS insolation from the Sun, has HIGHER surface temperatures ON AVERAGE than the HIGHEST surface temperature on Mercury? The answer is that Venus has an atmosphere, and Mercury doesn’t. I suppose someone could argue that Mercury sometimes casts a shadow on Venus…. oops, that makes the conundrum even worse.
What I think confuses people is that they forget that “space” has a temperature too. It is about -270 C. So, which will be warmer? Planet earth with no atmosphere exposed to space at -270 C? Or planet earth with an atmosphere at an average of about -20 C? The Mercury/Venus comparison provides that answer, as does the Earth/Moon comparison.
I’m a raging skeptic regarding CAGW, but the notion that gases only move energy around by convection and only serve to cool the planet just isn’t true.
Like David Hoffer I found the WUWT presentation of this story garbled, so clicked on the link to figure out the context.
Then I read the comments. One of the warmists (comment 6) twists Ivar Giaever’s words that he “picks and chooses” when to give talks about his skepticism of global warming. This commenter smugly asserts that Giaever himself admitted to “picking and choosing” the science he chose to examine rather than doing a thorough investigation of the science. So it’s back to the usual warmist ad hominem lies! (i.e. he’s not a climate scientist, does not have the right background, so should shut up). Warmists and truth just can’t coexist.
I’m not a SciAm subscriber and so cannot heap scorn on the warmists and their twisted arguments on the SciAm website.
I am not a climate scientist, but it seems to me that average temperature of the earth is not the meaningful number of interest when attempting to determine the effect of greenhouse gases on surface temperature. The only way the earth and its atmosphere can cool is through radiation into space. Since radiated power is a function of the forth power of absolute temperature I would think the proper way to arrive at the equivalent temperature of the earth as a radiating body would be to take the fourth root of the mean of the sum of the forth power of temperature rather than their average. Similar to an RMS (root mean square) measurement except using the forth power rather than the second.