Guest essay by Geir Hasnes
Very often, and arguably most often, a disagreement is rooted in a lack of definition of what one agrees upon before starting the argument. Thus the argument soon develops into a quarrel, and while each side thinks he has won the argument in the end, he is also puzzled by why the other side doesn’t give in to the facts, of for instance, as in the case of the climate quarrel, the ‘Science’.
The statistician William M. Briggs, in his recent article Climate Change Alarmists Appear Immunized against Reality (link) asks: “This brings us to the crucial question: how do we reach educators like Johnson? We can’t do it with reality. Temperatures aren’t increasing, storms are down in number and strength, sea levels aren’t chasing folks from beaches, droughts are not increasing, parts of the world are growing greener.
“I don’t have the answer. Do you?”
Most people doesn’t know that ‘science’ is Latin for ‘knowledge’, but they do know that it has become a term for the pursuit of knowledge. The implication of basing your reasoning upon ‘science’ is that you have the facts in hand, and the ‘climate prophets’ will wholeheartedly state that their adopted prophecies, from the IPCC summaries for policymakers, are Established Science. For, you see, they base their reasoning upon the fact that the IPCC reports are ‘science’. They couldn’t be more wrong, but how to convince them about it?
In an argument with the climate prophets and their followers (a collective term for the IPCC prophecy contributors, politicians, activists, journalists and the man in the street, in which I purposedly left out the scientific contributors) one must first state the underlying facts that the IPCC reports and the summaries for policymakers, with their implicated prophecies, are not ‘knowledge’, and consequently not ‘science’.
This is the first step in convincing your opponent.
Then you introduce a new term to your opponent, as you state that the IPCC report, on which most, if not all, climate assumptions are based upon, is not ‘science’, but ‘assumpsence’. It is based upon assumptions, which are not science or facts, but in the realm of philosophy, and maybe even in the realm of religion.
This is the second step of convincing your opponent. The foundation he thought was rock solid for his argument, is crumbling; in fact, it is suddenly found not to be there.
Then you supply the facts about the IPCC report. It is in three parts: the science; what will happen because of this; and proposed mitigations. In addition to this, you have the summary for policymakers which not only sums up, but simply adds its own statements regardless of whether it is included in the IPCC report or not. And, you state; since what should happen (part 2) does not happen, the science (part 1) cannot be correct, and consequently, the mitigation (part 3) is unnecessary. Consequently also, the summary for policymakers (part 4) must be wrong.
This is the third step in convincing your opponent. Your opponent will be slightly bewildered because usually he has only referred to the report as a whole, and having it divided into four pieces requires some actual thought before it can be digested. At this stage, anything you say is mistrusted because there might be some conclusion from it that is perceived to be annoying.
However, your opponent will still believe that you are wrong with regards to the science (part 1), because as it is called science, it can’t be wrong!
Now you introduce the relationship between science and assumpsence again, because your opponent in the meantime has forgotten all about it. You state that collecting the facts of the science in part 1 may be called science, that is, the pursuing of knowledge. But the rest of it is pure assumpsence, assuming relationships between facts, also known as hypotheses, which are not true. And we know they are not true because they do not happen. The assumptions of the science of part 1 has in part 2 turned out not to happen. Even the reconstructions of temperature series within the science part are not science, but assumpsence, simply because you base the reconstructions upon assumptions. The hockey stick curve was not only assumpsence, but can be regarded as fakery, but then again, assumpsence is often based upon a preconceived notion about how things should appear. And it is much better to be able to dismiss the hockey stick curve because it is assumpsence, than to have to call it bad science.
Now bad science is often assumpsence, and the assumptions are often hidden. We should not talk about good and bad science because the discussion will always turn into statements coloured by personal taste. We should rather only accept that as science that is knowledge and the method of pursuing knowledge. Statistics may be a branch of science, but the application of statistics is based so heavily upon assumptions that it can only be assumpsence in practice. Just as the theory about the population explotion and what it would do to mankind and the Earth was mainly assumpsence, so it is with today’s IPCC report with its maps of the Earth where the polar regions are coloured in a fiery red, redder as the decades of the future pass by. There is no need to accuse your activist or politician opponent to be devoid of knowledge or being led astray by religious feelings. The only need you have is to tell your opponent that his reasoning is assumpsence, not science.
This is the fourth step in convincing your opponent. He will be bewildered, but also begin to perceive that there is something here he hasn’t pondered.
Assumpsence is not morally bad, like bad science is. It is simply not science. Accepting this removes the need for faith in science and the scientists. Of course, a lot of people calling themselves scientists will hate being called assumptionists instead. But that is not the case. The case is rather that your opponent will as the last resort invoke the authority of the scientists as opposed to what he perceives as your lack of authority. Being made aware that his scientists are assumptionists and that he himself practices assumpsence when he assumes that he can believe in what declared scientists say, will make him bewildered, because you not only questions his choice of authorities, but leave them invalid as authorities, as well as leaving his belief in them as being unfounded, and he will have to give up.
