From the “fabrication makes publication” department comes this study on the “core values” of scientists.
What values are important to scientists?
WASHINGTON, D.C. – While many people are marking today scrutinizing the virtues of their Valentines, Michigan State University revealed a first-of-its-kind study on the virtues and values of scientists.
The study, presented at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., surveyed nearly 500 astronomers, biologists, chemists, physicists and earth scientists to identify the core traits of exemplary scientists.
The subjects selected were scientists who had been honored by their respective national organization or society, and the results show that above all, these researchers hold honesty and curiosity in the highest regard, said Robert Pennock, a professor in MSU’s Lyman Briggs College and leader of the study.
“If you’re not curious, you’re probably not a real scientist,” he said. “The goal that you have is to find out something true about the world, regardless of what your preferred hypothesis might be. Your real drive is to find what is revealed by the data. This is absolutely essential in being a scientist.”
If someone is dishonest and going to the extreme of faking data, that person is not really a scientist in the true sense, Pennock added.
Those surveyed, using a scale from zero to ten, were asked to rate attentiveness, collaborative, courage, curiosity, honesty, humility to evidence, meticulousness, objectivity, perseverance and skepticism with regard to their importance for scientific research.
Once they scored each trait, the scientists were asked how each characteristic is or isn’t expressed in science. The subjects also were asked to identify the three most-important virtues.
The study revealed a tacit moral code in scientific culture – one that most researchers hope to be able to pass on to their students, Pennock said.
“The results will have some implications for teaching science,” said Pennock, who conducted the study with Jon Miller of the University of Michigan. “Our teaching shouldn’t stop with the content or science processes. Cultivating the values – like honesty and curiosity – that underlie science should be a part of science education.”
Underscoring the importance of instilling desirable traits in the next generation of scientists, the study tackled how exemplary scientists preserve and transmit these values to their students.
A whopping 94 percent of scientists believe scientific values and virtues can be learned. The number dropped a bit, though, when asked if these traits are actually being transmitted to current graduate students.
“It’s encouraging that 4 out of 5 scientists believe that their values are being embraced by the next generation of students,” Pennock said. “However, it’s somewhat troubling that 22 percent of the scientists surveyed see these valued traits eroding a bit.”
With stories of falsified results making headlines, it’s known that some scientists not only fail to achieve these ideals but directly violate them.
Science is a truth-seeking enterprise. Based on this study, researchers violating this unwritten code of conduct may not be scientists in the truest sense, Pennock said.
“Researchers who commit such misconduct are not merely violating some regulatory requirements, but they also are violating – in a deep way – what it means to be a scientist,” he said.
###
So real scientists are curious and don’t fake data. How depressing that this should be newsworthy!
Look on the bright side. Results such as this can easily be used to “whitewash” climate science since, after all, “real scientists are curious and don’t fake data ,” and CERTAINLY, governments only hire “real scientists,” so NASA and NOAA scientists surely wouldn’t fake data, right? Of Coiurse not, not deniers do.
Mandy Rice-Davis would have summed up this study accurately: “Well they would say that, wouldn’t they”. Psycopaths know what to say, just as those scientists knew what to say, but it doesn’t mean they believe what they say. This study surely has zero value. It would be interesting to see a study like this done by psychologists with experience in identifying psycopaths.
It’s a start (well another one). It’s about Tom Karl, right ?
So there really are in existence, true Scotsmen.
Motherhood statements. But reality is far different. Even Judith Curry said “It’s not my place to talk about that” when asked to comment on the malfeasance disclosed by Climategate.
Congratulations to Richard Muller, the sole AGW believer to speak up in defense of scientific integrity.
Says one thing and does another.
Like for instance he was a “Skeptic”, which was patently a falsehood.
Leo Morgan February 16, 2016 at 7:29 am
It is said that the most dangerous place around Richard Muller is between him and any microphone. Muller certainly traduced and trampled Anthony in his rush to the Senate microphone. He also lied that he was once a skeptic but converted to AGW.
He is neither a scientist nor an ethical man. I do have to congratulate him on one thing, though. He sure fooled you …
w.
People on the government dole who play climate computer games in air conditioned offices, and make wrong climate forecasts, may have science degrees, but what they do is not science.
It is climate astrology.
And climate astrology is actually one step lower than ordinary astrology.
Ordinary astrology is just random guessing.
Climate astrology is BIASED astrology.
The predictions of a coming climate change catastrophe are from people who could not have gotten their jobs/grants if they did not BELIEVE … and would not keep their jobs/grants if they stopped BELIEVING in a coming climate catastrophe … that will never come.
Perhaps it is insulting to astrologers to include climate modelers in their “profession”?
At least astrologers entertain people who voluntarily buy their services.
Climate modelers provide nothing of value, and taxpayers who don’t want their services have to pay anyway.
Even worse than their 40 years of wrong climate forecasts, the climate modelers are giving all scientists a bad reputation, making people distrust all scientific studies almost as much as they distrust the promises of used car salesmen.
Climate blog for non-scientists
Easy to read science.
A public service
No money for me
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
No they do not necessarily have to believe at any stage, they just need to be “on message to get the grants”.
Is there much difference between people who say they believe in public, but really don’t believe in a coming climate crisis (they say what they have to say to get salaries and/or grants) … and people who really believe in a coming climate catastrophe?
I’d say people in the first group are smarmy “science prostitutes” … while people in the second group are just human … and wrong.
It’s a rare human who doesn’t believe in something that can’t be proven, and almost certainly is not true.
Knowing that the coming climate change is a scam, but going along with the scam to get attention, money, power, or just to avoid offending leftist believers … is lower integrity than a used car salesman … maybe even lower integrity than a politician.
The only lower integrity would be a high end audio equipment salesman claiming: “These $5,000 speaker wires will make your stereo sound so much better, you’ll never believe it — I have a pair at home.”
“but what they do is not science.”
They are making predictions that can be tested. That is science. The predictions are not 100% accurate, but they are orders of magnitude better than anything else I have seen. If you know different, provide the evidence here.
Let me correct that for you.. ” They adjusted their data 100% of the time to force it to match their predictions ” ..There ya go…
You wrote:
“The predictions are not 100% accurate”
What are you smoking?
The climate predictions are almost 100% inaccurate!
97% of their climate model projections overstate actual global warming, often by huge amounts, even AFTER the surface measurements have been repeatedly “adjusted” to BETTER match the climate model projections!
100% of their projections missed the flat average temperature trend between the the 1998 and 2015/2016 El Nino peaks.
The climate projections have been wrong for 40 years.
Had the GCMs been available in 1940, they would have been wrong from 1940 to 1976 too !
Anyone with common sense, apparently not you, could have observed the results of ice core studies and understood that Earth’s climate is always changing.
Typically hundreds of years of warming followed by hundreds of years of cooling.
The surface data are not particularly accurate, but it seems obvious after the cool centuries from 1300 to 1800 (based on anecdotal evidence and climate proxy studies), there has been slight warming after 1800.
A child who knew these facts about the ice core studies would automatically assume any warming trend would continue until the next cooling trend began, and no one knows when that will happen.
No leftist scientist, however, seems to care about Earth’s climate history.
They only care about how they can morph a very mild warming trend into a ‘climate crisis’ … and we all know leftists never let a crisis (even this imaginary one) go to waste when it can be used to get more political power!
Taking taxpayer funds, these climate modelers have converted their personal opinions (Earth = good, man = bad) into a scary story of yet another, in a fifty-year string, of environmental boogeymen (starting with DDT, and ending with CO2).
The goal of an environmental boogeyman is to scare people and allow central governments to seize power over private economies to fight the alleged “crisis” … and move closer to your beloved socialism.
I call this the “Save the Earth Socialism” strategy.
Prior environmental scaremongering, from DDT, to acid rain, to a hole in the ozone layer, were grossly overstated, or completely wrong 100% of the time.
Millions of children died from malaria over several decades when DDT was banned — thank you smarmy “environmentalists” for NEVER apologizing, or admitting your DDT warnings were wrong.
The climate physics behind the climate models can not explain the declining average temperature from 1940 to 1976, or the fact that from 1880 to 2015, assuming you believe the surface data, there were three short warming periods, and three flat trend periods, not consistent warming year-after-year as CO2 rose every single year .
There is no CO2 – temperature correlation known for 4.5 billion years of climate history, EXCEPT that ice core proxies show CO2 peaks LAG temperature peaks by 500 to 1000 years … yet the modelers ignore virtually all climate history, and claim CO2 rises CAUSE temperature rises, with NO scientific proof that belief is true.
Oh wait, I forgot, manmade CO2 and average temperature both increased from the late 1970s to late 1990s — that brief 20-year trend, out of 4.5 billion years of climate history, MUST PROVE that CO2 is a satanic gas that will cause a climate catastrophe with runaway warming at some time in the future — people who work on Wall Street will have to get to their offices on gondolas — underground NYC subways will be replaced by underground submarines !
It’s sad that you will probably believe until your death that a climate catastrophe is coming … and that means you will be failing to enjoy the best climate on Earth in at least 500 to 1000 years … our planet is greening from more CO2 in the air, and nighttime low temperatures are not quite as cold as they used to be.
Meanwhile, you smarmy power-hungry leftists completely ignore REAL pollution in China and India … because you are oh so busy demonizing a beneficial plant food – Carbon Dioxide — that would make the planet a better place if the concentration in the air tripled to 1200 ppmv (to further green the planet).
You fossil fuel haters may not realize it, but there are a lot of people on this planet dying for more food.
More CO2 in the air would accelerate the growth of green plants used for food, AND even with that faster growth, the plants would need LESS fresh water!
They are not just making predictions. They are inferring consequences. To predict the climate is changing in a certain way, based on questionable data manipulation coupled with suspect modelling, is one thing. However they’re not stopping there, they then continue forward to proclaim all manner of social economic and moral judgments with attendant actions to counter the [uncounterable]. Most of these remedies rely on the old shibboleths pertaining to one world government socialist totalitarian type of solutions. All wrapped up in a regressive anti-technological rhetoric.
getitright – the consequences are a different matter for another discussion. I am still waiting for the better predictions.
Richard Greene. So where are the predictions from real scientists that succesfully predicted the climate?
Something along the lines of the Met Office 5 year forecast made in 2010. Show me the real scientist that got it more correct.
