Guest post by Dr. Tim Ball
A common fallback position when losing an argument is to assault your adversary personally. Known as ad hominem, it involves “attacking an opponent’s motives or character rather than the policy or position they maintain.”
In climate science, those who employ this rhetorical tactic attack individuals who ask probing scientific questions. The attacks indicate that they know how inadequate their science is. It often works because of a deliberate campaign to exploit basic sensitivities: fear the sky is falling, guilt about not protecting the environment, guilt about the damage already done, fear and embarrassment of showing ignorance.
People who challenge the claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are often labeled “global warming skeptics”. Skeptics do not deny that warming occurred in modern times, but, sensibly, questioned the cause. The IPCC said it was due to human production of CO2. This is driven by a political agenda, not science, so any opposition is considered troublesome and requires silencing.
The IPCC claim is an unproven hypothesis. Science advances by proposing hypotheses that other scientists challenge in their proper role as skeptics. The word skeptic has markedly different public and scientific connotation; negative for the former and positive for the latter. Scientists act as skeptics by trying to disprove the hypothesis. Global warming skeptics are acting appropriately.
The IPCC hypothesis was untested. Professor Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said that consensus was claimed before the research even began. The IPCC tried to prove the hypothesis, putting them in the untenable position of eliminating, ignoring, or manipulating anything that showed the hypothesis was wrong. They had to shoot the skeptics who were the messengers of the problems.
Evidence showing that the hypothesis was wrong continued to emerge. But the IPCC and the vast majority of mainstream media simply ignored it. IPCC projections were wrong because the hypothesis was wrong. That the skeptics were correct was verified as CO2 levels continued to rise, while temperatures leveled and declined. But instead of amending the science, as is proper science, alarmists simply changed the terminology. They stopped talking about global warming and started talking about climate change. Leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit for 2004 explained:
Asher Minns, Communication and Centre Manager at the Tyndall Centre: “In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media.”
Bo Kjellén, former Chief Climate Negotiator, Sweden; senior research fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute: “I agree with Nick that climate change might be a better labeling than global warming.”
Climate change was an ideal label because activist scientists could use it to explain any weather event; hotter, colder, wetter, drier, it was all climate change. The public would not know that such events are normal, so alarmists would have an endless supply of frightening examples. The public also does not know that climate change in general is normal. It has often occurred more quickly and with greater magnitude than most people are aware. Current conditions are well within normal.
Those who knew how much climate changes naturally were those previously called global warming skeptics. They now became climate change deniers with all the holocaust connotations of that word. The fallacy is that they were anything but deniers. Indeed, they spend their careers educating people about the amount of climate change that has and is occurring.
Next time you witness personal attacks on scientists, call the attacker to answer for this despicable tactic. Ask them to address the outstanding science questions only. A hand wave toward the IPCC in response is insufficient.
Soon, when someone calls a person a global warming skeptic or climate change denier, informed observers will come to see it as conclusive proof that the abuser knows nothing about climate or scientific method. Then, the attacker, not the scientist being attacked, will be shunned
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Seven Mosher:
The quote you give is where Ball is criticing the IPCC’s approach to science. Are you part of the IPCC? (For all I know you are.)
The lesson that needs to be learned from this and other similar denouements is this: the greatest jewel in the crown of education is learning what traits you must recognise before you are able to trust individual sources of information.
‘The text book says so’ must never be seen by children or adults as proof per se.
‘XXX says so’ must not be taken as proof per se either.
It’s amazing how incompatible such an attitude is with working nowadays.
The BBC’s HR department actually has a list of traits which are ‘not sought’: it includes, laughably ‘not challenging or confronting’.
I’m sure they’ve applied that rigorously to climate change, haven’t they?
Yeah right.
I might write them a job application soon, including an analysis of the traits they abhor and demonstrating how many of their senior employees display them.
But then I wouldn’t get an interview as I would be ‘challenging’ without bringing stakeholders around.
Interesting how you bring round those ‘resistant to change’ isn’t it? (that’s another trait inconsistent with being hired at the BBC too, lest you wonder)
I’m reading Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of Climate Since the Year 1000.
The chapter on changes in glaciers is huge and filled with literally hundreds of historical accounts and pictures showing the glacier advance during the LIA from the 1500’s to 1880. It’s a coincidence that that is about the time when thermometers came into widespread use, and photography too. One interesting account is of a European gold mine that was uncovered in the 1500’s after the glaciers receded during the MediEvil warming. Then was covered again by as the glaciers advanced during the LIA.
Brian Fagan wrote a short and more readable book on the Little Ice Age and others on the MediEvil Warming. Also, his book on the Nino’s are very interesting. The Climate has always changed. We have descended into an age of ignorance.
