Guest Essay by Kip Hansen — 7 October 2024 — 1300 words/7 minutes
If you don’t read Roger Pielke Jr.’s substack, The Honest Broker, you should. I do and I am a paid subscriber – not because I always agree with him on the topic of climate change (which I sometimes do) but because he is a honest hard working scientist on the policy front and one of the most effective public voices for climate skepticism and climate realism (even though I doubt that he would consider himself so.)
Here’s a quote from his recent effort “Weaponizing Peer Review”:
“The idealization of peer review as the arbiter of good science is problematic for many reasons, but one is that it downplays the possibility that bad science can appear in the peer reviewed literature and good science outside of those outlets.“
[ most quotes following are from Pielke Jr. there]
He comes to this following on Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, quoting them on the definition of Bad Science: [this quote not Pielke Jr.]
“It’s science that is obviously fraudulent — when data have been invented, fudged, or manipulated. Bad science is where data is have been cherry-picked— when some data have been deliberately left out—or it’s impossible for the reader to understand the steps that were taken to produce or analyze the data. It is a set of claims that can’t be tested, claims that are based on samples that are too small, and claims that don’t follow from the evidence provided. And science is bad—or at least weak—when proponents of a position jump to conclusions on insufficient or inconsistent data.” ….. “But while these scientific criteria may be clear in principle, knowing when they apply in practice is a judgment call. For this scientists rely on peer review. Peer review is a topic that is impossible to make sexy, but it’s crucial to understand, because it is what makes science science—and not just a form of opinion.” [ note again: that’s Oreskes and Conway, not Pielke Jr.]
This “idealization of peer review as the arbiter of good science is problematic for many reasons, but one is that it downplays the possibility that bad science can appear in the peer reviewed literature and good science outside of those outlets.” says Pielke Jr.
And, of course he is absolutely right.
In the featured substack piece, Pielke Jr. focuses on the
“…use and abuse of the peer reviewed literature to produce tactical science which I define as:
“Publications — often targeted for the peer reviewed literature — designed and constructed to serve extra-scientific ends, typically efforts to shape public opinion, influence politics, or serve legal action.”
Have we ever seen anything that fits that description in the field of climate science? Yes, we have, lots of it. Note that ALL Tactical Science is Bad Science – pretend science, sciencey papers with predetermined findings, propaganda disguised as science, political maneuvering and not science at all – papers that look like science but are actually intended to fulfill other purposes than those of real science:
“Science as a collective institution aims to produce more and more accurate natural explanations of how the natural world works, what its components are, and how the world got to be the way it is now.” [ source ]
I could give a very long list of papers I consider bad science (poorly done, cherry-picking, misused statistical methods, faulty selection of data sets, conclusions don’t follow from evidence presented, etc.) in another long list of fields. But Dr. Pielke offers the following as example of Tactical Science in the field that interests most readers here – Climate Science:
- Howarth (2024, published just today). Funded by the Park Foundation — opponents of natural gas — and released as a pre-print apparently to support the Biden Administration’s LNG pause. Jonah Messinger explains why this paper is riddled with errors.
[ Money quote from Abstract: “Even considered on the time frame of 100 years after emission (GWP100), which severely understates the climatic damage of methane, the LNG footprint equals or exceeds that of coal.” — kh ]
- Serofim et al (2024). Funded by EPA — and written by EPA, one of its government contractors, and others — the paper defends EPA’s continued use of RCP8.5, which is fundamental to the Biden Administration’s “social cost of carbon.” Jessica Weinkle has a must-read eye-opening post on this paper. RCP8.5 is indefensible.
[ Money quote from Abstract: “Although the probability of 8.5 watt per square meters scenarios is low, our results support their continued utility for calibrating damage functions, characterizing climate in the 22nd century (the probability of exceeding 8.5 watt per square meters increases to about 7% by 2150), and assessing low-probability/high-impact futures.” — kh ]
- Schwalm et al. 2020. From the Woodwell Climate Research Center, which is funded by McKinsey — a heavy user of RCP8.5, the paper also justifies the continued prioritization of RCP8.5. The paper relies on fanciful assumptions of massive increases in land use carbon dioxide emissions completely at odds with observations and the IPCC.
