Current peer review science, by attempting to explain away model failure, in fact confirms that the science is wrong
Guest essay by David M. Hoffer
It has become a favorite tactic amongst trolls to declare their belief in peer reviewed science. With this simple strategy, they at once excuse themselves from the need to know anything about the science, and at the same time seek to discredit skeptic arguments on the grounds that, not having been published in peer reviewed journals, they may be dismissed out of hand.
A retreat to authoritarian arguments in the face of dead simple observations is not new. It is a repeat of history. Not having learned from it, we appear to be condemned to repeat it. But both history and the current peer reviewed science are, if one steps back and looks at the big picture, on the skeptic side.
In the fifth century BC, Empedocles theorized that one could see by virtue of rays emanating from one’s eyes. Falsifying this notion required no more than pointing out that one cannot see in a dark room. Despite this simple observation, his theory enjoyed substantial support for the next 1600 years.
Galileo died while under house arrest for supporting the notion that the earth orbited the sun. His was convicted in part on the basis of peer reviewed literature of the time insisting that the movement of the planets as observed from the earth could be explained by the planets simply reversing direction in orbit from time to time. For nearly two thousand years, into the early 1800’s, when people fell ill, the peer reviewed literature confirmed that the best course of action was to let some blood out of them. The simple observation that death rates increased when this treatment was applied was dismissed out of hand on the premise that, if it was true, it would appear in medical journals. Sound familiar?
History is replete with examples of what seems today to be utterly absurd ideas. Ideas which stubbornly refuse to die, sustained in part by the equally absurd notion that evidence to the contrary was not to be accepted simply because it hadn’t appeared in the “right” publications. But is the notion of climate science today as easily falsified by simple observation? I submit that it is. We have the climate models themselves to upon which to rely.
For what are the climate models other than the embodiment of the peer reviewed science? Is there a single model cited by the IPCC that claims to not be based on peer reviewed science? Of course there isn’t. Yet simple observation shows that the models, and hence the peer reviewed literature upon which they are based, are wrong. We have none other than the IPCC themselves to thank for showing us that.
The leaked Second Order Draft of IPCC AR5 laid bare the failure of the models to predict the earth’s temperature going forward in time. In fact, if one threw out all but the best 5% of the model results…they would still be wrong, and obviously so. They all run hotter than reality. Exposed for the world to see that the models (and hence the science upon which they are based) had so utterly failed, the IPCC responded by including older models they had previously declared obsolete as now being part of the current literature:
Even with those older and supposedly obsolete models included, the models look to be complete failures. In other words, confronted with the data showing that thousands are dying from bloodletting, the IPCC is resurrecting old studies showing that three or four patients recovered once in an old study from a long time ago. They are point blank asking you to believe that planets reverse direction in orbit quite of their own volition. They’ve contrived a theory that you can’t see in the dark because the rays from your eyes must interact with light to work.
As ridiculous as that may seem, for the IPCC, it is (literally) even worse than that. For this we have the foremost climate scientists on the planet to thank.
Kevin Trenberth, arguably the most politically powerful climate scientist on earth, famously lamented in the ClimateGate Emails that we cannot account for “the missing heat”, a tacit admission that the models are wrong. Since then we’ve seen multiple papers suggesting that perhaps the heat is being sequestered in the deep oceans where, conveniently, we cannot measure it. If true, this also invalidates the models, since they predicted no such thing.
Dr Roy Spencer’s paper suggests that the heat is escaping to space. If he’s right, the models are wrong. More recently we have the paper by Cowtan and Way, which tries to make the case that the heat is hiding in places on earth where we have no weather station or satellite data. Pretty selective that heat, going where nobody can measure it, but not where we can. If they are right, then not a single model predicted any such thing, and so, once again, the models would be wrong. Spencer’s paper stands apart from the others because it doesn’t twist itself into absurd contortions in a blatant attempt to preserve the CAGW storyline. But make no mistake about it, all these papers are being published, not because the models (and the science they are predicted upon) are right, but because they are wrong, and obviously so.
