Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A lecturer in critical thinking has demonstrated his technique for defeating climate skepticism.
How to use critical thinking to spot false climate claims
February 7, 2018 3.46pm AEDT
Peter Ellerton
Lecturer in Critical Thinking, Director of the UQ Critical Thinking Project, The University of Queensland
Much of the public discussion about climate science consists of a stream of assertions. The climate is changing or it isn’t; carbon dioxide causes global warming or it doesn’t; humans are partly responsible or they are not; scientists have a rigorous process of peer review or they don’t, and so on.
Despite scientists’ best efforts at communicating with the public, not everyone knows enough about the underlying science to make a call one way or the other. Not only is climate science very complex, but it has also been targeted by deliberate obfuscation campaigns.
If we lack the expertise to evaluate the detail behind a claim, we typically substitute judgment about something complex (like climate science) with judgment about something simple (the character of people who speak about climate science).
But there are ways to analyse the strength of an argument without needing specialist knowledge. My colleagues, Dave Kinkead from the University of Queensland Critical Thinking Project and John Cook from George Mason University in the US, and I published a paper yesterday in Environmental Research Letters on a critical thinking approach to climate change denial.
…
Six steps to evaluate contrarian climate claims
Identify the claim: First, identify as simply as possible what the actual claim is. In this case, the argument is:
The climate is currently changing as a result of natural processes.
Construct the supporting argument: An argument requires premises (those things we take to be true for the purposes of the argument) and a conclusion (effectively the claim being made). The premises together give us reason to accept the conclusion. The argument structure is something like this:
- Premise one: The climate has changed in the past through natural processes
- Premise two: The climate is currently changing
- Conclusion: The climate is currently changing through natural processes.
…
Check for ambiguity: The argument mentions climate change in its premises and conclusion. But the climate can change in many ways, and the phrase itself can have a variety of meanings. The problem with this argument is that the phrase is used to describe two different kinds of change.
Current climate change is much more rapid than previous climate change – they are not the same phenomenon. The syntax conveys the impression that the argument is valid, but it is not. To clear up the ambiguity, the argument can be presented more accurately by changing the second premise:
- Premise one: The climate has changed in the past through natural processes
- Premise two: The climate is currently changing at a more rapid rate than can be explained by natural processes
- Conclusion: The climate is currently changing through natural processes.
This correction for ambiguity has resulted in a conclusion that clearly does not follow from the premises. The argument has become invalid once again.
We can restore validity by considering what conclusion would follow from the premises. This leads us to the conclusion:
- Conclusion: Human (non-natural) activity is necessary to explain current climate change.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/how-to-use-critical-thinking-to-spot-false-climate-claims-91314
By adding unequivocal acceptance of the alarmist claim that recent global temperature changes are occurring more rapidly than can be explained by natural processes, you can overturn skeptic claims that recent temperature variations were mostly natural.
If you want to examine this technique in detail, Professor Ellerton’s study is available here.
What can I say – if your child attends University of Queensland, make sure they sign up to a class in critical thinking delivered by Professor Peter Ellerton.
Alllrighty then. Guess that’s it. I was blind to the ambiguity. My thinking was incorrect. OK.
I hope this ‘study’ gets massive publicity. It is bound to work as well for their cause as Hillary’s ‘basket of deplorables’ did for her.
Did anyone need to read past ‘John Cook from George Mason University’ before determining that the study was a load of hogwash?
Because “If we lack the expertise to evaluate the detail behind a claim, we typically substitute judgment about something complex (like climate science) with judgment about something simple (the character of people who speak about climate science).”
QED.
If true, the rules must apply to all claims, including AGW, but it makes it worse for him.
Premise one: The climate has changed in the past through natural processes
Premise two: The climate is currently changing
Conclusion: The climate is currently changing through CO2
Definitely faulty logic, conclusion: A Straw Man
There is evidence of rapid climate change in proxies that was greater than recent times. I can’t find the exact quote but Tom Karl once stated less than twenty years ago that the greatest warming rate was 100 years ago, since gone with changes to global temperature anomalies. We had a hiatus when the amount of emissions was an order of magnitude more than 100 years before and then a dubious adjustment by a team led by Karl. What little evidence of recent warming being unprecedented is extremely dubious and its now a logical fallacy to contradict it? You can get away with anything if you argue like that.