[ Money quote from Abstract: “Not only are the emissions consistent with RCP8.5 in close agreement with historical total cumulative CO2 emissions (within 1%), but RCP8.5 is also the best match out to midcentury under current and stated policies with still highly plausible levels of CO2 emissions in 2100.” – kh ]
Pielke Jr. suggests that telltale signs of Tactical Science include, but are not limited to:
1. Failure to disclose the interests of direct funders
2. The findings are outliers in their fields but offer plausible counters as to why they are correct despite the findings of the broader field.
Such papers allow others to make political claims based on these outlier findings – using language such as “the most recent science in a peer-reviewed paper by Slinger and Smuts shows we must ….”.
In regards to the three examples above, Pielke Jr. says clearly:
“The three climate papers above are bad science not simply because they are tactical science, but because they are bad science — the demonstration of which requires employing good science.”
In his substack piece, Pielke Jr. offers some suggestions on what to do about Tactical Science.
The first one is to understand that “peer-review provides a minimal standard of review. It certainly does not provide a demarcation between good and bad science.”
It is my view, as readers here may already know, is that peer-review is often the culprit that encourages Bad Science and not a cure. Scientific fields, all of them, are prone to forming prevailing biases in favor of (or antagonistic to) various scientific views through the offices of publication bias [see para 8.5], scientific fads, pal review, band-wagoning peer-reviewers supporting popular ideas and societal pressures.
All too often, a paper is approved for publication in a peer-reviewed journal because it has catchy title, “seems to agree” with the general field, will generate a lot of “clicks” and will attract favorable attention to the authors, their institution (university, college, corporation, research group, etc.) and the publishing journal itself.
Not only have there been Tactical Science journal articles, there are entire Tactical Climate Crisis Research Groups which produce nothing but Tactical Science in support of the so-called Climate Crisis.
Readers are encouraged to list them in the comments.
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Author’s Comment:
Do not misunderstand me, I am not saying the Bad Science and Tactical Science producers, the scientists themselves, are bad people. They are just people: mothers and fathers, Dads and Moms, neighbors, members of bowling leagues, youth baseball and soccer coaches and volunteers at your local food bank. What sets them apart is that they participate in the production of Tactical Science or produce sloppy, poorly done and/or fallacious work.
Why? You’d have to ask them each personally but my guess is Noble Cause justification: the misguided belief that some normally bad action is justified by the Noble Cause it forwards. Others are caught up in the professional requirement to believe or face loss of position or reputation.
Many just plain have-to-go-along-to-get-along, like they did when teenagers to remain in the In Crowd.
Bad Science makes me want to (need to…) try to correct it. Tactical Science makes me sick to my stomach.
Thanks for reading.
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A spelling error that is almost true either way—Nobel for Noble. Some of these puppies are looking for a Nobel.
Good point.
Looking back, it’s still incredible to believe that Arafat got a Nobel “Peace” Prize. Al Gore? Was he deserving? Obama? Kissinger even? Seems like a common thread of bombs and bombing exists.
I noticed a lot of “Peace” Prizes but no true peace.
never was, never will be
The Nobel Peace Prize is better considered in an Orwellian context these days.
Some Nobel Peace Prizes are well earned. Like the Nobel Peace Prize that President Donald Trump earned with the Middle East agreements that he brokered.
I forgot about that. Joe hopes to get one for Funneling Emergency Money to illegal Aliens.
You do know that “Nobel Peace Prizes” is Plagiarism. Those “awards” come from a completely different organization unrelated to the Nobel prized for scientific works.
Didn’t know that. You deserve a piece of pie or your favorite dessert.
I knew the Economics one (the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel) was as real as the money we use, but wasn’t aware that was also true for the “Peace” one.
Hey The NY Times won a Pulitzer Prize for their Russia Colluuuusion coverage.