No longer is the debate in regard to if the models are wrong. The debate is now about why the models are wrong. The models having fallen, the peer reviewed science they purport to represent falls with them.
But you need not believe me in that regard.
Just the peer reviewed science by the foremost climate scientists on earth.
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re: MarkB says: December 30, 2013 at 12:51 pm
Again, hoping to launch a good debate or discussion is NOT trolling. In fact, it can easily be far removed from anything approaching trolling. Trolling is when someone posts something they don’t even necessarily believe, in purposefully inflammatory fashion, hoping to irritate and provoke multiple responses – quite often ones that are entirely off topic.
Hoping to generate robust debate of a solid issue isn’t anything like trolling.
re: OneStone says: December 30, 2013 at 1:57 pm
Thanks OneStone! I hope it might have some positive impact on climateace also, but regardless, I put it together some time ago (with occasional updates) and post it every now and then when it seems particularly appropriate hoping that even if it has no impact on the person I’m responding to, perhaps other readers will find it informative and useful. All too often it seemed that many folks just literally had no idea that there were so very very many hard core excellent scientists who are skeptics. I think over time more have come to realize that there isn’t any actual “consensus” in favor of AGW, but still far too many just never see proof of it what with the media constantly beating the AGW drums.
I think what is happening is that real Peer Review is escaping the Pals’ Network onto blogs like WUWT. It is redefining both Peer and Review in what is essentially a healthy way. What we need now is an adaptation/development of the well known data-searching algorithms to filter the gold from the dross in the comment streams and provide digests and more – a nice challenge for the computer engineers.
SAB @3;31, I agree, the sense of loss has academia frantic, power is slipping away.
Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit seems like one approach to reviewing material.
Like the host here, he avoids name calling and sarcasm as much as possible, encourages a focus on the topic at hand.
But who pays? It would be unfair to expect volunteers to devote endless hours, so the next best is open posting and those who want chose to may critique these speculations.
E.M Smiths suggestion of closed group review first, probably already happens, surely these scientists bounce their ideas off of their peers, before they rush to publish?
But however (pre-publish) preview is done, publishing articles without all the required information to duplicate the speculation there in, is about as anti-science as one can get.
Why would any scientist do this?
Your hopes have been realised.
Lewis P Buckingham
Thanks for your delightful post on water divining. it certainly made a pleasant break from being called an uninformed troll, a troll, a wanker and an idiot – just because people are having difficulty coping with someone who disagrees with them.
Anyway, one good story deserves another.
During one particularly bad drought (cows skeletal and/or dying) our dams dried up. Dad decided to drill a bore. The question was where? A mate of a mate of a mate knew a bloke who was a dab hand with the eight gauge fencing wire. Out he came and wandered over the paddocks… drawn mysteriously first one way and then another way by the pull of the wires. I thought it was bullsh*t, but no-one much listened to kids in those days.
Finally he announced ‘x’ marked the spot. We repaired to the kitchen table where the Diviner One was shouted a few beers by way of thanks. We drilled and we drilled and we drilled: dry as a bone.
If ever there was a waste of good beer during a drought, that was it.
Lewis:
http://www.skeptics.com.au/publications/articles/australian-skeptics-divining-test/
climateace says:
“it certainly made a pleasant break from being called an uninformed troll, a troll, a wanker and an idiot – just because people are having difficulty coping with someone who disagrees with them.”
It’s not reasonable disagreement. It is the total refusal to accept reality; the incredibly hard-headed insistence that despite all empirical evidence falsifying your belief system, you go on and on as if you were a religious fanatic.
Try to use logic for once: if there is absolutely NO scientific evidence to support your belief in runaway global warming [and there isn’t any, or you would have posted it by now], try for once to understand that you’re undoubtedly wrong: catastrophic AGW has been thoroughly debunked. There is no testable, measurable scientific evidence that it exists. None at all.