That is the fifth and last step in convincing your opponent. He will now ask for the real authorities, that is, the actual science, and now you can begin telling about the thriving polar bears, the relatively constant polar caps, the declining number of storms, the constant sea level and so on. But do not forget: He must not forget that he listened to assumpsence, he must understand and remember assumpsence, that what he based his beliefs upon was no foundation for action at all.
And you might even wish to add this at an early stage, but do not say it until you are sure that your opponent has begun to ponder the real science, and be sure to be smiling while you say it: “Remember, assumptions may often make an ASS out of U and ME.”
Geir Hasnes graduated in Electrical Engineering at the Norwegian University of Technology in 1982 and after 15 years as a research scientist now works as a principal engineer within dynamic positioning systems.
Whenever I am involved in debate, I tend towards focusing on presentation of facts and letting them speak for themselves, not convincing the other side of the error of their ways. I will often ask questions like, “What does the data say to you?” I also stay ahead by making sure the facts I have are robust enough to deal with different ways of calculating and analyzing the data. The other important thing I use is to avoid gray areas especially if they are not robust. In debate, it is not a bad technique to say that one does not have sufficient data to say that facts derived from the data are robust. I have used this as the match point successfully several times. It takes the wind out of the sails of the other side quite well and often even bursts their bubble. Bottom line, sometimes, saying to the other side they have cut off their nose to spite their face leads them to double down their position in order to save what is left of their face.
Pamela Gray commented: “Whenever I am involved in debate,…”
There has been no debate about AGW. All your points are valid but muted by the MSM. Grey areas are used as their accepted facts and manipulated both in their content and meaning. Time to fight back.
Good comment.
But the CAGW pushers made a deliberate choice to not define their terms.
From the beginning this malicious scheme was orchestrated to evade the scientific method while claiming the authority of the scientific institutions.
However if your approach works on the followers, those who defer to authority, then more power to you.
right, John
defer to authority is not science
I agree that the whole scheme is orchestrated, and we have to orchestrate our countering as well as we can.
Geir,
A noble effort. But alas, it rests on the assumption that the logical processes upon which engineers and scientists rely can be used successfully in a discussion with the majority of people. I submit to you that they cannot. The majority of people firmly believe that the world runs on magic.
How many people understand how a TV works? Hardly any. Yet they expect it to. The don’t know how the remote control the keep on the couch turns the TV on either, but they expect it to. I can walk into a cell phone store, and in minutes walk out with a working phone provisioned with my choice of services from call waiting to voicemail to web browsing. These services are all provisioned for me by a teen age kid behind the counter who knows exactly which boxes to click on the screen so that I can walk out the door talking and texting on the phone I just bought. The teen age kid has absolutely no idea how complicated is the infrastructure that makes this possible. S/he just clicks a few boxes and… voila! Magic.
I had a cousin visit the family homestead a while back. She was born and grew up entirely in a city, the homestead is in a rather remote area. She announced that she was going to make a phone call to her friend in the city to tell her that she was standing in a wheat field. I politely advised her that there was no cell phone service where we were. She stared at her phone in consternation and then said in complete sincerity:
“How is that even possible?”
Lest you think she was of diminished intellect, she is an accomplished lawyer. She believes in magic (how cell phones work) and was dumbfounded to learn that the magic ended at the city limits.
Turn on the tap, there’s clean water. Magic. Turn on the microwave, the food gets hot. Magic. Turn on the air conditioner, cold air comes out. Magic.
As Arthur C Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.
That’s the way it is for most people. They don’t understand the underlying technology, they don’t care how it works, as long as it does. They don’t WANT to understand the technology, they just expect that it does, just like magic.
And there’s your problem. You’re trying to explain the difference between science and magic to people who, for the most part, don’t distinguish between the two and see no need to do so. For them, the same people who bring them the magic of televisions and cell phones and microwaves and internet and synchronized street lights and lights that turn one when you flip a switch…. are telling them that the world is warming up, storms are getting worse, and the seas are rising.
Its all just magic, and there’s little point arguing with people who believe in magic. Especially when they are surrounded by the stuff and it works every single day.
Try telling them it’s a scam. They’ll understand that. If they argue, call them a sucker. They’ll understand that too, but they will disagree because no one wants to be a sucker. When they disagree, ask them whether it’s because they don’t know they’re a sucker or because they can’t bring themselves to admit they’re a sucker. Most people will usually leave you alone after that but, if they need a bit more encouragement to go away just tell them to “follow the money”.
In case you can’t already tell, I don’t like wasting my breath trying to convince fools of their foolishness. It’s a waste of time as well.
“It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.”
