Global Warmists -- Read ( Climategate )

[pohibaba]

food for thought: libertarians/free-marketeers have been staunchly against AGW from the start because AGW goes completely against their ideology... combating AGW does not have a free-market solution; it would require government regulation and collective efforts. So while they're calling it a massive conspiracy that grabs for freedom and a conviction of academia (conveniently, capitalism also thrives when academia is weaker and knowledge is not free-flowing), in reality they must oppose it simply because it threatens their ideology, regardless of the actual science behind it all.

I'll agree with this, simply because it described me a few years ago. I had no interest in actually doing the research on the subject so I just chose the side that caused less ideological problems for me. Now I just admit that I don't know enough of the science to make a claim of righteousness either way, but our climate is certainly changing and humans are almost certainly the cause of some of it. How much? I have no idea, but I think we can do things to possibly improve our environment that are obvious things that we should do anyway. Libertarianism should be about logic and rationality. Denying good science is neither of those things.

[Cadsuane]

Why is no one commenting on Gwynpaine's post about post-normal science?

[Tristam]

Why is no one commenting on Gwynpaine's post about post-normal science?

What's the point? If one is to do anything at all about climate change based on the science behind it then one must take at least in part a "post-normal" approach. The alternative is to wait and see and do nothing, and if AGW induced climate change progresses to some unbearable limit, then it's too late. Publishing these e-mails is "post-normal" in and of itself.

To have every conceivable fact about climate change on earth possibly means to experience the ongoing effects of climate change for however long as is necessary to determine what is true, to treat earth like a test tube. It's probably not a good idea to do this, and we also don't have a spare universe and time travel device lying around to experiment with.

We do however, have (edit) : past and current: data from earth and other planets, and we know certain things about the way the universe works as a whole. Without actual knowledge of the future, how else can science say something about the effects of climate change without adopting something of a post-normal approach? Am I misunderstanding something?

[Gwynplaine]

Why is no one commenting on Gwynpaine's post about post-normal science?

Some people did! I wasn't trying to present something as some kind of silver-bullet expose though. But I think it is one interesting aspect of the whole mess worth consideration. I'm not sure how well regarded pomo b.s is in most scientific circles, but there seems to be a noticeable streak among the advocates mentioned in the e-mails.

[Cadsuane]

What's the point? If one is to do anything at all about climate change based on the science behind it then one must take at least in part a "post-normal" approach. The alternative is to wait and see and do nothing, and if AGW induced climate change progresses to some unbearable limit, then it's too late. Publishing these e-mails is "post-normal" in and of itself.

To have every conceivable fact about climate change on earth possibly means to experience the ongoing effects of climate change for however long as is necessary to determine what is true, to treat earth like a test tube. It's probably not a good idea to do this, and we also don't have a spare universe and time travel device lying around to experiment with.

We do however, have (edit) : past and current: data from earth and other planets, and we know certain things about the way the universe works as a whole. Without actual knowledge of the future, how else can science say something about the effects of climate change without adopting something of a post-normal approach? Am I misunderstanding something?

It's a frightening subversion of science and objectivism in general. The implicit trust that the public holds for modern science rests on the extraordinary honesty of the scientific method and it's dogged persuit of the truth. Scientists unabashedly talking about values and moral issues having any effect at all on their conclusions undermines that in a huge way.

Some people did! I wasn't trying to present something as some kind of silver-bullet expose though. But I think it is one interesting aspect of the whole mess worth consideration. I'm not sure how well regarded pomo b.s is in most scientific circles, but there seems to be a noticeable streak among the advocates mentioned in the e-mails.

It is indeed a hugely interesting aspect. Politics and the public eye can corrupt anything it seems.

[Kuya]

Well if you mean that making it an explicit discussion mines away trust in science, then you're right. Although somewhat related is the fact that a code of ethics is in on itself a contradiction of objectivity. That is to say, the rejection of ideological, moral, or any such consideration from science, but of course, choosing what science can and cannot do based on how moral the means or ends are is in on itself contradictory to objectivity.