The fact is you claim the climate scientists are not doing real science, but they are the only ones who publish predictions that can be tested, and they are not 100% wrong. The Met Office one had most of the world within 5-95% confidence limits. Show me someone predicted temperatures for the whole world better that they did and I will listen to you. Otherwise you are not talking science. Wait and see what happens and then say its natural is not science.
Richard Greene
Your reply was OK but I didn’t like having to wade through the ad hom stuff. There is no need to allege motive or identify shortcomings, even when they are obvious. Let’s assume competence in the reader. It is enough to set forth the facts and illuminate with analysis. Please consider that I send people to this blogsite to educate them, people coming from positions that are tending to the credulous, but who retain the spark of curiosity enough to set them on the path toward the bonfire of the vanities.
Without WUWT there are many who would have blundered on drinking in every assertion that a consensus of publicity scripters amounts to the same thing as a consensus of broad scientific opinion.
Many thanks
Being better than cr@p is nothing to brag about.
Let me see if I have this right.
Until someone comes up with a better prediction, we should restructure the world’s economy and kill millions of people based on “what we have”?
Seaice1:
Name one.
RE: Richard Greene
Spot on
Also, ” starting with DDT, and ending with CO2).” CFCs are in between.
The “predictions/projections/simulations” have been tested — they have been wrong for 40 years.
Prior predictions about acid rain, global warming etc. were 100% wrong too.
Every prediction of a coming environmental catastrophe has been wrong.
Always wrong.
100% wrong.
There are only two ways the average temperature can move — higher or lower.
Anyone with sense knows 1300 to 1800 were cool centuries, and a warming trend started sometime in the early 1800s.
The EASIEST prediction would be to assume the warming since 1850 will continue at the same rate (0 to +2 degrees C. warming in 135 years, based on using my conservative +/- 1 degree C. margin of error).
We don’t need GCMs to tell us the warming trend will continue until it stops and a cooling trend begins.
Predicting the future climate when you have a wrong climate physics model, meaning the climate change process is not well understood, is science?
Predicting the future climate when you have no idea what the sun is going to do next is science?
Predicting runaway warming from CO2, when historical CO2 levels up to 10 or 20 times higher than today did not cause runaway warming, is science?
Scaring people about the climate when it is better today than it has ever been in the past 500 to 1000 years is politics, not science.
The coming climate change catastrophe cult is 99% politics and 1% science — the politics is almost exclusively led by leftists — the politics MUST be mentioned frequently, and criticized, because it is the only logical explanation for why the science is so bad, in spite of climate modelers having earned advanced degrees (meaning they should know better).
Climate models are NOTHING MORE than the beliefs and opinions of the climate modelers disguised with high level math, charts, and complex language, so they superficially resemble real science..
The UN’s IPCC adherents, carnival barkers, and town criers know the scientific methodology they hawk is flawed; know their primary purpose is to arrive at predetermined outcomes for the people who underwrite their follies and sign their paychecks; whose end game is a one world UN socialist/communist government, with the bankers who own the UN in charge; nations’ laws and constitutions be damned.
“Climate scientists/experts” who work for them are expected to check their ethics/integrity at their employment door and use whatever it takes—lies, fraud, deception, data manipulation—to justify predetermined outcomes for their fiddlers.
Failed IPCC outcomes also were intended to fit with other parts of the UN’s environmental agenda such as the unconstitutional, illegally written, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “laws” (rules, regulations) that carry with them fines and imprisonment for US farmers, ranchers, and private property owners who “violate” these administrative “laws”.
For example, the EPA currently is attempting to take control (with a presidential executive order) of all waters in the US and by fiat, all land, with its Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule. It does not have the authority to do this under America’s Constitution. A case to block this unprecedented land grab is before the Supreme Court, and is one of several key cases Judge Scalia would have ruled on in 2016. The EPA, which is controlled by the same bankers who control the UN, is attempting to do this because private property rights have no place in a socialist/communist government; a huge indicator of the UN’s intended agenda.
The Paris Conference’s predetermined CO2 tax ‘agreement’, based on each nation’s ‘carbon production’, was designed to generate a perpetual cash flow into the UN to finance the bureaucratic base for the UN’s world government.
MarkW. “Until someone comes up with a better prediction, we should restructure the world’s economy and kill millions of people based on “what we have”?” I am trying to keep this on topic about what is science. The title of this post is about who are real scientists. What we do about it is for another discussion. So far, the only sceintists coming up with predictions are the mainstream climate scientists.
Harry Passfield “Name one” You are joking, right? Much of this site is about discussion of climate science forecasts. Here is one that was made in 2010 and is compared to the actual 5 years later. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/q/3/fig4_dp2015_map_obs_fcst_stipple.png
Observed (A) and issued forecast (B) of surface temperature differences (°C) relative to 1981-2010 for the 5-year period September 2010 to August 2015. Forecasts consist of 20 ensemble members starting from September and June 2010. The stippling shows where the observations lie outside of the 5-95% confidence interval of the forecast ensemble.
You can see that most of the world is within the 5-95% confidence interval.
Here is another:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/q/o/fig3_dp2015_fcst_global_t.png
Figure 3: Observed (black, from Met Office Hadley Centre, GISS and NCDC) and predicted (blue) global average annual surface temperature difference relative to 1981-2010. Previous predictions starting from November 1960, 1965, …, 2005 are shown in red, and 22 model simulations, from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5), that have not been initialised with observations are shown in green. In all cases, the shading represents the probable range, such that the observations are expected to lie within the shading 90% of the time. The most recent forecast (blue) starts from November 2015. All data are rolling 12-month mean values. The gap between the black curves and blue shading arises because the last observed value represents the period November 2014 to October 2015 whereas the first forecast period is November 2015 to October 2016.
For simplicity -see that blue bit? That is the prediction. In 5 years time we can come back and see how good it was. If you think there are other scientists working in this field, please show me their predictions. We can then have a look in 5 years and see who was more correct. Or even better, we can look at their prediction from 5 years ago and see how well it has panned out. So far there has been a deafening silence on these other predictions.
The only real sceintists I can see are the climate scientists. Far from being astrologers, it looks like they are the only real scientists in this field.
Richard Greene. Dear oh dear, where to begin. I think every point you make is flawed. We don’t need GPMs to tell us the warming trend will continue until it stops and a cooling trend begins. We do need something to tell us when it will stop. How are you doing on your prediction of when it will stop?
Prior predictions about acid rain…were 100% wrong too. Please show me a scientific prediction about acid rain that was 100% wrong. Otherwise I think you are just making stuff up.
“Predicting the future climate when you have no idea what the sun is going to do next is science?” You are starting to understand. That is why they produce projections rather than predictions. They say IF the sun does this (as expected) THEN the climate will do this. If the sun then does something different we must expect a different result in the climate. They call this a projection rather than a prediction.
“Climate models are NOTHING MORE than the beliefs and opinions Do you seriously think that? How did the Met Office get most of the world within its confidence limits based on beliefs and opinions?
Don’t know why that first link did not display as an image. Just tried in in “test” and it worked fine. Here it is again
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/q/3/fig4_dp2015_map_obs_fcst_stipple.png
It may be interesting to discuss what “100% wrong” even means in the context of this type of prediction. If I predict 100 and the result is 99, what percent wrong is that? What if the result is 10, or 1000? Does it even make sense to try and say what percent wrong these predictions are?
Please provide an example of an “anything else” that you saw so we can all be on the same page while keeping in mind that “orders of magnitude” means at least 100X.
The Original Mike M:
“Please provide an example of an “anything else” that you saw ”
I am asking those who say the climate scientists are not real scientists to come up with their best examples. If there are no examples it proves my point. But if you want my examples, here are a few.
“In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. Mojib Latif from the University of Kiel argued at the recent UN World Climate Conference in Geneva that the cooling may continue through the next 10 to 20 years.” Made in 2009.
Svensmark said “global warming stopped and a cooling is beginning” in 2009. So far a very bad prediction.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/09/10/svensmark-global-warming-stopped-and-a-cooling-is-beginning-enjoy-global-warming-while-it-lasts/
David Evans “Prediction: There will be a sustained and significant fall in global temperature from about 2017 – 2022, of about 0.3 deg C. The 2020s will be cooler than the 1980s.” We will have to wait for that one.
Nicola Scafetta predicted the following
http://archive.li/03qiM/9ad3d2edaca98aecde8fba3731151997388f8b63.png
The prediction was that the temperatures would follow the black line. They are already way hotter than that.
Orssego 2010;
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo3.png?w=720
Temperatures now way off the chart.
What would really prove the case is a good prediction from 20 years ago. Somebody must surely have one if it exists.
If you look into the reasoning behind these predictions they are often based on curve fitting and not on a proper theory of climate (except possibly Svensmark).
If there are no examples it proves my point.
Logic isn’t your strong suit, is it?
And:
…temperatures… are already way hotter… Temperatures now way off the chart.
Get a grip. You’re a parody of the typical climate alarmist. What we’re observing is simply normal climate variability.
dbstealey: “If there are no examples it proves my point. Logic isn’t your strong suit, is it?”
I was using “proven” in a vernacular rather than stricly logical sense. I should have said if there are no examples than my hypothesis is correct rather than proven.
Let me walk you through the logic here.
Eric Worral (among a great many others) states that prediction is the gold standard of science.
My hypothesis is that the gold standard is best met by the mainstream climate scientists because the skeptics do not produce predictions that can be tested (see the Heartland Institute publications that are free of predictions), or their predictions are more wrong than the ones from mainstream climate science. I produce some examples of mainstream climate science predictions to prove that mainstream climate science does in fact produce predictions.
To prove me wrong (via the scientific method) someone needs to
1) produce an example of a non-mainstream climate science prediction
2) show that it is better than the mainstream ones.
If my hypothesis is wrong, it ought to be quite easy to challenge.
If nobody can produce such examples then my argument is not disproven. Because it should be quite easy to prove wrong if it is wrong, then a failure to disprove is quite strong evidence to support it. So far, nobody has come up with a single example, so my hypothesis is still standing, and looking pretty good.
However, in a strictly logical sense, if there are no such examples, that is my hypothesis. So if no such examples exist, then my hypothesis is correct.
“…temperatures… are already way hotter… Temperatures now way off the chart.”
Get a grip. You’re a parody of the typical climate alarmist. What we’re observing is simply normal climate variability.
Normal or not is not the point here – it is the accuracy of predictions. The examples I gave of non-mainstream predictions have all been wrong by quite a margin. The surface did not start to cool in 2009 and the temperatures now are significantly higher than predicted in all the examples.
