Many of us have noticed the habit of Real Climate authors to not answer questions they are actually asked. I posted an example yesterday, in which eric steig claims his “answer” to Andrew Revkin’s question is the “right” answer. The difficulty is that eric’s answer did not address the question Andrew Revkin actually asked. He answered a different question.
In comment #26694, Peter Dunford observed
It is a typical trick of politicians, to answer the question they would prefer you had asked rather than the one you actually did ask.
As anyone born more than two days ago knows, Peter is quite right.
What many do not know is the trick of not answering the question actually asked has been specifically advocated in EOS — a weekly newspaper of geophysics read by many climate scientists. Her article “Improving how scientists communicate about climate change” (pdf) contained this advice:
Reframing
Rather than accepting the premise of a poorly framed question, reframe it. When people ask if global warming can be blamed for a particular hurricane, heat wave, fire, or flood, a simple “no†does not respond to the essence of the question. What they really want to know is whether global warming is having an effect on such events, and the science suggests that it is. You can reframe such questions to explain that global warming is increasing the chances of such events occurring, and you can also explain some of the connections.
If you notice the tactic, she is advising scientists to a) not answer the question they were actually asked, b) assume the questioner really wants to know the answer to a different question they did not ask and c) answer the different question in some detail.
My reaction when I first read this in my husbands dead tree copy of EOS was, “What bad advice! If climate scientists start ‘reframing’ this is going to backfire horribly.”
We all know that people sometimes do ask imprecise question. In these rather rare instances, some may want to know the answer to a question they did not ask. Still, respect for one’s audience ought to require those answering questions to at least consider the possibility the questioner asked the question whose answer they see and, one should try to cultivate the habit of answering the question that has been asked before giving additional clarification you might think important. After all, if your psychic mind powers fail, answering the question you think they “really” wished to answer will justifiably alienate the person who asked the question.
The consequences are even more severe if this ‘reframing’ is done in from of a group of people. Third parties in the audience are likely to notice the trick and rank your frankness up with that of politicians. If your non-answers are written down on the web or provided in a transcript, people will scan back, reread and confirm their impression that you do not answer questions people actually ask.
But of course, maybe in yesterday’s example (and others one could dig up at Real Climate) the “reframing” is unintentional.
Maybe.
But I’ve also long suspected this habit– which is so disrespectful to reader and reporters has been cultivated by RC. It is not the sort of accidental non-answering one sees in amateur non-politicans. Those at RC are not only familiar with Susan Hassol’s advice; they advocate climate scientist follow it. Here’s a quote from Mike Mann discussing and linking the Hassols article advocating the “reframing”:
mike says:
12 January 2009 at 4:0 PMWe’d also like to alert our readers to an insightful article on this topic published last year in EOS by Susan Joy Hassol of Climate Communication (linked in our blogroll for those who want to learn more about the organization)
Because those at RC link this specific article and recommend their readers follow Susans’ advice, I think there is every reason to suspect that their habitual practice of not answering questions actually asked is intentional. They read the advice, it appears they think Susan Joy Hassol’s advice is insightful and recommend people adopt it.
Maybe those at RC should reconsider. After all, it looks like these tactics are back firing.
In the wake of climategate, climate scientists like Steig, Schmidtt, Mann and other blogging at RC might want to cut out their knee-jerk “reframing” questions and answer the questions people (especially Andrew Revkin) actually ask.
Or, they can continue to “reframe”. Many in the now suspicious public will notice the “reframing” and rate the trust worthiness of climate scientists below politicians and on-line advertisers of introductory offers for tooth-whitening.
Lucia:
“every reason to suspect that their habitual practice of not answering questions actually asked is not intentional.” Not UNintentional?
Brain– Thanks. I edited out the “not”. I mean “Is intentional”
Here’s a reframinated answer to a criticism of upside down proxys.
The claim that ‘‘upside down’’ data were used is bizarre. Multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of predictors.
lucia (Comment#26748)
December 7th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Mr. Flynn must be a real smart fellow!
“If you notice the tactic, she is advising scientists to a) not answer the question they were actually asked”
She does not advocate this. She is advocating not answering with a “simple ‘no'”. Sounds like she is advocating a “no” answer with an explanation.
And that’s exactly how I would answer the question if one of my friends or family asked “Did global warming cause this year’s heat wave?” I’d say “You can’t attribute single events to global warming, however,…” and then go on my long winded explanation during which they would be looking for the nearest exit. It’s perfectly reasonable and I’m not sure hwy you would have a problem with it.
Boris–
Is she advocating what you claim? And is it how her advice is being implemented? Because it sure looks like Eric,Mann, Schmidt etc are understanding and implementing her advice the way I read it.
If you don’t want people seeking the nearest exit, you could answer “No. You can’t attribute single events to global warming” and stop right there. Couldn’t you? Specifically including the word “no” answers the question they asked. You then tag on a short explanation of your choice.
But in your answer, you specifically left out the word “no” and so risk not answering their yes/no question.
Now lets look at the rest of Susan’s advice. If someone ask whethre a specific hurricane, why would you assume ” What they really want to know is whether global warming is having an effect on such events,”?
Even if you correctly guess they mis-stated their question, how do you know that they didn’t “really” want to know that single events can’t be attributed to global warming? Or whether hurricanes as strong as Katrina occurred before global warming? Or whether the empirical evidence firmly establishes any increase in strength in hurricanes? Or any other number of questions?
Why not say “”No. You can’t attribute single events to global warming. Why do you ask?”
At a minumum, the answer address the question. In this example, good answers start with the word “No”. Responses that never get around to saying “no” are not answers.
It seems to me that answers that start with something like “no it won’t, but if you want to know ….” are potentially more useful than reframing without the initial bit because the answerer has answered the question and then explained why the question (and answer) are not really useful.
It’s the same tactic espoused by “Warm Words”: distort facts and dodge questions, if necessary. Very, very bad advice when facing a scientific audience.
Yes, Jeff Id. The dodge ’em tactic spilled over into Mann’s science, rendering it pseudo-scientific.
The EOS article is pure PoMo/Alinksy stuff. This is not about communicating science. This is about promoting the political agenda that climate science is supposed to serve.
Only a complete weasel would answer the hurricane question in the way she suggests.
Francis–
Starting by giving the answer to the question that was asked buys you a lot of patience. Launching into a non-answer will send people looking for an exit. Ultimately, they will ask someone else to answer their questions.
But Lucia, I don’t think “no” is the right answer.
Boris (Comment#26768) December 7th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
To the question: …if one of my friends or family asked “Did global warming cause this year’s heat wave?â€
surely you could not give an unqualified “yes”?
Similar question: Did sea level rise “cause” Hurricane Katrina to breach the New Orleans levees?
… to which you couldn’t honestly give an answer much “stronger” than “No, not really; maybe it increased the chances a bit.”
Boris–
You don’t think no is the right answer to “Was Katerina caused by global warming?” If so, then you are incorrect. No single event can be attributed to global warming.
Reframing is a communication answer that works well in person. It’s nothing new ( although lakoff did popularize it for people on the left) so when you go through media training the media specialists will teach you how to reframe. In a conversational situation the person asking the questions has the power. If you answer his question you live in his frame. There are several ways to “flip the script” ( a pimp game) Most annoying is to answer a question with a question. Another is reframing. It works in person because most people are not quick enough to realize their question wasnt answered and most thing it rude to say “answer my question”
Anyways what works in person doesnt fair so well in text. Because one can see exactly what was said.
So flipping the script, reframing ( run for the ice) are all old hat.
Boris, “no” is the right answer (to start with). But then you point out the problem with the question.
That’ the open and transparent way of dealing with it.
Oliver–
Imagine if someone asked Boris if global warming caused the the cool mid-west summer in Illinois? If he can’t answer “no” to that, his audience is really going to think he’s selling introductory tooth whitening subscriptions.
