Fraud and deceit are a slippery slope
Story submitted by Bruce Webster
An article in the New York Times chronicles the descent of a sociologist into wholesale fraud. It is worth reading the whole article, because I believe it offers insight into some of the pressures, temptations, and self-rationalizations that many scientists struggle with.
Here is one key passage that will likely not surprise anyone here at WUWT (all emphasis in quoted text is mine):
Each case of research fraud that’s uncovered triggers a similar response from scientists. First disbelief, then anger, then a tendency to dismiss the perpetrator as one rotten egg in an otherwise-honest enterprise. But the scientific misconduct that has come to light in recent years suggests at the very least that the number of bad actors in science isn’t as insignificant as many would like to believe. And considered from a more cynical point of view, figures like Hwang and Hauser are not outliers so much as one end on a continuum of dishonest behaviors that extend from the cherry-picking of data to fit a chosen hypothesis — which many researchers admit is commonplace — to outright fabrication.
“Cherry-picking of data” is, of course, not an unknown topic in these parts. But here’s an even more intriguing passage:
Stapel did not deny that his deceit was driven by ambition. But it was more complicated than that, he told me. He insisted that he loved social psychology but had been frustrated by the messiness of experimental data, which rarely led to clear conclusions. His lifelong obsession with elegance and order, he said, led him to concoct sexy results that journals found attractive. “It was a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth,” he said. He described his behavior as an addiction that drove him to carry out acts of increasingly daring fraud, like a junkie seeking a bigger and better high.
And again:
What the public didn’t realize, he said, was that academic science, too, was becoming a business. “There are scarce resources, you need grants, you need money, there is competition,” he said. “Normal people go to the edge to get that money. Science is of course about discovery, about digging to discover the truth. But it is also communication, persuasion, marketing. I am a salesman. I am on the road. People are on the road with their talk. With the same talk. It’s like a circus.”
And finally how it all turned out:
…the universities unveiled their final report at a joint news conference: Stapel had committed fraud in at least 55 of his papers, as well as in 10 Ph.D. dissertations written by his students. The students were not culpable, even though their work was now tarnished. The field of psychology was indicted, too, with a finding that Stapel’s fraud went undetected for so long because of “a general culture of careless, selective and uncritical handling of research and data.” If Stapel was solely to blame for making stuff up, the report stated, his peers, journal editors and reviewers of the field’s top journals were to blame for letting him get away with it. The committees identified several practices as “sloppy science” — misuse of statistics, ignoring of data that do not conform to a desired hypothesis and the pursuit of a compelling story no matter how scientifically unsupported it may be.
A lesson for climate science. Be sure to read the whole thing. ..bruce..
Source of story : http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
Sociologist =/= scientist.
Sociologists deal with statistics.
Science and statistics are not synonymous. Discovery of a numerical discrepancy is not science. Accounting for that discrepancy in a reproducible manner is science.
A little more here too:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/investigators-discover-50th-fake-study-disgraced-dutch-psychologist
Final paragraph in that article left me shaking my head.
His field was “Social Psychology.”
” Edohiguma says:
April 29, 2013 at 6:05 pm
Sociologist =/= scientist.
Sociologists deal with statistics.
Science and statistics are not synonymous. Discovery of a numerical discrepancy is not science. Accounting for that discrepancy in a reproducible manner is science.”
—————————————————————————————–
So wait your agreeing that climate scientists are also not scientists?
After all Climate Scientists deal with statistics.
Statistics and [bad] statistical analysis are at the heart of every claim by climate scientists and every computerized climate model.
Sounds awfully familiar …
The Age of Deceit is upon us all. Just ask your financial advisor hehehehe
Perfect cover for the juveniles of Climatology(TM)
Every one else does it.
So why are you picking on us?
He would have to consider himself a tad stiff, considering what is ‘done’ in AGW.
It is very simple what happened, he fed his ego which had an insatiable desire of fame.
Paraphrasing Robert Heinlein, “Any discipline with the word ‘science’ in the name, such as ‘social science’, isn’t one.”
See this a lot in Norway with all the social sciences we have here.
As long as their results support the leftist the funding will keep on comming?
One could might argue that the “Team” have ideological/political limits and aims for their results? Social Climate (non) science?
Glad you posted this Bruce, I was going to suggest it as well. Thanks. Here is another dealing with Medical Science:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/308269/
It appears that wherever there is money, charlatans will come running. Thank goodness for the Volunteer Defenders of Science in all of us.
Kent Clizbe says:
April 29, 2013 at 6:13 pm
His field was “Social Psychology.”
=========================
Shhhhh … you’re disturbing the mind numbing implied message.
Timely post from the NY Times….on how the Dean of Social and Behavioral “Science” had a “post modern relationship with truth”…and is now in contention for the “biggest con man in academic science”. In the process, this expert on “research ethics” burned 20 of his PhD post grad students and the university’s personality assessment investigation finding was that of an “arrogant bully” who “cozied up to students to manipulate them.”
Any similarity to behaviors in “other” branches of science, is purely coincidental.
Luckily, as an engineer, I get IMMEDIATE feedback when I stray from the “straight and narrow”, i.e. did you really predict that your new circuit design would disappear in a cloud of plasma and smoke ???
An old “sparky” (electrical engineer) joke; SURELY that new circuit design is WAY TOO YOUNG TO SMOKE…………
Reality, it’s the NEW DRUG, you should try it some time.
Cheers, Kevin
statistics ≠ science
modeling ≠ experiment
distorted data ≠ truth
unfalsifiable hypotheses ≠ science
unreproducible results ≠ science
faulty logic ≠ science
Stapel is the tip of the iceberg. We should be grateful for the few scientists who have neither sold out nor failed to speak out while Science was being perverted, prostituted, and postmodernized.
This is good. Get it into the public mind that scientific fraud does indeed happen, and maybe a few will start thinking. Climate science is rife with it – time to sort out the mess (there’ll be quite a few sweating about now, and I reckon a few having nightmares, too).
““There are scarce resources, you need grants, you need money, there is competition,” he said. “Normal people go to the edge to get that money. Science is of course about discovery, about digging to discover the truth. But it is also communication, persuasion, marketing. I am a salesman. I am on the road. People are on the road with their talk. With the same talk. It’s like a circus.”
————————-
It has been 25 years since I exited grad school in geophysics. Those who have never been directly involved in graduate level studies funded by grants would have a hard time comprehending how much salesmanship & questionable representation goes on. I haven’t seen anything that compares to it in the “real world”, in terms of doing what ever is necessary to bring in the money (grants). Academics are far from angels, but I can’t fault them too much in that they are doing what they have to do to survive – if they don’t have grant money, they essentially don’t have a job or income.
The real fault comes from the media , the politicians & others who have no idea what is really going on & how motivated by money (not big money, just survival grant money) academics are.
Until we get double blind funding of research, nothing will change
Oh to be a fly on the wall in Bristol.
Re: Ed Ohiguma (1805) and Lamont T (1815) who, I believe, misunderstood Ed.
Ed (clarified):
Genuine scientists use statistics.
Not all people that use statistics are scientists.
Therefore, use of statistics does not, per se, make a sociologist a genuine scientist.
The end.
(and, also, Ed did not support climatology pseudo-scientists even though they use statistics).
Lamont T adds the truth that Cult of Climatology scientists misuse statistics to fool people.
I just read that a few hours ago. I’m now also following Retraction Watch and their wide assortment of research problems. From simple plagiarism to reverse plagiarism to frauds… and an unknown liquid accidentally messing up a liver cell study.
It is very unfortunate but at least I can take heart that it could never happen in Australia. Definitely not in the School of Psychology at UWA. That is for sure.
His field was “Social Psychology.”
=========================
Shhhhh … you’re disturbing the mind numbing implied message.