Here’s a quote from Phil Jones. This may be what you are thinking about.
It is only since 1950 that anthropogenic forcing (human GHG emissions) has really taken off. Professor Phil Jones, former director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, admitted in an interview on the BBC in 2010 [12], that “for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different.”
end excerpt
Even the Climate Change Charlatans have to admit that our current weather is NOT unprecedented; that it warmed just as much in the past without the help of CO2.
I found one from 1989, although I think that there is more recent comment from him. Tom Karl said in an interview that all the
global warming was up to 1919 and cooling from 1921 to 1979.
https://www newspapers com
Similar issue – unprecedented is based on differences in rates smaller than adjustments.
TA
“the past”
is the first half of the 20th century,
with a warming period very similar
to the warming period in the second half
of the SAME century !
“TA
“the past”
is the first half of the 20th century,
with a warming period very similar
to the warming period in the second half
of the SAME century !”
And then the next century hardly warmed at all.
So the sequence of events is: The temps warm from 1910 to 1940, then it cools from 1940 to 1975, and then it warms from 1975 to 1998 (at the same magnitude as the 1910-1940 warming), and then it practically flatlines from 1998 to the present.
This reminds me of the Monty Python segment in “The Holy Grail” where they “logically” deduce a woman is a witch because she weighs less than a duck. But even there they actually make a measurement to confirm their conclusion!!!
Clearly climate change is caused by God.
Logic is wonderful.
‘Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;’
I don’t know but He sure is good at hiding heat there.
Is it a 50/50 Split? Un-abated Industrial Black Carbon emissions, Coal fired power plants, Open air Petroleum Coke piles blowing in the wind, the dominance of Bunker C used to power Ships Vs forest wildfires, Volcanic eruptions, Heat rise from Clear-Cut forests:
DRAX-IT!!!
Curious how long it took to produce this argument and have it published.
It sees arguments supporting the probability of a soft landing with CO2 increase as being wrong.
Such arguments include an examination of the key planks of the CO2 hypothesis,the existence of a tropospheric hot spot, so small it cannot be measured,an increase in the rate of acceleration of sea level,something the Mayor of Sydney says will lead to sea levels 10 to 20 metres higher by the end of the century. This despite the stubborn refusal of the Port Jackson tidal gauge, right next to the Opera House, to show this.
The failure of a jump in the minimum temperatures seen, say in the Antarctic.
Now this latter has been seriously been muddied by the exercise of our BOM to put up thermometers that refuse to read below 10C.
Not a good look in alpine or Antarctic regions.
An audit, externally made, is overdue.
It is shameful that such thermometers also read instantaneously, so high temperatures are assured.
The reason all this is curious is that a certain Professor is taking a case at law in Australia that reflects on the alleged problem of clearer thinking as well as the scientific problem of reproducability,
The medical case has been made.
In Veterinary Science its happening right now.
Last century digoxin was the go to treatment for congestive heart disease in dogs.
It was found to be fairly useless.
A trial in Europe showed that ‘after load reducers’, ace inhibitors, took the load off the heart and extended a
dog’s active life.
Despite the use of ace inhibitors for decades, two more trials have failed to corroborate the first.
At the moment a cross over trial is on comparing ace inhibitors, pimobendan, diuretics and varying combinations of these.
It is not published.
The science is never settled, at best it evolves.
Its easy to put up straw men and knock them over.
Will these authors and their paper be called by the defence in the forthcoming damages action?
If so, the authors must be prepared for a critical deconstruction, eclipsing peer review.
In paragraph 4.3 of the paper, they correctly quote the ‘hypothetico-deductive method’ syllogism:
P1: If my theory is correct, then I will observe this phenomenon.
P2: I did not observe this phenomenon.
C: My theory is not correct.
I wonder why they do not take the logical step of applying this to the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming!
Agree. My immediate reaction to this article was that the person attempting to apply “critical thinking” and a “structured argument” is actually going through hypothesis development. Once the hypothesis is developed, there are the additional steps associated with proof, which this “critical thinker” completely misses.
That they are losing this argument says something about the character of their people
Professor Phil Jones Director of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) – BBC interview on current vs past rates of change.