You come ascross as someone whose On/Off switch has been wired around. There is no “Off” for you. No matter how many times it is pointed out that there is no measurable, testable evidence supporting your True Belief, you continue on as if you’ve had a divine revelation.
This is a science site, not a witch doctor’s blog. Try to remember that. If you have measurable evidence, post it. That is the bottom line.
EMSmith
You make the claim that I raise extraneous points. This is largely untrue. A good peer reviewer would have picked this up and not supported publication without substantial review.
(1) I have posted extensively on three blogs recently. Monckon discussed the links between christianity and science and I stuck to that for around 100% of the time. Basically my position was that religion and science should not be mixed.
(2) Forbes argued that the Australian economy was uncompetitive for a number of reasons including a ‘weak currency’ and too much regulation. About half my posts were about why that was bizarre: Australia’s economy has been moving up the ranks of world economy by size, we have achieved a triple AAA credit rating from all the world’s credit rating and we have had around 80 consecutive months of economic growth. How could an uncompetitive economy do that? Plus, we have had a terribly strong currency. I also paired this with the view that the regulations were there to achieve something useful including halting our mass extinction event in its tracks.
(3) Apart from water-divining (not initiated by me) I have responded specifically to points made by the author. I did not raise Galileo – he did. I did not raise the subject of trolls – he did. Other posters raised Copernicus, Anaxagoras, Bertrand Russell, etc, etc. Where they do so, I should be able to respond, should I not?
climateace says:
Basically my position was that religion and science should not be mixed.
And of course, you do not mix them. One hundred percent of your CAGW belief is religious. If I am wrong, then please post any testable, measurable evidence you may have that supports your belief.
Empirical [real world] observations and evidence, please. Keep in mind that computer models and peer reviewed papers are not scientific evidence.
Climat A @6:13
So that was what you thought to accomplish.
3 tight paragraphs and you could have saved us all the endless verbiage.
Amazed by how poorly you communicate.
As the difference between your endless empty commenting and your stated intent above is probably several thousand words.
What is your first language? Bureaucratize?
See the difference? This is personal abuse, highlight it the next time you go whining and crying to the site moderators.
So you are not trolling, you just can never get to the point?
This is Climateace’s beloved peer review:
“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !”
Cheers
Phil
(Phil Jones to Michael Mann, July, 2004: http://www.di2.nu/foia/1089318616.txt)
Anyone with a shred of intellectual honesty knows that in climate science, the peer review process (as well as science as done by the Scientific Method) has been utter corrupted by the Lysenkoists of the IPCC. As so comprehensively documented by Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit, by Andrew Montford at Bishop Hill (and in his superb book, “The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climategate and the Corruption of Science”) and of course here at WUWT by Anthony Watts. Anyone who still bleats about “peer review” when it comes to climate is just revealing themselves to be (at best) monumentally and willfully ignorant.
One wonders: if Climateace were put in sensory-deprivation chamber with a copy of Montford’s book, would he refuse to read it?
climateace you answer to my quest went unanswered instead you got snarky because I figured you did not have enough brain to get out of the wind. So you commented so:
” I was about to respond to your post when I came upon the last line. You lost your cedibility there, buddy.”
Son you have no credibility with me I sign my post with my full name you have to use so POS of “climateace” if you cannot respond to a post and use you own name you do no have any credibility to begin with. Until you reveal who you are and are will to stand face to face and post not hiding under an post name like “climateace” you are a troll and you options are not worth the energy it takes to bring them to my desk.
‘AndrewSanDiego says:
December 30, 2013 at 9:32 pm
This is Climateace’s beloved peer review’
Where does it say I ‘love’ peer review? What I did say was that, given a choice between peer-reviewed science and blog posts, I would choose the former. I noted that there were mistakes in peer-reviewed science and that it was not perfect.
Here is a test: name one main stream medicine created by bloggers. And no, I am not talking about aromatherapy, crystal therapy or magic stones.
ML
Here is a handy hint for proper discussions on WUWT: if you want someone to take you seriously, do not call them an idiot.
jr
‘Three tight paras…’
Thank you. Compliments are thin on the ground around here. You might have noted that the guest posters all used hundreds of words and that I used far fewer than they did.
