While catching up on things this morning, a link at Bishop Hill took me to one of the most penetrating and concise commentaries on the Hockey Stick controversy that I have seen, and it comes from a rather surprising source.
I’m not going to attempt to summarise what it says, mainly because if I did so it would probably give the impression that the author – Sam Norton, a philosopher and country parson – is reiterating arguments that most of us have often heard before, and to some extent this is the case. The power of his post comes not from covering new ground, but from the clarity and rigour with which it brings together issues that are often discussed in isolation: the political influences that contaminate climate science, reliance on arguments from authority, and the insights that applying dispassionate philosophical analysis to a scientific controversy can provide.
If you are commenting here on what Sam has to say then please, please, lets not have yet another discussion of what Michael Mann’s work may or may not tell us about climate over the last millennium. That is not what the article is about. The Hockey Stick saga has far more interesting things to tell us about the relationship between politics, science and belief at the beginning of the 21st century than whether the 1990’s were the warmest decade for a thousand years – if that matters – and that 1998 was the warmest year.
If you consider commenting at Sam Norton’s blog, then I advise you to get all your ducks in a row first. He seems to be a very pleasant and courteous chap, but note his reply to ‘Tess’, third comment down.
Kudos to Andrew Montford (aka Bishop Hill) whose book The Hockey Stick Illusion is helping to bring what appears to be a rather grubby scandal to the attention of a far wider circle of people whose views are valuable.
Robin
Yes. I have seen the Schulte study, which (expectedly) brought “howls of outrage” among the believers of the AGW dogma. Did this represent a “shift” since the earlier Oreskes study, or was it simply a correction of a faulty study? (I am personally convinced that the latter is correct.)
I fully agree with you that “science is not determined by consensus”, but unfortunately a significant part of the general public is unaware of this fact.
I have challenged Peter on the “consensus” story, as well, citing a list of 200 scientists (the list has now grown to 219) plus 60 meteorologists, who have openly stated that they do not support the premise that AGW has caused most of the past warming or is a serious threat.
As Peter claimed the consensus among scientists was overwhelming, I asked him to provide a list of at least three times this many qualified individuals who support this premise (of course he could not do so).
It is very clear to me that the “consensus” story is a mythological part of the AGW dogma, going into the direction of an “appeal to authority” (if so many scientists and scientific organizations support the dangerous AGW premise, it must be right).
I am also convinced that it is an attempt to detract attention from the fact that there are no empirical data, based on actual physical observations or experiments, to support the dangerous AGW premise, as would be required following the normal scientific method.
Max
Max,
You may remember the history of the smoking controversy from the 1960’s onwards. There were endless list of doctors and surgeons (20000 was it?) who recommended such nonsense as filter tipped or menthol cigarettes as being the answer to any related health problems. They were all medically qualified – they must have known what they were talking about surely?
Your list of 200 scientists, 60 meteorologists, 2000 geologists, or whatever, is just an attempt to play the same game. Sure, in the 1970’s you could find plenty of PhDs who were expressing opinions favourable to the tobacco industry, and sounded very convincing to the general public.
However you needed to look at what mainstream science was really saying to know the reality.
The reality, again, is that the AGW denialist agenda isn’t being pushed by dissident scientists but by large numbers of conservative politicians, and their supporters, for reasons which I have already outlined.
Robin,
I should probably have included you in my last post.
This article is a good description of what the so-called ‘AGW debate’ is all about:
Defeating Kyoto: The Conservative Movement’s Impact on U.S. Climate Change
Policy
So PeterM (78) you really still think – despite years of intelligent, informed discussion on this excellent site – that the debate here is “all about” such catch phrases as “denial of global warming” and “affiliations with the fossil fuels industry” on the one hand and “the growing worldwide consensus on the seriousness of global warming” on the other. As I’ve said many times before, you’re not paying attention.
Groan – do I really have to tell you this again? The link between smoking and cancer was established by clear testable empirical evidence (evidence the tobacco industry disgracefully tried to hide). As Max says above, there is no such evidence establishing a link between the emission of GHGs and dangerous climate change. Counting the heads of scientists is completely irrelevant – science is not a democratic process.
BTW PeterM, the fact that “large numbers of conservative politicians and their supporters” may be critical of the dangerous AGW hypothesis is wholly irrelevant. Hitler was critical of smoking (link) – does that make any difference to the science? Obviously not: evidence is evidence, no matter who supports or opposes it.
PeterM
Regarding your 77/78, I believe Robin has responded to your silly comparison (déjà vu, all over again) between cigarette smoking/cancer and CO2/disastrous climate change.