Can we call it fraud yet?
I was trained as an interviewer for very senior management roles and the political answer was, of course, the one I got most often but was the one that cost them the job.
IF ? you have a greater knowledge of the subject than the person ansking the question then, to be totally just in your response, you should tell them the question you are about to answer as confirmation. If then that is not their question you will be able to assist them in reframing to the real question. The one to which they want the answer.
I consider it lying to deliberately answer the wrong question. It is deceitful evasion.
It snowed here in Kentucky today. The city part of Kentucky was gridlocked this morning due to the the onslaught of the mean snowflakes. I was late for work. Little sons of…
Andrew
Andrew_KY
We also have snow. It’s light. What do you expect in December? 🙂
Lucia,
I was expecting a little AGW to help me out this morning! Where the *bleep* was it? In the ocean? lol Yeah, sure… 😉
Apparently we got a dusting right before rush our and the Kentucky Road Salt Authority were caught unawares. Really guys, at 9:00am you were running a bit behind.
Andrew
Lucia,
Greenhouse gases are an active part of our climate system. As such, they play a role in everything. So the answer to questions such as “did global warming cause…” is not yes or no, but whether the greenhouse gas enhancement had a detectable role in the event. There is no good answer as to whether or not “global warming” “caused” “Katrina.” It is a poorly framed question. If you answer this question simply yes or no, you are very likely wrong.
-Chip
“When people ask if global warming can be blamed for a particular hurricane, heat wave, fire, or flood, a simple no does not respond to the essence of the question. What they really want to know is whether global warming is having an effect on such events, and the science suggests that it is. You can reframe such questions to explain that global warming is increasing the chances of such events occurring, and you can also explain some of the connections.”
So it’s apparently OK to reframe the question so you can more easily twist the truth to the unsuspecting commoner (I was going to use the L word but I refrained…).
Climate science is in SO MUCH TROUBLE…
Chip–
I think the answer is “no + short explanation to explain what no means”. For example “No. No individual hurrican can be attributed to global warming.”
But if someone thinks a question worded as a “yes or no” question cannot include “yes or no” in the answer, they can say something like “That question doesn’t have a yes or no answer” and then explain why they believe there is no “yes/no” answer.
Answering a question that was not asked can’t be called “answering the question.” It’s changing the subject.
Re: Chip Knappenberger (Comment#26787) December 7th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
It’s has to be a “no” in any usual sense of the word “caused.” The Coriolis force also helped “cause” Katrina, but that isn’t the first answer given either when asked about “causes.”
A more conversational (rather than adversarial) approach to answering the (ill-posed) question might help communicate the point… “Are you asking whether global warming had something to do with this?” Let it go from there…
What if “Katrina” had come ashore 30 miles further east? Then “Katrina” would probably be no more interesting than “Dennis” or any other landfalling storm that didn’t hit a major urban area. Did “global warming” impact the track of Katrina? I don’t know, but I suppose it could have through SST/atmospheric circulation patterns, for example. So if by some tiny influence “global warming” helped steer that particular tropical cyclone, it could have “caused” the event that is referred to as “Katrina.” I, for one, can’t say that didn’t. Maybe you guys have seen a perfect emulation of the storm in non-global warming conditions to know for sure.
-Chip
Not to distract from or criticize the post, but I think that imprecise framing has been the biggest reason why the public can’t digest the competing claims, and the arguments seem to be talking past each other. Imprecise questions aren’t rare; they’re the norm. Until fairly recently, the standard formulation of the question has been “do you believe in global warming?”. Note the absence of the word “anthropogenic”. I think we’re getting a little better, but “do you believe in anthropogenic global warming?” still leaves many things up to chance (i.e. is it from land use, black particulates, methane, etc.). The Pielkes have it framed a little more tightly with their “2b or not 2b” formulation, but even that leaves much to be desired. Without expanding the question to a full page, the best reformulation that I’ve heard is “do you believe in high climate sensitivity?”. Even this is less than perfect.
I don’t think it should be so surprising that people, even assuming good faith, are having such difficulty answering the question, when the the question has never been asked in a completely satisfactory manner.
Chip–
If someone asked me whether eathing skippy peanut butter casued Katernia, or off shore oil platforms in the North Sea caused Katerina or Fannie Mae caused Katerina, or, the filming of the movie Casablanca cause Katerina, or a gay activists march in San Francisco caused Katerina, I would say “no”.
Then, I might provide a short explanation.
It’s true that someone, somewhere, may invoke the butterfly effect and explain that the slight disturbance in air velocities triggered by my eating a skippy peanut butter sandwich when I was a child ultimately affected the weather, and contributed to Katerina. In which case, the person who thinks this is the correct answer can give this answer and justify their answer.
But I happen to think the more correct answer to all these questions is “no” with a short explanation.
I know these possible causes sound more tenuously connected to causing Katerina than global warming. But the fact is that global warming doesn’t cause individual weather events, and neither does my eating skippy peanut butter sandwiches.
But I think the more important point is that even if someone thinks a question has no “yes/no” answer, they can still just say “that question has no answer”. An answer to a different (possibly better framed) question does not become an answer to the poorly framed questions.
The correct answer to the question of Katrina and Global Warming is: I don’t know and neither does anyone else.
Lucia,
True, the events you listed are only very tenuously connected to global weather/climate. Greenhouse gases are more closely connected however. And it is beyond my knowledge as to whether or not their build-up in the atmosphere turned a garden variety Atlantic tropical cyclone into “Katrina.� Don�t get me wrong here, I am not saying that it did, just that a simple yes/no answer in unwarranted.
You seem adamant that “global warming” doesn’t “cause” weather events. What about causing rain to fall instead of snow? Maybe “global warming” didn’t �cause� the genesis of a particular extra-tropical low pressure system or even impacted the track, but it may have elevated temperatures just enough such that along the southern boundary of the system it rained when it otherwise would have snowed–which leads to a different weather “event” in those locations. Plausible?
-Chip
Sometimes people ask ambiguous questions and sometimes you “think” people are really seeking the answer to a question different to the one asked. As a consultant I am always aware that what my client is asking me for may not be what they actually want.
The honest way to deal with this issue is not to reframe the question. That is dishonest political spinning. What you should do is seek out further information about what the questioner is actually asking and preferably without leading questions. I wouldn’t last long as a consultant if I simply reframed the clients question into one that I wanted to answer!
I am fully behind Lucia with her – the answer is no, but….
Lucia, you have an inverted graph there.
This is actually amusing listening to scientists and engineers struggling with such basic evidentiary logic. I’m not a lawyer, but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express once, and this is basic first-year law school stuff.
Chip–
That’s right. I see it this way. I see the question “Does X cause Y” the way Carrick sees it. The coriolis force doesn’t cause individual weather events. Hadley cells don’t cause individual storms. Poverty doesn’t cause AIDS, or the flu, or diabetes.
The phrase “X” causes “Y” implies a much greater connection. So, if someone said answered “No we can’t say global warming caused Katerina. But global warming could raise surface temperaures over the ocean and contribute to the formation and intensity of hurricanes”. I’m think that’s correct.
But, this by itself is not my major point. My post is about the reframing. I think if you read the quote from Susan Joy Hassol, she is interpreting “cause” the way I do and thinks “no” is the simple and correct answer. But she advocates against giving this answer and instead suggest reframing to answer something you prefer to answer.
You are saying something different, which is that you think the “no” is not the correct answer. So, while I see Hassol advocating a deceptive sort of spin, I would not consider you not saying “no” because you don’t think that’s the answer as a big problem. We could just have a conversation to clarify how we understand the meaning of “X causes Y”, and discuss the the sort of linkage that exists between “X and Y”. That would actually be a useful productive conversatoin.