The topic is not about the climate, it is about who is doing science. So if you think my hypothesis is wrong, then prove it.
seaice1,
You think they can make predictions? Al they’re really doing is extending past natural warming and claiming they can predict. Dr Phil Jones shows it here:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
Keep in mind that not one person or GCM was able to predict the most significant event of the past century: the fact that global warming stopped many years ago.
Next, the natural global warming since the LIA has remained within clear parameters:
You’re looking at the natural recovery from the LIA, and claiming that it’s due to human emissions. But if that was true, the natural rise in temperatures would be accelerating due to human effects on top of the natural recovery. But as we know, there is no acceleration in global T. In fact, global warming has stopped.
Let’s put all the wild-eyed alarmism into perspective:
seaice1. you have made up your mind, and you’re trying to hammer facts into shape to support what you believe. You have zero skepticism, but your agenda is strong. Even your screen name reflects your belief system.
But without any empirical, verifiable, testable measurements quantifying AGW, you have no real world evidence showing that what’s being observed is anything but natural variability. All you have are models and assertions.
dbstealey. Still no prediction. My hypothesis is looking good.
The second graph you post ends in 2010. You say that the warming since the LIA has remained within clear limits. We can use this graph to make a prediction based on that hypothesis. If we extrapolate the red and green lines, if the hypothesis is correct we would find that temperature is still within the red and green lines.
In fact, the temperature currently is quite a bit above the red line. Prediction failed.
seaice1 says:
The only real sceintists I can see are the climate scientists. Far from being astrologers, it looks like they are the only real scientists in this field.
So someone like Willis Eschenbach, a published, peer reviewed author, is not a “real scientist”. If you had any credibility left at this point, that comment would have extinguished it. And there are many other scientists skeptical of the ‘carbon’ alarmism. All you’re doing is appealing to the authorities you like, and dismissing any that have different views from yours.
Next, you complain that the graph I cut and pasted ends in 2010. Here is a WoodForTrees graph showing the same general time frame, except that it ends in 2016. It shows that you’re nitpicking; there is nothing either unusual or unprecedented happening with global temperatures.
And that is not a prediction, as you claim. I rarely make predictions. So to say “prediction failed” is just another baseless assertion by you. As we see, there has been no acceleration in global warming. The trend remains generally within the long term parameters. If CO2 emissions were causing any measurable global warming on top of the planet’s natural recovery from the LIA, we would see it. But global warming stopped many years ago. Thus, your CO2=cAGW conjecture fails.
Now, per the Scientific Method, the proper thing to do is to admit that your conjecture has been falsified, then go back and try to figure out why it was wrong. Instead, you and the rest of the alarmist crowd digs in your heels. But since you have no credible evidence to support your conjecture, you simply lie about it.
Like this:
Not even one year ago, all sides of the global warming debate (which morphed into politics with the “climate change” Narrative) were in agreement: global warming stopped many years ago. Even the IPCC’s scientists agreed with the so-called “pause”. Everyone discussed the “pause” (or “hiatus”, or “plateau”) as a fact. (I’m sure you remember. If not, I can link to literally dozens of reasons given to explain why global warming had stopped.)
But as they say, that was then, and this is now. The Narrative has shifted, and the new talking point is: “Global warming never stopped!”
So you keep arguing. But you have no credibility. The facts and evidence from last year are no different now; facts and evidence don’t change. Only the Narrative has changed: the alarmist crowd did a 180º about-face in unison. Now they insist that global warming has been chugging along as always, without any interruption.
Not only is your credibility shot, it’s clear that Noble Cause Corruption has taken over. You are willing to lie, because you believe lying is acceptable in the service of a higher cause. Steven Schnieder gave you explicit permission to lie, and now you’re all taking advantage of it.
But lying is never OK. Science is always searching for the truth, and lying perverts that.
Scientific skeptics are always looking for knowledge. If the facts and evidence show that human CO2 emissions are causing accelerated global warming, we will accept that, and look for remedies. But the only verifiable result from the rise in CO2 shows that it has been completely harmless, and very beneficial to the biosphere. The planet is measurably greening from the added CO2, and there is no observed downside.
But climate alarmists are a very different breed. They are not skeptics — the only honest kind of scientists. Alarmist arguments have become political, but covered with a thin veneer of cherry-picked science. You try to paint skeptics into a corner by insisting that we must make predictions — always ignoring the fact that skeptics have nothing to prove. The onus is on you, but you have failed to support your conjecture. You were wrong, and you simply cannot bear to admit that the hated skeptics were right all along.
Jo Nova posted a 14-step self-help program for ethics-challenged climate alarmists:
• Step 1 – Stop making scary predictions. They never come true.
• Step 2 – When you make a prediction, don’t say something “might” happen.
• Step 3 – Don’t live your life like you don’t believe a word you’re saying.
• Step 4 – Stop the hate.
• Step 5 – Stop avoiding fair, moderated, public debates.
• Step 6 – Answer questions.
• Step 7 – Stop enjoying catastrophes.
• Step 8 – Don’t use invalid arguments.
• Step 9 – When you are wrong, admit it and apologise.
• Step 10 – Stop claiming that 97% of scientists agree that humans are the cause of global warming.
• Step 11 – Stop lying. If you think it is okay to lie if it’s for a good cause, you are wrong.
• Step 12 – Rebuke your fellow Warmists if they act in an unscientific way.
• Step 13 – Stop blaming everything on man-made global warming.
• Step 14 – Explain why the only solutions must always be big-government, “progressive” policies.
That takes courage. Your own side will shun you and treat you as an apostate. But you will start to get your self-respect back, if that’s something you want.
Mainstream climate scientists are also published in peer reviewed journals. If that is the criterion, they are all scientists. Willis’ publication record is not exactly stellar.
“Thus, your CO2=cAGW conjecture fails.” That is not my conjecture. It is that skeptics do not make good predictions, and therefore are not doing science. Try to stick to the point.
Your graph shows nothing. Here is a wood for trees graph showing current temperatures outside the lines. This is not science, it is drawing.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/compress:12/detrend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:2016/trend/offset/plot/hadcrut4gl/trend/offset:0.2/plot/hadcrut4gl/trend/offset:-0.2
Incidentally, why do you insist on plotting graphs with all the data squeezed into the middle, so you cannot actually see anything? You would fail an exam if you selected the axis scales like this.
Now, per the Scientific Method, the proper thing to do is to admit that your conjecture has been falsified, then go back and try to figure out why it was wrong.
But it has not been falsified. Show me why you think it has been falsified. It could easily be falsified if it were wrong, but it has not been.
Walk through it again. Is prediction part of the scientific method? Yes. From wiki:
“The overall process involves making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from them as logical consequences, and then carrying out experiments based on those predictions to determine whether the original conjecture was correct.” (my emphasis)
Eric Worral said “prediction is the gold standard of science”
To be doing science you must be making predictions.
So who are the people making predictions?
My hypothesis: the skeptics either do not make predictions or their predictions are not as good as the mainstream climate scientists. Since prediction is a central part of the scientific method, if my hypothesis is correct, we can conclude that the mainstream scientists are the ones doing science. So far there has not been any evidence that contradicts my hypothesis. You know the method. Propose hypothesis then test it. I have tested it by looking for predictions from skeptics. I have found very few, and those that I have found have been very poor. So to further my investigation I am asking those that ought to know, and have a good reason to disprove my hypothesis. This is after all the most viewed site on climate. That is a pretty good test. So far, no serious challenge.
dbstealey “You are willing to lie, because you believe lying is acceptable in the service of a higher cause.”
Now you go too far. I object to being called a liar, and would prefer that you kept this sort of personal insult out of these discussions. Please remember what Judith Curry posted on this matter. “If someone portrays their opponents as being either stupid or dishonest for disagreeing, intellectual dishonesty is probably in play.”
I am not saying skeptics must make predictions. They can do whatever they like. However, if they want to do science, then they must make predictions. There are a great many things that are of value that are not “doing science”.
seaice1 says:
Willis’ publication record is not exactly stellar.
It’s better than Michael Mann’s. Mann was forced to issue a Corregendum, which is something Willis never had to do. Thus, Willis is 100.0% right. Mann was wrong.
Next:
…skeptics do not make good predictions, and therefore are not doing science.
Skeptics of the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ nonsense aren’t making predictions. I certainly don’t. The job of skeptics is to falsify conjectures and hypotheses. In the case of ‘dangerous AGW’ (DAGW), we have not simply falsified that conjecture, we have demolished it to the point that we’ve forced you out of the science arena, and into the political arena.
You should now withdraw your conjecture, re-formulate a new one that takes into account the fact that global warming stopped for many years, and work with skeptics of your original conjecture to find one that fits the facts and evidence. But you refuse to do that, because you know it would confirm the fact that the hated skeptics were right all along.
You say:
I am not saying skeptics must make predictions. They can do whatever they like.
But then you say:
…if they want to do science, then they must make predictions.
You really don’t understand the role of scientific skepticism at all.
Next:
Your graph shows nothing.
That’s just another baseless assertion. The re-drawn chart you posted shows that prior warming events exceeded current natural warming events. That is what both charts show. Thus, nothing unprecedented is happening. Skeptics have once again demolished the DAGW conjecture by showing that the parameters were exceeded in the past by a greater degree than the recent natural warming fluctuations. And of course, you have never been able to quantify AGW with any measurements, so your belief system is no more than a conjecture; a belief. An opinion that is contradicted by Real World observations.
Next:
You would fail an exam if you selected the axis scales like this.
No, I wouldn’t, and that is another of your baseless assertions, showing again that you’ve got nothin’.
Next, you claim that your falsified conjecture…
…has not been falsified. Show me why you think it has been falsified. It could easily be falsified if it were wrong, but it has not been.
LOLOL!! If it weren’t for your baseless — and wrong — assertions, you wouldn’t have much of anything to say. In 1880 global T exceeded the posted parameters. That fact falsifies the claim that anything unusual is happening. But since you have a weird idea of the Scientific Method, it’s no wonder you’re so confused. You still don’t understand that all it takes is one wrong claim to debunk a conjecture. During a time when human CO2 emissions were not an issue, global T exceeded current parameters. Thus, your conjecture is falsified by the only Authority that matters: Planet Earth.
Next, speaking for myself (and probably many others), I repeatedly point out that not one alarming, scary prediction the alarmist cult has ever made has come true. They were all wrong. No exceptions. (You had best read what I wrote there and pay attention, or I shall taunt you again for your lack of comprehension.) As I’ve pointed out many times, not one climate alarmist scientist or GCM was able to make the most significant prediction of the past century: the fact that global warming stopped for many years. That monumental failure is one for the record books.
