Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. sends word of this via email. I’m a bit amused, but not surprised, as we know WUWT has been pushing the traditional media envelope, and we often tackle subjects they can’t or won’t. I liked this statement about skeptical blogs:
They serve as extended peer communities as put forth by post-normal science, however, blog users themselves do not see post-normal science as a desirable goal.
She’s got that right. Just wait til she sees what is coming up next. – Anthony
CSTPR Noontime Seminar
Fall 2012 Series
Thursdays 12:00 – 1:00 PM
The Communications-Policy Nexus
Media, messages, and decision making
* Tuesday September 11, 2012
THE CONTRARIAN DISCOURSE IN THE BLOGOSPHERE: WHAT ARE BLOGS GOOD FOR ANYWAY?
by Franziska Hollender, Institute for Social Studies of Science, University of Vienna
CSTPR Conference Room, 1333 Grandview Avenue
Free and open to the public
The media serve to inform, entertain, educate and provide a basis for discussion among people. While traditional media such as print newspapers are facing a slow decline, they are being outpaced by new media that add new dimensions to public communication with interactivity being the most striking one. In the context of climate change, one question has arisen from recent events: what to do with the contrarians? Some propose that the contrarian discourse is merely an annoying sideshow, while others think that it is science’s responsibility to fight them. Blogs, being fairly unrestricted and highly interactive, serve as an important platform for contrarian viewpoints, and they are increasingly permeating multiple media spheres.
Using the highly ranked blog ‘Watts up with that’ as a case study, discourse analysis of seven posts including almost 1600 user comments reveals that blogs are able to unveil components and purposes of the contrarian discourse that traditional media are not. They serve as extended peer communities as put forth by post-normal science, however, blog users themselves do not see post-normal science as a desirable goal. Furthermore, avowals of distrust can be seen as linguistic perfomances of accountability, forcing science to prove its reliability and integrity over and over again. Finally, it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis and that in order to advance the discourse, there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.
========================================================
http://cires.colorado.edu/calendar/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=605
Can anyone go? Pielke Jr. reports he will be traveling.
PaulH says:
September 1, 2012 at 11:06 am
That’s a very valid point – and one I think has arisen as a result of ‘study of something’ being called ‘science’. I suppose it’s a bit like the craze for the ‘engineer’ term, as someone who works with something! So we had ‘Domestic Engineer’ for housewife, and sanitation engineer for a refuse collector or road sweeper, or drain cleaner, etc etc.
re: the actual article, the first few comments sum it up perfectly – it’s a load of twaddle. Moreover, it is a disgrace that they try and label us as post normal, when all we are asking is to see the ‘colour of their science’ and see if it is correct….I’d swear profusely, but it would be pointless to be snipped. But I’m sure the vast majority here feel insulted by this drivvel?
Hi Mosher
The ‘hockey stick Mann’ turns out to be a ‘denier’
[Response: As the person who coined the term “AMO” I figure it’s appropriate for me to comment. The AMO, as we have shown in numerous articles, has little influence on global (or even Northern Hemisphere) average temperature. It’s largely a zero sum game because it mostly associated with changes in the transport of heat between regions, and not the total heat budget of the planet. I talk about the history of the AMO (and my role in it) in my book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars -mike]
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/08/climate-indices-to-watch/comment-page-1/#comment-247360
Post normal science syndrome?
Steven Mosher says:
September 2, 2012 at 1:04 am
no matter how you try and justify it – there is really no way to defend post normal science as sensible or a valid practice. Sure, for a small (local) problem requiring attention, a group think solution may be ideal, especially if required in short time frame. (think of Apollo 11 CO2 scrubbers, for example – quick fix and all that)
However, for what is essentially an UNKNOWN problem (as in unproven, or at best, conjectured), or even any SUSPECTED problem that may occur at some longish future time, at the very least you would expect to follow rigorous data collection, analysis and good science method. Put another way, we know the sun will die one day – but its probably not gonna be for a few billion years and we accept THAT science (when in fact, we cannot be 100% sure)! If the AGW scare projections were true, don’t you think the science would be as robust?
Max Hugoson says:
September 1, 2012 at 6:49 pm
As an ENGINEER who has been making things WORK all my life….. I’d suggest that everyone reading this better get down on the floor of their next A320 or 767 and kiss it…thanking Boeing, the French and Brits, that their ENGINEERS still engage in NORMAL engineering…design, test, prove, verify…codify, etc. And there is no nonsense of “post normal engineering”.
Max,
While there was no ‘post normal’ engineering on the modern aircraft platforrms like the Boeing 787, there was post normal management. They declared that a non-traditional distributed design and manufacturing base would be able to perform design and manufacturing of major subassemblies faster and more efficiently than the traditional Boeing direct design and carefully controlled oversight of supplier manufacturing. ” This is not a significant risk.” they abjurred. “It’s different this time!” they said.