60 Minutes on the hot seat for taking Kamala’s nonsensical answers and making it just normal stupid for her.
Yeah, I wasn’t sure if Kip meant it to be that way.
Tom ==> It’s either me or my auto Spell Corrector….never know with.
Thanks for the “good eye”.
The Spell Check/autocorrect on my Apple tablet bit me too many times, so I turned it off.
May the man who invented autocorrect rust in piss!
Once upon a time (WordPerfect, I think) you were able to teach the spell correct function, which mattered with trade names
Good introduction to the peer review misuse, common in the CAGW crowd. Several famous geologists have said this (here’s one): Francis Pettijohn: “You need to go in the field and look at rocks. The truth resides in the rocks”. That’s the essence of peer review, get up from your desk and go into the field and verify what someone is presenting. Then drill it or don’t drill it, as appropriate.
I love geology- should have become a geologist rather than a forester. I’m amazed at how they figure out stuff!
Joseph, I grew up in SW Oregon, heart of timber production (before spotted owl), and the first time, in a summer job, I set chokers, I knew for sure I needed to finish college.
I’ve watched PNW logging in videos- looks extremely dangerous. Logging in the northeast was never that bad- nobody goes up in a tree to top it. And now, with modern logging machines- feller bunchers and the like- it’s much safer. That is, when allowed to occur. But, most logging on any public land gets challenged making the projects very uneconomic.
I have come to the conclusion that a lot of “scientists” will go very very far (some will outright invent data, not just wordsmith their pal-reviewed papers) to exaggerate their work, make it sciency sounding to the media, and important to humanity, get published, keep their jobs as a valuable member of the university faculty, get research grants to buy the newest cool equipment for their lab, get “tenure” so they can go to more conferences or other far away impressive places, plus don’t have to teach as many undergrad classes…all they have to do is make stuff sound more complicated than undegrad degreed folks will want to do calcs on….
and… toe the party line
DMac ==> As in all fields of endeavor, there are bad actors, good people tempted beyond their ability to resist, etc. Retraction Watch features many of these. There are some scientists willing to put in the time and effort, and risk their reputations, to draw attention to them.
There needs to be more. Science is all too often devolving into advocacy and there is nowhere near enough pushback.
Resistance is futile. You will (have been) assimilated.
Existence, as you know it, is over.
— Climate Borg
Fear is freedom, subjectation is liberation indeed.
I fully understand such instinctive reactions.
From the context, should that “what” be a “want” instead ?
.
Peer reviewer : “Do you know the difference between standard / classic / textbook PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and off-centered PCA ?”
You’re assuming what Mann did was a mistake. It wasn’t.
Your inference about my “relevant point” here is incorrect.
The claim made by the CAGW lobby is that MBH98 was “peer reviewed” in the way the general public “translates” that term, i.e. “Other scientists checked it carefully, reproduced the methodology described, and got the same results”.
It wasn’t.
It took McIntyre and McKitrick (around 2002/3 ?) asking questions for Mann to admit that “Nobody has asked for the list of proxies actually used before”.
Mark ==> Thanks — my typo eyes are not as good as they once were (and sometimes she is too busy to check my work before publication)….
Another problem peer review:
An editor sends you a paper for review, and you now have to find time to look at it. Unless all reviewers are retired, the time investment doesn’t pay for itself and is a drain on resources for the organization that pays the bills. How many reviewers really can spend time looking up 50+ references?
karlo ==> 50 years ago I suspect it was a honor to be asked to peer-review a new important paper by a respected journal. I am afraid you are right, in the present it may just be a pain in the neck.
The abraham scientist guy who testified in Mann v steyn trial as to Mann’s loss of reputation due to the post is good example
He has been averaging 150-200 papers the he has authored, co-authored or peer reviewed over the last 12-15 years in addition to his teaching duties. That is 2-4 papers per week
Seems to be a tremendous amount of desk research and very little field research
100% renewable studies by Marc Jacobson
By an individual with no industry experience
Peer reviewed by individuals with no industry experience.
Yet he is worshiped.
One needn’t look up 50+ references. One looks up the references critical to the argument. Often that isn’t more than three or so.