I do note that you focuss on the style rather than the substance, though.
I suppose there was nothing bizarre, for example, about Forbes stating that we have a ‘weak currency’ at a time when Treasurer Hockey and the Governor of the Reserve Bank are busy trying to talk the dollar down?
dbstealey
Instead of ranting on about witchdoctors and religious fanatics you could always look at what I have actually written and address that.
I think this blog post has an unfortunate title; I’m not even sure I know 100% what it is talking about.
That’s a shame, because it the world of climate discourse, you see a lot of bickering back and forth between people who are looking at the metaphorical trees, while ignoring the forest. This post deals with the FOREST, and does it in a simple, straightforward, “Emperor’s New Clothes” kind of way. Really, it cuts to the heart of the matter in a way that’s beyond refreshing.
** If somebody wanted to know what’s going on with AGW that’s REALLY important, and only wanted to read ONE article – ALL YEAR – THIS WOULD BE THE ONE TO READ. **
It’s also a shame, and kind of silly, to see people focus on the minutia regarding Galileo (WHO CARES!?!), and ignore the real point, which is profound. I guess everybody has to show how smart THEY are, when somebody else does something great.
All I would suggest by way of improvement would be to invoke some Feynman. There’s a 10 minute video of Richard Feynman, called “Richard Feynman on Scientific Method” that explains the basic principles being violated, that the author here is calling the AGW alarmists on. What he says is so basic, you would think it would be obvious to everybody, but this is the real world, and people don’t think in as disciplined, rational, and logical way as they should:
http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=richard+feynman&qpvt=richard+feynman&FORM=VDRE#view=detail&mid=925177A3D4EC7C4587C8925177A3D4EC7C4587C8
climatedeuce says:
“Instead of ranting on about witchdoctors and religious fanatics you could always look at what I have actually written and address that.”
Oh, but I have looked! The problem is that you have never posted any testable, measurable scientific evidence showing either a human ‘fingerprint’ on global warming, or for that matter, any measurable evidence of an acceleration in global warming. With steadily rising CO2, your beliefs don’t make any sense. Global warming should be accelerating. But it isn’t. It isn’t even happening.
Thus, all of your comments amount to the unscientific ranting of a witch doctor’s acolyte. A true Believer in catastrophic AGW, nothing more.
If you have any testable evidence of runaway global warming, post it here and now. If not, then you are just making up baseless assertions. You’re trying to fabricate a scare.
Prove me wrong; the ball is in your court. Post your evidence.
By way of extending the point of the blog post, it had occurred to me during the year that what we really need is a DATE. Allow me to explain what I mean.
Back in April there was a AGW-sympathetic article in The Economist that included a graph of temperature vs. time, where the one thing being plotted was a confidence interval for the models, while the other thing being plotted was the actual measured data. The point of the article was, basically, what to do about The Pause, especially given that the measured data was on the brink of exiting the confidence interval. In other words, how to rationalize keeping the AGW hoax going, given the lack of cooperation of our ungrateful Mother Earth.
What I was looking to do was to find the data that was presented in the article, to see where the data went in the months after the article was published. The point where the measured data exits the confidence interval is the point in time where the AGW theory is (literally) disproved!!
It turns out that there was a problem with this, however. Mostly, I couldn’t find the confidence interval data that the article used (or any other CI data, for that matter). Maybe I just need to dig deeper. The main thing is to find a place where the AGW crowd was foolish enough, at some time in the past, to bound their predictions, and to show the point in time where it fails.
There are other obvious problems, but the thing is, they don’t matter. The thing is, the argument doesn’t have to be an especially good one, because the theory being disputed has been defended with even shoddier arguments. It could be that the confidence interval is invalid, for example, but that doesn’t matter – all that would be important is that THEY, in all their hubris, put it out there, and called it a “confidence interval” (CI). If their CI is invalid, then it just shows how invalid all the nonsense they put out there is.