Similarly, the selection of carbon fiber reinforced plastics for major structural applications was not deemed a significant manufacturing risk. “It’s different this time!” the new management stylists stated with assurance. “You old fuddy duddies need to start thinking outside the box!”.
The 787 aircraft was nearly 3 years late for its initial deliveries, as the “It’s different this time!” chickens came home to roost! Traditional engineering and manufacturing methods were employed to sort out the issues post normal management had minimized. Normal design and manufacturing methods take time but produce reliable and safe products for the consumers like all of us. Three years later, a credible and safe product was delivered to the customers.
Yes. Their engineers still engage in NORMAL engineering, assembly, and supplier control. And Yes, we should all give ’em a kiss for demanding real science, engineering, design, and manufacturing discipline be maintained, even in the face of post normal management.
Remember: When you hear anyone tell you “It’s different THIS time!”, post normal science is at work again and a debacle is brewing, if you don’t successfully face it down at its inception. New materials, manufacturing methods, and supply chain responsibilities represent risks. With normal care and discipline, these risks can be mitigated. But they cannot be ignored. This is true of basic science also. The traditional scientific method is still the only reliable ‘model’, in a post normal science world.
MtK
I wonder if she’ll include this thread of comments in her study. Will that skew the results? Will we see chaos in her conclusion? Or after considering such scathing rebukes of PNS, will she drop the project altogether?
Time will tell.
This woperson is strongly advised to do some thorough discourse analysis of the highly ranked climategate emails, as a case study, with a sharp focus on obsessions, free and open to the public. That’s the only way she can show her worth.
Warmers war is getting warmer
Muller & Curry
We find that the strongest cross-correlation of the decadal fluctuations in
(global) land surface temperature is not with ENSO but with the AMO.
http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-decadal-variations.pdf
Mann
The AMO, as we have shown in numerous articles, has little influence on global (or even Northern Hemisphere) average temperature. It’s largely a zero sum game….
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/08/climate-indices-to-watch/comment-page-1/#comment-247360
Are these people advising the US government on its climate policy?
Vigitantfish: ‘…when I read Ravetz I see his definition as prescriptive – saying that certain situations warrant a blurring of lines – rather than analytical.’
I was basing my comments on another article linked above: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/mar/14/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
The sense I get from that article is that disputes about climate science are often proxy disputes about other things, eg: ‘…do we have confidence in technology; do we believe in collective action over private enterprise; do we believe we carry obligations to people invisible to us in geography and time?’
These are the sorts of issues that are regularly aired on WUWT. So I’m not sure why the message is so badly received.
Richard Courtney: ‘Hence, politics will use information generated by science, but any “relationship” between the two can only be a relationship of politicians as masters and scientists as slaves.’
In a democratic society I don’t see why the relationship between politics and science need be that of master and slave.
We’re also possibly talking at cross-purposes. When I say politics and ideology, I’m talking about the spectrum of worldviews and interests, not just a particular sector or power relationship.
If politics is the arena where the various interests of society meet to debate and decide how to deal with the issues of the day, then it’s inevitable that some matters of science will be brought into those debates.
Currently, climate sceptics want to get a seat around the table of climate science. This seems to be pretty much in line with the conclusion to an article linked above:
‘All of us alive today have a stake in the future, and so we should all play a role in generating sufficient, inclusive and imposing knowledge about the future. Climate change is too important to be left to scientists – least of all the normal ones.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/mar/14/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
richardscourtney says:
September 1, 2012 at 11:38 pm
tallbloke:
Your post addressed to me at September 1, 2012 at 5:34 pm can only be either disingenuous or severely mistaken.
That’s a logical fallacy. I could be right too. It’s a third possibility.
You claim we should accept and participate in PNS
No I don’t.
because you say
Good honest scientists are in the majority, but it seems they are too well controlled by the chain of command extending up through departmental heads to funding bodies controlled by mandarins. I think we have to take up the challenge and form the vanguard in the fight to save objective science.
Corruption is not defeated by adopting the corrupt practices. That only institutionalises the corruption.
I’m not advocating the adoption of corrupt practices, and I think you are being disingenuous by suggesting I am.
In short their claiming there is nothing wrong with the message the problem is in the people hearing it so if we shut it louder they will get it this time . In other words they learnt nothing at all , they are still imply unable to accept that its the message itself that has a problem . Its a faith based outlook which assumes that has you can’t be wrong therefore the fault most be with others .
vukcevic says:
September 2, 2012 at 2:12 am
Warmers war is getting warmer
Muller & Curry
We find that the strongest cross-correlation of the decadal fluctuations in
(global) land surface temperature is not with ENSO but with the AMO.
http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-decadal-variations.pdf
Mann
The AMO, as we have shown in numerous articles, has little influence on global (or even Northern Hemisphere) average temperature. It’s largely a zero sum game….