Anyway, it is kind of odd to be pondering over the idea that scientists should not say that moral considerations enter into what kinds of conclusions they come to if we assume that this happens already. As if we were trying to hide some deep, dirty, dark secret of science.

[Cadsuane]

Well if you mean that making it an explicit discussion mines away trust in science, then you're right. Although somewhat related is the fact that a code of ethics is in on itself a contradiction of objectivity. That is to say, the rejection of ideological, moral, or any such consideration from science, but of course, choosing what science can and cannot do based on how moral the means or ends are is in on itself contradictory to objectivity.

Anyway, it is kind of odd to be pondering over the idea that scientists should not say that moral considerations enter into what kinds of conclusions they come to if we assume that this happens already. As if we were trying to hide some deep, dirty, dark secret of science.

Ethics hampers experimentalism and academic fraud in a big way... I'm inclined to say you're still allowed to conclude whatever you'd like in principle (the bell curve was only published 15 years ago after all). Correct me if I'm wrong.

It's interesting to note that grossly unethical research by today's standards is still some of the most informative that's ever been done. Nazi research on hypothermia, for example, or a number of psychological studies done at McGill.

[Kuya]

That's why i mentioned it. Ethics does concretely hamper scientific research, yet at the same time it intuitively seems delusional and horrendous for us to say that we should do away with ethics.

Similarly to me, what they're doing is essentially taking it a step forward. Hence why i understand their point, i am just aprehensive of the consequences.

[Kuya]

The irony is not lost on me that one of the most useful social psychology experiments (social psychology being one of my preferred fields) is considered one of the most unethical. I am of course referring to the Stanford prison experiment. I would very much like to do experiments like that and actually get some results, but it's just so unethical...

[Cadsuane]

It doesn't seem consistent at all to me. Academic ethics affects methods, now we're talking about swaying conclusions.

At any rate, yes, it's a horrible concession to make.

[Tristam]

It's a frightening subversion of science and objectivism in general. The implicit trust that the public holds for modern science rests on the extraordinary honesty of the scientific method and it's dogged persuit of the truth. Scientists unabashedly talking about values and moral issues having any effect at all on their conclusions undermines that in a huge way.



It is indeed a hugely interesting aspect. Politics and the public eye can corrupt anything it seems.

Every scientists worth his/her salt has undergone some form of ethics training that mandates objectivity with respect to conclusions and interpretation of data, but also teaches sensitivity wrt morals and values. Even if you don't give a shit about the animals used in research for instance, you must act to minimize suffering, even though it's not entirely understood to what extent animals like fish and worms can suffer. Social values are very much a part of ethics training in that regard. I don't think that the point of the article was that values and moral issues have any effect on the facts, but that if the conclusions do not run parallel with values preferred by society, then publishing more ideologically palatable information may cloud a supposedly objective debate?

I think that with respect to global warming it has increasingly become an ideological argument as Beckwin suggested. The objective conclusions from the data are very, very straightforward. The predictions from models and impact studies are slightly less straightforward but still relevant to society. But, if the facts are increasingly irrelevant from the perspective of a disinterested public, how then does science influence public policy for the greater good? The facts and data are clearly indicative of AGW even if the error margins are wide, but if there is a great public outcry based on ideology then should science take a back seat?

edit: It's possible I don't understand post-normal science, I certainly don't understand how it affects conclusions drawn appropriately from the data in this regard. It's also possible I missed something in the article.

edit2: Ah, the book in question in the article is by Singer, who was last author on the Douglass et al., paper that contained the algebraic error that supposedly removed the warming trend after 1950. I think what we're missing in the article is that the writer of the book is the one who is being less than objective when discussing his interpretation of facts, and I wouldn't necessarily count on him to be intellectually honest either.

[Leif]

Can we just officially categorize "global warming fanaticism" in the religion category with liberalism?

[Shiroikage]

Ethics is the bane of immunology.

[Rothbardian]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNRW5qMRnIU

Why Global Warming is based on fraudulent insider consensus. If only pro-AGW scientists are only given media time and the spotlight and because humans gravitate to the sensational, and Governments always want increased power, then it is no wonder people believe in AGW. Watch the above.