“Do you agree that according to the global temperature record used by the IPCC, the rates of global warming from 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998 were identical?
An initial point to make is that in the responses to these questions I’ve assumed that when you talk about the global temperature record, you mean the record that combines the estimates from land regions with those from the marine regions of the world. CRU produces the land component, with the Met Office Hadley Centre producing the marine component.
Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage, than for later periods in the 20th Century. The 1860-1880 period is also only 21 years in length. As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different (see numbers below).
I have also included the trend over the period 1975 to 2009, which has a very similar trend to the period 1975-1998.
So, in answer to the question, the warming rates for all 4 periods are similar and not statistically significantly different from each other”.
“The climate has changed in the past through natural processes.”
This is a proven fact.
“The climate is currently changing at a more rapid rate than can be explained by natural processes.”
In other words, “climate” never changed in the past as rapidly is it changes “currently”? Really?
To be a “premise” of any kind, this must be proven, and it hasn’t been proven.
Which proves that Peter Ellerton is a professor of sour grapes, nothing else.
It is sophistry. The climate has changed in the past in the same way as now. But we can’t explain that either!
Here’s a link to a PNAS article:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC34297/
“As the world slid into and out of the last ice age, the general cooling and warming trends were punctuated by abrupt changes. Climate shifts up to half as large as the entire difference between ice age and modern conditions occurred over hemispheric or broader regions in mere years to decades….”
Sure but if you think critically enough about that ( squint and furrow your little brows), it becomes obvious that there’s no grant money in that.
Applying critical thinking to their correction of Premise two: “The climate is currently changing at a more rapid rate than can be explained by natural processes”
This is patent nonsense. Taking measurements from proxies which represent tens of thousands of years, the short term changes of century time frames become averaged out creating a “smudged” record which is suggestive of slower rates of climate change. With more sophisticated analytical techniques, the facts change to reveal a history which includes times of rapid changes, often exceeding the rate of change we currently are witnessing.
Critical thinking destroys the arguments used to manufacture the more extreme of the climate alarmism.
“Despite scientists’ best efforts at communicating with the public, not everyone knows enough about the underlying science to make a call one way or the other. Not only is climate science very complex, but it has also been targeted by deliberate obfuscation campaigns.”
Pot, meet kettle, kettle meet pot.
There is almost no science.
Simple lab experiments suggest
a doubling of CO2 will warm the planet
about + 1 degree in 200 years.
End of REAL science.
There are scientists making wild guesses..
There is lots of speculation.
There is a bizarre water vapor positive feedback theory.
But the only REAL science is the simple closed system
lab experiments.
In addition, there is nothing UNUSUAL about
the temperature measurements since 1940
that even suggests natural climate change has ended,
and something else has been “controlling the climate”.
“Climate change” is 99% politics and 1% science.
The runaway warming fairy tale is the biggest fraud
in the history of the planet.
This is a joke right?
I guess the scientists who study “climate change” need first to understand the most fundamental aspects of the subject in order to properly advise the public. This problem is probably the main reason for there being such a large number of sceptics within the scientific community: physicists, Chemists and geologists in particular who are unable to follow the details of the climate scientists (mostly geographers) analysis.
For instance observing the graphs published by NAS and HADCRU (UEA) which show unequivocally what the chief scientist (Prof Phil Jones) at CRU recently stated was a “pause” when there has been, as he stated, “no statistically significant warming since 1998” – twenty years. While the increase in carbon dioxide is undoubtedly responsible for serious global warming, it behaves inconsistently in that the nineteen years from 1979 to 1997 showed exertional warming from the increases in CO2, the even stronger increase in greenhouse gases over the past two decades has left us with the “Hiatus” – as described by NASA and CRU. All of this makes it very difficult, even though it remains necessary, to try to convince the classical “skeptic” of the need to reduce CO2 output.
The biggest problem of course in all this, is that NASA and CRU persist in publishing the forecasts of the 120 or so CIM5 models (AOGCMs) which contribute to the IPCC analysis of climate change, showing that the measured temperature of the globe is now far below even the lowest forecast values.