Before glonal warming stopped in the late ’90’s/early 2000’s, the alarmist Narrative was ‘runanway global warming and climate catastrophe’. Those talking points were everywhere, and no alarmist scientist or university that I’m aware of ever said, ‘Whoa! That’s going too far!’ Silence is concurrance, and they were happy to let the public become alarmed, because it meant more taxpayer loot in their pockets.
Next, I’ve always said that accurate, repeated predictions are the gold standard of conjectures, hypotheses, theories, and laws. But as we know, Manhattan, Tuvalu and Florida have not been submerged. Natural sea level rise has not accelerated above past parameters. Polar bears are not going extinct. Global ice is not disappearing. Extreme weather events are not increasing. And so on, and on, and on. In fact, not one scary prediction has ever happened.
So yes, accurate predictions are necessary, and they must be consistently accurate. But when they’re consistently wrong, then your conjecture must be discarded. It was wrong. But you refuse to do that, so you’re not being scientific, you’re just being a politician/propagandist.
Next:
My hypothesis: the skeptics either do not make predictions or their predictions are not as good as the mainstream climate scientists.
Don’t be disingenuous. That isn’t a hypothesis, it’s just your opinion, which you attempt to support by personal, uncorroborated assertions: “…I have found very few, and those that I have found have been very poor…”. So thanx for your opinion.
But it’s just another baseless assertion. You keep avoiding the fact that skeptics of a conjecture or hypothesis have nothing to prove. You do. The onus is on you, but you’ve failed. So you pass off your personal opinion as a scientific ‘hypothesis’.
You need to get up to speed on what you’re talking about. I recommend Dr. Jeff Glassman’s Conjecture, Hypothesis, Theory, Law to get started. Because right now, it’s clear you don’t understand that scientific hierarchy.
A comment on predictions. There is confusion because the word “prediction” is used to mean predicting the future. In science it is not quite the same. The predictions in science are of the form If…then. IF some set of parameters is as described, THEN there will be this outcome. In many sciences we can set up an experiment and keep other factors constant. In some fields we must use observations instead of experiment. We might say IF there is a huge volcanic eruption THEN there will be cooling. We must then wait for an eruption to test our hypothesis. The prediction is not that there will be cooling in any particular year.
So making a scientific prediction is NOT necessarily the same as predicting the future. To distinguish these types of prediction the term projection is sometimes used.
You should consider being a pretzel designer.
“You would fail an exam if you selected the axis scales like this.
No, I wouldn’t, and that is another of your baseless assertions, showing again that you’ve got nothin’.”
From a university on how to plot a graph.
5. Choose scales such that the graph occupies most of the page. The two scales need not have the same size units. Also, the scales need not begin at zero.
https://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/errorman/graphs.htm
Your graphs do not comply with this. If you plotted a graph with a squiggly line across the middle of the page you would fail. It is sad that you refuse to accept the slightest input as this makes it impossible for you to learn.
seaice1 says:
Willis’ publication record is not exactly stellar.
It’s better than Michael Mann’s. Mann was forced to issue a Corregendum, which is something Willis never had to do. Thus, Willis is 100.0% right. Mann was wrong.
What an absurd and astonishing way to measure publication success! Also totally besides the point, since Michael Mann is only one person – there are thousands of others that must all be scientists by your criterion.
Next:
The job of skeptics is to falsify conjectures and hypotheses.
So why don’t you falsify mine? Could it be because you do not seem to have understood what it is? As illustrated by your next comment:
You should now withdraw your conjecture, re-formulate a new one that takes into account the fact that global warming stopped for many years…?
Since my conjecture does not mention CO2 or warming or anything at all like that, you are barking up the wrong tree.
Your graph shows nothing.
That’s just another baseless assertion. The re-drawn chart you posted shows that prior warming events exceeded current natural warming events. That is what both charts show.
Not at all. What it shows is that drawing those lines on the original graph are meaningless, sine both older and newer data is outside the lines. The lines are arbitrary, and have no significance.
Thus, nothing unprecedented is happening.
If unprecedented means outside the lines, then current temperatures AND older temperatures are unprecedented. This is clearly an absurd and oxymoronic statement, so we conclude the lines are meaningless. If the lines do not mean that, then what do they mean?
And of course, you have never been able to quantify AGW with any measurements, so your belief system is no more than a conjecture; a belief. An opinion that is contradicted by Real World observations.
Yet we have a paper that rejects the Null Hypothesis by using real world observations, so the Real World observations are supporting the AGW view.
http://www.physics.mcgill.ca/~gang/eprints/eprintLovejoy/neweprint/Anthro.climate.dynamics.13.3.14.pdf
Next, you claim that your falsified conjecture…
In 1880 global T exceeded the posted parameters. That fact falsifies the claim that anything unusual is happening. But since you have a weird idea of the Scientific Method, it’s no wonder you’re so confused. You still don’t understand that all it takes is one wrong claim to debunk a conjecture.
Please look back at my conjecture. It is not that anything unusual is happening. It is you who is confused. Why don’t you do the skeptics job as you describe it, and provide that evidence?
Next, I’ve always said that accurate, repeated predictions are the gold standard of conjectures, hypotheses, theories, and laws.
It is amusing that this is similar to my conjecture. We agree about this at least.
However, we cannot possibly require that predictions are accurate to be counted as science. We cannot know this when they are made – hence the need for testing. Disproving an incorrect conjecture is a part of the scientific method, so I will give you that. Skeptics may contribute to this one aspect of science, but only climate scientist are doing the whole method. I believe there is a book you could read by Dr. Jeff Glassman called “Conjecture, Hypothesis, Theory, Law” to get you started.
So please provide the predictions that arise from outside the mainstream climate community. It is really simple. We have seen one example in a more recent thread – the prediction that global cooling will start in 2017. We will soon be able to see which model is best. This is what I am asking for. If they cannot be provided here, then where else?
Next:
My hypothesis: the skeptics either do not make predictions or their predictions are not as good as the mainstream climate scientists.
Don’t be disingenuous. That isn’t a hypothesis, it’s just your opinion. The onus is on you, but you’ve failed.
Surely, “The job of skeptics is to falsify conjectures and hypotheses.” That is exactly what I am asking you to do. Since it is testable, it is not opinion. Just do the job of the skeptic and produce the predictions.
I just call them quacks, because that’s what they are.
Lets not insult ducks (quack, quack) .. or bad doctors (quacks).
Climate modelers are climate astrologers.
Probably less accurate than you’re typical astrologer..
Richard, of course less accurate because astrologers only tell what will happen to 97% anyway.
I would say that Climate Astrology is a lot lower down the ladder than pure Astrology. These people who read Tarrot cards do have to know there stuff, i.e. what each card actually means & symbolises! In Climate Astrology, one just makes it up as one goes along with a computer model!
Climate astrology actually has a big thing in common with zodiac astrology: both doctrines deny known facts to push their theme. Climate astrologers try to hide the decline.
The big thing astrologers try to hide is precession of the equinoxes. They pretend the sun is in the same zodiacal constellation each month that it was in 2500 years ago.
SR
The constellations move about 1 degree every 72 years. I’ve thought about changing my career to an astrologer. I won’t have to prove anything, most people believe it, and I’d probably make more money. If as an astrologer I felt that CAGW was wrong, I could just say so. So in response to a climate scientist all I’d have to say is, ” are you an astrologer?”
But it doesn’t matter anyway… even if they used the precession… with the wrong sign.
” could not have gotten their jobs/grants if they did not BELIEVE …”
It is extremely depressing that an election was fought in Australia where the most important thing was who BELIEVED in global warming the most.
I “believe” in global warming too.
I believe it is slightly warmer than in 1850.
If we didn’t have global warming, we’d have global cooling.
That I would not like, but if it was happening (and perhaps it started in 1998), I would believe that too.
I am probably the most skeptical “denier” in the world — I don’t even accept the claim that CO2 causes any warming beyond the first 100 ppmv of CO2, without scientific proof.
My most important belief is that humans can’t predict the future.
Predictions of a coming catastrophe — such as runaway global warming — have been used by religious and political leaders for many centuries to scare the general public, and control them.
+10
“Real Scientists”, in days gone by, used to be people with an assured livelihood (often with their own wealth) who were curious about natural phenomena. For such people there would be no point whatsoever in faking data – the only people they would be lying to would be themselves, and maybe their small circle of friends.
With the establishment of Academia as an actual job and then the later establishment of science as a government grant-funded activity, a reason for lying and faking data was introduced. And now that science and politics are becoming inextricably mixed, lying and partial presentation of data has become a de-fact standard.
This gives us a lesson, not so much about science, as about humanity. If humans do something for their own interest they will be honest. if you start paying them to do so, they will lie. And if you pay them enough, they will become completely corrupt….
It gets worse. Because of the profit motive, drug research has reached levels of corruption that would make the average tin-pot dictator blush.
We can expect that the drug companies would want to cheat. That’s why we have the FDA. When the FDA, the scientists, and many congress critters are in on the corruption we are really up the creek without a paddle.
America’s corruption has reached a level of sophistication that Vlad Putin should envy. People have figured that out. That’s why they are willing to elect Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump; anybody who isn’t in the establishment. If that doesn’t work (because Sanders and Trump aren’t going to address the real problem) it will get worse. I’m seriously starting to think about building a bunker and stocking it with a seven year supply of grain.
..America’s corruption has reached a level of sophistication….
“The West’s corruption has reached a level of sophistication…”
There. Fixed that for you. There really is no difference amongst the international elite. Both the UK and Europe are as corrupt as the US, and both sets of politicians are suffering attacks from non-establishment parties…
Sadly, you are completely right. Thanks anyway. 🙁
There are also scientists who work for private corporations, but those scientists have to produce real results.
Unlike “scientists” in academia who only have to produce publishable papers.
My godmother was Mrs. Michener of Pasadena, CA. Neighbor of my astronomer grandparents, she wrote books about all sorts of birds from condors to house finches. She was a classic Victorian ‘scientist’ who did things because she loved doing things and was curious about things. Died when she was over 100 years old in the early 1960’s, born before the Civil War.
She was a real scientist and naturalist and loved Darwin’s ideas and was curious about everything and had no reason to lie about anything.
Some people in all walks of life are corrupt … who knew?