In contrast, Hassol sure seems to suggest that even if we think the answer is “no”, we avoid giving that answer. That is not productive.
Lucia,
Fair enough.
-Chip
lucia, you are ignoring reality. you say “NO”, and while you start the rest of your answer, the TV camera has already been switched of again.
sorry, but there has been a little too much abuse of comments that started that way.
if you don t want to have the “NO” quoted over and over and over again in denialist attempts to misrepresent what you said, then you have to avoid the no.
i am sorry
Sod–
If you think the correct answer is “no” how would people quoting your answer of “no” be misrepresentations?
In any case, people who are determined to mis-represent answers will manage anyway. What do you think of eric’s mis-representation of Roger’s response to Andrew Revkin’s question? Eric sure seems to have a real knack for mis-representing.
sod:
Sounds more like politics, or at least your political theory.
I think sod is trying to justify lying and misdirecting now.
The answer is no, no, NO.
“essence of the question”-what nonsense. If they wanted to know whether warming increased the chances of such events occurring, they would have asked it.
Meaning is meaning is meaning. There is no secret “essence” or “hidden” question. Answering the question that is asked is the only thing that makes any sense. Answering a question that wasn’t asked but is supposedly the “essence” of the question-a completely different one!!!-is idiotic.
Lucia, I like your approach of saying “no” and then following up with futher explanation.
However, I don’t see much/any difference in that and in what was suggested in the EOS article.
“When people ask if global warming can be blamed for a particular hurricane, heat wave, fire, or flood, a simple “no†does not respond to the essence of the question. What they really want to know is whether global warming is having an effect on such events, and the science suggests that it is.”
My reading of this is to do essentially what you advocate, i.e., don’t leave it at a simple “no”, but expound further. I am puzzled at why you seem so upset by this suggestion.
Let’s do it this way.
Short answer: no.
Long answer: hell no.
OK?
It is truly amazing to see Boris extending the practice of reframing questions to reframing the context of Susan Joy Hassols advice on how to reframe questions…
The mind boggles…
However, I’d like to further this excursion in postmodern rhetorical techniqe by extending it to statements, the next logical step.
Thus, when Boris writes: “But Lucia, I don’t think “no†is the right answer.”, his true intention is to claim the opposite.
Only in climate “science”… But one wonders where this will end – and I’m running out of popcorn 🙂
Over at Real Climate, you only get an answer to a reframed question when that is convenient… most of the time they just snip your post. I think that fact supports Lucia’s position: these folks WILL NOT answer any question they can’t easily “reframe” to support their view of global warming. They are wholly dishonest in how they handle comments and questions.
Jack–
I think Susan Hassol is advocating avoding actually including the “no” part. To avoid saying “no”, you answer the reframed questions whose answer is not “no”. This appears to be how the advice is implemented at places like RC.
No ‘reframing’ is required to answer “no + explanation”. That’s just answering the question. ( And if someone thinks Susan is lecturing scientists for giving answers that are too short and lack detail… well, if she’s doing that, she hasn’t talked with many scientists. It’s pretty automatic to give an explanation for nearly all yes or no answer.)
If you notice the tactic, she is advising scientists to a) not answer the question they were actually asked, b) assume the questioner really wants to know the answer to a different question they did not ask and c) answer the different question in some detail.
I think the analysis above is an overstatement.
A political advisor might suggest that when faced with a question the politician does not want to answer, such as “Did you cheat on your wife?” the politician might instead answer a question he wants to, such as “Do you believe in the sanctity of marriage?” and answer, “I believe that all of us are sinners, and some of us do give in to the devil’s temptation, but I am a firm believer in the institution of marriage and will defend it against all those who seek to weaken it by allowing gays to get married.”
That seems to be a clear example of answering a wholly different question than the person asked.
In the case of the EOS article, I think that there are legitimate concerns about the difficulty in communicating science to the general public.
As someone who has taught a number of freshman and junior level university courses, I can attest that communicating complex concepts to first and even second year students is difficult. The students I taught were high school graduates or perhaps had a year or two of university under their belts, but even so, they often didn’t know how to frame their questions properly in order to get answer they were seeking. You have to ask them “Do you mean X? Or do you mean Y?” If X, then ___. If Y then ___.”
This is more difficult with the general public, who may only have partial high school or even none at all, depending on the age group. Sometimes, they don’t know what it is they don’t know, and so they don’t always know how to ask the right question.
I imagine that when a person asks if a particular event is caused by global warming, they want to know if the weather they are currently experiencing is caused by or related to climate and global warming in general as well as the particular weather event in particular.
Therefore, it is not answering a completely different question to respond along the lines of, “Observations suggest that the number and frequency of hurricanes has increased in the last X decades. The theory suggests that as sea surface temperatures increase, we can expect to see more frequent and intense weather events like hurricanes, etc. So while it is impossible to say that global warming caused Katrina directly, it may be part of a larger increase in intense storms in that region blah blah blah.”
This is not a straight yes/no answer, of course, but it both answers the question and provides context and it is not deceitful.
I think people are seeing deceit or the attempt to deceive where it is not intended.
sod,
soundbites is not science.
greenaway,
the “general public” includes damn smart engineers. You may want to communicate with them, as they are the ones who are going to be charged with “saving the planet” – NOT the climatologists.
X may influence the probability of Y without necessarily being “the cause” of Y – for example if it’s one of many factors, or if the two processes run on different time scales.
greenaway–
One problem with your paragraph as a recommended answer is that part of substance actually is wrong. If it weren’t the hurricane question might be easier!
This claim was very difficult to support in 2004, still difficult to support in 2006, and appears absolutely wrong now. The number and frequency of storms have not increased or if they have, the increase is not detectable above noise.
Those of the true AGW faith really do believe that every piece of adverse weather, whether it is a flood or a drought; a heatwave or a cold snap; a gale or a calm spell; are all directly caused by global warming.
I’m not concerned about the obviously smart engineers, who are quite able to think about such things for themselves given the curriculum they study etc. I’m thinking of the general public who do not have university degrees in science and some who may not even have high school science. This doesn’t mean they aren’t smart, but if you have little or no science beyond grade 10, you may not know enough to grasp some of the fundamentals. Hell, I have a degree in science and I am struggling with the fundamentals. 😀
Lucia, I was making that up as I went, I was not trying to provide a scientifically correct response that would pass muster. I was instead trying to show how one could provide a more than yes/no answer that provided context and was not answering a different question. The veracity of the claim was not my point. I included blah blah blah in an attempt to show that I was prevaricating. I may have some of it right because I have read the answers before, but I wasn’t trying to argue the case that global warming is causing increased hurricanes. I should have used a different example.
greenaway (Comment#26813)
“This is more difficult with the general public, who may only have partial high school or even none at all, depending on the age group. Sometimes, they don’t know what it is they don’t know, and so they don’t always know how to ask the right question.”
So you should help them by answering a question they did not ask. Can you comprehend how arrogant your statement is? Intellect has nothing to do with education.
It may sound arrogant, but it may also be true.
I find that it is impossible to overcome the perception that you are arrogant in some people’s minds, especially those who go looking for reasons to be insulted. I shrug it off most of the time. There is a strong anti-intellectual bent among some sectors of society.
Communicating with the public is a legitimate concern for scientists and educators. You have to assume a grade 8 education and write to that level if you want to be understood. That creates problems when trying to convey complex concepts. You may feel that is arrogant but so be it.
Not the first or last time that claim has been thrown at me.
“Not the first or last time that claim has been thrown at me.”
I completely agree… and there is not much that I would agree with you on.
I’m personally not sure what the “best” approach is. On the one hand it’s important to guard against (self-) arrogance; on the other hand it is also true that formal scientific (and other academic) training is there to teach one how to ask precise, well-posed questions on scientific matters and it is somewhat “unfair” (is there a better word for this?) to presume that any given audience is asking a question whi (you can see how difficult it is to avoid loaded words such as “level”). That’s why I suggested the approach I did a few posts back.
