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.
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http://cires.colorado.edu/calendar/events/index.php?com=detail&eID=605
Can anyone go? Pielke Jr. reports he will be traveling.
“climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis”
Social science is not a science, and consequently this person has no idea how science should be conducted. It is totally absurd that “social scientists” would pretend to pass judgement on others participating in a scientific debate as if there could ever be too much discussion of the science basis of a theory.
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.
And there you have it. Agenda driven ‘science’, straight from the horses mouth. They are so arrogant in their assumption of invulnerability, they undermine their own position with statements such as these.
The trickle of papers making it into the literature that contradict the IPCC position is becoming a torrent. Not far to go now.
“Using highly ranked blog, ‘Watts up with that’ as a case study, discourse analysis…. reveals… ” (see above)
Discourse analysis is “…based on a view that is largely anti-scientific, though not anti-research.”
http://www.eamonfulcher.com/discourse_ analysis.html
TYPO
“blogs are “untwisting””
Should be “blogs that are “untwisting”
Leif Svalgaard says:
September 1, 2012 at 10:07 am
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
Here she is dead wrong. Science is not an ideology and should not be communicated as such.
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Right, but what is traditionally thought of when referencing climate science is an ideology. And then there’s the ideology which believes science should have a large role in human governance.
Wow. . . . .
“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.”
“. . . . . stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis . . . . . .”
This is absolute proof that American Universities are sadly failing their students.
Skepticism as post-normal science? Hey, I thought that was the label WE gave THEM and their denial of the scientific method!
Some interesting perspective here in regards to alarmism and the agenda’s on-going attempts to re-define how science is communicated and what its meaning is. No doubt, they would wish for a new way to perform & communicate science that doesn’t have to include such things as…the scientific method, which requires skepticism, rebuttals of postulates with facts, etc. They desire science to be not so much about science, but about dictatorial & essentially religious declaration.
This sentiment is not original…I can’t link any other sources at the moment, maybe someone else can, but we’ve seen these types of calls made numerous times already. These sentiments, put into words and posed as a question, as they are, are essentially a call for proposals. That’s a good way to think about it.
They have a program, a desired end point, like any project. It has been on-going for some time, but with real science entering the debate through blogs such as this and the many others, and more and more proper skeptical papers coming out showing that there is essentially zero evidence to support the alarmist or even the vanilla AGW agenda, they’re putting out a call for proposals for someone to invent a new way of doing science. We all know that, truly, these people hate science with religious-like zeal. They thought they could just hijack it and create a *simulacra* of science and that would be enough…the stupid sheople wouldn’t figure THAT out. And they succeeded with many stupid sheople…which apparently tend to a leftist orientation, although, perhaps this is an unimportant observation…then again…
In any case, the internet and the free flow of information it provides has provided a medium for rationality among a large enough number that has obviously been too great for them to overcome. They’re obviously losing and the public support just isn’t there. That is directly thanks to blog sites, to a large extent at least. They know they can’t shut down the internet and properly scientific skeptical blogs – although I am sure they have thought about it – so now they want to modify their modus operandi from merely creating a simulacra of science & reality, to re-defining science altogether. You can hear the desperate plea in her words: “We need science to be dictatorial; skepticism can not be part of the future of science; those in the position to do so will tell you what the appropriate things to think are; etc.” Once this is in place, the existence of blogs won’t matter, because the idea that science involves questioning and skepticism will be removed from the public conscious. This is essentially, and really quite directly, straight out of 1984. They’re still using the standard play-book.
Her talk is a call for proposals: how do we redefine science so that it is devoid of skepticism? With religion, that’s how. And they’ve got a good start on that one as well.
I think that any discipline that requires “science” as part of it’s name isn’t real science. Consider: Political Science, Social Science, Social Studies of Science, Climate Science, etc. None of these take the Scientific Method seriously, but like to pretend they make use of some kind of scientific rigour. No one says “Physics Science” or “Chemistry Science”.
/snark
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.
WTFIUWT? “stifled by obsession of discussion of science basis?” Isn’t that part of the definition of science? Isn’t that the heart of the science, to discuss the hypothesis, and its conclusions, and how the hypothesis might need changing? What exactly is stifling about constant communication? Heck, even “consensus science” (oxymoron if I ever saw one) RELIES on the players to communicate the lie, staying on the same page, consistently communicating the message.