In any event, if you are an environmentalist, then you should be opposed to Government granted privilege, aka Mercantilism/Communism/Socialism/etc. Free-Markets are the only form of responsible environmentalism, because companies do not have legal privilege granted to harm another's property, yes, including air and water.

[pahnphoenix]

Free-Markets are the only form of responsible environmentalism

gold.

---

re: ethics and science, the most important thing with science (as in governance or social organization generally) is transparency. if i construct a theory that turns physics on its head, has full mathematical and experimental backing, and then say "yeah but that shit's false because god says so," i'm still a great scientist. my conclusions don't matter; there's a legion of over-educated people around to draw the conclusions that insanity might preclude me from drawing. as long as the methodology of science is transparent and (at least some) people are honest, things are fine. as for stuff like harming people in the name of science, that's no good, but its no-goodness has nothing to do with science qua science.

p.s. of course, capitalism and large aggregation of power/resources are a double edged sword for science, since a lot of scientific shit is expensive, but capitalism is the sworn enemy of transparency.

[Cadsuane]

Every scientists worth his/her salt has undergone some form of ethics training that mandates objectivity with respect to conclusions and interpretation of data, but also teaches sensitivity wrt morals and values. Even if you don't give a shit about the animals used in research for instance, you must act to minimize suffering, even though it's not entirely understood to what extent animals like fish and worms can suffer. Social values are very much a part of ethics training in that regard. I don't think that the point of the article was that values and moral issues have any effect on the facts, but that if the conclusions do not run parallel with values preferred by society, then publishing more ideologically palatable information may cloud a supposedly objective debate?

I think that with respect to global warming it has increasingly become an ideological argument as Beckwin suggested. The objective conclusions from the data are very, very straightforward. The predictions from models and impact studies are slightly less straightforward but still relevant to society. But, if the facts are increasingly irrelevant from the perspective of a disinterested public, how then does science influence public policy for the greater good? The facts and data are clearly indicative of AGW even if the error margins are wide, but if there is a great public outcry based on ideology then should science take a back seat?

edit: It's possible I don't understand post-normal science, I certainly don't understand how it affects conclusions drawn appropriately from the data in this regard. It's also possible I missed something in the article.

edit2: Ah, the book in question in the article is by Singer, who was last author on the Douglass et al., paper that contained the algebraic error that supposedly removed the warming trend after 1950. I think what we're missing in the article is that the writer of the book is the one who is being less than objective when discussing his interpretation of facts, and I wouldn't necessarily count on him to be intellectually honest either.

The concern of post-normal science is definitely as you say the question of how best to influence public policy if the possible consequences of inaction are sufficiently dire. Reading from the wikipedia article, it's an extension of the situation a surgeon faces with a crucial decision whose outcome will determine life or death and about which not everything is known. It's certain that the public expects some verdict from the experts that be on climate change and that that verdict is enormously influential, hence the metaphor; the post-normal scientist sees himself as a surgeon or engineer faced with an immediate crucial decision upon which the fate of a few billion people hang.

If it's true that what's being implied here is that if hypothetically the consequences of climate change were trivial, then the conclusions being drawn from research would be slightly more lukewarm; However, consequences being what they are, they necessitate that conclusions be tailored in such a manner to elicit a change in public policy. If such is the case then anyone making a case for the objectivity of scientists should be rightly alarmed, since science concerned with anything but the truth isn't science, even if it's abundantly clear that science is often stymied by ideology in the public sphere as history (and this thread) has repeatedly proven. As I've said the implicit trust the public places in academia (or at the very least the trust I place in academia) is based on the fact that they have no special interest in anything but truth to whatever degree it can be established which would no longer be the case if scientists can unabashedly view themselves as administrators for the "greater good".

However science is to influence public policy, I think we can all agree that whatever else happens science must remain dispassionate science. What has been defined as normal science would argue for a conclusion whose certainty would be entirely contingent upon evidenciary support, and from a purely logical standpoint this is indeed the only way to argue for the veracity or lackthereof of anything. The far reaching consequences for public policy of embracing or trashing the idea of AGW have absolutely no bearing on the question of AGW in itself.