I think it is OK to use the ‘D’ word when people are ignoring the bleeding obvious. For instance there has been a lot of made of the last 15/16 years of ‘no warming’, but that is not allowing for other factors that have not been taken into consideration! For example ocean oscillations that will add/subtract to the overall figures. These are often ignored by the casual observer. For instance perhaps somebody is been evicted today for not keeping up with their mortgage, but it is they happiest day, because last night they won the big one on the lottery and are mega bucks better off, in a couple of days So see by not looking at what’s going to happen in the future, a false impression remains!
It never ever was about climate science, climate change, global warming or whatever. It was always about Global Socialism & Global Guvment! When Kyoto was signed Mitterrand said to the press that this was the first step on the way to Global Governance! They’ve have all at one time let the cat out of the bag. Ask yourselves two questions, 1) What is the final solution to AGW? & 2) what is the ultimate idealogical objective of Marxist Socialism? The answer is Global Guvment. Oh sure they may not all be raving hard leftists out to smash the evil capitalist system & bring down the Aristocracy & elevate the workers brothers & sisters types, but the intellectual lefties dominate, what we used to call in the UK the “champagne socialists”, all from wealthy middle/upper class backgrounds, who have wealth in their own right, who wish to dictate to the rest of us how we should live our lives! Climate Change was just the bandwagon they wanted, it was perfect, nothing to do with politics, but real life woe is me gloom & doom. When you get Hugo Chevez turning up at Copenhagen in Dec ’09, declaring that capitalism has caused Climate Change, one just knows the level of scientific argument being used, i.e. none! The developing nations appear to want the poor people in rich countries to be taxed to the hilt, & the money handed over to rich people in poor countries, usually corrupt as hell in their politics & leadership!
Brian says:
December 18, 2012 at 10:13 pm
“C’mon… Maybe you guys had reasons to complain before, but you guys throw everything and the kitchen sink at your rivals now.”
What are you talking about, Brian?
Mosher a libertarian, Hehe. Burke, von Hayek wouldn’t employ him as there shoe-shine boy. Imagine if you will, Mosher explaining his climate policy prescriptions to Milton Friedman. He’d be sliced and diced as the young Michael Moore was – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD0dmRJ0oWg
@ur momisugly Will Nitschke says: December 18, 2012 at 10:02 pm
Indeed, but what do you call a faith that is unproven, unproveable, and explains everything? It seems that some have crossed the line and created a secular belief system since every event is explained by the belief.
@izen – since 1890? Perhaps you can link to those studies that blamed CO2 for AGW back in 1890.
there are no scientists who are skeptics
Would anyone care to list any scientists who are skeptics about AGW?
While I quite agree with the main premise of this article I find it sad that scientists appear to have rather a thin skin about being called the names as cited here, and feel impelled to expend time and energy writing these articles. Wouldn’t it be better just to get on with the real work of deducing the true causes of change in regional and global climate – particularly where 1st Amendment rights in the US and freedom of speech constitutional rights elsewhere in the world (but in the UK possibly now to be under political control following Leveson – ugh!) mean that in these countries one can’t do anything about any name calling, anyway.
And dare one ask Dr Ball how the “state pen” case is progressing – any truth in the rumour that the man(n) may withdraw to avoid discovery? Good luck with it, anyway.
Science, logic, and rhetoric are three often mutually exclusive methods of developing a conclusion.
Science concerns itself with the empirical verifiability of a statement on the assumption that Nature is the Ultimate Arbiter of Truth.
Logic concerns itself with developing statements with mathematical rigor within a framework of accepted assumptions and axioms.
Rhetoric concerns itself with the art of persuading someone to accept a statement regardless of whether its veracity can be established by logic or experiment.
Ad hominem attacks are a tool of rhetoric, not science or logic.
Good article, Dr Ball. Couldn’t have put it better myself..
Raising an opponent’s motives during argumentation can have an evidential role, albeit a minor one.
Suppose you have thoroughly refuted an opponent’s position. You have demonstrated that his arguments are unsound and his thesis false, and your case is beyond reasonable doubt. Suppose that your audience is nevertheless hesitant to accept that he has been refuted. They wonder, “How could he hold such a thoroughly untenable position? Why would he, as an authority in his field, hold such a demonstrably false view?” They may think that perhaps he has good reasons that he is poor at articulating, or they may think that they have misunderstood his arguments and been taken in by your refutation of them. Then, when you explain his position as arising from non-evidential reasons (greed, lust for power, what have you) and demonstrate that this explanation itself has evidence to support it (he gets a lot of money and power if and only if he holds the position), then you might give the audience good reason to lay their doubts to rest. You will have shown that no facts warrant any doubt that your opponent’s position is false.
This is a small role and it is not permissible at all until you have refuted your opponent’s position, but it is a role.
izen:
I am replying to your long, untrue and unreasonable rant at December 19, 2012 at 3:42 am.
