Climate change - Science, Narrative and Heresy

[BCO]

Recent blog discussions have starkly highlighted the different values and priorities for scientists, bloggers and (some parts) of the mainstream media.

For working scientists, the priority in any discussion about science should be accuracy. Methods, results, and interpretations must be clear, logically connected and replicable by others. For people who haven’t experienced a joint editing effort on a scientific paper, it might surprise them to see the strength with which seemingly minor word choices are argued over. This process is particularly stark in short format papers written for Science and Nature, (and increasingly for press releases), where every word is at a premium. For many scientists then, the first thing they look for in a colleagues more ‘popular’ offerings is whether the science is described clearly and correctly. Of course, this is often not the same as judging whether it succeeds in improving popular understanding.

Indeed, the quality of the science is almost always how a popular piece is judged by scientists, regardless of the final conclusion the author comes to. For instance, my review of Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers was very critical, because his conception of how the science worked was poor, regardless of the fact that his conclusions are aligned to my own in many respects. The furor over the Soon and Balinuas paper in 2003, was much less about their conclusions, than about the nonsensical manner in which they had arrived at them (combined with disgust at the way it was publicised and promoted). Our multiple criticisms of Henrik Svensmark have focused far more on the spin and illogic of his claims concerning the impact of cosmic rays on climate than it is on the viability of the basic mechanism (which remains to tested).

The underlying principle is that proposed by Daniel Moynihan, that people might be entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

The media on the other hand is mostly fascinated by the strength of the narrative. The enduring ‘heretic’ meme – the plucky iconoclastic individual whose ideas are being repressed by the establishment – is never very far below the surface in almost all high-impact scientific profiles, for instance, Freeman Dyson’s NY Times magazine piece last year. To be sure this is a powerful archetype even in how scientists see themselves (shades of Galilean hero-worship), and so it is no surprise that scientists play up to this image on a regular basis. Craig Venter is someone who very successfully does this, possibly with some justification (though YMMV). However, this image is portrayed far more widely than it is valid. Svensmark, for instance, has gone out of his way to mention that he works in a basement on a shoestring budget, having to work weekends and holidays (the horror!) to pursue his ideas. For such people any criticism is seen as the establishment reaction to the (supposedly revolutionary) consequences of their ideas. This of course would be the case for true revolutionaries, but it is a very common attitude among the merely mistaken.

More...

 

[Pitbull]

I am always intrigued that laypeople whose scientific knowledge is based on popular science books and internet articles should think they know better than professional scientists with PhDs who spend their entire working careers studying a particular phenomenon.

I can say the same for the blind being lead by the blind ...

How can you sit and suck all this crap in like an electrolux? I mean seriously? That should actually give you an indication of what type of scientists we have these days...

However: Not going to comment on this topic it's been done to death

 

[Alan]

So what now :erm:

 

[BCO]

I can say the same for the blind being lead by the blind ...

How can you sit and suck all this crap in like an electrolux? I mean seriously? That should actually give you an indication of what type of scientists we have these days...

However: Not going to comment on this topic it's been done to death

So because you don't "believe" what the science says, it means the scientists are crap?

 

[Pitbull]

So because you don't "believe" what the science says, it means the scientists are crap?

No BCO,

You and myself has been through this before. There is allot more evidence that goes towards this being a natural cycle of which there is proof dating back thousands of years. They neglect that and come to the same stupid conclusion you have. But because they are "scientists" we must all accept their standing as fact. Come on BCO you are way smarter than that

 

[BCO]

No BCO,

You and myself has been through this before. There is allot more evidence that goes towards this being a natural cycle of which there is proof dating back thousands of years. They neglect that and come to the same stupid conclusion you have. But because they are "scientists" we must all accept their standing as fact. Come on BCO you are way smarter than that

The bit I bolded - that's where you're just making stuff up. How can you honestly pretend to know more about this than basically every climate scientist on earth? Seriously.

I can only conclude that you don't know how science works.

 

[Palimino]

More...

The OP brings-up a valid point. The science in the laymen’s understanding **must** be accurate. Discipline scientists may have more in-depth knowledge of their subject but they would suck at incorporating several disparate disciplines, integrating them and drawing conclusions (that have nothing to do with them) where their discipline is only one of several inputs. To draw accurate conclusions and to integrate disparate subjects properly, the science may be superficial (you can look this up) but what there is must be accurate.