Do you have any suggestions how to better initiate a conversation where a simple “yes” or “no” potentially fails to communicate the point?
greenaway–
Yes. I actually understand what you meant. But actually, one of the difficulties is that Susan Hassol almost certainly included the hurricane in her list of severe weather for a reason.
I think the reasonshe specifically included hurricanes as a question to reframe goes like his:
a) the hurricane answer gets asked for a variety of reasons one of which was Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth put the connection between Katerina and AGW in peoples minds and
b) quite a few activists really, really don’t want to answer “no”. Worse, it’s inaccurate to say “No, but was are beginning to see the connetion”. If they could do that, there would be no need for reframing.
So, the only solution is to go off on tangents like “droughts and floods and severe weather are predicted blah, blah, blah” and do trail off into the “blah blah blah” long enough to avoid saying “But we haven’t yet established any connection with hurricanes”. So, the question is not answered.
Personally, I have no idea if there are more hurricanes in the past 50 years than previously, nor do I know if global warming is causing increased number or strength of hurricanes. I only know that this is a debate in the science and a source of contention, given the sources of data available.
That is not my point — my point is that one can reframe without answering a completely different question. I think it’s possible to see deceit where it doesn’t exist.
From Patrick:
“Those of the true AGW faith really do believe that every piece of adverse weather, whether it is a flood or a drought; a heatwave or a cold snap; a gale or a calm spell; are all directly caused by global warming.”
I am wondering where you got that idea. I am an atmospheric scientist who is convinced that the preponderance of the data supports AGW, and I absolutely do NOT believe that every piece of adverse weather is directly caused by global warming. In fact, I can think of none of my co-workers (many who are climatologists) who believe that. I would be surprised to hear any climate scientist make that claim – it simply cannot be backed up by any evidence.
quite a few activists really, really don’t want to answer “noâ€. Worse, it’s inaccurate to say “No, but was are beginning to see the connetionâ€. If they could do that, there would be no need for reframing.
So, the only solution is to go off on tangents like “droughts and floods and severe weather are predicted blah, blah, blah†and do trail off into the “blah blah blah†long enough to avoid saying “But we haven’t yet established any connection with hurricanesâ€. So, the question is not answered.
I think we’re getting caught up in the example (hurricane/global warming connection) rather than the problem itself (reframing question).
The thing is that some scientists are far more comfortable drawing conclusions about a particular science question based on the evidence than are others, and you will get that no matter what the state is of the science. For those who are uncomfortable answering a straight yes or no, they may want to provide some context without having to answer a straight yes or no, not because they are trying to deceive, but because they may be less comfortable with the data or they may want to provide more of a discussion of uncertainty than a yes/no response would allow.
I suspect that some scientists would answer a straight yes, some else a straight no and many more would not be comfortable doing either and would want to preface everything and make it all contingent and address uncertainty.
The problem is whether or not you provide honest answers, if you are the person being asked. You should answer truthfully and completely. Yes, No, or I Don’t Know along with an explanation of why you answered that way.
To shape all of your answers so that they point to what you want the other person to think is manipulation.
Ultimately, you want the person to use their own analytical skills to inform themselves, and keep them free from groupthink and always on guard against manipulation.
Andrew
greenaway, your argument might hold water if you were posting on 4chan, but it doesn’t hold water here. You’re talking to engineers and scientists for the most part. Feel free to let loose and clearly specify the technical merits of your argument here, and leave the eighth grade writing (and pleading) for your freshman and junior classes.
Lucia – great post, thank you!
So if someone were to ask if sunspots had “caused” Katrina, then I guess some of the commenters here wouldn’t have a problem with a response on the order of:
‘Sunspots have been proven to have an effect on the Earth’s temperature, so the number of sunspots that year could have increased the intensity of Katrina’.
This would answer the “real” question, right? There clearly isn’t anything deceptive such a response either, as it provides much more information than a simple yes or no answer would have.
Lucia,
“So, the only solution is to go off on tangents like “droughts and floods and severe weather are predicted blah, blah, blah†and do trail off into the “blah blah blah†long enough to avoid saying “But we haven’t yet established any connection with hurricanesâ€. So, the question is not answered.”
I have been asked this very question many times in real life. My answer has always been “no”. Based on the response of the questioner (i.e., whether they show any interest at all in hearing me talk more) I then decide whether to keep talking or stop there. I have no problem telling someone that there is not currently evidence that can back up that claim. However, I also have no problem with explaining why some scientists expect that that connection may be in the cards in the future. Your assumption is that the scientist is attempting to deceive by “reframing a question”. I haven’t seen that that is the case in my experience.
I did notice that you used the word “activist” in your post, rather than scientist, and perhaps that is the difference. In my experience, the scientists I know and work with couldn’t be characterized as “activist” about AGW. There seems to be a tendency to paint climate/atmospheric scientists with a broad brush, based on the perception of a handful that have been in the news. There are, in fact, thousands of researchers out there.
greenaway
Click the link to Susan Hassol’s paper. She’s not a big advocate of making things sound contingent and gives advice on how to avoid using words like “uncertainty”.
(By the way, when you read it, you’ll notice she recommends a dice metaphor. I first began blogging, Gavin often resorted to the dice metaphor. That seems to have gone out of fashion.)
greenaway:
…my point is that one can reframe without answering a completely different question. I think it’s possible to see deceit where it doesn’t exist.
Since people will ‘see deceit where it doesn’t exist’, shouldn’t people that are answering questions make it clear that they aren’t using reframing to obfuscate or mislead? The best advice is probably to answer the question directly first, then reframe.
oliver (Comment#26828),
“Do you have any suggestions how to better initiate a conversation where a simple “yes†or “no†potentially fails to communicate the point?”
You bet.
.
Treat people with respect.
.
Answer their questions honestly, and when you don’t know the answer, say that you don’t.
.
If the question does not have a clear answer, say something like “Well, that question doesn’t have a clear answer. Some data suggest this, some that, ….”. Given honest information, including uncertainty, most people can draw reasonable conclusions.
.
Never “talk down” to people, like most climate science stars and their self appointed minions do.
.
Don’t think of people who doubt what you say as “the ingoranti”.
.
Never pretend that anything in climate science is fully and clearly understood and predictable in the way that thermodynamics, chemistry, or optics are.
.
Stay away from religious certitude, or you will surely offend, and likely end up being wrong.
Lucia:
“Click the link to Susan Hassol’s paper. She’s not a big advocate of making things sound contingent and gives advice on how to avoid using words like “uncertaintyâ€.”
This is a major problem with scientists communicating clearly. It does not come naturally to me to answer with an absolute – in reality, there are very few absolutes so it simply feels dishonest. I noticed that when I was at the pediatrician’s office years ago with my first son, I was incapable of answering in absolutes. For the question “Has he ever been exposed to lead?” my answer would be “Not that I am aware of”, etc. It sounds fishy and somewhat like avoidance to someone who is not used to this.
Jack–
There is a difference. Most scientists are not climate activist. (Most also don’t blog.)
I know lots of non activist scientists, many of whom work in climate science. My husband worked on DOE’s ARM program and SHEBA. (He’s an engineer.) I know many scientists — including climate scientists– who would not answer the way I think Susan is suggesting. Many.
Way back in the 90s, my husband gave a talk to school teachers in Seattle. He was invited to discuss research in the ARM program. He’s been asked to specifically address why the program existed. In his talk he explained the program existed because the physics of clouds represented one of the main uncertainties in predicting magnitudes of warming. This is, of course, why ARM was established and why measurement sites were deployed in various parts of the world.