=========================
Yeah. Imagine owning a Social Psychology degree on top of 100k in student loans. Not many options in the private sector but collecting insurance payments for consoling neglected middle class housewives.
I have no love for climate charlatains but at least some of them could survive in legitimate fields. Sorry host, meteorologist comes to mind.
(Page 6 of 9)
Stapel dumped most of the questionnaires into a trash bin outside campus. At home, using his own scale, he weighed a mug filled with M&M’s and sat down to simulate the experiment. While filling out the questionnaire, he ate the M&M’s at what he believed was a reasonable rate and then weighed the mug again to estimate the amount a subject could be expected to eat. He built the rest of the data set around that number. He told me he gave away some of the M&M stash and ate a lot of it himself. “I was the only subject in these studies,” he said.’
Yes, but what about the hard questions?
Did he eat the red ones last?
If so was he against Capitalism and on the Red end of the spectrum?
Was he in a dissociative state unable to discriminate between himself, [mug one], and the mug that stood before him?
Was he a Red one denier?
Did he believe the Moon landings were faked?
Stapel could always go to work at State Penn’s Department of Junk Science.
Ironic.
Regarding these scientists who are being labelelled as un-scientific…
The social scientists are the ones who are having the greatest success in predicting and controlling the world.
They took the ideals of science and applied them to various topics such as communication, persuasion, social trends, and so on. They figured out how society works. They figured out that a message repeated enough becomes believed. They figured out that people want to be correct, and “in the know.” They explored the topic of “values,” and so learned how to appeal to and manipulate values. They figured out the glue of society, our cultural hegemony, and have used that knowledge to unglue us.
I have heard it said that a very admirable goal in science is to predict accurately, and a higher goal is to control outcomes.
These educated elistist intellectuals grabbed the ideas of science and have used them to grab hold of our society.
Now, we are supposed to be “green” or else be evil outcasts. We are supposed to be sympathetic to the lazy and shiftless, and blame the hard-working, and the job-creators, for the plight of the lazy and shiftless. We are supposed to admire religious terrorists as they fight against our sins of being too powerful globally. We are supposed to accept Gosnell killing newborns and blame anything negative revealed in his trial as demonstrating the need for legal abortion. Oil has been a lead factor for improving the human condition, but for many oil and oil companies have been branded as a leading evil in our society. A sober, hard-working faithful father is an image of mockery, and vagabond drug-addled lothario is a hero.
They have used science to re-engineer society, and we have not even noticed them doing this. Maybe these sociologists are not scientists, but they sure have been successful. You can discount them if you want. I do not, and am very concerned about how to counter-act these forces for the future of my children.
The typical WUWT reader trucks with these re-creators of society. They sell us what we want. We want to shrug off religion – done – we now are all enlightened by science. We want casual se x – done. We all now have all the se x ed we want in school, we have govt-financed treatment of STDs, and soon enough will have govt funed abortion, just as in the communist bloc. WE don;t want to have to fulfill the arduous task of parenting our children – done – their errant development is now labelled as a psychaitric illness, and there is a solid social taboo against “blame the mother.”
We have all benefitted from these social scientists, social psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists. Let’s not turn our back on them now.
It is quite interesting psychologically. He says he originally did faithfully accurate attempts to work out complicated relationships and found journals were not ‘into that’. From there the ascent into pure malarkey became a self sustaining addiction.
Oh? You mean there are climate charlatans out there who are intelligent, well groomed, well spoken, hard working, scientifically sincere and pleasant people who could do work as meteorologists? Even when they will patiently be held accountable for all forecasts, every day and all day.
Somehow, I find that rather difficult to believe.
Advances in Geophysics, Vol. 25, 1983.
I return to this work each year when writing a research paper.
I was in the 90’s and 00’s an avid reader of all issues of JGR and GRL.
Yet surprisingly, ‘The Theory of Climate’ as explained in volume 25 is as new today as then, i.e. no advance since 1983, absolutely nothing new discovered in 30 years.
What a moras.
Could it be that the publication of Volume 25, Advances in Geophysics, “The Theory of Climate” so infuriated a small group of alarmists, extremists, that in their collective hatred they organized and formed the International Panel on Climate Change UN, in order to ‘end-game’ the well established physics based science of 1983.
Within volume 25, only two references to Hansen, by Manabe in Chapter 2 (very interesting his examination of ‘assumptions’) and not a reference to anything Trendberth. How delightful.
I will still reference this work for many decades to come.
Yep it’s worth reading the whole lot. Let’s hope Lewancooksy reads it too.
The story reminded me of why doping is so common in sports.
“arrogant bully” who “cozied up to students to manipulate them.”
So by twiddling his students’ work, he only screwed them figuratively, not literally? The literal one is what teachers and professors get fired over.
Ken Mitchell says:
April 29, 2013 at 6:43 pm
RAH’s rule (via Ken): If it has to have ‘science’ in the name, it isn’t science.
Corollary: If it has to have ‘smart’ in the name, it isn’t (e.g. smart grid).
Political similarity: If it has to have ‘Democratic’ in the name, it’s not a free country.
Hmmm, I think we are transforming into the States of American Democracy (well, I couldn’t resist the acronym).
Biological reality: If it has two X chromosomes, you’ve already lost, Dude.
I have long said that the climate debate seemed to have a lot in common with a scandal in the field of history a decade or so ago. If you have not read of the Michael Bellesile affair, you should. It had some close parallels – a popular theory bought lock, stock, and barrel (an apt phrase if you know the story) by a community of liberal historians; a denouncement of any disagreement from outside the community with the claim that only historians could determine the truth, insistance that the NRA was behind the attack on peer-reviewed professional studies, a claim of getting threats by mail, and an epic downfall of the theory led by the dogged work of a software programmer who was working on a degree in history, and an attorney who was an amature historian. Unfortunately, damage had already been done. The fraudulant work had been cited in court cases. I suspect some students are still citing the discredited research. Once fraud is committed it takes on a life of its own and can not be completely killed. That is easily seen today by the large number of people associating autism with vaccinations, despite the underlaying study having been shown to be fake.
DaveA.. you beat me to it !!
Lewindowsky and Cook certainly are from the same ooze as these two.
The difference is that their fraud and deceit is open for all to see, and yet still accepted !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Social science has as much relationship to real science as a soya steak has to real beef.
Sociology is not a science, so it’s not a scientist who committed fraud. Sociology is in the same league as astrology, reflexology, whateverology. You either believ ein that mess or you don’t but any resemblence to actual facts is totally absent. In fact committing fraud is more a question of intent since all sociology is a big fraud.
Thinking of dishonest behaviours, have a look at Fig 5.19 of NOAA’s Greenland Ice Sheet report Card for 2012. The right hand scale shows the equivalent rise of sea level of the projected ice melt.
Then look at the University of Colarado Sea Level rise.
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/images-terrcryo/g-fig5.19.jpg
http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/greenland_ice_sheet.html
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
Is it reasonable to ask how Greenland ice melt can go from 0% to 200% of sea level rise in a decade?
Hmm. Looks like no one has written this yet, so I guess I’ll have to (it’s a dirty job…).
Ahem.
OMG, it’s worse than we thought!!!
Jeff L says: :”Academics are far from angels, but I can’t fault them too much in that they are doing what they have to do to survive…”
Sorry, their metaphorical “survival” has jeopardized the actual survival of our entire civilization, diverted money from more worthwhile causes, promoted the use of biofuels at the cost of human lives lost to starvation, and aided and abetted a resurgence of Socialism, the failed creed that resulted in the deaths of 120,000,000 people in the 20th Century, alone. That’s twenty Holocausts. No, we can and should fault many of these academics as ethical failures and utter parasites. That is their Lysenkoist legacy. Let it be written in large letters and never forgotten.
“The field of psychology was indicted, too, ….”
Psychologist heal thyself!
Summary:
‘At least one ‘academic’ is an arrogant lying cheating bastard’
Who knew?