The point about “large numbers of conservative politicians” being responsible for the recent trend away from AGW-hysteria (rather than “dissident scientists”) is also totally absurd.
It is really neither of the two, Peter, but rather a gradual awakening of the general public to a faulty doomsday prediction based on poor science, exaggerated claims based on GIGO model simulations and pseudo-scientific argumentation (plus an observed current cooling of the planet despite record CO2 increase).
Up until now, every single “doomsday prediction” throughout history has proven to be false, and there is no valid reason to believe that this one is any different.
For more on this and other “doomsday premises” see my post 564 on the other thread. I’m sure you will find it interesting (and you may even learn something new).
Max
Robin,
Once again you say “I’ve said many times before, you’re not paying attention”. Well my first thought is that it’s you should be doing that, but my second thought is that you probably are, but you just don’t understand what you are talking about.
Max,
If you thinking of buying yourself a present you might want to take a look at Nancy Oreskes new book:
<a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1596916109/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274956056&sr=8-1″
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
I wondering whatever gives her the strange idea that there is a link between the two? She probably thinks that the Heartland Institute and other right-wing pro-corporate interest ‘think tanks’ are behind it all too.
I thought I’d got the hang of putting in these links. I’ll try again:
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
3rd time lucky?
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming
Well PeterM so you insist on banging on with your absurd conspiracy theories and ludicrous parallels with the tobacco industry and the smoking/cancer link. Moreover, you still seem to think that “consensus” has something to do with scientific enquiry. Somehow, I suppose, you think all this may detract from your total inability to produce empirical data supporting the dangerous AGW hypothesis. Well it doesn’t. Get used to it.
PeterM
Think I’ll skip Oreske’s latest op-ed book and wait for the sequel (still in print, by a “yet unnamed scientist”):
Merchants of Fear: How a Handful of Scientists Fabricated the Doomsday Prediction of Global Warming
Sounds a bit more interesting than another sci-fi treatise by Oreske.
Max
PeterM
Just watched Naomi’s youtube sales blurb for her book (which you cited).
She tells us:
and
I can second that. What she fails to tell us is that the media have, by and large, swallowed and regurgitated the AGW story without really doing their homework.
She goes on with the consensus myth:
Thousands? Names please.
To exactly “what” do these “thousands” agree?
Specific facts please.
Which one of the over 200 scientists (who have publicly stated that they do not support the dangerous AGW premise) is this “one guy”. Pick a name – any name, Naomi.
Obviously Naomi’s second book on AGW is just as big a pile of rubbish as the first.
After watching the youtube, I am sure I do not want to pay close to 20 francs for Naomi’s new book.
I’d rather slip my 20 franc bill to the Salvation Army, who will at least do something worthwhile with it.
Max
Robin Guenier,
I wouldn’t say that it was a ‘conspiracy theory’ per se. It’s mainly a tendency of people, like yourself, to believe that anything to do with environmental considerations is part of some ‘loony left’ agenda. Incidentally, they aren’t immune from anti-science sentiments either when science clashes with their ideology. People aren’t logical – they tend to believe what fits into their existing world view and reject anything that doesn’t.
We don’t hear so much about HIV denial simply because it doesn’t rate on the agendas of large corporate interests with their front organisations, such as the Heartland Institute. Their battle on tobacco has largely been lost, so we don’t hear quite so much about that these days so they’ve moved on. You may not like them but the parallels are certainly there. The personnel are often the same. The right wing think tanks are the same. The tactics of promoting delay and uncertainty are almost exactly the same.
Trying to dismiss them as “ludicrous” doesn’t make them go away!
PeterM
Robin will surely add his thoughts on your #88 where you wrote
I would agree with you, Peter, that the much-ballyhooed AGW “conspiracy theory” is fiction, but that there is probably more of a loose “collusion of interests” between several groups who all stand to benefit from AGW hysteria, as Peter Taylor described it.
You must realize, Peter, that AGW has become a multi-billion dollar big business, with many different groups hoping to get a piece of the action (you probably read the article on Tony Blair, which Brute posted on the other thread). If carbon taxes (direct or indirect) are universally implemented, AGW will become a multi-trillion dollar business.
There are “big bucks” to be made and many of the wealthy and powerful of this world hope to benefit from the wave of doomsday hysteria before it dies down (as all previous doomsday panics have done and this one also inevitably will).
I do not believe that there is any “tendency of people… to believe that anything to do with environmental considerations is part of some ‘loony left’ agenda”. This is too oversimplified, Peter.