Later, in the bus, a woman laid into him that he should never use the word “uncertainty” when presenting anything about global warming to the public.
Climate activists exist. Some are scientists; some aren’t.
To shape all of your answers so that they point to what you want the other person to think is manipulation.
I think you are seeing manipulation where I see communication.
You have a lack of information, I have information. When a person asks a scientist about a science phenomenon, they are asking for an exchange of information. To provide the person with an answer is to exchange information — to communicate.
When you are engaged in “communication” with a particular audience, you keep the audience and its needs in mind when answering and frame your responses accordingly.
This is not deceitful but good practice for the goal of communication is to actually transfer knowledge and information. If you do not respond in a way that your audience can understand, you will not communicate at all hence you may have to reframe questions depending on the audience.
This is communications 101 and is so basic, it seems that it would be self-apparent.
If you are communicating with other scientists, you may provide one answer — perhaps the more full answer with all the details; if with a group of administration types thinking about funding decisions you might provide a different version of it to suit them; and if you are meeting with the public, yet another.
That you are always honest with the facts as you understand them is assumed but the way you convey those facts and your opinion of them may vary depending on the audience.
“It does not come naturally to me to answer with an absolute – in reality, there are very few absolutes so it simply feels dishonest.”
YES. I think that’s when I first started to think that something might be wrong with the Global Warming people several years ago – they just seemed far too certain, and I couldn’t conceive of how they could be so confident when their data (the temperature ~1000 years ago, for example) couldn’t be particularly accurate.
greenaway,
“I think you are seeing manipulation where I see communication.”
If you want to exchange information, use facts. No extras required.
Andrew
SteveF–
Now, now. Some things are well understood. We do, for example, understand why the climate is warm near the equator and cold near the poles, why winter is colder than summer near the poles etc.
Jack
Actually, this would not sound fishy to me or avoiding the answer to me. “Yes”, “No”, “I don’t know”, “Not that I’m aware of” all fall in the category of potential answer to the question someone actually asked. Notice you didn’t ‘reframe the question’. But Susan’s advice does not strike me as saying “Not that I’m aware of” or “I don’t know”.
Feel free to let loose and clearly specify the technical merits of your argument here, and leave the eighth grade writing (and pleading) for your freshman and junior classes.
I’m not an engineer or a scientist. I don’t “specify the technical merits” of my arguments since there is no technology involved in them. I’m talking about warm fuzzy stuff like “communication” and “policy” and soft stuff like “politics” and “society” and “human psychology” that require a different kind of analysis than engineering and physics and climate science use. When communicating with the general public, if you assume that they have the technical language of an engineer or scientist, you will waste your and their time. That isn’t arrogant. It’s good communication practice.
Lucia,
Small world. Several scientists in my gov’t lab (not me) work with ARM/SHEBA. (Satellite data, airborne measurements, cloud modeling, etc.)
I also note that most of the people I work with had no idea about the CRU emails until I told them about it. Most climate/atmospheric scientists are so involved in their independent research that they live in isolation from the rest of the world. It’s a shame because there is an enormous disconnect between the science and the general public. It pains me to see the way climate scientists have been painted in much of the blog world, based on the perceptions of just a few. It’s a very incomplete and inaccurate picture. I don’t see an easy way to make that connection more productive though.
greenaway
If Susan Hassol has said this, I would not be criticizing her. But no matter how often I read what she wrote, I can’t find this meaning in what she wrote.
She is not advising reframing because the audience cannot understand the answer. She is advising reframing to answer their “real” question and that real question is one she would specifically rather answer.
sorry – mostly a repeat post. My computer crapped out when I sent the first one and I thought it was lost so I tried to recreate it from memory…
Jack (Comment#26832)
December 7th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
So on a thread about “reframing” questions, Jack reframes a statement. Patrick said “those of the true AGW faith” and Jack chose to comment about “climate scientists”.
Anyway, here’s one of gazillions of examples of what Patrick may have been referring to.
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/08/18-1
Ok, so they used a question mark. I doubt if they issued a press release on the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season when it ended.
Jack
I ran into a climate scientist at the opera. We were laughing our head off over the likely lack of security by university types at UEA. We discussed the “sophisticated hacker” theory of the disclosure and we both suspect the hacker got in by finding the password on a post in note tacked to the keyboard of someone’s computer. . . Lots of laughing over that. Also, we had some fund discussions about the possibility of disgruntled graduate student, post-docs or co-workers.
I don’t either.
Lucia, I read and reread that article and I just do not see any suggestion that scientists should avoid answering difficult questions or an attempt to deceive implied.
It is that sometimes, laypeople will not understand enough science to ask good questions, or ones that will get the answer they really seek. I saw this all the time in my own courses when students couldn’t communicate the very basics of their own opinions and ideas and didn’t know how to ask the right questions. It truly is a problem of the fundamentals of logic and basic analysis.
There are always get a few gems who are on top of the material and are very good at analysis and communication of ideas, but many more are struggling to express themselves in basic premises and logic and conclusions. They often can’t understand what they read and as a result, don’t know what to ask because they can’t even grasp the text well enough to do so. You have to help them along and reframing is one method of teaching.
Honestly, Lucia, I read the section on reframing and it was absolutely what I would have written, had I been writing an article on communicating more effectively. I see no attempt to suggest that people avoid answering truthfully or answer a wholly different question in a deceitful manner.
greenaway,
You keep dissing the intelligence of your students.
Warning, rhetorical question coming
You didn’t by any chance have anything to do with a certain senator’s education, did you?
http://community.detnews.com/apps/blogs/henrypayneblog/index.php?blogid=2041
greenaway,
” When communicating with the general public, if you assume that they have the technical language of an engineer or scientist, you will waste your and their time.”
You seem to be completely missing the point. Susan Hassol was clearly advising climate scientists to re-frame questions and provide answers that promote a particular ideological (AKA political) point of view, shrouded as if that political advocacy were science.
No scientist or engineer is going to spout differential equations and a Fourier series solution when somebody asks about heat transfer in a solid if the person asking doesn’t have the mathematical background to understand those things. That is so trivially obvious that I do not understand why you think it needs to be explained even once, no less multiple times in a single thread.
The issue here is as Lucia originally framed it: Susan Hassol’s advice is advocacy wrapping itself in science. It is simply dishonest. That her advice is so widely adopted by climate scientists means that they are also simply dishonest.
greenaway–
I’ve taught fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, gas dynamics and experimental methods. I found that students usually could ask the questions properly.
Although, I still remember the time when the answer was “That’s an excellent question. I’m not going to answer it now! Then I paused and saw the class blink– because they were pretty used to my answering questions. Then I continued: It’s next Wednesdays 1 hour lecture! The students laughed at that.
Admittedly, the courses I taught were different from those you probably covered. In many cases, the students were highly focused on how to do a problem. (Though, not always. Some of my student did what to know how to recognize when the methods and assumptions would break down in applications. )
But getting back to Hassol: I believe that in some structured teaching settings you, the instructor, can tell the students are having trouble enunciating the question they really want to ask.
The difficulty is that there is nothing “wrong” about asking if global warming caused a particular hurricane. This is a perfectly valid question and there is no reason to assume it is not the “real” question. So, why would anyone suggest that question is not the “real” question? Only because they don’t want to answer it.
And Hassol’s paper isn’t merely a causally worded answer in comments at a forum or blog post. It’s a formal publication. She must have thought about the hypothetical question and could have come up with an obviously incoherent one. But she didn’t. In reality, she recommends reframing a perfectly valid, clear question that many people ask — and whose answer many people really and truly seek.
lucia (Comment#26848),
You are right, even we ignoranti know the poles are colder than the tropics. I should have said “Never pretend that global warming is fully and clearly understood and predictable”
Steve F:
“That her advice is so widely adopted by climate scientists means that they are also simply dishonest.”