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/08/climate-indices-to-watch/comment-page-1/#comment-247360
Are these people advising the US government on its climate policy?
The only important correlation it that between decadally rising outgoing longwave radiation, flat or slightly falling temperature, and the negative feedback from increasing cloud cover. Once that is understood and coupled wit the knowledge that cloud cover fell globally for 25 years from the start of the satellite age to 1998, the whole ‘climate driven by trace gases’ paradigm falls away.
First you try on your fence-sitting luke-warmer neutrality hat again (to see if it still fits?) and describe our alleged impasse with a laundry list of the extreme positions of the two sides …
Ironically this was immediately after you yourself first stated:
Your premise wants to set up some kind of IF…Then pseudo-code but all four of those things are not given facts at all, they are opinion also. So you fail to elevate yourself out of the two sides completely by doing what you describe as being “simplistic”. But then you do the exact same thing again, but worse:
What Steve, no two sides to this point of view? We should take your word as gospel? I have no doubt that in your mind you have a twisted definition of “marxist plot” providing the rationale you needed to say it, but facts are facts, and there are many facts you have scoffed at.
First of almost no-one uses ‘Marxist’ in the pure 19th century definition, most say or mean Socialist, specifically in the context of the 20th century welfare state (and personally I believe you used ‘Marxist Plot’ as a technique to belittle some of us in the same politically correct way McCarthyism is tossed around to silence others, but I digress).
Secondly, there is plenty of evidence all around that the leftist Democratic-Socialist parties of the western world are engaged in so-called ‘plots’ (your cynical word) to do what they always do. They are redistributing wealth from one person to another, and like it or not they know a good thing when they see it. The AGW hoax and the lukewarmers that aid and comfort their fantasy is the ‘good thing’ that they see. To them, the AGW hoaxsters and you lukewarmers are very useful idiots.
Any possibility of regulating CO2 (which feeds plant life and is exhaled from life-sustaining power-plants and from our very bodies) is the ultimate fantasy of Socialist big-government control freaks, perhaps only H20 could be worse. This is not difficult to understand. A smart guy would have no problem connecting the dots. Just look at what the Democratic-Socialists and their pet agencies like the EPA have accomplished *without* CO2 regulation. Who could possibly consider granting them further power unless they thought they would be able to skim something out of it for themselves.
Beyond the dream of CO2 regulation with its resultant further redistribution of wealth are the secondary effects which attract more than the usual crowd of philosophical Socialists, it reels in the hypocritical cronie Socialists. A fine example is Carbon Credit exchanges where the Socialist criminals use the AGW hoaxsters and their lukewarmer dupes to drum up fears of catastrophe to the masses in order to get the government to pass crazy legislation so they themselves may then sell pieces of paper to assuage the needlessly guilty consciences of the gullible. Being that many of the same people are in place all along the path from the AGW lobby to the government to the CCX, it should be a giant beacon that this is a huge pump-and-dump that dwarfs Enron. It is just Chicago politics on a worldwide scale, who could possibly rationalize this unless they were part of this crime syndicate?
Watching these AGW hoaxsters also infiltrate the elementary schools, child television, and popular culture in order to brainwash them into frightened little knee-jerking skirt-wearing cry-babies (only a slight modification from Communist child re-education) should scare anyone with any historical knowledge.
It is not a traditional kremlin based “marxist plot” because ironically, the ‘Soviets’ have moved beyond this leaving only our spoiled children brainwashed in universities to carry the torch. Writing such concerns off with the flippant “It’s not a marxist plot” says more about you than anyone else.
Yes, but is it 15% or 14% sea-ice concentration? Or should I say 85% or 86% open water? (for those that don’t follow, open water threshold is usually defined as 15% ice and 85% water. So open water might have 14% visible sea-ice concentration and considering the fact that 90% of ice is below the water, that ‘open water’ is very full of ice. Ask them to sail through such open water.)
Anyway, this thing with sea-ice is stunning to hear from any self-described scientist. You really remind me of the teams trying to detect microscopic bias in a roulette wheel (i.e., CO2) thinking it is not overwhelmed by huge, uncontrollable, chaotic variables like sea current and wind (i.e., the croupier that drops the ball).
But right on schedule, the Arctic is between its summer solstice and equinox and the warmies once again come out of hibernation and point to the bi-annual solid-liquid-solid-liquid phase change of H20, and each year they either yell a little louder or softer depending upon the result of the chaotic conditions: the annual sea-ice minimum extent.