And what does “science as an ideology” mean? And what exactly needs to change? Is she promoting it as an ideology? I always thought that science TRANSCENDS all ideologies, and that’s why I love it so much! I suppose THAT in and of itself could be thought of as an ideology, but what needs changing about that? It sounds too political to me.
I would like to see a concise definition for “post normal science” presented, and then one of the “sceptics” translating it into English. I suspect it would resemble “If your definition of science promotes theory over observation, it’s not science. If the totality cannot be broken into testable sub-components, it’s not science. If experiments cannot be proposed to falsify the basic premises, it’s not science. If the theory is accepted as the null case and “it’s within the realm of natural variation” must be proven, it’s not science. If numbers must be carefully chosen from larger data sets, and data which does not support the theory is discarded/not displayed, it’s not science.” Post normal science trusts that what the fast-talking saleman from out of town has in the bag that he’s selling is actually a pig. We skeptics want to see it before we buy it, that’s why we’re more likely to let the cat out of the bag. (for non-North Americans, the sayings “buying a pig in a poke” and “let the cat out of the bag” are both related to a confidence game/fraud from an earlier time.)
The media serve to inform, entertain, educate and provide a basis for discussion among people.
That would be the ideal. But how close is that to reality? Howard Beale (as written by Paddy Chayefsky) summarized the trustworthiness of media best in Network (1976)
So, whenever you hear some pure-as-snow statement like “The media serve to inform,” keep Howard in mind and know that the media will tell you anything you want to hear and others want you to hear.
@katabasis1
+1 Excellent comment.
“the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis”
Perfect, that would be the goal; to keep draconian regulations from being enacted until it becomes painfully obvious to nearly everyone that they’re too stupid for words.
” and that in order to advance the discourse, there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.”
Actually, I have to agree. An ideology being basically a set of beliefs that determines ones perspective and actions, therefore, the ideology of science would be one of rigorous experimental methodology, objective observation, and transparency in all activities from data collection to conclusion. So, a change in communicating and enacting that ideology is definitely called for when “scientists” stifle debate, make back room deals, hide declines, cherry pick data, fabricate memos, etc. etc. A change to open debate, open source, WHOLE TRUTH science would be refreshing indeed.
>> Finally, it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis …
Don’t they understand that with science, it’s the evidence that counts? And it’s so simple: Hypothesis –> Prediction(s) –> Test predictions by checking with reality (i.e. the evidence supporting the hypothesis). If evidence supports hypothesis, then hypothesis morphs into a “theory” (which is *always* open to rejection or modification if new evidence arises). If not, hypothesis is rejected.
Maybe they ought to teach what the scientific method is in elementary schools. After all, it’d take about 5 minutes, and is elementary. Why on earth is Franziska Hollender apparently ignorant of the scientific method, the invention of which was arguably the greatest leap forward for humanity since the late medieval times? Test: Who said, “And yet it moves…”? Hint – Italy, the Inquisition, a very well-known scientist (or “philosopher” as he would have been called in those days).
Sure, let’s communicate the science. However, let us do so according to the late Dr. Richard Feynman’s admonition: (paraphrased) with all the uncertainties, the short-comings, known errors and inaccuracies.
In climate science, we skeptics strive to point out the tremendous failings, including the horrible temperature data, the massive data manipulations and statistical mischief and nonsense, and then the utter failure of badly-formed models to predict essentially anything.
How would it be if we built nuclear power plants by using the identical standards of the climate scientists? Which of the true believers would have their homes next to and immediately downwind from such plants?
Or, oil refineries, or chlorine plants, or biological weapons plants?
For that matter, who would drive across a bridge, knowing it had been designed and built to the IPCC consensus standards?
The interesting thing about this, and one finds it all the time in climate science but no place else, is the attempt to put old wine in new bottles.
For instance, we had today an article in the Guardian CiF section which was dancing around only allowing views on climate science to be published by certified consensus qualified writers.
It was not put like that, it was phrased in terms of self certification, but the endgame was clear. As Babel said in one of his last speeches before he was purged, the Party wishes to stop us from writing badly. Quite so.
In the present case we have the invention of something called post normal science. This is a form of science where we have insufficient evidence for hypotheses but wish to accept them anyway. Our desire is so strong that we invest a supposed new form of science. This new form of science, were we consistent, would also lead us to accept hypotheses which are incompatible with those we are using it to advocate accepting, but of course it will never be applied to them. Consistency of this sort is old fashioned, we are dealing with the post normal here.