Average temperatures in Portugal have in the last 40 years increased at a rate of 0.5 degrees per decade – twice as fast as globally – posing major dangers to the country, a climate expert has warned.
http://theportugalnews.com/news/temperature-rise-in-portugal-twice-global-rate-poses-threats/28299
A study carried out by researchers from varous universities, showed “systematic temperature increases that can reach three to seven degrees centigrade in summer, with stronger heating in the north and central interior and a strong increment in the frequency and intensity of heatwaves” in mainland Portugal.
The Portuguese met office (IPMA) said that the weather is going to change dramatically in the coming days with a steep fall in temperatures and snow over high ground.
http://theportugalnews.com/news/springtime-with-hill-snow-and-polar-air/28297
Portugal is getting cooler because it is getting warmer ?
jorgekafkazar says:
April 29, 2013 at 11:52 pm
“lives lost to starvation, and aided and abetted a resurgence of Socialism, the failed creed that resulted in the deaths of 120,000,000 people in the 20th Century, alone. That’s twenty Holocausts. No, we can and should fault many of these academics as ethical failures and utter parasites.”
Just the other day I read another Malthusian meltdown by money manager Jeremy Grantham, the boss of despicable loudmouth Bob Ward, and one by a Club Of Rome member, both still playing the warming card and fantasizing about the limited carrying capacity of Earth; so they both still want to depopulate the planet.
Eugenics (invented by Galton, cousin of Charles Darwin) and Wamism are both pseudosciences invented and used by the Malthusian movement to achieve their goal of depopulation. And they don’t even think of themselves as evil, they constantly have to explain to everybody that this is the only way mankind can survive, thus rationalizing themselves into having the DUTY to exterminate arbitrary amounts of people.
From Stapel’s book
Report of Phil Jones testimony to Parliament
‘The most startling observation came when he was asked how often scientists reviewing his papers for probity before publication asked to see details of his raw data, methodology and computer codes. “They’ve never asked,” he said.’ *
And the biggest problem that allowed Enron to get away with stuff for so long is that the auditors never asked the hard questions…..if they asked any questions at all.
Why do we allow academics to (mostly) get away with standards of conduct that wouldn’t be acceptable as the treasurer of a small sports club? Are we so brainwashed by the laughable idea of ‘academic integrity’ that we can’t conceive of the idea that academia is awash with at least as many crooks, vagabonds and ne’erdowells as the rest of society…and in some fields seemingly a lot more?
Stapel’s story – as written in the NYT – has huge parallels with climatology. I urge you all to read it in full. I just hope Revkin has seen and understood it too.
* Fred Pearce: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-green/2010/mar/01/phil-jones-commons-emails-inquiry
Lew Skannen says:
April 29, 2013 at 8:23 pm
It is very unfortunate but at least I can take heart that it could never happen in Australia. Definitely not in the School of Psychology at UWA. That is for sure.
Well, maybe not as much in future now he’s gone to UK. But hopefully the investigations continue.
What a coincidence! Seconds before I came to WUWT this morining I was thinking:
Then what is the ‘first’ post I see? 🙂
As a budding Physicist years ago I was told, “when you need to see results cook the books”. Clearly the “mantra prevails”.
– OLD NEWS from September 2011, covered by NYT cos Strapel is plugging his new book
… Shame on the NYT and the other media which feeds the public a constructed reality instead of reality itself
– a quick Google finds Why is the New York Times publicising fraudster Stapel’s book?
Stapel
CAGW science reminds me of drug taking in cycling and other sports. Grand Prix anyone?
Now, the comment brought back President Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation. Aside from say space exploration, never could he have imagined that any science today would be funded by the federal government to the tune of eye popping billions each and every year and that’s not to mention state governments, overseas climate change spending and organizational grants to Calamatologists.
You can forget about the climate if that makes you feel good, although one might want to consider things like for instance : since the industrial revolution, burning hydrocarbons has raised the atmospheric CO2 concentration by 38%, and 38% is quite a bit.
But anyway, again you can forget about that if you want, doesn’t change much regarding the fact that one if not the prime reason of current crisis that is only starting is due to below :
http://iiscn.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/laherrere_all_liquids_production_1900-2200.jpg
Ya know, there is a prestigious journal for scientists whose results could be considered questionable. It’s called the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Why don’t they use this widely respected avenue to publish their findings?
Stapel’s pensees on modern science may help make partial amends for his wrong-doing if he manages to raise awareness about what has been happening in the newly engorged field called climate science. We would benefit from a thorough investigation, across many disciplines, of the overblown scaremongering around CO2. It was, and still is, advantageous to many to support it. But it has been a dramatic loss to society overall, and peak-loss from it may not yet be in sight.
And by nailing Stapel we have arrived at “cherry picking” by our most respected press.
Because by publicly nailing Stapel they created the fiction of an unbiased press always prepared to jump into action when scientific abuse takes place. But if Stapel had been a climate scientist the press never would ever have touched him. And that’s the true lesson of the story.
So true de Haan. Steve Goddard has caught a lot of GISS data tampering of past temperatures when Hansen was in charge. I wonder if things are going to change now? See also “Hansen – The Climate Chiropractor“.
@yt75
You say
But 38% of not very much at all is even less very much at all.
To put this in perspective. Imagine a sports game where the attendance is 10,000 (in UK – a home game for Coventry City FC averages almost exactly 10,000. No doubt there are similar places in each country). Now divide the crowd into ‘CO2’ or ‘not CO2’ in proportion to the atmosphere.
Before the industrial revolution, CO2 would represent just 3 people in the atmospheric crowd and 9,997 would be other gases. Nowadays it is 4 for CO2 and 9,996 represent the other gases.
I do not plan to wet the bed very much over this increase.
nyt75:
Your post at April 30, 2013 at 2:37 am displays very muddled thinking.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/29/how-a-scientist-becomes-a-con-man/#comment-1292242
It says
Your first sentence makes five assertions; viz.
1.
People here may “feel good” by forgetting about the climate.
But people are here because they are interested in the climate so it would make them feel bad.
2.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration is something one “might want to consider” concerning climate.
True, “one might” but other things (e.g. geographical location) or more important when considering climate.
3.
Burning hydrocarbons has raised the atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Perhaps, and perhaps not. Other things may have caused the rise.
4.
Since the industrial revolution atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen 38%.
Yes, but so what?
5.
The 38% rise is “quite a bit”.
No, it is not “quite a bit”: it is very little.
The concentration rise is from ~0.0003 to ~0.0004 of the atmosphere.
138% of of almost nothing is still almost nothing.
Then your second sentence proclaims ‘peak oil’.
The abject and utter nonsense of ‘peak oil’ has been refuted many times on WUWT. Search the archives and learn for yourself the several reasons why it is nonsense.
But, for sake of argument, let us assume that all your assertions are completely correct and consider the implications of that.
Your assertions provide the following.
(a)
If ‘peak oil’ is true then there will be a cessation of burning hydrocarbons (see your graph).
(b)
If burning hydrocarbons is causing the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration then cessation of the burning will stop the rise.
(c)
If the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is a problem for climate then stopping the rise will stop the problem.
In summation, your post only consists of muddled thinking so severe that it requires a member of the cult of AGW to spout it.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
April 30, 2013 at 3:36 am
I didn’t have the energy to address points you commented on, so thanks for putting them in the floodlight.
Latimer Alder says:
April 30, 2013 at 3:24 am
@yt75
“…
To put this in perspective. Imagine a sports game where the attendance is 10,000 (in UK – a home game for Coventry City FC averages almost exactly 10,000. No doubt there are similar places in each country). Now divide the crowd into ‘CO2′ or ‘not CO2′ in proportion to the atmosphere.
Before the industrial revolution, CO2 would represent just 3 people in the atmospheric crowd and 9,997 would be other gases. Nowadays it is 4 for CO2 and 9,996 represent the other gases.”