[pahnphoenix]

it's hard for me to take seriously discussion of the scientist's responsibility regarding shaping public policy, when it seems abundantly clear that public policy is shaped by the interests of those who have the power to shape public policy. if i'm an expert on the political situation in iraq, i have no more responsibility to dictate whether or not the united states should invade iraq than someone who doesn't know what continent it's in. this is simply because i'm not the one who decides whether or not the united states invades iraq, and the people who do decide demonstrably don't care about the things i would say about their stated reasons for invasion. so too with most scientific or medical opinions and their impact on public policy.

[Rothbardian]

gold.

---

re: ethics and science, the most important thing with science (as in governance or social organization generally) is transparency. if i construct a theory that turns physics on its head, has full mathematical and experimental backing, and then say "yeah but that shit's false because god says so," i'm still a great scientist. my conclusions don't matter; there's a legion of over-educated people around to draw the conclusions that insanity might preclude me from drawing. as long as the methodology of science is transparent and (at least some) people are honest, things are fine. as for stuff like harming people in the name of science, that's no good, but its no-goodness has nothing to do with science qua science.

p.s. of course, capitalism and large aggregation of power/resources are a double edged sword for science, since a lot of scientific shit is expensive, but capitalism is the sworn enemy of transparency.

Well, from a pure evidence based study, my premise is supported.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PaN9M4WwHw

Listen from 2 minutes onward. Though I disagree with a lot of Friedman's idea's on monetary policy he is correct in his premise on environmentalism. In effect, it not only is a tragedy of the commons, it is also State funded and protected via Corporation. If I have my water polluted by say Goldman Sachs (Lets put aside it's a Financial powerhouse that influences all US Monetary Policy, and is a protected entity by the State), I have no legal recourse. If I try, the State will simply throw out all evidence called, summarily dismissing.

In effect, this not only comes about because there is no such thing as Private Property under the State; zoning laws, emiment domain, property taxation, death tax, inheritence tax/estate tax, building codes and regulation, etc. Therefore, since you yourself only rent the property via the State, well, then that only cements the case that since the State owns the property they can do with it what they please and when the State (Politicians) are bought and funded by these same entities it only goes that they will be protected. This happens in every State system; Socialism, Mercantilism, Communism, Corporatism (Which is pretty much Mercantilism), etc.

http://mises.org/etexts/environfreedom.pdf - Environmentalism and
Economic Freedom: The Case for Private Property Rights: Professor Walter Block (He used to be a Marxist, if that gives any more creedence. He was assuaged from his previous ideology in the 60s by Murray Rothbard in which it took him 15 minutes)

[Tristam]

The concern of post-normal science is definitely as you say the question of how best to influence public policy if the possible consequences of inaction are sufficiently dire. Reading from the wikipedia article, it's an extension of the situation of a surgeon faced with a crucial decision whose outcome will determine life or death and about which not everything is known. It's certain that the public expects some verdict from the experts that be on climate change and that that verdict is enormously influential, hence the metaphor; the post-normal scientist sees himself as a surgeon or engineer faced with an immediate crucial decision upon which the fate of a few billion people hang.

If it's true that what's being implied here is that hypothetically if the consequences of climate change were trivial, then the conclusions being drawn from research would be slightly more lukewarm. However, consequences being what they are, they necessitate that conclusions be tailored in such a manner to elicit a change in public policy. IF such is the case then anyone making a case for the objectivity of scientists should be rightly alarmed, since science concerned with anything but the truth isn't science, even if it's abundantly clear that science is often stymied by ideology in the public sphere as history (and this thread) has repeatedly proven.

However science is to influence public policy, I think we can all agree that whatever else happens science must remain dispassionate science. What has been defined as normal science would argue for a conclusion whose certainty would be entirely contingent upon evidenciary support, and from a purely logical standpoint this is indeed the only way to argue for the veracity or lackthereof of anything. The far reaching consequences for human welfare of embracing or trashing the idea of AGW have absolutely no bearing on the question of AGW in itself.