 

[Pitbull]

The bit I bolded - that's where you're just making stuff up. How can you honestly pretend to know more about this than basically every climate scientist on earth? Seriously.

I can only conclude that you don't know how science works.

You have a very short memory span it seems...

Ok answer me this:
Has the world ever been hotter than it is now, and has it been colder than it is now? Was CO2 the cause of those extremes?

Seriously, we had this discussion before and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Pls don't go around running down the same fail track you did last time

 

[BCO]

You have a very short memory span it seems...

Ok answer me this:
Has the world ever been hotter than it is now, and has it been colder than it is now? Was CO2 the cause of those extremes?

Seriously, we had this discussion before and you know exactly what I'm talking about. Pls don't go around running down the same fail track you did last time

You're the one on the fail track, bro. Do you think that all these scientists have not considered the question you've just asked? Of course the earth has had periods of warming and cooling, THIS TIME however, it's because of greenhouse gases. THIS TIME it's an issue because billions of people are probably going to feel the brunt of it. The theory of anthropogenic global warming is the one that best explains current warming - this is not something that the scientists just made up and want to believe. All of the available data supports this conclusion. This is not a global conspiracy involving thousands of climate scientists. These people are also not idiots - they have considered all the other possible hypotheses, and none of them have withstood rigorous testing except the one that manmade greenhouse gases are the primary cause of the current warming.

Go here if you want to have questions about climate science answered. All the answers there are based on top quality peer reviewed science.

 

[K3NS31]

*sigh*, ok, I'll keep this short

NO BCO, every single climate scientist (and related disciplines) does NOT hold that Global warming is happening / is true etc. You think we're just sucking this stuff out of our thumbs? We're not idiots who just believe what non-scientists say. We've just read what some of the UN-popular (with the mainstream media, who push the flavour of the month, AGW, although less and less nowadays) ones say. That's the thing, just cos the press say it's so, and they can find scientists who are prepared to agree with theories they know aren't yet provable (or disprovable), that doesn't make it so.
More importantly, just cos the press say ALL scientists agree ALSO doesn't make that true, because it's not (incidentally, the press are saying this less these days too, as so many scientific bodies are publically disagreeing it's making them look stupid)

 

[BCO]

*sigh*, ok, I'll keep this short

NO BCO, every single climate scientist (and related disciplines) does NOT hold that Global warming is happening / is true etc. You think we're just sucking this stuff out of our thumbs? We're not idiots who just believe what non-scientists say. We've just read what some of the UN-popular (with the mainstream media, who push the flavour of the month, AGW, although less and less nowadays) ones say. That's the thing, just cos the press say it's so, and they can find scientists who are prepared to agree with theories they know aren't yet provable (or disprovable), that doesn't make it so.
More importantly, just cos the press say ALL scientists agree ALSO doesn't make that true, because it's not (incidentally, the press are saying this less these days too, as so many scientific bodies are publically disagreeing it's making them look stupid)

I can think of only a handful of scientists who have published papers in respected journals anything that resembles an alternate theory that better explains current warming and out of those, they've all been soundly refuted. There's Soon & Baliunas, Svensmark, McIntyre & Mckitrick that are the poster children of published skeptics, and probably a couple more that I'm not aware of. Compare this to the literally thousands of climate science papers whose findings strengthen our understanding of anthropogenic global warming. How about you back up some of your claims - firstly, you can point me to some published climate scientists who are being unfairly ignored for whatever reason (global conspiracy, maybe?) and then you can indicate all of these "so many scientific bodies" that are disagreeing with AGW. Corporate "think tanks", by the way, are NOT scientific bodies.

Ironically, I agree with you that the media is at fault here, but for a different reason. The media's obsession with "balanced" coverage means that they feel compelled to give equal air time to deniers, thereby creating the illusion of a "debate" on the subject, even though there's no debate in climate science circles regarding what the main cause of the current warming is. The only debate between climate scientists regards how the change will manifest itself.

 

[zippy]

Climate change is fact. The world has been warmer and it had also been colder. This is backed by the geological evidence.

What is debatable is whether human activity in the recent industrial period has significantly changed the worlds climate. We know that the Sun's 11 year cycles has a major impact.

Im sure we do make some impact, but I'm not convinced that we can accurately measure it.

However, It may be prudent to move to alternative energy. Just to be sure.

 

[zippy]

From a consumer point view, what is the big deal about moving away from the traditional methods of energy production anyway?

These producers have been shafting us for decades. I say give someone else a chance to rip us off.