I will not provide justification of my statements because I have repeatedly provided them to you in the past so I can’t be bothered to do it again and you can look them up to – at last – take note of them.
You are wrong to dispute that IPCC so-called “science” is politically driven to promote AGW. The IPCC’s charter defines that it is.
Scientists have assessed the AGW-hypothesis proposed in the 1890s to determine if it is correct. And the real world has given them the answer;
i.e. at existing levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration it is not possible for increases to the concentration to have any discernible effect on climate.
The terminology of the climate scare HAS been changed to suite as circumstances changed. First it was global cooling, then it was global warming, after that it was climate change, and now it is weather wierding.
Of course recent global temperatures are high because warming from the LIA has been happening for centuries. But so what? There has been no global warming discernible at 95% confidence for the last 16 years while atmospheric CO2 has continued to increase.
The abuse heaped on climate realists has been horrific. Entire web sites have been established to do it. Climate scientists have been sacked for not toeing the AGW line. And Journals and Institutions have been usurped to further this.
There are NO discernible effects of AGW and there is no reason to suppose there will be or could be.
Richard
Dr. Ball,
You, sir, have written an excellent essay. Thank you.
IPCC …. It has always intrigued me that when global warming was the consensus they already had climate change as their identity. Preconceived hidden agenda anyone?
izen says:
December 19, 2012 at 3:42 am
“Many scientists since the 1890 have said that warming is produced by rising CO2. This understanding is based on the physical properties of CO2 and basic thermodynamics, NOT a political agenda. Now confirmed by the measured energy imbalance in the downwelling and outgoing LWIR.”
What measurements that have “now” confirmed this are you talking about, Izen? Do you have a link? Did the measurements measure the entire spectrum or only the CO2 absorption band? If they detected a decline in outgoing radiation in the CO2 absorption band, what did they detect in all other bands? If they didn’t measure the entire spectrum, why not? How long did they measure? When was the mission launched?
Thanks for your reply.
Unfortunately, I’m not so sure the ‘soon’ will come to pass. This post, and many of the responses, reveal that CAGW is primarily a social phenomena, not a climate one, and a powerful social memeplex can take a long time to fade. My free Science Fiction / Climate novelette ‘Truth’ exposes this angle, and sets up a counter-narrative to CAGW. See WUWT post here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/15/wuwt-spawns-a-free-to-read-climate-sci-fi-novel/
or grab the pdf direct from here:
http://wearenarrative.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/truth.pdf
This story is freely distributable under creative commons. You may send it where you will, no need to link back to my site or anywhere else.
Nice summary of the position and great post, Dr. Tim .
Andy.
@- Rhys Jaggar
“The lesson that needs to be learned from this and other similar denouements is this: the greatest jewel in the crown of education is learning what traits you must recognise before you are able to trust individual sources of information.”
One important lesson is that while individual sources may be suspect, if the overwhelming majority of the knowledge that science has collected on the climate over the last century all points conclusively to AGW then rejecting this comprehensive consensus in the EVIDENCE is foolish.
Few here would argue against Tim Ball’s well written article. We all know this is all political and of course making money for a select few.
It is well worth a visit to Bishop Hill’s excellent blog and reading ‘Yeo’s Speech’ (Tim Yeo is an MP and influential advisor to the UK government on energy policy).
I draw your attention to the comments by ‘not banned yet’ at 1.36am listing the considerable earnings this high minded gentleman of Parliament makes from his various connections to energy companies. Of course, he denies any conflict of interest despite essentially calling for energy rationing via smart meters to make up for the intermittent supply of electricity frrom his beloved renewables.
Carter:
You begin your post at December 19, 2012 at 4:22 am by saying
OK. I understand that. You are saying the ‘D’ word should be applied to you.
Of course, you are entitled to that opinion, but we climate realists do not use such offensive language so we will not be be applying it to you.
I trust you will accept this explanation of why we are not willing to apply the ‘D’ word to you as you request.
Richard
Perhaps those of us who are branded as “deniers” might want to wear a black armband with a bright yellow D on their sleeves.
It maybe goes to the core of denigrating those who are misfits in the brave new world of AGW orthodoxy?
The following appeared a few years ago but it remains more relevant than ever in light of so many climate ‘science’ embarrassments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QHatDvoWjU
izen says:
…One important lesson is that while individual sources may be suspect, if the overwhelming majority of the knowledge that science has collected on the climate over the last century all points conclusively to AGW then rejecting this comprehensive consensus in the EVIDENCE is foolish.
———————
Come on, seriously. Are you just looking to kill time or something? Just bored? Mixing an appeal to authority with an appeal to popularity doesn’t make either of them any less a logical fallacy. Why waste your time (not to mention the blogreaders time) with this?