This may fall under honesty, but a willingness to publish data and methods and accept criticism is essential to science. You have to be willing to re-examine your conclusions based on criticism to determine if they can be improved, or perhaps they are just wrong. This is the essential piece missing under many modern forms of so-called science.
Bias has become so strong and so accepted in the scientific community that real science often cannot exist. And this comes from the teaching that you can be an activist and a scientist at the same time (on the same subject). You can’t – activism breeds strong bias that makes good science impossible.
Climatology – the religion – is a classic example of this. Activism has corrupted principle and honesty – the goal is more important than the truth. The activists cannot see the corruption for what it is – hence science for fact is undermined and replaced with faith. Faith cannot tolerate disagreement.
Real Science has been un-faking the data for a while…and now has a home version
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/
Steve McIntyre over at Climateaudit has 4-5 articles regarding misrepresentation of data used in several alaskan area dendro studies.
One of the most telling facts uncovered was the non use of 96% of the tree cores in the temp reconstruction because they did not reflect the cooling MWP and they did not reflect the current period “uptick” in temps. significant post facto data selection.
http://climateaudit.org/2016/01/29/cherry-picking-by-darrigo/
of the 359 (354+5) new Coppermine River cores, 98.6% were used in the CNWT composite and 1.4% not used, while of the 363 (12+351) new Thelon River cores, only 3.3% were used in the CNWT composite, while 96.7% were not used.
Joe, you just don’t understand.
Why would you use those “bad” Thelon River cores that don’t work as treemometers? You only use “good” treemometers that agree with instrumental temperatures from someplace tens or hundreds of miles away.
David Jay February 16, 2016 at 8:12 am
Joe, you just don’t understand.
Why would you use those “bad” Thelon River cores that don’t work as treemometers? You only use “good” treemometers that agree with instrumental temperatures from someplace tens or hundreds of miles away.
Is that like using the bristlecone pines in mannian SH temp reconstruction?
Humility to evidence gets a pillow over the face when Trillions of dollars of economic redistribution are on the line. Sort of like supreme court justices.
…Ouch !!
Public sector unions very viability threatened.
The Chosen One’s Legacy threatened.
Trillion’s in future taxation threatened.
Casaulties for a Noble Cause:
Humility to Evidence
Scientific Uncertainty
Contrary influential justices
RIP. To All.
We are in a new era of Bernie Sander’s popular socialism, Clintoni fabrications and bald face lies, a politically corrupted DOJ, and a narcissist US President who will engineer whatever it takes to prevent a Republican president as a successor.
Sad and possibly true, but we’ll never know.
A number of other cases crucial to the socialist agenda will also be affected, to include immigration, redistricting and religious freedom with respect to abortion.
My first thought was the study covered what I thought was intuitively obvious and taken for granted when I was in school a half-century ago. Heck, doctoring your data was a quick ticket to the exit. There is some value in taking the pulse of scientists to see what attitudes are important. The intent was to get 1,000 leading scientists to respond. He is halfway. How much of the response is motherhood and apple pie?
http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2016/what-values-are-important-to-scientists/
I was in graduate school 40 years ago, and there were persons, persons many people on campus seemed to know about, who faked data used to get advanced degrees. Where these characters ended up is anyone’s guess, but science is not very diligent about policing itself. Fakers get by, and some may really prosper for a long time.
Newton himself engaged in some fakery. Westfall’s paper from Science Magazine (1971 or 1972?) entitled “Newton and the Fudge Factor” documents it all. This is why due diligence through repeating research to see if it possible to replicate is an important but deprecated task.
+1 for using a Dilbert Comic.
It’s crazy how much data has been falsified. Especially with how much is usually published based off of some studies……..and just looks bad on everyone involved. The big thing these days is the amount of money at stake, how Capitalist science has become.
Eric, science hasn’t become “more capitalist”, it has become less so. The money corrupting science mainly comes from activist, ideological governments and administrative entities, who are not interested in truth, but power and control.
Science is not about consensus. It’s about disproof, disbelief and skepticism. It’s not about consensus. When you’ve got consensus, you’ve got trouble. Prof Noakes was born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1949. As a youngster, he had a keen interest in sport and attended Diocesan College in Cape Town. Following this, he studied at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and obtained an MBChB degree in 1974, an MD in 1981 and a DSc (Med) in Exercise Science in 2002.
Yes, exactly. So when did science go down the consensus rat hole? Was it climate science that started this failure in scientific integrity? Or does it go back farther when the federal government began playing a heavy hand in scientific research?
At any rate, scientists are not special, they do not get to bypass as you said, “disproof, disbelief and skepticism” Science would not accept the story of Noah’s arc because 65% of the populace believed it, why should it accept AGW because xx% scientists reached consensus?
Alx Yes, exactly. So when did science go down the consensus rat hole? Go to the 19:35 time of the video you will see 1972 to 1977 the bad thing Gov., do to our lives.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRe9z32NZHY
Science went downhill after politicians figured out that they could get more power by claiming more power was needed to save the Earth for our children.
I believe Earth Day in the 1970s (April 22, 1970) is a logical date for the starting point when scientists and politicians formed their first major alliance.
There was enough pollution in the US at that time, so that environmentalism was a good thing … but it grew stronger as the excessive pollution was cleaned up … eventually reaching a multi-trillion-dollar global industry looking for government favors and subsidies.
A great deal of pollution vanished thanks to free trade and many, many factories and smelters, etc. moving overseas.
“When you’ve got consensus, you’ve got trouble.” Oh no. Then there must be trouble with quantum mechanics, evolution, relativity, the heliocentric solar system, the roughly ball-shaped earth, the existence of dogs etc etc etc.
It is clearly a nonsense to suggest that the existence of a consensus indicates trouble. It is correct to say that the existence of a consensus is not the same as proof.
Did they really expect dishonest scientists to admit they were dishonest ?
Sort of…they would admit only to under-reporting the risks and consequences ‘so as not to cause panic’. That is the sort of ‘confession’ I have had handed to me on a greasy plate. I have begun to think that asking those claiming/predicting alarming consequences to accept some financial responsibility for actions taken based on their advice, if they turn out not to be true.
Consider: many of these claimants are paid for their opinions. Then they bear us a duty to accept responsibility for something done based on their ‘professional advice’. If a ‘real climate scientist’ is incompetent, turf them out. If an engineer says ‘the bridge will bear the load’ and it doesn’t, there is a review.
If someone is a professional climate scientist and claims that we have to stop doing A to instead do B, and it turns out to be a waste of money, they should bear the consequences of giving bad advice. It doesn’t have to be RICO consequences for professional malpractice, professional disconnection should suffice, with a public notice.
After severance from the world of real incomes, they can stand on a soapbox in a corner of Hyde Park and continue to shout their warnings. There is a time and place for everyone. If a paid professional cannot give competent advice, they have to go and do something else; make way for those who can do it properly. There are lots of opportunities in this world. That is how things work. We casual participants should continue to elevate the profile and status of those like M&M so as to reward with public trust those who are willing to demonstrate how real science is done. We also have a duty to stay the hand of the oppressor(s).
Skepticism is the proper mood of science; consensus is for politics, and for those lacking intellectual curiosity.
The issues in Climate Science run from faking the data to overstating the results to without conscious misrepresenting results.
This article addresses the overstating and misrepresenting issues with climate science.
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/02/climate_models_botch_another_prediction.html
“The failure is the lack of transparency and honesty about how feeble these models are and how much we should stake on their all-too-fallible forecasts.”
I notice your article doesn’t allow any comments.
“This article addresses the overstating and misrepresenting issues with climate science.”
It is fascinating that this article does so by misrepresenting and oversating. Quite fascinating the level of double standards that are applied.
There is a claim “Numerous modelers have told us that the Arctic polar ice would be completely gone by now.” with no fewer than 4 links. Every link fails to demonstrate that claim. They all say the ice could be gone as soon as some date that has passed. There is no prediction that the ice would be gone by now, only that it could be gone as soon as now -each prediction clearly stretching into the future.
The claim in the article is therefore misrepresenting and oversating the issue.
Even if some modelers had predicted loss by now, it would still be misrepresentation. The mainstream position is that the ice will be gone by 2035-ish at the soonest. The IPCC claim is around mid-century at the earliest. If there are some outliers, that does not invalidate the whole enterprise. To focus on the few outliers is to misrepresent the issue.
Re: fake data 2/16/2016:
Science is a truth-seeking enterprise.
This is a repetition of Popper’s fundamental error, essential to his deconstruction of science to recapture it as metaphysics, to replace causation and measurements with his three intersubjective tests: peer-review, publication, and consensus, all within a closed community.
Science is not truth-valued. Science is the (strictly) objective branch of knowledge, contained in (manmade) models of both the natural and the manmade real world. It grades its models on their predictive power, labeling them as Conjectures, Hypotheses, Theories, and Laws, in order of increasing completeness and empirical validation.
A scientific model describes an experiment: if you do this, you will observe that. It is a mapping on existing facts to future facts, the predictions. Facts are observations reduced to measurements and compared with standards. Predictions derived from Cause & Effect propositions are statistical, often multidimensional, where each dimension is measured – not as true or false – but on the real line from 0 to 1.
A scientist defining his model and its predictions, and validating those predictions with experiment, will be doing science and, so far, not incurring any ethical problems.
But admission of alternative explanations, including the null hypothesis, to the observations is a vital part of avoiding the trap of pareidolia.
joelobryan 2/16/16 @ 8:51 urged that the scientific method must take into account pareidolia, a concept from psychology involving misperceptions and illusions. But psychology isn’t a science, and even if it were, the parent doesn’t inherit attributes from its children.
The tail doesn’t get to wag the dog. Modern Science does not inherit falsification, peer review, publication or consensus from its deconstruction, Post Modern Science.
Psychology isn’t a science, and not because of snobbery, as some of its practitioners think. It’s because psych entertains the forbidden subjective, and it has unmeasurable concepts — like pareidolia, perceptions and illusions.
Secondly, science doesn’t give a fig what anybody believes or thinks of its models, or prefers, one over another, and science weeds out all that junk. Science excludes everything subjective, all beliefs. The scientist can be deluded, operating under any kind of misperceptions or lunacy. His work, if honest, will be judged solely on his model’s predictive power.
joelobryan also referred to alternative explanations, including the null hypothesis as vital to science. To be sure, the null hypothesis plays a dominant role in decision making from scientific models, but H0 is not a proper competing model complete with Cause & Effect. It is not, as some writers have expressed recently on this blog, an application of Occam’s Razor as a choice between competing models. In binary decision making, the null hypothesis is between the model, H1, and no model at all, between the model and the noise in the model’s domain, the unavoidable and unmodeled stuff that comes with all measurements.