One must then do some fairly detailed analysis, but it pays off in a thorough review.
I typically spent several hours a day, for about 5 days, to review a manuscript.
I call this “Opience” … Opinion dressed up as Science …
dark Lord ==> Lots of that going around…..
Back to my pet idea that subsidizing “science” and college educations encourages marginal “scientific” fields and practitioners, and of course marginal students who need those marginal fields and professors to get their marginal sheepskins. Then there are the marginal reviewers and the marginal “journals”, all stuffing their noses into that great trough of free money, trying to root out their fair share.
The best thing to happen to science would be to stop government funding. If they can’t convince charities and foundations and ordinary people to cough up, too bad.
First rank research universities have such large endowments that they could fund their faculty research programs out of their own investment income.
Yup. I’ve said it many times, Eisenhower was a prophet – he could see how science would end up becoming a political football because of how much of it was being done on behalf of and at the direction of the federal government. That was a warning he gave the US in his farewell address as POTUS – before I was born.
And here we are.
I wonder how many Tactical Scientists have now had an entire career in being trained to produce, producing and teaching others to produce Tactical Science.
There may be an entire generation that doesn’t know better. And is fully indoctrinated and dependent on the causus climatii.
MST ==> I am certain that in the field of JOURNALISM this has happened — journalists churned out to produce impressive “news” features that are simply propaganda for their (or their editors) pet ideas.
The “peers” are not named in a published paper, right? If they were- they might be more likely to do a better job- since, if later the paper is shown to be defective, they’ll have to bear some responsibility.
Peer reviewers are often anonymous to the author’s of a paper too.
I refuse to be anonymous to the author’s when peer reviewing. But peer review anonymity is how some editors have colluded with reviewers to keep papers the climate cabal don’t like out of journals.
I understand why they’re anonymous. Without that, it’s unlikely you’d get very many peers at all, for fear of being constantly attacked, fired, etc.
fear- shouldn’t be part of being a scientist- nor anonymity
Shouldn’t and is rarely coexist.
OK, so you are allowed to NOT be anonymous. Didn’t know that, not being a scientist.
Joseph ==> Some of this is beginning to happen, with open reviews one can read the comments of the reviewers and the authors responses (and changes made to the paper).
The identities of the reviewers, not so much. If you recall the more public cases of science, such as papers delivered before the Royal Society and then subject to public refutation by other members….famous feuds and damage to reputations and friendships, some never healed.
Yes, “tactical science” is a good way to put it. It seems to me that ever since the 1979 Charney Report the “climate” movement has used scientists to produce support for the claims about emissions of CO2, more than to honestly explore whether any climate impact should be expected.
( https://nap.nationalacademies.org/read/12181/chapter/1 )
From the early use of crude GCM’s all the way to the present day, the “forcing” + “feedback” framing of the question contaminates the analysis with the premise. It has been circular since the beginning.
There was never any good reason at the outset to assume that incremental CO2 represents a “forcing” at all. There is no energy being added to the land+oceans+atmosphere system. The minor incremental static radiative effect of rising CO2 concentrations in a clear sky is essentially the same to the atmosphere as a wispy mist or a slight increase in water vapor. A dynamic effect on the outgoing longwave radiation at the top of the real atmosphere cannot be estimated properly by assuming a “forcing” or that one should expect a “feedback” to it.
What to do? Watch from space to visualize how the longwave emitter works, and use the ERA5 reanalysis model (i.e. purely analytical, not predicting anything) to demonstrate plainly that the “forcing” + “feedback” framing was unsound from the beginning.
More here, in the form of short videos. Please read the text description at each video.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI8vhRIT-3uaLhuaIZq2FuQ
Just bad science on top of bad science. It accumulates. Some of that nonsense is just eye-watering, like Wilber et al 1999 (NASA, internal peer review!) which served as a reference for Kiehl/Trenberth 97 to draw their (in)famous “energy budget”.
https://greenhousedefect.com/basic-greenhouse-defects/the-anatomy-of-a-climate-science-disaster
And G. Schmidt like “nothing to see here..”