The important thing is to give the non-technical person a DATE they can point to that says “as of this time, AGW was proven to be wrong.” The theory is embodied by the celebrated climate models, and so if they are wrong the theory is wrong. If we’re going FINALLY to get AGW in it’s proper place (for example, as the scientific explanation given in the movie “Sharknado”), it should be immensely helpful to not only say “the theory has ABC problem and XYZ problem”, which has been going on for decades, but to also be able to say, “it was tested out, and – as of 2013 – it was proven wrong!”
On a final side note, regarding the blog post, another point to bring up is the absurdity of claiming “the science is settled”, while they STILL have 30 DIFFERENT models that they use. Obviously, if it WERE settled (imagining for a moment that there IS such a thing!) there would only be ONE!!! It has been pointed out that these models shouldn’t even be the “null hypothesis”. THEY are the extraordinary claim, and so H0 should be the hypothesis that “no man-made warming has occurred”. The thing is, and correct me if I’m wrong, but this so-called “settled science” couldn’t even draw up a confidence interval for that!
You are debating with someone who believes climate change (That’s climate change driven by emissions of CO2 from human activity alone that is not supported by ANY evidence anywhere outside a computer model) is responsible for failed cattle farms through drought and soil, plant, animal degredation due to human habitaion in Australia (Last time I read a post of his his family was procreating, kids/grandkids, and thus contributing to a threat, 30,000 years away!). Not only is Australia a drought prone country, cows are not indigenous beasts. That farming model was bound fail.
I guess I should get my worry beads out, turn off all electical devices, sit in the dark and *hope* that climate models are wrong. I think I’ll pass on that and have a beer!
Happy new year everyone!
dbstealey
“If you have any testable evidence of runaway global warming, post it here and now. ”
But he has. He has marshalled a wealth of ‘evidence’. Let me list them from his posts:
1) Learned institutions all agree that . . .
2) 97% of thousands of climate scientists agree . . .
3) Fauna and flora are on the move.
4) The ice caps are all melting.
5) The Phenology thing.
What more do you want?
(/sarc)
climateace
“Here is a test: name one main stream medicine created by bloggers.”
As far as I know it costs $m to create mainstream medicines, what with all the R&D, double blind trials etc. Probably beyond the resources of most bloggers, though there have been interesting twists.
One university (can’t remember which) enlisted the help of computer gamers to solve folding problems of complex polypeptides. They created an online 3D engine which the gamers use to try to fold the proteins. The gamers were able to crack the problem which the researchers had been unable to do.
On the subject of computer generated climate models.
The 1st problem is that most people believe that those “climate models” are as functional as are “model airplanes”.
The 2nd problem is ….. those “climate models” won’t fly. They are akin to a dog that won’t hunt.
IMHO, based on my learned knowledge and experiences, it is impossible to create a computer modeling program of a dynamic process whereby the various input data sources, …. which interact with one another, ,,,,,, and which are constantly changing on an hour-to-hour, …. day-to-day, …. month-to-month …. and year-to-year basis.
Even if one knew what all the various input data sources were that directly affect said “dynamic process” it would still be impossible for them to accurately predict what their status was going to be at some future point in time.
climateace says: December 30, 2013 at 10:31 pm
dbstealey
Instead of ranting on about witchdoctors and religious fanatics you could always look at what I have actually written and address that.
He has addressed it, as have many others. It has become obvious that trying to address a uni-dimensional intellect regarding a four dimensional hypothesis is a waste of energy.
Note well: that nether Mosher or Climateace have responded to my point, that no accurate model can track the temperature record. It MUST run or cold in the short and medium term.
The models aren’t falsified by the fact that they are running hot this century, that is a small point in their favour actually. No, they are falsified by the fact that they closely track the short and medium term temperature record throughout the 20th century something that is impossible for an accurate model. If a model or hypothesis produces an impossible result it is falsified, fact!
No warmist has ever responded to this point, they have always run away and hidden, presumably going La La La in their little heads.
Alan