The problem I see is that the climate hysteric such as Weepy Bill tends to think of the original 3 fans as actually being members of the home team, and each new fan added to be one of the opposition, and surely in the near future the opposition will outnumber the loyal original 3 home team members creating devastation havoc and pain.
Having read the NYT article a couple of times now the thing that strikes me is that at least in Dutch psychology there are still a few students around who can detect fraud and have the guts to confront it.
I cannot see any of the AGW disciples ever doing that.
Poor man, he was in the wrong profession: he should have been an investment banker! Never let the truth spoil a good story..
Here is Paul Krugman “seriously” proposing that scientists should lie for a noble cause.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/27/quote-of-the-week-bonus-krugman-insanity-edition/
So I hold that scientists to not inadvertently become con-men but in full knowledge; remember Ur-warmist Steve Schneiders “we all have to choose the right balance between being efficient and being honest” quote.
These people know when they are lying.
@PaulH – I was drawn to this statement in your link: “The New York Times and TIME were both fooled by fake Stapel experiments in 2010” – I do not think it was hard to fool them. They wanted to be fooled because it fit their agenda.
He had to do it for the children.
Further evidence that psychologists are western society’s version of the witch doctor. Malcolm Muggeridge noticed it years ago
thelastdemocrat says:
“The social scientists are the ones who are having the greatest success in predicting and controlling the world.
“They have used science to re-engineer society, and we have not even noticed them doing this. Maybe these sociologists are not scientists, but they sure have been successful. You can discount them if you want. I do not, and am very concerned about how to counter-act these forces for the future of my children.”
Democrat,
Excellent observations. You’re describing the relentless assault on logic-based, values-based, capitalist-based Western culture.
The only thing missing from your observations is the fact that this assault was not the product of “science.” The successes of “social sciences” are really just codification of well-known principles of salesmanship. Identify and/or create needs in the rubes. Fulfill those needs.
The assault on our culture was the product of a finely-tuned covert influence apparatus run by a genius who understood the American psyche–Willi Muenzenberg.
Muenzenberg led a team of covert influence operators in the initial assault on America’s essence. He targeted the transmission belts of American culture–the media, education/academia, and Hollywood.
Into these centers of our culture, he introduced the message that has echoed through the decades, and has been reinforced and strengthened. In fact, Muenzenberg’s message is exactly the message of Michael Mann, Lewandowsky, McKibben, and all the other AGW cultists: “America is a racist, sexist, xenophobic, imperialist, capitalist hellhole. And it must be changed.”
This message was reinforced my Muenzenberg’s stroke of genius–he created “front groups.” These groups, with trained cheerleaders in control, repeated the message–over and over and over and over again.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s the exact message and method of operations of the AGW cult. And every other Politically Correct Progressive anti-capitalist, anti-normal issue there is. They all follow the Muenzenberg template. It works.
You ask how to counter act the operation?
First, you must recognize the tactics of your opponents, and the foundation of their belief system. Once we have this understanding, only then can we begin to win back our cultural foundations. We need to take back the media, education/academia, and Hollywood to scrub them of the PC-Prog stain.
Only then can there be an adult, logical conversation about issues like AGW.
Attempting to argue with PC-Progs with logic is useless.
Full details can be found in my book: Willing Accomplices,
http://www.willingaccomplices.com
The Scientific Method relies on replicability of observations. This can only be achieved with objective observers and the observation of objective phenomena. If the observer cannot divorce his own personality from the work, he cannot be objective. If the phenomena being observed cannot be divorced from personalities, the work cannot be objective.
Any field of study in which the ‘human consciousness’ is a key element cannot be reproducibly empiricized. For this reason sociology, psychology, and politics are not and can never be true sciences.
Ken Mitchell says:
April 29, 2013 at 6:43 pm
“Any discipline with the word ‘science’ in the name, such as ‘social science’, isn’t one.”
=========
any government with the word democratic in the name isn’t.
look at the definition of climate. climate is the average of weather over time. so, in truth climate science should not exist. it should be part of meteorology, the forecasting of weather. with “climate science” simply being the statistical analysis of weather.
the basic, unwritten assumption underlying all “climate science” is that weather is not predictable, but climate is. however, this has never been demonstrated mathematically. it is an assumption only. where is the proof that the average of a chaotic system is not chaotic? where is the mathematics showing you can average the unpredictable and achieve a predictable result?
think about it. if something is unpredictable, why should its average be any less unpredictable? if something has a predictable average, then it is itself statistically predictable from its average, which means that weather must be predictable. however, we know weather is inherently unpredictable. which means climate must be inherently unpredictable.
the IPCC at one time recognized this – that climate was unpredictable. before global warming and climate change became the end products of political correctness. however, with a change of leadership at the top, the IPCC threw this knowledge out the door and made bold predictions about climate based on computer models.
And these models told us what we already knew. that climate is no more predictable than weather given our current understanding of mathematics. maybe someday we will have the tools, but that day is not today.
the mistake is in trying to tie changes in temperature to observed events. any correlation will be simply coincidental. it is no different than witch hunting. something bad happens. the person standing next to the place must have caused it. the weather turns bad, the evil eye at work. the climate turns bad, many evil eyes at work.
yt75 says:
April 30, 2013 at 2:37 am
But anyway, again you can forget about that if you want, doesn’t change much regarding the fact that one if not the prime reason of current crisis that is only starting is due to below :
==========
Assume for a minute that what you say is true, that the source of CO2 (hydrocarbons) is limited and we are at the peak. Assume that is true.
That means there is nothing to worry about from CO2, because the supply of hydrocarbons will soon be decreasing, which means the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere from industrial activity is self limiting. There is no need to pass any laws or any taxes to try and control CO2, because the supply is limited and will soon run out.
Thus, when people say there is something to worry about, that means they do not believe the supply of hydrocarbons will run out any time soon. That in fact they must believe that the supply is so large as to pose a serious threat. So what is it? Are hydrocarbons in short supply and likely to run out, or are they so plentiful that they may create a problem?
If hydrocarbons are in short supply then the market will replace them with something else that is not in short supply. Governments cannot do this because there has never been a single government that has withstood economic realities of the market, except through mass imprisonment, starvation and execution of its own population. In which case we have much more to fear from our governments than we have to fear from CO2.
Given that this was in the NYT, I’m betting (not an unsafe bet BTW) that if asked how this applies to AGW and Climate Science, they would argue tooth and nail that AGW/Climatology is different! Those noble souls could never do such a thing. Cognitive dissonance at its finest.
In other words there has been a trace rise of the trace gas co2. Head for the hills! In the past co2 levels have been well, well over 4,000ppm that’s well, well over today’s levels. Stay calm, and peace.
Fraud in the social sciences is not new. Think Sybil and multiple personality disorder in the 1970s. That was a total fake. Think of how many crimiinal court cases were pled on this premise, and won or dismissed.
Find the peer reviewers and sack them, too. A scientist who is a serial f r a u d is no less heinous than a serial pedophile in the clergy. It takes only one such to make the entire population suspect because it is that population that has failed to out the offender. The failure of a few good people to respond appropriately to these kinds of behavior should go on the public record. We have a right, as tax payers who fund this, to know of the ethical failures, who committed them and where, and who failed to do the right thing.
The co-author quoted above defending themself by saying, paraphrase, “I didn’t collect the data” is no less guilty by having unquestioningly used that data to create a complete fabrication. Forever after, in any peer reviewed literature, that person’s name shall include an asterisk along with all the letters of learning to indicate their part in fakery. Such is the burden of real crime against science funded by the public.
Richard Courtney, it is possible to agree on some matters while disagreeing about others.