Ah ok, that explanation actually helps me a bit. I would very much have a problem with tailoring conclusions/data to fit public policy but I don't think that is coming so much from the scientists themselves but moreso with people who are presenting the conclusions to the public if that makes any sense. The raw data is all publicly available, and the methods are all published online, hence the absurdity of the FOIA requests. The Dec - Feb 08 e-mails are very explicit in showing how McIntyre is trying to burden researchers with these frivolous suits. Anyone is able to dispassionately draw their own conclusions from their own analysis and I'd be willing to bet that people on this board could reconstruct figures in the literature given enough time.

I do think there is alot of debate in how AGW is presented to the public in an effort to influence policy, and I don't know if the presentation has been entirely effective or useful. I do think there has been some tailoring of the predictions to influence public policy and I'm not entirely enthusiastic about how it's gone about. Certainly, when you make specific predictions that seem more directly relevant to daily life, it can backfire enormously. When scientists predict that 09 will be hotter by 0.2degC for instance, I grimace because that prediction is based on a smoothed trend of a fundamentally chaotic natural system and is almost guaranteed to fail in one direction or another. Of course then next summer is cool and people treat the failed prediction like an invalidation of the entire model.

That being said, it seems like one side is not at all playing by the rules (see Roth's video for an AGW version of the Gish-gallop). I would love to see public education of science play a more direct role in the AGW "debate", but when videos like that are shit onto the internet it's almost impossible to compete.

tl dr: I think the conclusions are solid, I think the models are statistically valid, but I agree that some predictions are somewhat subjectively tailored to influence public policy, and I agree that there should be some more oversight into how predictions are generated from the data/conclusions.

[Rothbardian]

Ah ok, that explanation actually helps me a bit. I would very much have a problem with tailoring conclusions/data to fit public policy but I don't think that is coming so much from the scientists themselves but moreso with people who are presenting the conclusions to the public if that makes any sense. The raw data is all publicly available, and the methods are all published online, hence the absurdity of the FOIA requests. The Dec - Feb 08 e-mails are very explicit in showing how McIntyre is trying to burden researchers with these frivolous suits. Anyone is able to dispassionately draw their own conclusions from their own analysis and I'd be willing to bet that people on this board could reconstruct figures in the literature given enough time.

I do think there is alot of debate in how AGW is presented to the public in an effort to influence policy, and I don't know if the presentation has been entirely effective or useful. I do think there has been some tailoring of the predictions to influence public policy and I'm not entirely enthusiastic about how it's gone about. Certainly, when you make specific predictions that seem more directly relevant to daily life, it can backfire enormously. When scientists predict that 09 will be hotter by 0.2degC for instance, I grimace because that prediction is based on a smoothed trend of a fundamentally chaotic natural system and is almost guaranteed to fail in one direction or another. Of course then next summer is cool and people treat the failed prediction like an invalidation of the entire model.

That being said, it seems like one side is not at all playing by the rules (see Roth's video for an AGW version of the Gish-gallop). I would love to see public education of science play a more direct role in the AGW "debate", but when videos like that are shit onto the internet it's almost impossible to compete.

tl dr: I think the conclusions are solid, I think the models are statistically valid, but I agree that some predictions are somewhat subjectively tailored to influence public policy, and I agree that there should be some more oversight into how predictions are generated from the data/conclusions.

You mean the models that don't account for clouds or the sun? Yes, they are very accurate. Of course the clouds and sun have no effect on climate! Not to mention how the source code for the models are conviently hidden away. The community at large has recently gotten ahold of the hockey stick source code and have proved without a doubt that, that graph and the associated code are bogus and prove explicably the fraudulent nature of AGW. I guess those who still believe in AGW can't come to the fact, that if you cannot reliably model the past weather and climate with any varying success than your model therefore is a failure. Yet, these same models are lauded to conclusively prove AGW. Where is the coherency? Secondly, CRU oh so conviently "accidently" deleted all the inputs that they used. Does anyone believe that?

I'm curious, why are the people who are for Global Warming so adamant even though the evidence flies in their face? Surely, if it was purely on the basis of science then you would be in the "skeptic" camp.