In the summer of 2021 RP was co author (with Richie) of a paper about ‘How Climate Scenarios Lost Touch With Reality’ pdf
“According to Google Scholar, from the beginning of 2020 until mid June 2021 authors published more than 8500 papers using the implausible baseline scenarios, of which almost 7200 used RCP8.5 and nearly 1500 used SSP5-8.5. Neither IPCC nor the broader climate modelling community has sought to counter or reverse this proliferating source of error in projections of future climate change.
They go on to talk about the “$40bn ‘climate intelligence’ industry” involving companies such as Swiss Re and McKinsey and others
“These companies are using implausible RCP scenarios to develop various predictive products that they sell to governments and industry, who will depend on these products to help guide policy and business decisions in the future”
“Climate change has been solved countless times in fanciful models, but it is the real world that matters”
The deception continues!
It is ironic Naomi Oreskes, coauthor of one of the “97%” studies is denouncing cherry picking.
A huge amount of everything the left conveys involves projection.
Speaking of publications and reviews / revisions, does anyone know if university media departments ever suggest wording changes in research paper drafts before they’re finally released?
Just as the IPCC’s Summary For Policymakers sends their desired revisions back to the Lead Science Authors to change their reports to align with “the narrative”?
Editors and reviewers do that. Media types certainly influence language used via publications like “The Conversation.”
In the institute in which I work, there is a “Communications” team that spices up press releases, etc. The people in that team typically have marketing backgrounds. That’s how a lot of science gets translated and exaggerated.
Mr. ==> To the best of my knowledge, suggestions are sometimes made to paper titles…..both by the media departments, the journal editors, and university/research group heads.
Truly ironic and funny. Oreskes and Conway’s definition of bad science, less their “peer review” bootlicking, is a textbook blow-by-blow description of every iteration of Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick” temperature reconstruction.
Every university that has a Climate Change Studies or some such department produces nothing but “Tactical Science”. Think about it – if they were to do seriously valid scientific research and found that climate change is natural and benign, they would have no reason to continue to exist. The only way they can expect to remain viable is to produce a continuous stream of supporting propaganda that the funders who profit from hysteria require to continue scamming the public and corrupt governments.
Kip,
Your comment – “Do not misunderstand me, I am not saying the Bad Science and Tactical Science producers, the scientists themselves, are bad people. They are just people: mothers and fathers, Dads and Moms, neighbors, members of bowling leagues, youth baseball and soccer coaches and volunteers at your local food bank.”
Yes, they grew up in middle-class neighborhoods where people were proud of their lawns.
Retired ==> Yes, I suppose some of them did. Some of them worked their way up the academic ladders. Some of them started out starry-eyed and naive. Some scrapped tooth and nail to get ahead of the others in their field — no holds barred.
And some bailed out of academia when it became too corrupt….
Bad science can be produced by someone honestly attempting to do good science but just too inept or misinformed to pull it off. “Tactical Science” does not deserve the label of science at all.
Kip –> I’ve come to call it ‘advocacy science,’ which I think better conveys the betrayal.
It’s a grim irony that Oreskes’ description of bad science almost perfectly describes the advocacy pseudo-science that is consensus climatology.
MBH98/99 are perfect exemplars of Oreskes’ description of bad practice — obscure or unstated methods cherry-picked data, missing data, ambiguated procedures..
Also, peer review is not “what makes science science.” (Oreskes)
Science is falsifiable theory tested by replicable results. That method is available everywhere and to anyone. And not dependent in any way on peer-review.
Finally, science does not aim “to produce more and more accurate natural explanations …” Rather, it aims to produce less and less wrong explanations.
Virtually every consensus paper since Hansen, et al. (1981) Climate Impact of Increasing Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide has been advocacy science because every single one of them lacks a rigorous assessment of the integrity of the data or the models.