In the same way, we have insufficient evidence to justify certain kinds of policy decisions, and we invent a whole new way of justification called the ‘precautionary principle’ by which they will be justified. Never mind that they will justify incompatible policy decisions, we will never apply the principle to them.
We have seen all this before. In the Soviet Union it ended up under different names for the same logical errors, in Lysenkoism. Here at least we have free comment and publication, so good argument over time will drive out bad. At least we must hope so.
But the emergence of real publicly acknowledged desire to base acceptance of hypotheses on essentially religious grounds, and decisions on public policy on essentially religious grounds, is a deeply worrying prospect to those of us who believe the inheritance we received from John Stuart Mill is one of our most precious social assets.
“Furthermore, avowals of distrust can be seen as linguistic perfomances of accountability, forcing science to prove its reliability and integrity over and over again.”
I’m almost positive that readers of this blog don’t believe science needs to prove its reliability again and again. You have -people who disagree over physics, people who think climate science is overly politicized/bunk, people who think climate science is fine but the claims people make about global warming are bunk, people who think cost/benefit favors inaction and people who think warming is something to be encouraged.
Aside from climate science posters show a healthy skepticism of social science and other fields that have a large number of confounding variables, are highly politicized, occur over long time periods and have a poor predictive rate. In harder and more tested fields (engineering, evolution, etc) posters show alot more appreciation for science. Just because skeptics may suffer from confirmation bias doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason behind it!
“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.”
The time for that was the 1960s. We’ve had a ton of ecological doomsday predictions since then without having a doomsday. Somewhat unsurprisingly people have come to the conclusion that any prediction that has a whiff of doomsday about it is crap. It doesn’t help that the environmentalist movement leapt onto the issue- its anti-technology attitude, hodge podge of social movements and contridictory goals repells alot of the people here.
In short, better science communication will have no effect because the problem isn’t science communication. This site wouldn’t exist if global warming was just “the planet is warming”. The problem is global warming is “the planet is warming and we must do something about it”. As long as the “something to be done” is completely unhocked from reality and little more than a green wishlist, skeptics and denialists will treat it for what it is- a blatant political ploy. And once it is a political ploy, both sides will tighten ranks, lessen standards, view the opposition as evil, view their position in apocalyptic terms… you know, what generally happens whenever politics is injected into anything. Attempting to overcome that by changing the format you communicate science is a bit like yelling louder a a foreigner on the assumption that deep inside he really knows English.
Glad to hear they are going nuts. You posted early this year about CO2 saturation. This is what this following link is all about. It’s peer reviewed. It was published in The Journal of Cosmology and seems to fit all data from 1850 to present. Dr. Qing-Bin Lu who accidentally discovered this in 2009 is appointed to the departments of Biology, Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo in Ontario Canada. I believe he is unbiased like you and his second paper on this subject of the cause of the global warming is a game changer. So far his second paper has not attacked. Just ignored….http://journalofcosmology.com/QingBinLu.pdf
“…it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis…”
This is part of verification you idiot. If a proposed mechanism can not stand up to scrutiny, then there is pretty good chance that there may be something drastically wrong with it.
Gerry Parker hit it right on the nose. Science as an ideology! Science is a process, not an ideology. The scientific method revolutionized natural philosophy and these clowns with post-normal science want to do away with it? The basis for scientific study of any theory is twofold: replication and falsification. Climate science fails on both points…the Team will not provide enough information to replicate their results, and apparently there is nothing that can happen that will falsify their cagw beliefs.
Science is not a thing, it is a way of seeing.
I love this line: “the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis”. I believe they are saying that we here are obsessed with the science behind climate change? And that by focusing on that science we’re “stifling” political discourse?
How Orwellian.
“In the context of climate change, one question has arisen from recent events: what to do with the contrarians?”
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It’s a Saturday afternoon and by 2 beer response would be: Get on your knees and worship the intellectual superiority of the contriarian skeptics and ask for forgiveness for your ignorance.
Institute for Social Studies of Science, Why stop there? Social Studies of Social Studies of Science? It’s a great (and expensive) alternative to an unemployment office.
I thought science was an objective method for trying to understand the universe. The phrase, “forcing science to prove its reliability and integrity over and over again” just blew me away. As an earlier commenter said, that is the ESSENCE of the scientific method, is it not? This phrase reeks of a scentific establishment whose word is not to be questioned. Dissent is “post-normal science”? I don’t think so, it’s just plain old vanilla science.