Sure, the powerful “do-gooders” of this world, who feel they need to control the lives of the “common people” for the “common good”, are often on the “left side” of the political spectrum, but there are also examples where this is not the case.
As C.S. Lewis wrote:
These are powerful words.
If Tony Blair, for example needs £5 million annually to finance his life style, that is all well and good. If he does this by jumping on the AGW gravy train and advising the wealthy and powerful how to also get a piece of the pie that is also great. But if he (like Al Gore) fools his conscience into thinking that he is helping to “save humanity or the planet” by doing so, that is hypocritical self-delusion.
True “environmentalism” involves undertaking specific actions in order to reduce pollution and waste (which really has nothing to do with CO2 or the perceived threat from AGW at all). Many true environmentalists are dismayed that the environmental movement has effectively been hijacked by a “loony” AGW agenda (regardless of whether it is “left” or not).
But Peter, as interesting as this political discussion surrounding AGW may be, these are all side issues.
The fundamental issue is that the premise of dangerous AGW is not supported by sound empirical scientific data, a problem which both Robin and I have brought to your attention, and which you have been unable to refute and have therefore danced around.
As the “bard’s” Hamlet said: “Aye, there’s the rub”.
Max
Max:
Your analysis is accurate, but I think poor old Peter’s problem is very simple: shaken and demoralised by his abject failure to produce any empirical evidence to support the hypothesis he loves, he is casting around to blame his discomforting embarrassment on the evil machinations of nasty bad guys (big oil = the tobacco industry etc: same people, same “right wing think tanks” etc.), hoping also that all this will somehow divert attention from the real issue.
PeterM:
Unfortunately for you, Peter, it doesn’t divert attention: none of this babyish stuff has the slightest relevance to the science. I suggest you forget all that nonsense, start thinking like the scientists you profess to admire and consider the hypothesis in the light of the scientific method. And, in doing so, I suggest you open your mind to the possibility that it (the hypothesis that mankind’s emissions of GHGs will cause dangerous climate change) may very simply be without foundation. Try it – you’ll find it’s not too difficult.
PeterM
I hope you have availed yourself of better information about the Pioneer Anomaly. And thank you Max for helping to guild Peter in his efforts to become more informed.
All I was trying to illustrate was that there is a seedy side to science where vested interests and money combine to squash enquiry that runs the risk of diverting funds. As a society we the west are going to have to watch out closely for this as it could hinder progress and allow us to be overtaken as the technological leaders in the world.
Getting back to climate science where this distortion of the scientific method has been at its worst we now see at long last there has been a revolt in the Royal Society, and they are being forced to revise their words on climate change on their website. This is good news, if but a first step, and in conjunction with the fact we have no money means any expenditure on some of the stupid schemes the last administration had put in place will come in for further scrutiny. This will coincide with a change of advice from science and a gradual realisation that the whole CO2 thing was wrong. Peter what are you going to do when the Royal Society is no longer there to fall back on and who will you appeal to then
Their will never be any great apology for all the wasted money though, but at least our precious resources may turn to technology that has a better chance of success without destroying our visual environment that all the wind farms and tidal barrages threaten to do.
One of the most exciting technologies is the Thorium Reactor that promises low cost nuclear power without the waste and no chance for weapons grade material as a by-product
Exciting times ahead.
Robin,
Its a curious thing about climate deniers that they do seem to get certain bees in their bonnet and there’s just no shifting them. Your little stinging insect is “empirical evidence” often using phrases like “abject failure to produce any emp……” Empirical evidence is evidence obtained by measurement and observation in the real world.
I don’t know if you have been hibernating, but you might have noticed graphs, although I notice you haven’t shown any capability yourself in that direction, of such empirical parameters as Arctic ice, rising sea levels, historical temperature records. Now you could argue that the empirical evidence is inconclusive, and it certainly isn’t proof in any sense of the word but, it is evidence. Its just nonsense to say that there isn’t any at all. But I suppose you’ll carry on like a stuck record.
Peter Geany,
Oh yes the “pioneer anomaly”. Max ticked me off for accusing you falsely. “Jumping to the conclusion” (was that the phrase?) that you’d quoted some nonsense out of Conservapedia.
Well here’s an opportunity for you. If you can show that you didn’t I’ll grovel and apologise! There you go, I don’t make that sort of offer every day!
“Royal Society…..they are being forced to revise their words on climate change on their website”
This is news to me. Mind you, all websites need to be kept up to date and that can’t be done unless words are indeed revised.