What happens when sea-ice-extent is higher next year? What is the significance? Let me guess, aerosols and volcanoes? What kind of a person starts hand-waving when the data seems to endorse their agenda and quiets down when it doesn’t. What do you call that again?
It will definitely be warmer … somewhere. Especially if you compare different locations (which they will) or time of day (which they will) or date (which they will) or using different satellites or equipment (which they will) and filters and algorithms (which they will).
Where are the net volume numbers anyway? I ask only because you clearly said “there is less ice this year than last year”. Did you mean minimum ‘extent’ instead? ‘Less’ implies ‘volume’ observation which must take into account compaction and thickness. As you are no doubt aware, extent is a mutually exclusive observation.
Steve, serious question: are you in the slightest bit concerned that the alarmist pseudo-scientists are causing mistaken information to be assimilated into the minds of the masses that are far less intelligent than people like you think you are? Are you worried for example that these average people think things like the Arctic is continually melting and that sea-ice is connected to sea-level? This is nothing short of a dis-service to humanity and Science itself. Do you even care at all?
Steven Mosher says:
September 1, 2012 at 8:24 pm
OT,
But it looks like I win my proposition bet..
Open water north of 85!
OT, snow in the Alps yesterday down to 2,000m.
http://livecam.courchevel.com/
The ice is on the move! Maybe when it isn’t on the surface of the Arctic it ends up on the temperate zone glaciers.
In his 1972 book `The Art of the Soluble`, the Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar wrote:
`Just as compulsory primary education created a market for cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well developed literary and scholarly (and scientific) tastes, who have not been sufficiently educated in these fields for them to undertake analytical thought`.
My addition in parenthesis.
Does this not lie at the root of much current misunderstanding of the climate system both past and present?
Pretentious and convoluted prose is usually the hallmark of a muddled mind.If the synopsis is any indication of the quality of the presentation it sounds like something to be avoided like the plague.
This may matter to our climate but not to post-normal (or is it abnormal) climate scientists:
SIDC SSN is a bit down in August to 63.1 from July’s 66.5 http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN.htm
You folks are going to LOVE this one:
http://psychologyforasafeclimate.org/
Her paper, which may well follow the seminar, has been written for her by people of well above average intelligence commenting on WUWT. I naturally exclude myself from that description.
Science is science and the ‘method’ has evolved over many years to be the best way to try and ensure scientific research is effective and honest. There is no pre-normal, normal or post-normal science. These are metaphysical descriptions which have no meaning in the real world outside the minds of those who believe science is philosophical idealism, a subjective view of the universe residing in consciousness.
The method may well continue to improve, particularly as climate science research has shown that the method can be abused and results distorted by greed, dishonesty and the craving of scientists and activists to be inside and pals with the ‘consensus’. The followers of the consensus view know that if they do not promote this view they will be outsiders, lose funding and be subjected to abuse such as the label ‘denier’.
Science requires continuous and open questioning and challenging not evasion and trickery. Mann declined an interview with a TV crew where his hockey stick was going to be challenged. Gleick was invited to speak and debate at Heartland and instead chose to steal private documents by impersonation and disseminate these and a fake document for publication on the web, including irrelevent personal information.
In the not too distant future climate science may be dragged kicking and screaming into court where the flaws in the method will be discovered by a jury. This could open the door to criminal prosecution as happened to two eminent men in the UK who as a direct result of suing newspapers, found themselves in prison.
Franziska “it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis and that in order to advance the discourse, there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.”
continues: When the sceptic asked what she meant
“When I use a word,” Franziska said, in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said the sceptic, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Franziska “which is to be master – that’s all.”
With apologies to the Rev. Charles Dodgson who was obviously way ahead of his time.
Brendan H:
At September 2, 2012 at 2:25 am you say to me
It is because politicians have power (i.e. money) and can use it on scientists but scientists have no power to operate on politicians.
I am surprised that you are unaware of this.
Richard
tallbloke:
Thankyou for your clarification that you provide in your post which replies to me at September 2, 2012 at 2:45 am .
I had said your original post could “only be disingenuous or severely mistaken”. Your reply makes clear that you were being disingenuous. However, you say you “could be right”. Well, only in the sense that somebody who claims the Moon is made of cheese “could be right”.
You now say you do not claim “we should accept and participate in PNS.” OK, if that is so then I am at a loss to understand your words which I quoted; i.e.
And you now say to me
PNS is a corrupt practice and you are certainly being disingenuous by suggesting it is not.
Richard
The most important question scientists can answer about earth’s climate is when will the next Ice Age commence. I’m not at all convinced that the slight up-tick in CO2 contributed by man’s activities will thwart that inevitable and catastrophic tipping point. And I’m not at all convinced post-normal climatologists or climastrologists (your choice of terms) will provide sufficient or accurate forewarning!