You make a common mistake about peak fossil fuel ideas, naturally occurring liquid hydrocarbons (oil) being the most prominent. Peak oil does not say the world runs out, which your post asserts. It says the ability to extract more per year peaks and then declines at rates which are more or less predictable. That has already happened with conventional global reserves. The debate is only about when, not whether, that will happen with unconventional reserves including tight (shale) oil, tar sands (Orinoco), and bitumen sands (Athabasca). There is much hype in the press, and a lot of junk ‘science’ including by Maugerei, who used convention reservoir decline curves to estimate shale reserve potential. That is a much more egregious error than UHI in land based temperature records. Individual fracked shale wells decline from whatever initial production to stripper status in 3 years, resulting in the Red Queen problem. And, even taking the new EIA estimate for US shale TRR ( half from the Monterey, which is dubious given its faulting and folding) the potential for all plays in the worlds most endowed country ( yup, the US) is 24Bbbl. That is about 1/3 of the REMAINING reserves in Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field by itself.
And you probably also confuse resource in place with technically recoverable reserves ( independent of price). And you probably project vast increases in recovery factors from new more expensive technology that somehow overcomes the inherent limitations of reservoir and source rock geophysics. Heck, you might even believe in the abiogenic origins of hydrocarbons.
I have yet to see anyone at WUWT do objective science and fact based postings on any of that, unlike the excellent commentary on climate change to be found here.
FOR WHAT ITS WORTH, the IMF in 2012 published a review of peak oil plus their own mathematic and econometric models about it. Their conclusion is peak annual production in the mid 90mbpd range by about 2020 at a real ( in 2012 dollars) price of about $200/ bbl. IMF working paper 12/109, The future of oil: geology versus technology. One contemporary place to start an education.
As a researcher, I know full well how enticing it can be to present less than the full truth by cherry picking the results. You don’t even need malfeasance – only an eagerness to substantiate your own ideas.
But scientists are not lawyers. It’s not our job to advocate a position at almost any cost, but to present the truth even when we don’t like it. We must be our own work’s greatest skeptic. Not easy to do consistently.
Rud Istvan:
Your untrue suggestions that I believe in abiogenic oil and whatever are twaddle.
Peak oil is nonsense. Search the WUWT archives to find out all the many and various reasons why it is complete bunkum according to all its definitions including yours.
For now, consider this.
Nobody bothers to look for an alternative to a resource when it is abundantly available. They don’t bother to look because an abundantly available resource is cheap to obtain in both money and effort.
If a resource begins to become scarce then it becomes expensive to obtain in both money and effort. So, people look for alternatives. The alternatives can be a new source of the resource or an alternative to the resource. And the alternatives often turn out to have advantages.
In the case of crude oil, both kinds of alternatives exist.
Technology continues to enable crude oil to be obtained from previously unavailable sources.
Synthetic crude oil (syncrude) can be made from coal or natural gas. For two decades it has been possible to obtain syncrude at economically competitive cost and price with crude by converting coal using the Liquid Solvent Extraction (LSE) process.
There is sufficient coal to suffice for at least the next 300 years. And nobody can know if crude will be needed 300 years in the future: 300 years ago there was an immense need for hay to feed horses but not now. Peak hay was not a limit on progress.
Peak Oil is nonsense.
Richard
As a rule, journal reviewers don’t ask to see the raw data. In any field.
There will have to be a change in this practice—in psychology and in climate science at the very least.
To me, what’s scariest about Stapel is that after the Levelt committee report came out, with gory details about all the publications employing fake or doctored data, there was strong pushback from social psychologists against a chapter in the report describing widespread unscientific practices that fall short of doctoring data.
Apparently many research psychologists now believe themselves entitled to quit collecting data as soon as they have attained statistically significant results, or to swap control groups between experiments in order to get a significant difference between control and experimental groups in the experiment of interest.
PS. Psychological Science published Lewandowsky, Oberauer, and Gignac. Previously, Psych Science published two articles co-authored by Stapel, both of which reported fake data. There should be some overt soul-searching going on about the way they review and edit…
An example of Noble Cause Corruption from climate science:
“The paper I refer to as a “small private opinion poll” is of course the Zickfeld et al PNAS paper. The list of pollees in the Zickfeld paper are largely the self-same people responsible for the largely bogus analyses that I’ve criticised over recent years, and which even if they were valid then, are certainly outdated now. Interestingly, one of them stated quite openly in a meeting I attended a few years ago that he deliberately lied in these sort of elicitation exercises (i.e. exaggerating the probability of high sensitivity) in order to help motivate political action.”
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/2/1/james-annan-on-climate-sensitivity.html
Shades of Bellesales, whose phony book, Arming America, was awarded the Pulitzer prize by Big Academia, which looked down its nose at Outsider criticism on the Internet.
PS: Bellesales book was politically correct, so it “followed” that it was factually correct (to Big Academia).
I think we have to look at how research is funded. As long as there is an incentive to enhance or outright falsify research in order to keep the grant money flowing, it’ll happen. Relying solely on personal integrity is not working.
Perhaps an aggressive program of recapturing grant money in the event of fraud is needed. Once academics and universities have to repay serious money for fraudulent research, there will be much less of it. The only problem with this approach is that there will be a reliance on paperwork and procedure rather than common sense when deciding if there is or isn’t fraud (see Medicare/Medicaid fraud prosecutions – the vast majority are simple paperwork violations rather than intent to defraud).
Actually, all that’s needed is an insider whistleblower.
In fact, it’s likely the only way that such fraud will be uncovered. Viz the fraudster in Holland. It was his grad students who did him in.
AGW climate “scientists” are surrounded by the same type of insiders.
In the US, we have a law called the False Claims Act. It allows anyone with knowledge of schemes that defraud the US government of money to file a lawsuit. When the fraud is proven (using the insider’s knowledge and testimony), the whistleblower receives a large percentage of the money clawed back from the fraudsters and their home institutions.
See this article for full details on the on-going search for insiders willing to risk their reputations and careers (or make them) in Climate “Science” for the satisfaction of revealing the fraud:
http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2010/01/04/climategate-michael-manns-very-unhappy-whistleblower-new-year/
Insiders are virtually the only way that such complex frauds are uncovered. See Enron, the Dutch professor, and Bernie Madoff.
Climategate was the first insider tipoff. If more follow, with the smoking guns from the labs themselves, the whole scam will go down in flames very quickly.
Encourage your friends to encourage their friends to share the details of the False Claims Act with all the academics they know.
“Crowd-sourcing” helped to find the Boston bombers. It can help uncover a whistleblower too.
Can you imagine how miserable your life is if you’re a lowly grad student doing all the fake number-crunching for a world-renowned “scientist?” They will earn their just desserts!
Kajaluk: The age of deceit, actually Benghazi and Boston come to mind.
I’m not sure but, Peter Gleick may be looking for help.
Is Professor Stapel will to steal as well as lie?
We know he can forge documents?
Can he navigate the internet and run a printer?
Also, Lew just got a new job. He may need help making up data.
I’ll see if I can locate their email addresses.
cn
His agreeing? (as in “your” agreement with climate scientists, e.g. in a contract or sales agreement)
Or is it that he is agreeing? (as in “you are” agreeing with climate scientists)
What did you mean? I had to stop reading at that point since what had been written was not clear.
/one man crusade to educate on the proper use of the contraction “you are” vis-a-vis “you’re”
.
This can’t possibly happen in the U.S. because everyone is involved in the con, from the grant administrators and funding agency heads on up the line. It takes a con village.
The common factor that economics, sociology, anthropology, and psychology have is that they are all attempting to directly study human behavior. Like climatology, they’re dealing with a complex system, even a quasi-chaotic one with poor correlation between strength of input and and output. That is, the subject is extraordinarily difficult to study and impossible to fully systematize, let alone forecast. The divide between these fields of study is not so much between “real” and “unreal” science as between “hard” science with sane, fixed outcomes, and “difficult” science with all the simplicity of a brawl between drunks in a dark alley. In the world of academics, where publish or perish is the rule and the grants you pull in have a direct influence on your chances at tenure, making up “elegant” fictions is far easier than conducting research with ham-handed, idealistic graduate students who not only want to find the “truth” about a problem, but tend to prefer their own ideas.