Next we have the science administrators, executive staff of science associations, and granting agency administrations. How are they doing these days?
What values are important to scientists?
Stupid question, look at the last line on their payslip.
The core of all science is the METHOD: an endless cycle of forming hypotheses, experimental design, careful observation, and data interpretation.
That said, the difference between a good scientist and a hack are his priorities. When the purpose of the work is selfish materialism rather than enlightenment in the ways of the universe, the quality of the work suffers.
Richard Feynman:
First you guess the theory, then you compute the result, then you compare the result with experiment or observation. If the observation or experiment does not agree with the theory, THE THEORY IS WRONG.
In this is the basis of science.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw
Observation or experiment without publishing the raw data is not much good either.
Vuc, what about baseless claims, pareidoleic ruminations, idle fancies and vain imaginings? Is there no longer a place for ‘art’ in science?
Spoil-sport….
Of course there is, I’m always on a lookout for such things
https://youtu.be/PMerSm2ToFY
An alarmist climate scientist is someone who will actually crap in their mess kit if it will help the cause.
First step to any solution is identification of the problem. Perhaps a baby step, but this study reflects an attempt to honor the obvious and obviously many folks in science realize there is a problem concerning integrity.
So now what ?
ALL, not some, ALL data (including experimental design development) is a public record when funded by public tax dollars. Yes, there are privacy protection for personal information for the quibblers out there.
If science wants to regain the high ground perhaps require the doling out of grant money much in the manner you pay the contractor who repairs your home. Allocate funds based on achieving the specs. Part of the specs needs to be transparency of your records.
The solution is not hard. The will to clamp down on what is becoming a runaway issue is lacking.
As a side note, I think there is ample room for a company who sets itself up to be a data quality assurance firm. Here is an example for environmental fields …. http://www.envstd.com. I’m sure other science fields can benefit from the approach.
I’m currently at a workshop about supercomputing and stuff. The Large Hadron Collider doesn’t record all the data; it CAN’T. The Square Kilometre Array radio telescope that’s going to start construction soon won’t record all the data; it CAN’T. I mean that they physically cannot record all the data they do or will gather: the whole planet just isn’t producing storage devices fast enough. So data have to be selectively sampled, analysed, filtered, and _that_ gets (or will get) saved. In fact part of my talk was the necessity for replication and for archiving the software used and the need for perpetual licences for things like compilers to make this possible. It turns out that radio astronomy is a lot more indirect than you might have thought, so it will be particularly important to repeat old analyses with new algorithms.
Database storage and repositories are going to have to happen if science tries to restore transparency and provide the opportunity for others to replicate findings. I can’t see another way. Can you ?
The sensationalist headlines coming out of CERN are suspicious. Many articles claim they found the Higgs but this would be earth shattering news, it was fairly mute and some claim it wasn’t definitively the Higgs, it may be the techni-Higgs which is not elementary. Then we now have the ‘scientists expect to make contact with parallel dimension in days” headline. Surprising amount of certainty given the knowledge about black holes is speculative and the gravity rainbow application is a theory.
the whole black holes will swallow the earth is also ridiculous even to a layman. Micro black holes caused by impact energies don’t have the mass to sustain themselves and the rate of expansion as they immediately disappear is way faster than any possible influx of matter, and that’s even if it WASN”T in a VACUUM.
Cutting edge, pioneering physics breakthroughs is a great way to get the public in the Star Trek ‘humanity together’ mindset and take their minds of political and economic machinations. It’s actually a great propaganda tool of sorts. Not to say that the great scientists there are necessarily fabricating anything but they may be premature and a bit overly confident with some of their pronouncements.
The problem isn’t just that some scientists are consciously or unconsciously skewing their results to acquire their desired outcomes. The problem is that the scientific process (as opposed to the scientific method) is susceptible to conscious and unconscious human-nature induced skewing. I know of no better expose on this than http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/12/13/the-truth-wears-off.
Great article
“In a forthcoming paper, Schooler recommends the establishment of an open-source database, in which researchers are required to outline their planned investigations and document all their results. “I think this would provide a huge increase in access to scientific work and give us a much better way to judge the quality of an experiment,” Schooler says.”
thallstd
Thus demonstrating, once again, psychology is not science; it’s observations wrapped in (generally) bad statistics, somewhat akin to economics.
Doesn’t mean some of it isn’t useful, it’s just not science.
As I have pointed out at this site on several occasions, I doubt there are a handful of real scientists left in the world. And of that handful, few or none work with government funding of any kind.
The premier journal of science today is “Journal of Irreproducible Results”. http://www.jir.com/
Honesty and integrity does not apply to climate scientists. It doesn’t have to, they just know. Nobody is a climate scientist unless peer reviewed and are faithful to established mantra by a select group who only want to save the world. No data, test result, basic fundamental law in any other field can nullify AGW. That’s climate science.
Those who need to have a certain scientific outcome in order to keep their jobs and/or maintain funding aren’t scientists either. I call them “climate whores”.
UNEORI VISEZI CU OCHII DESCHIŞI
// event.2parale.ro/events/click?ad_type=product_store&aff_code=036a3f65e&campaign_unique=ca8f8ce30&unique=c76aa5941
2016-02-16 17:06 GMT+02:00 Watts Up With That? :
> Anthony Watts posted: “From the “fabrication makes publication” department > comes this study on the “core values” of scientists. What values are > important to scientists? MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY WASHINGTON, D.C. – While > many people are marking today scrutinizing the virt” >
manzatu
Ok, I dumped that into Google Translate and got “sometimes daydream”.
Great post, dude. Really moved the ball forward.
This article makes me proud to be labeled a so-called “denier”. I deny Mikey Mann and others like him the title of scientists. Especially with Mikey, the article gives an exact description.
Mikey the anti-scientist.
I’ve lived my life since 1963 tightly coupled to the computer , having gotten thousands of lines of APL in which a single symbol can be profound , and Forth , building APL , to work . With computer code truth is absolute : the expression either works or doesn’t .
The casual dishonesty I see , a staple of sitcoms and virtually expected in courts and politics and this AlGoreWarming nonscience , is so terribly destructive of human welfare .
Truth is the universal positive definite eigenfunction . Truth endures .
I wonder if people are not taking an artificial view of an issue which sometimes has a non – sinister human side to it . 2 examples ;
1. at the time of the devastating storms in NW England late last year the head of the UKmet office was asked for the reasons for the storms and she of course came out with the usual “warmer = wetter” theme that the Govt and the greens have been promoting . Now no one questions that as a starting point for discussion but as I watched her , her eyes and body language seemed to indicate that she was unhappy with this simple answer. If you look at her career resumee she has a solid background in meteorology and was , IMO , the obvious choice to take over the Met Office. I thought that she wanted to explain to people the complex and fascinating story of why storms hit with such severity , and so localised (which meant that the flooding was worse than if the storms dissipated over the whole of England and not just a narrow corridor) but was constrained by the attitude of the BBC and her employer , the UK Govt , from expanding beyond the most facile answer.
2. As a post- doc I was asked to comment on a PhD thesis that was about to be submitted . The work had been done on an instrument elsewhere , and I suspected from the results that the student had so misinterpreted the readings that his conclusions were unjustified . However I had no definite evidence for my suspicions , he had spent 3 years on this project and , had just recently lost his father . So I could not say that I thought his thesis was valueless and just made some minor comments . I later found out , through using the instrument myself that my suspicions were correct and that he had mistaken noise for signal. So did I fail as a scientist , but perhaps succeed as a human being . Even scientific life is not always so black and white.
mikewaite
I think the issue is did you willfully fail (in the situation you describe, probably not, though certainly you could have asked harder questions).
On the other hand, do you think Cook honestly believes his “97% climate consensus” paper?
The Al Gore quote in Grist on May 10, 2006 “In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don’t think there’s a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.” — Al Gore
Did you lie? No I made an “over-representation of factual presentations” !
Always remember Victor Borge: He claimed to have an uncle who invented a cure for which there was no disease. Tragically, he later caught the cure and died.
“Over-representation” of “debate has ended” in attacks on the science process of continual fact- and model- checking is the more egregious ethical lapse of the political scientists.
It is a fact that there has been widespread pathetic data GISS manipulation of the surface temperature data by NOAA which explains why (in addition to the urban heat effect) there is roughly a 0.15C temperature difference current temperatures, satellite vs GISS.
Manipulating data does not change the fact that the planet is about to abruptly cool. The data and analysis supports the assertion that the majority of the warming in the last 150 years was due to solar cycle changes rather than the increase in atmospheric CO2. If that assertion is correct, global warming is reversible. Observations continue to support the assertion that the solar cycle has been interrupted.
Big surprise the paleo data unequivocally shows that the planet cyclically warms and cools with the warming and cooling periods (sometimes abrupt cooling) correlating with solar cycle changes. The past is a guide to the future.
Scientific Explanation why there is almost no warming for a doubling of atmospheric. Explains why there has been no statistical warming for the last 18 years and why the CAGW predicted tropical tropospheric hot spot at 8km did not occur.
The One Dimension, No Feedback Forcing Calculation’s Deliberate Incorrect (White Lies/Fibs) Assumptions
A) Lapse Rate Fib
The so called 1 dimensional, no feedback, forcing calculations for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 ignored the fact that the lapse rate decreases when atmospheric CO2 increases which reduces the surface forcing by a factor of four (the issue is how much the surface temperature changes not how much the atmosphere warms). The change in the lapse rate is due to the fact that hot air rises which causes cold air to fall causing the phenomena which is called convection cooling.
B) Water Vapor Fib
The 1 dimensional no feedback calculation CO2 forcing warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 was done with no water vapor in the atmosphere. As the planet is 70% covered with water there is a great deal of water vapor in the atmosphere. As the absorption spectrum of water and CO2 overlap, water vapor in the atmosphere reduces the surface temperature increase due to the doubling of atmospheric CO2 also by a factor of four.
Due to Fib A and Fib B, the warming due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2, no feedbacks is 16 times smaller 0.075C rather than 1.2C which is so small the without feedback warming is the same as the with feedbacks warming.
The climate wars have helped to change and set the ‘liberal’ culture which has also spilled into science. As it not possible to scientifically defend CAGW or even AGW, acceptance of CAGW as a liberal pillar forces the acceptance of lying and hiding the truth.