What have they changed?
It just gets worse for those hoping for more money for climate projects.
http://www.mrw.co.uk/news/more-cuts-for-environment-and-climate-change-not-ruled-out/8600487.article
1. For those who share a perceptive bent there is a lot of information in this article. For Chris Huhne to defend the cuts and not rule out others means there really is no money, (something I have been warning about and to be honest I think we all knew), and for the Labour Party people to continuously offer the new government numerous opportunities to remind the public of their spendthrift behaviour suggests that Gordon et al kept hidden the true nature of the problem from other ministers.
This may be yet another indication that history will show that Gordon’s Legacy will be his disastrous stewardship of the UK’s economy and his attempts to spend his way out of problems when he should have done the opposite.
Oh dear, poor old PeterM: either you still don’t get it or you’re once again trying to divert attention from an issue you are unwilling to face. Not one contributor to this site disputes the plain fact that the climate changes. Therefore, it’s no surprise that there’s plenty of empirical evidence demonstrating that obvious fact – it would be a surprise if there were not. What you have abjectly failed to do, however, is refer us to any such evidence supporting the view (a) that mankind’s GHG emissions, and not natural influences, were the principal cause of recent such change and (b) that, if so and if such emissions are not reduced, the consequence will be dangerous climate change. The issue is simple enough, Peter – even you should be able to understand it.
PeterM There has been a revolt in the Royal Society, the first in 350 years. I guess you have a filter on your browser that filters out bad news. Its on the BBC
As for the Pioneer Anomoly I just cut and pasted those words, that contained no science one way or the other but susinctly conveyed that there is a problem with our understanding of either gravity, relativity, both, or none. To deny this is bunkum and proves my point. This was the first attempt to prove these theories and a problem has appeared. You obviously know the answer so tomorrow you will be rich and famous
PeterM
You mention
supposedly as empirical evidence a) that AGW (caused primarily by human CO2 emissions) has been the principal cause of observed warming and b) that this represents a serious threat for the future.
It is, of course, nothing of the sort. It is simply empirical evidence a) that Arctic sea ice (unlike that of the Antarctic) has receded since satellite measurements started in 1979, b) that sea level has risen by about 17 cm per century since tide gauge records started in the 19th century, with several multi-decadal swings in the rate of rise and slightly higher average rate of rise in the first half of the 20th century (1904-1953) than in the second half (1954-2003) and c) that “globally and annually averaged land and sea surface temperature” has risen in multi-decadal warming and cooling cycles with an underlying warming trend of 0.04C per decade since we have been emerging from the LIA in the mid-19th century.
This all has nothing to do directly with the AGW premise, as I am sure you will have to agree (if you are truly objective).
And that, Peter, is exactly the “missing link” in your argumentation.
Max
Regarding your #94 here is link to BBC report on Royal Society by (AGW-friendly) Roger Harrabin entitled: The UK’s Royal Society is reviewing its public statements on climate change after 43 Fellows complained that it had oversimplified its messages.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10178124.stm
But I don’t expect drastic changes just yet, the “big bucks” are still on the AGW side for now.
Max
Re the Royal Society and its “review” (99), I agree with Max that drastic changes soon are unlikely. Nonetheless, this is a very interesting development – although PeterM would doubtless claim that the “43 Fellows [who] complained that it had oversimplified its messages” were obviously evil “deniers” in the pay of big oil. Changes are unlikely not least because we learn that the Society is “setting up a panel to produce a consensus document”: all we need is another consensus from another panel! But it’s encouraging to hear of one Fellow saying, ” … in science everything is there to be questioned – that should be the very essence of the Royal Society. Some of us were very upset about that”.
It’s particularly interesting that the BBC’s Roger Harrabin, who wrote the report, is beginning to show signs of objectivity – although he still trots out nostrums such as “Lobbyists funded by the fossil fuel industry … fighting to undermine [the] consensus …” Nonetheless, he gives a lot of prominence to the “feedback” issue, specifically quoting Richard Lindzen. I doubt is Jo Abbess is likely to be happy about that (link).
Unsurprisingly, this development is reported by Bishop Hill (here and here) and WUWT (here). The comments are worth reading. Also I was intrigued by the BBC Today programme’s interview with Harrabin this morning (link – after 54 minutes). He agreed that, after the EAU debacle, IPCC report questions etc., there are increasingly “grey” areas in climate science and especially re climate models about which there was, he said, “massive, massive uncertainty”. Poor Jo Abbess must have choked over her muesli.