The template for social engineering powered by junk science was discovered by Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring. A few excerpts from a Forbes article:
“…But the fears she raised were based on gross misrepresentations and scholarship so atrocious that, if Carson were an academic, she would be guilty of egregious academic misconduct. Her observations about DDT have been condemned by many scientists. In the words of Professor Robert H. White-Stevens, an agriculturist and biology professor at Rutgers University, “If man were to follow the teachings of Miss Carson, we would return to the Dark Ages, and the insects and diseases and vermin would once again inherit the earth.”
As he explained in “The Lies of Rachel Carson,” a stunning, point by point refutation, “it simply dawned on me that that Rachel Carson was not interested in the truth about [pesticides] and that I was being duped along with millions of other Americans.” He demolished Carson’s arguments and assertions, calling attention to critical omissions, faulty assumptions, and outright fabrications.
The legacy of Rachel Carson is that tens of millions of human lives – mostly children in poor, tropical countries – have been traded for the possibility of slightly improved fertility in raptors. This remains one of the monumental human tragedies of the last century.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2012/09/05/rachel-carsons-deadly-fantasies/
A majority of the populous operates on emotion, wishful thinking, magical thinking and hearsay. They have neither the time, nor the inclination to get to the bottom of things. One of these, college educated and nearing retirement age, recently informed me that the Arctic and Greenland have melted and are ice-free.
How about all the “psychological studies” that generally show those with Conservative political beliefs are “different” … and almost always inferior or defective in some manner to those with Liberal beliefs. Ditto AGW Deniers.
Just one example
Nature Neuroscience 10, 1246 – 1247 (2007)
Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism
“Political scientists and psychologists have noted that, on average, conservatives show more structured and persistent cognitive styles, whereas liberals are more responsive to informational complexity, ambiguity and novelty”
I didn’t want to buy the article … but the odds are there is probably a citation from Stapel in the article and that All the authors are of the Liberal persuasion.
So, when I simply changed my political position from voting for Liberal policies and politicians when I was in my twenties to being a Conservative, my entire psyche and morality did a flip-flop.
Who knew.
I thought I was just making a political decision when I pulled a voting lever … not an emotional and psychological make-over. OSHA better put warnings in each election booth on the psychological dangers of voting.
rabbit says:
April 30, 2013 at 7:31 am
As a researcher, I know full well how enticing it can be to present less than the full truth by cherry picking the results. You don’t even need malfeasance – only an eagerness to substantiate your own ideas.
But scientists are not lawyers. It’s not our job to advocate a position at almost any cost, but to present the truth even when we don’t like it. We must be our own work’s greatest skeptic. Not easy to do consistently.
————————————————
rabbit, it’s not done consistently and if Lew and sociology and the Team and climastrology are an indication of the problem it’s not done much at all.
cn
I believe this is where the fight should go.
Here are some of my very basic requirements.
If you use public money for any research you must:
Show you are a good steward with our money and our data.
Explain your decision processes you made along the way such as: Why you chose that site, which data you ignored and why, provide all data with all computer programs that enable future validation of your research claims, etc.
It’s incumbent upon the researcher and the peer reviewers to prove the case.
Plus above all else you mustshow your work.
Research done on the taxpayer dime belongs to the people.
You can’t get much more socialist than that.
Michael Moore could explain that to Michael Mann.
Nah! You can’t tell Mann anything.
cn
oops
cn
Kent Clizbe says:
April 30, 2013 at 5:54 am
“Attempting to argue with PC-Progs with logic is useless.”
Exactly.
Alinsky, Rules For Radicals:
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
In climate science:
Make skeptics play by scientific rules and make them work on their refutations to an ever growing avalanche of bogus warmist papers. Ignore the refutations and pump your bogus warmist papers into the media outlets the warmists control (Reuters is controlled by Pascal Lamy, a globalist ultra warmist, for instance). Whenever a skeptic dares to deviate from the scientific rulebook cry foul, but ignore it yourself to churn out more quantity.
What we have here is a Rasputin like quality; pump the politicians full of disinformation until the politicians are scared sh*tless themselves and grant you every wish; exotic locations for warmist conferences, all the supercomputers you want, and grants, grants, grants.
@Rob
“It is quite interesting psychologically. He says he originally did faithfully accurate attempts to work out complicated relationships and found journals were not ‘into that’. ”
“So, your paper here says that your experiment was completely inconclusive and more testing is needed? Get back to us after you finish the additional testing and quit wasting our time.”
Stapel worked at Tilburg University, the only university in The Netherlands that granted Al Gore a Honorary degree (Doctor Honoris Causa).
Explains a lot about the quality standards of this university, doesn’t it?
Kent Clizbe says:
April 30, 2013 at 10:26 am
Actually, all that’s needed is an insider whistleblower.
In fact, it’s likely the only way that such fraud will be uncovered. Viz the fraudster in Holland. It was his grad students who did him in.
———————
I get where you’re coming from but there is no fraud.
At least we can’t prove everyone is lying.
Each researcher spouts his opinion of his research and what it told him is his truth.
With no standards of data gathering, data handling and adjustment, data storing, the peer review process and public dissemination of everything, they pretty much do as they chose.
They even have their own programs for selecting and displaying their findings and we are not allowed to have them and often not even to know what they are.
I believe every phase of climastrology from site selection to choosing data to be included or excluded to how much to adjust the temperature up is completely subjective and that’s why they don’t give us their data and methods.
It’s not that they’re lying but I doubt they can justify their decisions.
Too many gut feelings. Too much gigo.
cn
Chuck,
“I get where you’re coming from but there is no fraud.
At least we can’t prove everyone is lying.”
You can’t prove it now, that is. We suspect it, though.
With an insider whistleblower, you can learn the truth.
Everything now is supposition and conjecture, based on brilliant analysis from WUWT, McIntyre, ClimateDepot and many others.
Only an insider, who works in the labs of the AGW cult, will be able to bring the truth to light.
Just do a find and replace for Stapel to Mann.
“It was a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth”
Makes me think of this.
To all those seeking to deflect by claiming that “sociology is not science”, I call hooey. Physics is the hardest of hard sciences – and you can’t do anything beyond freshman mechanics without some level of statistical analysis. The researchers in the physical sciences are just as subject to the cognitive biases and temptations described in this article as any other researchers.
How very dare you!!!!!!
Climate Scientists are living saints so I hope you are all struck down with a plague of flatulence. That you disbelievers dare to think that climate scientists are not different than the rest if the populace – subject to the same human frailties – shows how warped your thinking is. Unspeakable things must happen to you all for your blaspheme (call it green karma) because clearly you hate the Earth Mother and want her to prostitute herself for your big oil funded pollution fantasies*.
/sarc
* p.s. I am still seeking funding for ‘climate change affects breasts and buttocks’. Interested editors can leave a donation behind the 2nd left sink of Acton Town station.
a unit of measurement for the fineness of silk or nylon or rayon; “with an evening dress one wears 10 denier stockings”
I commented the following on Retraction Watch, two days ago:
Stapel mainly improved the efficiency of this kind of nonsense science a bit by making up the data. He has been a fraud, but at least he is now talking about it, and this may help science worldwide.
Many people are still angry with Stapel, but they would better focus their anger on still ongoing nonsense science and politically correct fraud. For instance, the renowned journal Psychological Science has an absolutely insane and harmful paper by Stephan Lewandowsky in press. Why are the good psychologists not protesting? And it is getting worse. I quote Jo Nova today:
– Over Easter, psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky moved from Perth to Bristol (lucky UK). He’s the psychologist who is expert in an imaginary group of humans called “Climate deniers”. Neither he, nor anyone else has ever met one but he discovered their imaginary motivations by surveying the confused groups who hate them. As you would, right?