Also advocacy: Hansen and Lebedeff (1987) Global Trends of Measured Surface Air Temperature This is the paper that powered Hansen’s claim of 99% surety during his 1988 testimony to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
I agree the problem is not bad people. But a large part of it is poorly trained people, Climate modelers are not trained in physical error analysis.. They literally do not know how to assess the physical reliability of their own data and models. And they are very hostile toward the message.
In my further experience, Psychology has fallen to the same disease of advocacy. The field is become nearly bereft of substantive content.
Re: “Psychology has fallen to the same disease of advocacy. The field is become nearly bereft of substantive content.”
I went back and read some of that. I was left asking myself “did it ever have substantive content?” I know I’m attacking an entire field of study that I’m not an expert in and also that many of its practitioners are smarter than I am, but seriously… I couldn’t find anything but opinions justified with poorly constructed experiments with tiny sample sizes then written badly.
The lexical inventory of personality correlates with twin-study gene-frequency, so it has connection with evolutionary biology and has standing as a falsifiable hypothesis.
See Robert Plomin’s Blueprint.
A couple of years ago, I managed to publish a critical examination of the NAS 2018 report alleging systemic sexual harassment in academic STEM. Finding a Psych editor to even accept it for review easily took a couple of dozen submissions (I haven’t gone back to count).
The NAS Report was worse scholarship than anything in consensus climatology. The field is hardly more than narrative and tendentiously worded surveys. But in competent though they are, they’re on the road to ruining academic STEM in the name of intersectional equity and Critical Race Theory.
they’re on the road to ruining academic STEM
In some places they’ve added an “A” (STEAM). Care to guess what the A stands for? It’s not a technical field…
“Climate modelers are not trained in physical error analysis”
You are quite right Pat. In my physics practicals back in the 60s the emphasis was not on getting the right answer but on analysing the errors. That seems to gone by the board these days.
How can someone write such a clear definition for “bad science” then take the side of the argument that they have taken (meaning N.O)? Its crazy to me that the hockey stick chart does not shame all who have looked at it, yet some still to this day believe it is exempt from N.O.s definition of “bad science”..1
This is really important. I just finished watching a 22 part interview with professor Calabrese concerning the linear no threshold model. It was a very enlightening interview and made my trust but verify attitude toward science even stronger. It was sickening to see the shenanigans taking place in the science community. It is bad.
A couple of days ago I posted the following on identifying pseudoscientist on Tony Heller’s realclimatescience,com, I think tactical science is a subset of pseudoscience.
You might be a pseudoscientist?
The comedian Jeff Foxworthy used to do a routine “you might be a redneck” which was humorous, but provided helpful tests to determine if you, or someone you know, might be a redneck. For example, “if your carryon luggage is a Walmart bag, you might be a redneck.” Or my favorite, “if you and your dog use the same tree, you just might be a redneck.”
With the proliferation of pseudoscience in an array of scientific disciplines (especially climate), I think it might be useful to adapt the Jeff Foxworthy routine as a way to help identify pseudoscientist. For example:
When the data disagrees with theory, you adjust the data until it agrees, you might be a pseudoscientist.
If you think consensus is a good way to establish scientific truth, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
If you refuse to debate your theory with anyone that disagrees, you might be a pseudoscientist.
If you ever use the phrase “the science is settled”, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
If you ever use the phrase the “science says”, you might be a pseudoscientist.
If you think correlation proves causation, you might be a pseudoscientist.
If you only cite data that supports your theory while ignoring any data that disproves it, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
If predictions based on your theory are never correct but you still insist your theory is fact, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
You admit to being poor at math, but insist you are a good scientist, you might be a pseudoscientist.
If your theory violates thermodynamic laws, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
If no matter what happens, you claim your theory predicted it, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
To which Gordon added the following:
If the only way you can win the debate is by silencing your opponents, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
If your principal argument is consists of abuse, insults, and smearing the opposition, you just might be a pseudoscientist
If frightening children and the gullible is more important than seeking the truth, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
In light of this article, I can add:
If you think peer review is the ultimate in validating scientific research, you just might be a pseudoscientist.
Feel free to add to it.
AWESOME!
As I commented on Pielkie’s site, a better description is “decision-based evidence-making”.