I think that the huge majority of climate scientists have never even heard of Susan Hassol much less read her publication. I am surprised that you believe her advice is widely adopted by climate scientists. I don’t agree.
Jack
I’d go so far as to say that few of the climate scientists who get the dead tree version of EOS read her paper. Most probably flipped right by article. But I think those posting at Real Climate read the article and it influenced them.
The difficulty is that there is nothing “wrong†about asking if global warming caused a particular hurricane. This is a perfectly valid question and there is no reason to assume it is not the “real†question. So, why would anyone suggest that question is not the “real†question? Only because they don’t want to answer it.
It isn’t wrong, but it isn’t right, if what I understand about the issue is at all on track. Which I don’t claim it is.
I think this gets down to the weather/climate issue. A hurricane is weather, an increasing trend of weather events over a period of 50 years is climate. To answer properly, one has to clarify the difference between the two and at what level they are causally related.
Jack (Comment#26863)
“I am surprised that you believe her advice is widely adopted by climate scientists.”
It is clearly adopted by many well known climate scientists who advocate draconian changes to address global warming. There may be many many climate scientists who do not, but if they never address the public, how would most people know? I admit that many (even me) are tempted to paint with a broad brush based on some very bad examples. I suggest that those climate scientists who disagree with the tactics advocated by Susan Hassol publicly criticize them.
greenaway–
In “An Inconvenient Truth”, Gore stood in front of an image of a hurricane and said things that gave some people the impression that global warming caused that hurricane. He may have parsed words in a way that doesn’t quite say that– but the impression was placed in some minds.
In this context, how is it wrong to ask if global warming caused hurricane Katerina? There is nothing “wrong” with the question and, moreover, given the fact that many people have seen the picture of Gore standing in front of the hurricane, it’s likely to be precisely the question they want to ask. They aren’t “really” asking something else.
Lucia,
I just had a look at the document, and it’s so appalling I could hardly believe it. This is basically instruction to scientists on how to deliver propaganda. Here are some salient quotes:
“The need for scientists to communicate more
effectively about climate change is urgent. For
people to take climate change seriously and
support appropriate responses, they need to
feel sure it is happening and is caused primarily
by humans. ”
“Why is there an understanding gap? There
is plenty of blame to go around, from general
scientific illiteracy, to the media’s failings, to a
disinformation campaign [e.g., see Union of
Concerned Scientists, 2007] designed to sow
doubt.”
“Clearly state the settled scientific conclusions.
Do not overdo “weasel words†and caveats. We
know it is warming and we know it is due primarily
to human activity. Say so. Saying human
activity “contributes†to global warming makes
it sound like human activity might be only a
minor contributor. It would be more accurate
to say “most of the warming….â€
“I suggest avoiding the use of the
word “theory†to refer to things as well
established as the greenhouse effect or the
human intensification (not enhancement)
thereof.”
“Similarly,to the public, “uncertainty†generally means
we do not know if something will happen,
so uncertainty about future warming is
taken to mean that it might not warm at all;
it might even cool, for all we know. But that
is not what scientists mean;”
And last but not least my favorite, due to it’s stunning faith in the ability of anyone to “predict” long term atmospheric processes:
“Climate, like the average age of death, is a statistical average
that is predictable based on large-scale forces, while weather is subject to chaotic forces that make it inherently more difficult
to predict.”
This person must also believe the fiction that climate prediction is a “boundary value problem”…
Of course I agree that RC will reframe whatever they can to fit their need. But much more dishonest is their idea that if no one sees your question, then your question didn’t get asked and they don’t have to answer it. Moderating you out is actually the tool of choice. Since they cannot moderate out Revkin and Pielke on Revkin’s blog, reframing is the next best option for them.
I just had a look at the document, and it’s so appalling I could hardly believe it. This is basically instruction to scientists on how to deliver propaganda.
I didn’t see it that way at all. There is a clear problem with communication of science to the public, a lack of which results in people not understanding the basic issues and therefore not being informed enough to be able to judge when they are asked to do so about a science policy issue.
Scientists are generally not taught how to communicate except to other scientists and perhaps science students, who are far removed from the public or even policy people. Yet all of us rely on scientists to do so because their field is too highly specialized with its own vocabulary and methods for the rest of us to do it on our own. That is not elitist — it is reality.
The fact is that most people get their science news from science reporters in the media, who are not necessarily experts and often get it wrong. These reporters are much more likely to be the source of science information for the average person than scientists. Of course, the media have their own interests even if they are supposedly expected to present an objective perspective. The way climategate has been covered is proof of that.
So, if scientists are expected to communicate to the public, they have to understand the public as an audience and what kind of message the public will understand. I see the article as offering scientists some pointers on how to communicate so that the message comes through.
Yes, the author clearly has a point of view and is offering her opinion on how that point of view is to be communicated to a public who is not able to appreciate all the complexities of the sciences in question.
If, in a scientist’s expert opinion, the research supports the notion that global warming is a threat, they have the right to express that if they are asked to do so, whether to policy people or the public.
You have every right to reject their expert opinion, but it is just that — a difference in opinion. It is not proof of some kind of conspiracy or fraud or hoax.
What I see evidence of in this thread is a group of people who reject the premise that global warming is as much a threat as is being portrayed in the article. I suspect that if this was an article by economists advising other economists about how to convey the clear dangers of a cap and trade scheme on jobs and GDP to the public, you wouldn’t be so upset.
If you disagree because you think the science isn’t strong enough, disagree on that basis. Don’t try to make it seem as if everyone who disagrees with you are liars and frauds.
greenaway (Comment#26845) December 7th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
“When you are engaged in “communication†with a particular audience, you keep the audience and its needs in mind when answering and frame your responses accordingly.
This is not deceitful but good practice for the goal of communication is to actually transfer knowledge and information. ”
The goal of communication is not the transfer of knowledge and information. Rhetoric 101.
In “An Inconvenient Truthâ€, Gore stood in front of an image of a hurricane and said things that gave some people the impression that global warming caused that hurricane. He may have parsed words in a way that doesn’t quite say that– but the impression was placed in some minds.
Gore is a politician and activist first and foremost. Clever images and sound bites and overblown prose and high flying metaphor are their stock and trade. They are not scientists who dicker over degrees of freedom and sigmas and smoothing curves and sample error and uncertainty. As a politician and activist, he is conveying his point of view and message. He is presenting his interpretation of the science. It may be wrong, it may be overblown, it may avoid discussing uncertainties. It is right for scientists to point that out. He is not out to do anything but convince people to his position.
It’s an old old approach called rhetoric. 😀
Yes, he is very persuasive. His use of the Katrina image can be called manipulative because the public will see it and it has an immediate emotional appeal which it was most definitely intended to convey.
That is why it is so important and such a crime that people do not have better science educations. WIthout such, they can be easily persuaded by powerful rhetoric rather than by sound evidence.
Which is why scientists have to be better communicators…
“The goal of communication is not the transfer of knowledge and information. Rhetoric 101.”
One form of it, most definitely. 🙂
greenaway–
Sure, and if Hassol has said that I would not criticize her.
Who is talking about rejecting expert opinoins? This is about people finding ways to avoid revealing their expert opinions when asked questions they would rather not answer.
Susan’s specfic examples happen to a question about hurricanes and that specific example would constitute a good, entirely valid question. He narrative then suggest reframing the question.
Might she have simply picked a very, very, very poor example of an ill-posed question? Might she be unaware that people were asking that very question, and that the reason they asked that specific question sprung from the fact that the notion that Katerina was caused by global warming had been planted in people’s minds? Might she be unaware that they really, really want to know the answer to that question– to the extent that they will keep repeating it if the scientists reframes? Might she not know that there are some of the more activist scientists specifically wish to avoid answering “no” to that question? (Note that Jack who tells us he is a climate scientist also says he would answer “no”.)