It was once a matter of honor to speak the truth and to stand up for those who speak the truth. It was once an important responsibility of the media to search for the truth and publicly identify miss-truths and lies.
Over the last decade (this is a change, previously there was for example real factual discussion in the Economist and on the US public broadcast system (PBS) of policy and scientific issues) there has been a stronger and stronger change to the de facto liberal policy where questioning/logical analysis of a liberal policy pillar, including scientific pillars is to risk being labeled a heretic, a denier. This is particularly true for anything related to AGW or climate.
US liberal television (CNN for example) is devoid of pros/cons, facts, and logical analysis. The discussion, concerning climate/AGW/uncontrolled ‘immigration’ or the presidential candidate selection process for example, when it occurs is presented as good guys vs bad guys with interviews that are limited to the good guys. The news reports are astonishingly and unabashedly partisan and politically biased. Name calling and making of faces to emphasis agreement that with the rhetoric and/or the evil nature of the political opposing team is now standard fare. This would be unthinkable a decade or two ago when there was serious newspaper analysis and serious discussion of issues on television.
The CNN ‘discussions’ have over the last decade become exclusively the righteous team reading their rhetoric. The CNN news anchors appear to have the policy/technical knowledge of a high school dropout and appear to have no interest in technical issues such as climate beyond supporting the righteous teams’ rhetoric.
Rhetoric reading is limited, most of the CNN is broadcasting is limited to live video, sensationalism completely avoiding controversial subjects (i.e. subjects where observations and analysis does not support the rhetoric.)
The US public broadcast system (PBS) policy review now follows the same format as CNN. There is an obvious great effort to have an ethnically and gender diverse team of believers for the ‘discussions’ which are limited to a spokesperson from the government or video of spokesperson reading their rhetoric. The PBS anchors now, unabashedly, make funny
you wrote;
‘Manipulating data does not change the fact that the planet is about to abruptly cool.’
My comment:
I think it would be a good idea for skeptics to refrain from predicting the future climate.
Predictions of the future tend to be wrong.
It makes sense to claim that after the current warming trend ends, a cooling trend will begin.
No one knows when, and it doesn’t even matter.
If we have a cooling trend the leftists will probably predict a coming global cooling disaster and tell everyone to do as they say, or life on Earth will end as we know it.
Wait a minute, some of them did exactly that in 1975 !
Why predict more than saying a cooling trend is expected to follow the current warming trend, based on what was seen in ice core climate proxy studies?
Richard, “I think it would be a good idea for skeptics to refrain from predicting the future climate”. You advocate that skeptics abandon science? Prediction is the gold standard of science. Whilst some have in practice already done this (see the gravitational wave post for some examples), it is not usual to see it so openly acknowledged.
“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking”
ALBERT EINSTEIN
kalsel3294
Well, it’s relative.
If it’s Einstein’s every day thinking, maybe.
Don’t know about you, but I seriously doubt anything I’m thinking would have predicted gravitational waves 100 years in advance of their discovery.
An excellent post.
It disgusts me that “scientists”, governments and society in general have come to accept that raw data can be corrupted.
The scientific method is the only test of a scientist and their claims of scientifically testable hypothesis.
If it cannot be reproduced, it must remain speculation.
The claimed consensus, a majority shared opinion has zero scientific meaning or value.
Vague claims ,citing unavailable measurements and methodology are all the vogue in Climatology.
A person, scientist or not, who is wrong but honest and ethical is trustworthy. When he sees himself or is shown he is wrong, he’ll admit it.
Science, politics, religion, auto repair, etc. etc.
Character matters.
“The Great Betrayal – Fraud in Science” Horace Freeland Judson
Our clever “climate scientists” are determined not to lose all our manufacturing capability overseas.
Neoconservative aka warmists.
Regime change = repairing climate change
CPP = WMDs
Parallel story line.
Max Fisher
Vox.com – Tuesday, February 16, 2016
America’s unlearned lesson: the forgotten truth about why we invaded Iraq
A tautological result. Unscientific scientists are not scientists. If they fake the results then they don’t care about the results hence they don’t have a characteristic of scientists therefore they weren’t scientists in the first place. Science with a capital S is not science.
Or, said another way, unethical practices seldom (?) produce real science.
The implication being science requires ethics.
I saw an item headlined Glenwood Springs in the 2/15 Denver Post. Seems the area wildlife managers are concerned that the local owls, eagles, elk, assorted wild life in their personal charge are “scrounging” for forage due to the deep snow and need some supplemental feed. Why do (the royal) we presume to know what is best for nature? Feed them now so they can starve next fall? Is this the same snow our children would never see again? I maintain bird feeders in the front yard, does than make me a “wildlife manager?” Can I apply for a grant? Maybe instead of “climate scientists” the title should be “climate managers,” t’would make for higher pay grades.
Then you need a cat to chase the squirrels. Before long others will imitate your ecosystem and then you’ll be drawing lazy birds to your area and the raptors will follow. Then, the cat will bring something through the cat flap and then, well theeeeen you can apply for post traumatic stress disorder induced by a poorly designed ecoexperiment.
Hey – what ever happened to seaice1 (MUCH earlier in thread)?
I thought he was going to give us 1 (ONE; >0) testable prediction from CAGW…
I also liked (well, choked on my popcorn) when he allowed as how until we could give him better climate models, the CAGW ones were good enough. Yikes.
Hi Chip, did you not see the reply? I posted a prediction that had already been made and largely came true. Hows that for science?
You also did not understand the argument. It is that predictions are necessary for the conduct of science. I never said that they were good enough, I said the were the only ones that were science.
Hey -whatever happened to Chip Javert?
“I didn’t even know data could be real” ~ Dilbert cartoon
That may be the best comment on “science” seen at this site in a long, long time.
Memo to all climate and psychology journals
There seem to be a lot of people doing science these days who are not really scientists in the true sense.
Louis 2/17/16 @ 10:37 pm said,
There seem to be a lot of people doing science these days who are not really scientists in the true sense.
There ARE a lot of such people.
Those adjusting their model to fit the data are doing science. Those adjusting the data to fit their model are doing something between ignorant and unethical, according to the degree they understand science. Among the unethical practices is adjusting the meaning of science to justify the handiwork.
Willis E. is a “real” scientist.
Jeff Glassman and peyelut,
I made the same point here.
dbstealey, 2/19/16 @ 9:41 pm, has me confused. He said, Jeff Glassman and peyelut, [¶] I made the same point here.
where here is an off-target link to a comment by seaice1, 2/19/16 @ 4:37 pm.
To be specific, peyelut and I shared no common point. If dbstealey is seeking credit for some prior posting, the only post of his preceding one of mine was another irrelevant post of 2/17 @ 8:12. That dbstealey post also shared nothing in common with any of my comments at any time.
Jeff,
I was referring to seaice1’s implication that people like Willis aren’t real scientists. Sorry I wasn’t more clear.
seaice1, 2/20/16 @ 4:25 am, said
A comment on predictions. There is confusion because the word “prediction” is used to mean predicting the future. In science it is not quite the same. The predictions in science are of the form If…then. IF some set of parameters is as described, THEN there will be this outcome. In many sciences we can set up an experiment and keep other factors constant. In some fields we must use observations instead of experiment. We might say IF there is a huge volcanic eruption THEN there will be cooling. We must then wait for an eruption to test our hypothesis. The prediction is not that there will be cooling in any particular year.
To be precise, scientific models describe experiments. The hypothesis, the if-part, describes the set-up, which may require a triggering observation, like seaice1’s volcano example. The conclusion, the then-part, ALWAYS predicts the resulting measurements. A model is a mapping from existing facts to, not real world outcomes, but future facts, where facts are observations reduced to measurements and compared with standards. Contrary to seaice1’s explanation, existing scientific facts ALWAYS relate to observations. And future facts may indeed be about past events, as in archeology, cosmology, paleontology, and especially climatology — climatology, where Global Average Surface Temperature follows solar activity. GAST follows the Sun with lags commensurate with and longer than IPCC’s projection periods, and where, in the present geological era, GAST regulates atmospheric CO2 concentration, overwhelming human effects.
So making a scientific prediction is NOT necessarily the same as predicting the future. To distinguish these types of prediction the term projection is sometimes used.
seaice1 urges that predictions give way to projections because the process being modeled depends on future events. IPCC explains why it uses projection in place of prediction, and the reasons are different. They boil down to these two claims, each of which happens to be false: (1) the climate is inherently unpredictable, and (2) man, whom the model is designed to influence, is in the loop:
The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long term prediction of future exact climate states is not possible. TAR, Technical Summary, G.2 Climate Processes and Modelling, p. 78.
It is not possible to make deterministic, definitive predictions of how climate will evolve over the next century … . It is not even possible to make projections of the frequency of occurrence of all possible outcomes … . Projections of climate change are uncertain, first because they are dependent primarily on scenarios of future anthropogenic and natural forcings that are uncertain, second because of incomplete understanding and imprecise models of the climate system and finally because of the existence of internal climate variability. The term climate projection tacitly implies these uncertainties and dependencies. AR5, Ch. 12, Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility, §12.1, Introduction, p. 1034.
IPCC’s reasons are all excuses for the scientific failure of radiative forcing, its chosen paradigm for its models, a paradigm requiring vigorous defense because of its political successes.
A post script to my last, to seaice1, 2/21/16 @ 8:27 am:
Science is the objective branch of knowledge. It’s only eyes to the real world are facts — measurements, which are making historical strides with great regularity, from evolutionary microbiology, to remote sensing from space, and on to gravity waves.
Jeff Glassman. Thank you for the response. My point was a simple one, that what I was asking for – i.e. a prediction from the skeptical community, was not necessarily a prediction about what the future climate would be. It could be in the form If..then.
I am not quite clear about what you are saying. You say “A model is a mapping from existing facts to, not real world outcomes, but future facts, where facts are observations reduced to measurements and compared with standards.” Is it not the case that the future facts and real world outcomes are much the same? Using the volcano example, we hypothesise that a big volcano will reduce temperatures. The volcano occurs, and we observe temperatures fall. Are you saying it is not that the temperature drops that supports our hypothesis, it is our measurement of the temperature drop that supports our hypothesis? Whilst this is true, I think it is an unnecessarily precise distinction for the discussion here.