None of the so-called researchers can explain what scientific observations a climate denier, denies. It’s an abuse of English, profoundly unscientific, but has some success in shutting down public debate, if that’s what you want.
Can humans change the weather and stop the storms? If you know we can, Lewandowsky calls that “science”. If you wonder “how much”, you are a denier.
The Royal Society, possibly reaching a tipping point in its rush to abject scientific decay, has immediately awarded him the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.
http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/an-illuminating-profile-of-diederik-stapel-in-the-new-york-times-magazine/
@ thelastdemocrat, Kent Clizbe
Good to paint the global picture. I had not heard of Willi Muenzenberg, the inspiration for the Frankfurt School. A big struggle for the mind is needed to save the West. One battle is in the climate science area. In my (&Stapel’s) country, I am spending part of my time fighting fraudulent and nonsensical “science” in criminology and islam studies.
(As I wrote earlier on Retraction Watch: ) Two scientific fraud complaints by me have been rejected at all official levels. One of these cases is “Dutch criminologists lied”; here is an overview in English: http://www.keizersenkleren.nl/?p=259
The worst part is not played by the involved scientists, but by the National Committee for Scientific Integrity (LOWI), which is a collaboration of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) and the universities. LOWI had organized a hearing, for which it did not allow me to make a recording. Afterwards they made up a false representation of the hearing, insinuating I would have opposed the disputed study for its low social relevance. The LOWI chairman twisted my words, and he made me look like an enemy of academic freedom. Less than a year later the Stapel affair “shocked” the KNAW, and this LOWI chairman led the main investigation. KNAW’s crocodile tears irritate me much more Stapel’s deceit.
“There are scarce resources, you need grants, you need money, there is competition,” he said. “Normal people go to the edge to get that money. …”
–
It makes you wonder how many good, honest scientists have been left without funding because they couldn’t compete with the liars and cheats who are better “salesmen” and who can more easily fool government bureaucrats. The ones who tend to get funding are the ones who tell them what they want to hear. The worst part is: When you subsidize fraud, you get more of it; and when you punish honesty in science, you get less of it.
In reply to
yt75 says:
April 30, 2013 at 2:37 am
You can forget about the climate if that makes you feel good, although one might want to consider things like for instance : since the industrial revolution, burning hydrocarbons has raised the atmospheric CO2 concentration by 38%, and 38% is quite a bit.
But anyway, again you can forget about that if you want, doesn’t change much regarding the fact that one if not the prime reason of current crisis that is only starting is due to below :
William:
…yt75,
Your post illustrates the communication gap between well meaning CO2 haters who are concerned about ‘dangerous’ warming and the so called ‘skeptics’. The communication gap exists as the ‘skeptics’ discuss all aspects of CO2, climate mechanisms, and observations concerning 20th century temperature changes while those pushing the paradigm that CO2 is a dangerous polluting gas hide the data and analysis in published peer reviewed papers that indicates the warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 rise will be benign (less than 1C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 with most of the warming occurring at high latitudes which expands the biosphere.)
The key reason why the warming due to doubling of atmospheric CO2 will be benign is that planetary clouds in the tropics increase or decrease to resist forcing changes by reflecting more or less sunlight off into space. This mechanism works to stabilize planetary temperature. The IPCC’s general circulation models assumed planetary cloud cover in the tropics and water vapor would amplify the warming due to CO2. Observations due not support the assumption that water vapor is amplifying the CO2 forcing. Without amplification, IPCC model predicts roughly 1C warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2. There is no dangerous global warming problem. The current warming is observed warming is primarily at high latitudes and caused the biosphere to expand. The tree line has extended a couple of hundred miles further north and there are more shrubs at higher latitudes.
What is odd, surreal, is that if there is no dangerous warming problem increases to atmospheric CO2 are unequivocally beneficial to the biosphere and humanity for the following reasons.
Higher CO2 is significantly beneficial for all plants on the planet. Plant growth rates increase when atmospheric CO2 increases up until roughly 1200 ppm. The optimum level of CO2 for plants is around 1000 ppm to 1200 ppm. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 into their greenhouse (to reach 1000 ppm to 1200 ppm) to increase yield and reduce growing times. Cereal crop yield wheats, rice, barley, and so on yields increase by roughly 40% for CO2 doubling from 280 ppm to 560 ppm.
C3 plants (all plants except for grasses) lose roughly 50% of the water they absorb at their roots due to a process called trans-respiration. When atmosphere CO2 rise the C3 plants produce less stomata on their leaves which reduces water loss. This has enabled plants to move in desert regions reducing desertification.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030509084556.htm
Greenhouse Gas Might Green Up The Desert; Weizmann Institute Study Suggests That Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Might Cause Forests To Spread Into Dry Environments
The Weizmann team found, to its surprise, that the Yatir forest is a substantial “sink” (CO2-absorbing site): its absorbing efficiency is similar to that of many of its counterparts in more fertile lands. These results were unexpected since forests in dry regions are considered to develop very slowly, if at all, and thus are not expected to soak up much carbon dioxide (the more rapidly the forest develops the more carbon dioxide it needs, since carbon dioxide drives the production of sugars). However, the Yatir forest is growing at a relatively quick pace, and is even expanding further into the desert.
Plants need carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, which leads to the production of sugars. But to obtain it, they must open pores in their leaves and consequently lose large quantities of water to evaporation. The plant must decide which it needs more: water or carbon dioxide. Yakir suggests that the 30 percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the start of the industrial revolution eases the plant’s dilemma. Under such conditions, the plant doesn’t have to fully open the pores for carbon dioxide to seep in – a relatively small opening is sufficient. Consequently, less water escapes the plant’s pores. This efficient water preservation technique keeps moisture in the ground, allowing forests to grow in areas that previously were too dry.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
The green shoots of recovery are showing up on satellite images of regions including the Sahel, a semi-desert zone bordering the Sahara to the south that stretches some 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers). Images taken between 1982 and 2002 revealed extensive regreening throughout the Sahel, according to a new study in the journal Biogeosciences.
The study suggests huge increases in vegetation in areas including central Chad and western Sudan.
In the eastern Sahara area of southwestern Egypt and northern Sudan, new trees—such as acacias—are flourishing, according to Stefan Kröpelin, a climate scientist at the University of Cologne’s Africa Research Unit in Germany.
“Shrubs are coming up and growing into big shrubs. This is completely different from having a bit more tiny grass,” said Kröpelin, who has studied the region for two decades
“Before, there was not a single scorpion, not a single blade of grass,” he said.
“Now you have people grazing their camels in areas which may not have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years. You see birds, ostriches, gazelles coming back, even sorts of amphibians coming back,” he said.
“The trend has continued for more than 20 years. It is indisputable.”
The extreme AGW paradigm pushers are hiding observations and analysis that indicates a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will result in less than 1C warming. An obvious observation to support the assertion that there will be less than 1Cwarming is there was been no warming for the last 16 years. The observations indicate something is fundamentally incorrect with the general circulation models that ‘project’ a warming of 3C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 0.028% to 0.056% is absurdly high.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/global-warming-slowdown-the-view-from-space/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/CMIP5-global-LT-vs-UAH-and-RSS.png
The general circulation models that were used to project a warming of 3C for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 predicted and require to create the 3C warming, that would be warming of the tropical troposphere at around 8 km above the planet’s surface. The warming at this level in the atmosphere occurs due to a predicted increase in water vapour at this altitude and due to increased CO2 at altitude in the atmosphere. The tropic tropospheric warming at around 8km then warms the tropics by long wave radiation. There is no observed tropospheric warming at 8 km. One of the major physical reasons for the lack of warming is found in Lindzen and Choi (2011) analysis (See link to paper below) that low level cloud cover in the tropics increases or decreases in to resist planetary temperature forcing changes by reflecting more or less sunlight off into space.