Maybe Susan knows knows of these things and that poor example was selected at random. I doubt it.
FWIW: If you can find a similar article in an economics journal teaching economists how to reframe questions they would prefer to avoid answering, let us know. Because I’m pretty sure I would disapprove.
greenway
And in the context of my post, the image of Gore standing in front of a hurricane is the reason why Susan Hassol should know that people asking whether or not a specific hurricane was caused by global warming really, really want to ask if a specific hurricane was caued by global warming.
They don’t “really” mean something else. They really, really mean “Did global warming cause a specific hurricane.”
Climate scientists do have a future: environmental responsibility. Please drop “Global warming” its over…
“(Note that Jack who tells us he is a climate scientist also says he would answer “noâ€.)”
Atmospheric scientist, not climate scientist.
Jack– My mistake! Sorry.
You keep dissing the intelligence of your students.
If you were really interested in discussing my experiences instead of making backhand jabs, I’d say that I was discussing how many students are not prepared to express themselves for whatever reason — I suspect lack of adequate prep in high school is the biggest cause. I don’t think it’s a question of intelligence but knowledge and/or practice. If you work hard enough with some, many can eventually get improve, but many are not prepared at first. Some students don’t really care and just don’t do the work, while others are completely flummoxed and just don’t get it.
This may not be the case in the sciences which are to me much more objective. You either get it right or you don’t. You remember the pathway or you don’t. You know how to solve the problem or you don’t. In the social sciences and humanities, you have to not only understand the meaning and significance of the texts (for example), but also how to communicate your understanding well. It’s not as objective as the sciences.
As an older lay person and a very regular reader of the Blackboard, I am intrigued by the slant that the almost exclusively science trained commentors here are placing on the way to reply to questions from the public.
As a [retired ] farmer I follow agricultural research quite closely and apparently, I am told, have developed a certain notoriety for asking the hard questions.
Some of those questions I actually know the answers to but still ask as it is most illuminating on just how honest the authoritative figure is or is not or even if s/he actually knows the answers and is trying to bluff their way through without being at all aware just what a fool they are making of themselves.
You may discuss your manner of answering the public’s questions any way you like but until you get the “opinion makers” on board you will get nowhere and this is where the climate change activists were slowly coming unstuck even without Climate Gate.
The “opinion makers” are found in every strata of society from the guy leaning across the pub bar, the guy or girl behind the counter, the guy or girl in the group around the coffee machine or on the construction site or the truckie at the truck stops.
Or the lawyer or low level executive or from any other profession.
They can be clothed in anything from workman’s clothes to the striped suits.
They can be anywhere from the lower economic strata to the top of the pile but they all have one thing in common.
People stop and listen to them.
They are perhaps one in ten or twenty of the public.
They are usually of an independent mind and will think things through for themselves rather than rely totally on the conventional wisdom as fed through the media and other public news sources.
They often use their personal life experiences in assessing their attitudes to a subject or the trustworthiness of a particular spokesperson and the cause that spokesperson is promulgating.
People stop and listen to them and from what and how the opinion makers express their feelings and opinions on a subject those listeners or readers will usually pass onto others the opinions of the opinion makers.
In this way the opinion maker’s attitudes towards a subject slowly percolate down through the public consciousness.
The climate change activists were very slowly losing the opinion makers as many had life experiences with the weather and even for those of an older age, experiences over a lifetime that added up to experience of a naturally changing climate.
And from those experiences and the oral stories and histories of those who had gone before them, they knew that the claims of a changing climate supposedly caused by mankind had been experienced many times in the past.
The opinion makers were slowly coming to the conclusion rightly or wrongly that they and the public were being conned by the activists.
When and if you get that amorphous and unidentifiable sub set of the public on side, the opinion makers, then your cause will ultimately succeed.
If you don’t then ultimately your cause will fail regardless of how you reply to questions from the public.
They don’t “really†mean something else. They really, really mean “Did global warming cause a specific hurricane.â€
And I think the proper answer would include a discussion of weather and climate and differences between them and the links between them and the research on how climate change / global warming can affect weather patterns, including storm frequency and intensity and the uncertainties in the current state of the science and the inability to conclude that a single isolated storm such as Katrina was directly the result of global warming.
Greenaway,
“I suspect that if this was an article by economists advising other economists about how to convey the clear dangers of a cap and trade scheme on jobs and GDP to the public, you wouldn’t be so upset. ”
Nope, you are wrong. I object to intellectual dishonesty in every case. I would object to any expert “re-framing” questions to steer public opinion toward their personal political view, rather than giving direct and honest answers to the questions actually asked, even (and especially) if the straight-forward, honest answers include some degree of uncertainty.
Advocacy is not science. Politics is not science. Rhetoric is not science. You seem to have these things quite confused.
greenaway00
But, since Susan Hassol’s text suggests the simple correct answer is “no”, then proper answer to the question actually asked must also convey that simple answer of “no” .
Maybe it was by accident that Hassol, whose specialty is communciation, failed to convey this essential bit of information when explaining how to “reframe” the question and answer the new reframed question. But I doubt it. I think Hassol conveyed the bits of information she meant to convey, and the notion that the question actually asked must be answered is not something she wanted to include in her advice.
greenaway:
“Which is why scientists have to be better communicators…”
The answer “no” to the question that was asked is excellent communication. It is short, direct, truthful, and easy to understand. What you are proposing is not that they be better communicators, but better propagandists.
Luicia,
I am tired of greenaway… good night.
Greenaway says:
“I think the proper answer would include a discussion of weather and climate and differences between them”
.
Go ask that question at realclimate. See how far you get. The answer is scripted and unsubstantive.
greenaway – So you think the proper answer is “We don’t know.” Just say that, and if you want to describe the many uncertainties then go ahead.
Scooter — that is what you say to a little child who asks something that is beyond them cognitively. “We just don’t know” is not good enough.
You should answer “This is what we do know with pretty good certainty, this is what we think might be the case but we still need more research to confirm it, this is what we still don’t know.”
To do any less would be to deny people basic knowledge.
What you are proposing is not that they be better communicators, but better propagandists.
From my understanding, which is of course not perfect, “no” would not be a correct answer. Neither would “yes”. Sometimes, things aren’t so simplistic.
Advocacy is not science. Politics is not science. Rhetoric is not science. You seem to have these things quite confused.
Actually, I suspect it is you who fails to appreciate the differences between them, willfully or not.
Here’s the CNN Steve McIntyre interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oxFx41nE1c
Professor Oppenheimer apparently read the EOS article.
greenaway–
Based on the normal meaning of the word”caused”, “no” is the correct answer to the questions in Hassol’s example. The questions Hassol is deflecting are whether or not AGW causes any specific weather events. AGW does not cause any specific weather events.
Global warming can contribute to a situation that makes certain events more likely, but that’s not what “causing” something means.
Let me give a situation:
Supposed I am driving down the road and a deer suddenly jumps out in front of the car. I hit the deer. Most people would say the deer jumping in the road caused the accident.
Now, supposed in addition, I was drunk, driving car with poor brakes and a missing head light. Then people would probably say the deer and my being drunk caused the accident.
Now, suppose, in addition, my parents had been drunks, and consequently, I had been a neglected child. Some theorized this sort of childhood experience increased the probability of personal deficiencies that made me more prone to drinking. While having been neglected as a child might have made me more prone to drinking, and consequently more prone to being a drunk who didn’t take care of her car and drove home after slapping back 6 shots. Consequenty, everyone who knew me said, “She’s gotta be one major insurance risk!”
Now suppose someone asked, “Was child neglect during her formative years the cause of this specific car accident.” The answer is no.