Recently I wrote to most of the scientists in Australia such as those at UNSW CRC Climate Research centre funded by the ARC, David Karoly (a well known meteorologist) Will Stefan (Head of the Australian Climate Change Commuinity
Another problem with the CO2/temperature relationship is that any temperature changes should be proportional to the LOGARITHM of the change in CO2- graphs invariably show temperature vs CO2, which should NOT have a linear relationship
The most depressing thought is that we pay these clowns a handsome salary, to produce this tripe..
Actually climate is very complex; climate science as we know it is very reductionist.
I’d say there is a little problem with
Premise two: The climate is currently changing at a more rapid rate than can be explained by natural processes
It should be:
Premise two: The climate is currently changing at a more rapid rate than can be explained by natural processes using current knowledge.
Because, sports fans, we can never be sure that our knowledge of natural processes is complete.
The average temperature
has barely changed in 137 years.
The current climate is wonderful and getting better
since the late 1600’s cold Maunder Minimum.
From what we know from climate proxy studies,
the past 137 years had an unusually stable climate
and average temperature.
The + 1 degree C. warming claimed most
likely overstates actual warming
because 1800’s starting point thermometers
tend to read low.
In addition, there were very few
Southern Hemisphere measurements
before 1940… and even today, a majority
of surface grids have only wild guess numbers
(no thermometers)
from people who want to see more warming, because
they’ve been predicting lots of warming for decades.
They want their predictions to be accurate,
and they “own” the historical temperature actuals,
so they can “adjust” the numbers whenever they want to.
And “adjust” they do = a huge conflict of interest.
Climate blog:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
The new president of Peter Ridd’s university. It is now called John Cook University
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lbw90JPZq6Q/U3B9roVxLAI/AAAAAAAABJ4/swCjiaMzqFk/s1600/Herr+Cook.gif
The ability to engage in critical thinking evades most proponents of the AGW theory.
Most seem to believe anything that’s said, as long as whoever is saying it “sounds” plausible.
Here is an IPCC Contributing Author recently claiming (in a national radio interview) that the C02 exhaled in human breath is causing “climate change”
http://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/The_Pat_Kenny_Show/Highlights_from_The_Pat_Kenny_Show/171314/The_global_cost_of_rising_Arctic_temperatures
James Lett summarized the elements of critical thinking in a 1990 article for the Skeptical Inquirer. https://www.csicop.org/si/show/field_guide_to_critical_thinking
Ellerton’s hobgoblin is this statement: “The climate is currently changing as a result of natural processes.” The implication is that climate change is SOLELY a result of natural processes, a position no rational ‘skeptic’ would take or try to defend, knowing the demonstrated effects on local microclimates of human changes to land use. Given that Ellerton’s diatribe is thus a simple assault on a straw man, he could profit greatly from a study of Lett’s paper.
I’ve given up on the “Skeptical Inquirer”- they’ve gone CAGW nuts. In a recent article they had Michael Mann, of all people, post a rebuttal to a CAGW skeptic, arguing that the recent INCREASE in extreme weather events is a datum in support of CAGW.
In fact, the rate of extreme weather events has trended DOWNWARD an insignificant amount since 1910.
Here’s something I posted in Tips & Notes on Feb 8:
I’m actually pretty sure he would gain absolutely nothing from it. There is none so blind…
I wish they’d use that critical thinking to stop throwing oranges into an apple basket.
Gonna borrow that one.
“Much of the public discussion about climate science consists of a stream of assertions. The climate is changing or it isn’t; carbon dioxide causes global warming or it doesn’t; humans are partly responsible or they are not; scientists have a rigorous process of peer review or they don’t, and so on.”
The straw man here is the assertion that the arguments are cut and dry, one or the other. He misses the truth that each of these assertions is a combination of each side and the discussion is really about how much each side contributes to the assertion and how much danger that really causes.
Seriously embarrassing as this is my alma mater. I have degrees in Maths and Economics from UQ but that was in the days when all students had to think (clue here i am over 60) as opposed to a faculty of critical thinking where it is clear there is no logical thinking involved. Should I send my testamurs back out of embarrassment?
I have been handily demolishing the arguments of CAGW proponents in debates as of late. I even included a whole CAGW “critique” section in my university class last term (4 sections, 204 students), which focused on debunking the past claims made by these fools. The amount of predicted warming is not happening; not even close…the catastrophic, bad things that were predicted are not happening…agricultural productivity, worldwide, is at an all time high.