This is a link to a review paper that was prepared by EPA’s own scientist that supports the assertion that the research and analysis does not support the extreme AGW paradigm. The EPA buried the report. The EPA and IPCC of course are completely ignoring the data and logic that indicates the majority of the 20th/21st warming was not due to the rise in atmospheric CO2.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/endangermentcommentsv7b1.pdf
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf
“ A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions
We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 ‘Climate of the 20th Century’ model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data.”
http://www.johnstonanalytics.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/LindzenChoi2011.235213033.pdf
“On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications by Richard S. Lindzen and Yong-Sang Choi
We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. …. … CO2, a relatively minor greenhouse gas, has increased significantly since the beginning of the industrial age from about 280 ppmv to about 390 ppmv, presumably due mostly to man’s emissions. This is the focus of current concerns. However, warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1C (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of well mixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007). This modest warming is much less than current climate models suggest for a doubling of CO2.
Social psychology died when Stanley Milgram was bullied into retirement. Since then no proper scientist would dare enter that field of study. Just look at the type of hypothesis that Stapel was proposing – litter makes you racist, and eating meat makes you aggressive. These are not scientific hypothesis, but they are Pythagorean ideals which should be enough to set of anyone’s BS meter.
“It was a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth,”
Hmmn,….. however Keats had a different approach-
‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’
And then there is confusing a sociologist with a scientist…I don’t think sociologists are well versed in scientific method.
Kids here in the UK are being pushed into ‘social sciences’ at 16. You ask anyone of this age what they’re going to do from 16 to 18 and the answer is an ‘ology’, it’s quite bizarre.
Of course most of them give up after a couple of terms and change to hairdressing or car maintenance; it’s almost as if the teaching staff feed their confidence by suggesting they’re ‘clever’ enough to do a Maureen Lipman ‘ology’ knowing full well that they will ‘fail’, which is nonsense of course as hairdressing/car maintenance is far more likely to earn them a living wage than an ‘ology’, and thus learn a lesson in humility.
Of course the teachers pushing this agenda should know that what it actually does is cause them to feel failures; I guess they never studied psychology.
Enjoy:
http://youtu.be/vEfKEzX9QLE
Al Gore thumbed his nose at the world and DARED anyone to indict the people he depended on, to run his energy markets manipulation scheme.
He told his believers to “do whatever is necessary” including “occupying” (that means sabotage through any dishonest means that can be shown to be one of ‘good will’ for ‘the country’ or for ‘future generations of children’ etc.
He encourages it today and it is a bigger crime syndicate than anything President Grant ever dreamed.
It’s crime on an eNORmous scale, the crime of simply everyone banding together in a convulsion of lying, character assassination, racial-ethnic bigotry against the types most likely to be against such,
accompanied by wholesale looting of anything one thinks one can get away with stealing.
Over all this: Al Gore’s notorious energy market manipulations to give the Occidental Oil Stocks he’d been left by his dad – IN THE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SECTOR –
some value.
It’s crime on a scale world wide too big to be quantified, an anarchist social democrat’s wet dream Crime as demanded necessary to ‘save’ civilization
while dismantling it and going shopping with the proceeds.
While threatening those WITH anything that they’d better get used to the new paradigm. If you’re ambitious prepare to feed everyone whether you want to or not.
There is a lot of qualifying going on along social and historical lines about the social sciences by commenters who are very negative about the social sciences.
Can you spot the paradox?
richardscourtney says:
April 30, 2013 at 7:41 am
Rud Istvan:..
Peak oil is nonsense.
____________________
I for one find your comment Richard to be wrong. Not surprising, as most who trash the peak oil theory conveniently ignore the fact that oil now costs 4 times as much as back in 2004-2005, when we expected peak oil to hit. It did.
The fact that we now extract from other (non conventional, expensive) sources is irrelevent to the prediction. Virtually all the big old fields around the world are in decline.
I’ve written a whole article more or less on this subject on my blog which might interest people: “Academic Consensus v. Common sense Scepticism”
While sleaze is everywhere, it is particularly notable in academia that is infected with the anti-human notions of Post-Modernism and Marxism. (Read “Higher Superstition: The Academic Left’s Quarrel With Science” for an extensive exposition. Joseph A Olseon makes a brief reference to PM on April 29, 2013 t 7:11pm.)
Note the academic’s distinction between business and his work. Typically they want a free ride, not having to justify the cost of their work to anyone. While many people do not want to do the selling, in the real world they work for someone who does or hires sales specialists. But a successful enterprise ensures that sales and product research/development work together, or at least directs both to achieve the end result of good products that enough people want or a few are willing to pay well for. (That’s the case with consultants as well. Sales people have to provide feedback – the case of Black and Decker’s development of the first consumer-priced two-speed electric drill for example, designers have to ask questions of sales people.) For academics, the selling is often done by university administration, but apparently they want the academics to participate.
“Double blind funding of research” urged y “Jeff L” is wrong, as it further divorces researchers from reality thus reinforces the mind-body split that is at the root of the bad ideas. (That’s the notion from Plato of a real world we cannot know (except through priests – which academics try to set themselves up as), and the unreal world we live in (which they position as bad). In contrast Aristotle talked of reality – “A is A”.) Mark C’s idea of aggressive fraud detection is better, though government-funded institutions are bureaucracies thus unlikely to be effective. (Many businesses can’t – a major avionics company failed to eliminate dishonest management despite many fancy programs and years of trying.) Louis makes a good point about honest scientists losing out – that’s why we have a justice system in general, the first line in organizations is management (aided by internal investigators in some cases – unfortunately IHR and legal departments tend to obstruct).
Recognize the funding for academics comes from voters, who fail to foster and elect sensible honest people.
An example of the PM/M methods in a different field and ideology is the article that some defenders of the Catholic church’s treatment of Galileo refer to. The article is a smear attempt, but what’s really interesting is the combination of facts and suppositions. I suspect the article was written by two different people – one provided some facts, the other wrote an introduction and conclusion.
Always good to remind ourselves of how easy it can be to err ethically. Common in life – a continuum from “little white lies” to criminal behaviour, including by politicians and priests (noting a significant proportion abused children).
Complete with excuses made by others, often on the basis of “family” support, often a “clique” mentality (sometimes “good old boys network” of implicit collusion, as simple as committee appointments given only to people who will go along with the clique).
Neville Chamberlain’s excusing of Hitler is a huge example from history – obviously Hitler was a war-mongering devious person, Chamberlain evaded that reality.
(Of course many German voters are also at fault – they elected Hitler, then did not stop him when he grabbed powers. The roots of that failure are chronicled in Leonard Peikoff’s book “The Ominous Parallels” (between Nazi Germany and trends in the US).)
The foundation is ignoring reality –human life is in reality and requires productive effort to sustain. That requires use of the mind, rationally – figuring out what is edible (different colours of the same plant can be safe or toxic), protecting oneself against the elements, avoiding physical dangers (deranged individuals, wild animals, floods), etc.
One little-recognized result of dishonesty is corruption of one’s own mind – warping the thinking skills needed for life. People do compartmentalize, and con others into supporting them (Stapel, priests, and politicians being examples).
JP Miller says: on May 2, 2013 at 12:03 pm
“Is that really the message you want to send to students, prospective students, and the community at large?“
Well, yes, it is what they want.
See my early post about their tactics.
(Their message is one of hatred and using force, they hope to train students to their ideology and incite many people.)
Meanwhile, I am ROFL at Defender Curtis’ reference to philosopher Hume, an anti-human follower of Kant, whose ideas led to Marxism and its cousin National Socialism (Nazi).
Defender Curtis has his interests backwards – if one does not start with epistemology (method of knowledge needed to understand life) one cannot determine ethics, because one will not have a criteria to judge what is ethical.