“Contrary to seaice1’s explanation, existing scientific facts ALWAYS relate to observations. ”
OK -maybe I see it. My language was imprecise. My intention was to distinguish between observation of experiments where we can control most of the relevant parameters and observations of “natural” experiments, where we must wait for or look for conjunctions of parameters. Yes, each relates to observation.
Finally, you make assertions about climate. You deny that the climate is inherently unpredictable as defined by “the long term prediction of future exact climate states is not possible.” Which suggests you think prediction of exact climate states is possible. You also say that man is not in the loop, because solar effects are overwhelmingly dominant.
If I have characterised your position here correctly (please correct me if I am wrong), it seems to me that in the context of this discussion, it is reasonable to ask for the predictions your hypothesis has led to. As indicated earlier, there are myriad predictions that the mainstream climate community produces.
seaice1, 2/16/16 @ 8:06 am, objecting to Richard Greene’s clever observation @ 7:30 am, i.e.,
People on the government dole who play climate computer games in air conditioned offices, and make wrong climate forecasts, may have science degrees, but what they do is not science. [¶] It is climate astrology.
said,
They are making predictions that can be tested. That is science. The predictions are not 100% accurate, but they are orders of magnitude better than anything else I have seen. If you know different, provide the evidence here.
First, considering only what IPCC reports, they don’t make predictions at all; they make projections, just as seaice1 discussed earlier. But this is a distinction without a difference; it’s an out for failed modeling. E.g.,
There is … a continuing awareness that models do not provide a perfect simulation of reality, because resolving all important spatial or time scales remains far beyond current capabilities, and also because the behaviour of such a complex nonlinear system may in general be chaotic. AR4, ¶1.5.1 Model Evolution and Model Hierarchies, p. 113.
However, only digital models exhibit chaos, never the real world. This fact follows from IPCC’s very next paragraph:
It has been known since the work of Lorenz (1963) that even simple models may display intricate behaviour because of their nonlinearities. The inherent nonlinear behaviour of the climate system appears in climate simulations at all time scales. In fact, the study of nonlinear dynamical systems has become important for a wide range of scientific disciplines, and the corresponding mathematical developments are essential to interdisciplinary studies. Simple models of ocean-atmosphere interactions, climate-biosphere interactions or climate-economy interactions may exhibit a similar behaviour, characterised by partial unpredictability, bifurcations and transition to chaos. Citation deleted, bold added, Id.
Each of IPCC’s examples is about the limiting behavior of a model, highlighted in bold. None is characteristic of the portion of the real world being modeled. Confusing a scientific model with its real world object is so pervasive among scientists that it even infects physicists, practitioners of the modern epistemological archetype for the scientific method. Dynamic systems occur in nature, and are the most interesting and most important systems for scientific modeling. They include defense against a threat from space to evolution. Dynamical systems, though, never occur in nature. See Wikipedia > Dynamical systems. Nor do linear or nonlinear systems. See my comment on WUWT 10/22/15 @ 2:49 pm here. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/22/is-the-climate-chaotic/#comment-205443
Second, IPCC’s main climate projection (i.e., weasel-worded prediction) is a best estimate catastrophic global average surface warming. The claim is that it will lie between 1.8ºC and 4.0ºC in the 2090s, relative to that between 1980 to 1999, varying according to six different human emission scenarios. AR4 SPM p. 13.
Whether IPCC ever uses the word catastrophic to its main projection is unknown, but IPCC does say this:
Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems. Bold added, AR5 SYR Topic 2, Future Climate Changes, Risk and Impacts, p. 56.
Catastrophe is a fair synonym for IPCC’s clarion alarm.
Regardless, IPCC modeling rests on its Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS), a prediction underlying and essential to its main prediction.
IPCC predicted ECS to be less than 1.5, 2, 3, and 4.5 ºC for a doubling of CO2, with corresponding probabilities of 10%, 17%, 50%, and 83%. Lindzen & Choi (2011), among others, estimated ECS from satellite data. L&C put the value at no more than 0.7 ºC/2xCO2. That value fits IPCC’s estimates with 2.2% confidence, based on a simple linear extrapolation of the logarithm of IPCC’s four values.
IPCC also provides a set of estimates of the ECS probability distribution from 12 sources. AR4, Box 10.2, Figure 2, p. 799. According to those PDFs, the confidence that L&C estimate fits IPCC’s data lies between 0.0000011% and 1.65%, with an average of 0.33%. In other words, with extraordinarily high confidence, specifically between 98.4% and 100%, IPCC’s ECS estimates are not valid, and err on the high side. Consequently, the whole of the AGW conjecture is invalid.
To make matters worse, no one is measuring ECS as it is defined, that is, with temperature (T) observed to lag the increase in CO2. According to physics, in particular Henry’s Law of Solubility, IPCC assumed the causation vector between CO2 and T to be backwards. The Vostok data confirm that error:
[A]tmospheric CO2 follows temperature changes in Antarctica with a lag of some hundreds of years. … the climate changes at the beginning and end of ice ages take several thousand years … .. AR4, FAQ 6.1, p. 112.
All this leads back to the current topic relating to scientific ethics. A model that has not been validated is Feynman’s guess-work. As a predictor, it is objectively connected to nothing. It is astrology. For a scientist to use a scientific model for public policy, when that model has not been validated, is unethical.
I’m surprised these scientists didn’t identify themselves as self-serving pseudo-scientists. What a silly study.
Re: seaice1, 2/22/16 @ 6:31 am.
(1) We cannot say a real world event occurs unless we have measurements and thresholds as to what constitutes an event, that is, facts with standards or rules.
(2) Scientific models are not True/False propositions, notwithstanding the Vienna Circle and Wittgenstein, nor Karl Popper with his famous and popular deconstruction, i.e., All ravens are black, cured by falsification clauses. Scientific models are empirical, representing experimental facts; Popper’s model of science is metaphysics.
(3) Volcanoes. Some erupt continuously, so have no special transient and disruptive effect on the climate. Others erupt with varying in start times and duration, but frequently. Eruptions occur roughly 50 to 60 times a year, so on average are not likely to have any effect on climate scales, that is, 30 or more years. These are but another form of regional, not global, events.
(4) Scientific facts include probability distributions. Almost all measurements, and hence almost all facts, have measurement errors. Facts are multidimensional probability clouds, not exact states. If facts were exact states, scientific models might have true or false states. In a model, observations include the existing facts, the predicted facts, and the future, test facts that allow rejecting, refining, or validating the model. This could be seen as a generalization of Heisenberg Uncertainty, or it could be that electrons, for example, are themselves morphable clouds of energy in space, one distribution in orbit and another in free space.
(5) AGW hunting season is open. Science provides one and only one standard for judging the quality of a model: its predictive power. Scientific principles say nothing at all with respect to model fidelity to the real world. So the AGW model, owned today by IPCC, which happens to be based on radiative forcing, cannot be criticized based on its paradigm. But now, occasioned by the failure of its critical prediction, it is fair game.
(6) AGW predicts ECS, and fails. IPCC denies that its model predicts, but one can coax a prediction out of its writings on the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity. Based on IPCC’s ECS estimates, ECS measurements now invalidate AGW with quite high confidence. Therefore, AGW is fair game for scientific criticism and replacement.
(7) Inherent unpredictability. Climate can be modeled as GAST = 11ºC ± 6ºC. At the next level, and until one of the certain catastrophes, such as the next supervolcano eruption or the next collision with an asteroid, the climate will continue as it has been observed over the past five or six cycles, covering 640,000 years. GAST ≅ 14ºC and warming. 5ºC ≤ GAST ≤ 17ºC, ± ~2ºC on each end. In this model, GAST and atmospheric CO2 are sawtooth waveforms, the Vostok pattern, increasing at a fairly repeatable slow rate and decreasing at a rather repeatable, rapid rate, with a period of ~100,000 years, CO2 synchronous but lagging T by roughly one millennium. These examples show that modeling climate is not inherently difficult. What’s tough is predicting climate as it depends on irrelevant parameters; that’s astrology. At the next level of complexity is a heat flow model that repairs the major factual omissions in AGW. Examples of omissions include the following.
(8) Temperature. AGW omits dynamic cloud cover, the dynamic cloud albedo that modulates solar radiation to Earth’s surface. Hence, the AGW model omits the two most powerful feedbacks in climate, one positive with respect to the Sun (the burn-off effect, unwittingly measured by Stott, et al., Do Models Underestimate the Solar Contribution to Recent Climate Change?, J.Clim., v. 16, 12/15/03; and by Tung, et al., Constraining model transient climate response using independent observations of solar-cycle forcing and response, Geoph.Res.Lett., v. 35, L17707, 9/12/08). And the other, negative with respect to surface warming from any cause (mitigating cloud cover dependent on the Clausius-Clapeyron effect and the perpetual presence of an excess of CCNs).
(9) Atmospheric CO2 and temperature. AGW omits the real world phenomenon integrating two major processes, the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) (AR5 Glossary) and the Solubility pump (id.), which combine to form the largest and slowest global CO2 effect, the physical, temperature-dependent, carbon pump. It is carried on an ocean circulation underlying surface eddies, and 15 times as strong as all the world’s rivers combined, with periods of a few centuries to a millennium. This current emits massive amounts of CO2 at a few deep, cold upwellings, principally at the Equator, where it is subject to intense solar heating. Being warm and depleted in CO2, it is less dense, and returns to the poles over the surface, comprising well-churned, the mixed layer. All along the return path to the poles, it cools by radiation to space, and hence immediately recharges with CO2. It thereby regulates atmospheric CO2, keeping it from accumulating in the air. It swamps human effects by more than an order of magnitude.
(10) Lags and equilibrium. AGW attributes causes to effects without measurements to show the scientific prerequisite that a Cause must precede all of its Effects. AGW models global and local effects with respect to presumed states of equilibrium, including steady state (e.g., model initiation at the start of the Industrial Era (passim); ECS (AR5 Glossary)) and thermodynamic equilibrium (AR5 ¶3.8.2). But no part of Earth’s climate is ever in either steady state or thermodynamic equilibrium. In 1750, at the nominal start of the Industrial Era, CO2 and Temperature were both increasing, causing AGW models to attribute on-going natural processes wrongly to humans.
(11) AGW does not exist. Global Average Surface Temperature is predictable from TSI models with a two lag transfer function to an accuracy at least approximating the accuracy of IPCC’s smoothed surface temperature. http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2010/03/sgw.html . Neither man nor CO2 is in the loop. The challenge in predicting climate translates to the ability to predict solar radiation.