― Mark Twain
another excellent perspective and diagnosis.
thank you.
bingo – agree with gnomish
I’ve made the same kind of comment regarding scientific/technological illiteracy often. But I always remind myself:
No one can know everything. Not even a tiny percentage of everything. We go through our days learning what is necessary and what interests us, and counting on the rest to function. All of us do it. Your “magic” is just different than your cousin’s. Law is definitely something I avoid like the plague. And yet it greases the wheels of our society.
No one understands “science.” Not a single person. It is too vast an ocean of knowledge for anyone to grasp. Statistically speaking, If I know and understand (a generous estimate) 0.000005% of what falls under the heading “Science,” I’m no more knowledgeable than your cousin who knows 0.000002%.
Humbling, yes?
I have read many of your posts before and have found them very interesting. In this case, I refuse to give up with people, although I am taken aback by angry retorts. I think pointing out the assumpsence as different from the science removes the magic from the assumptions.
Umm, this is Post Normal Science. Thus social order and assumptions are all that matter.
yup
There’s something distinctly Scandinavian in a belief that most of the people can be persuaded by logic and facts, and that what matters is the way you persuade them. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Start with your religious neighbor and see where your logic and facts will get you. Or, better yet, don’t start it if you want to be friends with your neighbor. People perceive any criticism of their favorite myths as a form of personal attack. Even if you criticize their beliefs in a most impersonal, generic form, they lash out and insult you personally.
Geir Hasnes asks his readers if they have an answer. I think that I do. This is not about science, it is bout politics. It is about world governance and transfers of wealth — Agenda 21 etc. Here is a quote from Leonard Schapiro that sums up where we are at: “The true object of propaganda is neither to convince nor even to persuade, but to produce a uniform pattern of public utterance in which the first trace of unorthodox thought reveals itself as a jarring dissonance”. (Leonard Schapiro)
“They couldn’t be more wrong, but how to convince them about it?”
By showing how their global climate models are both upside down and inside out.
The former evidenced by the temperature differential between Europe and Greenland discussed in this comment thread here:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/07/17/week-in-review-science-edition-13/#comment-719142
And the latter by evidence that the natural variability of atmospheric teleconnections such as the North Atlantic and Arctic Oscillations are largely driven by short term non TSI solar variability at down to daily scales. E.g Brian Tinsley’s papers, and my solar based regional weather forecasts and hindcasts for such variability, third comment down:
http://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2015/04/13/more-warm-weather-this-week-but-whats-in-store-for-the-summer/#comments
I rarely “debate” climate science online anymore. It’s a pointless exercise as well as an incredible waste of time. The cut and paste wars became too much.
I have only recently become aware of the effect of the change from traditional to electronic measurement. I had assumed quite wrongly that they would use the same criteria in both cases and not allow the far faster response possible with electronic systems to be used.
In a controlled test with a four degree change for two minutes followed by a return to the original temperature my traditional max min one measured it as a just over one degree change. The electronic one registered the full four degrees after less than 30 seconds.
If this is also true of the official measurements then no comparisons of before and after the switch to electronic measurement is even remotely valid and all the claimed records are total junk with errors from short duration peaks an order of magnitude greater than claimed global warming.
Where do you find anyone to debate the climate?
The climate cult believers don’t debate, they character attack.
The climate cult believers don’t discuss the past climate, only scary predictions of the future climate.
The climate cult believers usually know next to nothing about the climate — just ask them what caused the ice sheets over Michigan to melt, and they don’t know what to say. Ask if manmade CO2 caused the melting, and stop talking, so you can hear their nonsense reply.
The problem is not lack of debate. The problem is how to avoid vast amounts of wealth and resources foolishly committed to an unreality: stopping climate. ‘Debate’ has been viewed as a step in the right direction, having supposed reality was honored.
I fear we are past the horizon of a black hole of ‘escape from reason.’ But we don’t go without protesting!
Many people wish to debate the CAGW, and it is surprising how many lay people maybe even with little education that don’t belive in it. So pointing out some few things for such people is effective. This is because the newspaper content has begun to be too scary and wild to be true, and even the most hardheaded believers see that. Today’s scary story in the news is James Hansen’s 10 feet of sea level rise, and most people don’t believe the AGW to be that scary; they simply refuse to take it in. So as the newspapers have to be more dramatic and the activists wilder, most people will begin refreshing their natural skepticism.
‘the ‘climate prophets’ will wholeheartedly state that their adopted prophecies, from the IPCC summaries for policymakers, are Established Science.’
____
Geir Hasnes – 1st
a studie throughout the EU would yield 97 per cent confidence that ‘there’s no such thing as IPCC, never heard of, are you kidding ?’
2nd, Geir Hasnes – try a new start!
Regards – Hans
3 times:
1 there’s no such thing as IPCC
2 never heard of
3 are you kidding ?
thats the celtics druids wand.
“The IPCC reports and the summaries for policymakers, with their implicated prophecies, are not ‘knowledge’, and consequently not ‘science’” Amen to that!