Of course, is you wished, after answering “no” you could explain that some (or many) theorize that those neglected in childhood are more likely to mature into mal-adjusted adults and were more likely to get in car accidents. You could also carefully explain all the uncertainties in the theory. You could then explain how all this meant we needed to prevent child neglect to these sorts of negative outcome. Heck, your theory might be correct.
But in the end, the answer to whether the accident was caused by child neglect is “no”. That was the question the person asked. If you don’t answre it, you are concealing information.
And in the case of the individual weather events: AGW does not cause any individual weather events. The answer to “Was Katerina caused by AGW” is “no”.
And in the case of the individual weather events: AGW does not cause any individual weather events. The answer to “Was Katerina caused by AGW†is “noâ€.
When people ask about cause and effect, did x cause y, don’t you think that it is a good practice to discuss in greater detail? By answering “no” you might be “technically” correct but not providing an answer that really educates and that was the purpose of her screed — to help scientists become better educators and communicators.
Many people don’t understand cause and effect in scientific or logical terms very well and you could use this question as a teaching moment to educate the public about causes and effects, weather vs. climate.
I just don’t see that answering “no” and then going, “next” is a truly honest — in fact, I could suggest such an answer is actually deceptive, and perhaps an attempt by those who want to downplay the risks of global warming to hide the relationship between climate change and weather events. The person asking this question is interested in cause and effect between weather and climate, global warming and hurricanes, and if all you say is “no”, then you are not really answering.
Anyway, this is obviously not going to be settled between us.
I suspect that if she was really trying to coach scientists on how to deceive the public and show scientists how to use propaganda to delude people, hoax them and the like, she’d wait for the sekrit meetings in Al Gore’s huge basement and use the proper code words to ensure they could plot and scheme in private rather than do so right there in the pages of EOS for all to see…
I am a scientist, and testify in court regarding scientific analyses. The correct answer is “no”. If you think the question was framed in way to be misleading, or if you want to steer the discussion in another direction, you can always try to add “but, blah blah blah…”
But you can’t leave out the “no”! Otherwise that gets you an “Objection, non-responsive”, which it is.
greenaway–
Her screed? Interesting word choice. 🙂
Good gracious!
If, for some reason, you think the person asking the question is language challenged and doesn’t undestand the meaning of the word “cause”, or doesn’t understand the meaning of “cause and effect’, you could pause and ask, “Before I answer that, could you tell me your understanding of the meaning “cause and effect” giving me three specific examples of a cause and effect relationship? After that, you quiz them on the particulars of Hurricane Katerina. (Do they know what town it hit? When? Whether it was Cat 3, 4, or 5? Etc.)
Then after sufficiently quizzing them, educating them on the meaning of cause and effect and the particulars of Hurricane Katerina, you can answer their question. The answer is “No”.
Or, you can assume they use the word “cause” in the same way most people use the word “cause”.
And if you scroll up, you’ll see I didn’t advocate answering “no” and then going “next”. What I advocate is that response cannot fail to contain the answer– which I think is “no”, and which Hassol’s suggests she thinks is no. I advocate clearly stating the simple answer “no” and then explaining why the answer is “no”. Of course, if soeone thinks the answer is “yes” or “I don’t know” they can easily adapt this to their needs.
Why? I suspect she thinks there is nothing inappropriate with her method of spinning. I suspect she thinks it’s ok to avoid answering the question people asked, reframing them and answering questions she would prefer they asked.
I disagree. I think the tactic is disrespectful of the audience. Used frequently, I think the tactic is likely to make the audience think you are not frank it is likely to backfire.
It’s probably no use asking, but here’s my question:
Mrs Liljegren, why do you describe yourself as a lukewarmer when you obviously are not? A lukewarmer would never go to such lengths to maintain the position that questions can only be answered by ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (in fact, he/she would never bring it up). Just the fact that you believe the only honest answer is ‘no’ without any explanation shows this.
Now, you either are deceiving yourself or you are intentionally deceiving everyone who comes to your blog. I hope it’s the first.
“Are the three heat waves in southeastern Australia caused by Global Warming?”
Lucia Liljegren: No.
Barry Brook: Statistically speaking, it’s astronomically unlikely that such a sequence of rare heat waves would occur by chance, if the climate wasn’t warming. But of course, it is.
Please stop pretending you’re a lukewarmer. It’s deceiving.
“If, for some reason, you think the person asking the question is language challenged and doesn’t undestand the meaning of the word “causeâ€, or doesn’t understand the meaning of “cause and effect’, you could pause and ask, “Before I answer that, could you tell me your understanding of the meaning “cause and effect†giving me three specific examples of a cause and effect relationship? After that, you quiz them on the particulars of Hurricane Katerina. (Do they know what town it hit? When? Whether it was Cat 3, 4, or 5? Etc.)
Then after sufficiently quizzing them, educating them on the meaning of cause and effect and the particulars of Hurricane Katerina, you can answer their question. The answer is “Noâ€. ”
Katrina was interesting. After barely being alive after crossing Florida, the warm waters of the gulf spun it rapidly and recovered to a healthy hurricane again. It was heading to New Orleans, and hit the extreme Cat 5 category, and it was quite comfortably staying that way. However, it got so strong it underwent an eyewall replacement cycle, that dropped it down to Cat 3, then it hit. New Orleans was ‘lucky’ it didn’t get hit a lot harder. If Katrina had hit before or after, it would have been Cat 5.
Did AGW cause Katrina? It played it’s part, the very warm waters helped to recover a hurricane that would otherwise could have just died.
But I think people also think about the issue the wrong way. AGW is often not ‘the’ cause of things. But it does it’s bit to make extremes worse, and that too can be significant.
bugs:
I don’t think this description of Katrina’s lifecycle is very accurate (borderline totally wrong).
But, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve had a dearth of hurricanes in the Atlantic since then.
Is that caused by AGW too? How about the very active seasons in the 1930s? Is that caused by AGW too?
That’s the problem with your reasoning. There simply isn’t a cause-and-effect relationship between hurricanes and AGW, nor between hurricane intensity and AGW.
Neven (Comment#26908) December 8th, 2009 at 12:02 am
How much has the climate warmed and what’s the magnitude of the heat waves?
Would the chance of such a sequence of such rare heat waves be significantly less (in the statistical sense) if that amount of climate warming had not taken place?
“But, in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve had a dearth of hurricanes in the Atlantic since then.
Is that caused by AGW too? How about the very active seasons in the 1930s? Is that caused by AGW too?”
Considering there was a very active season in the Pacific this, with the Phillipines doing very badly from cyclones, there could well be regional considerations. In recent ‘quiet’ years, there have been plenty of candidates for hurricanes, but they have been torn apart by wind shear, including this one.
With all of this talk about Katrina, I thought I would throw in my two cents. I grew up north of New Orleans and slept through my share of hurricanes as a teenager. I left Louisiana in 1972 and the hurricanes stopped as well. (I bet someone could make a strong statistical case that I should stay out of Louisiana for everyone’s safety!) Just a few whimpers for New Orleans until Katrina. Katrina was one-of-a-kind. I do not think that the “Categories” used by hurricane specialists capture the complexity of these storms or the energy expenditure of Katrina in particular. My father, who has lived in or around New Orleans since childhood has seen hurricanes come and go. He said that Katrina was the only time he was truly scared with pine trees snapping in two everywhere. When I went back to New Orleans to see the damage 6 months after the storm, I found extraordinary damage that stretched from far west of New Orleans to as far east as Mobile, damage of a scale I had never seen when I lived there. Hurricane Camille, supposedly the third strongest hurricane after Katrina according to the experts, came ashore within miles of where Katrina did by Bay St. Louis but barely amounted to a good blow north of Lake Pontchartrain.
Katrina grew massive as soon as it hit warm waters in the Gulf, a storm so big I could not believe the pictures. Surely global warming should be considered a factor! And yet, the Gulf this year snuffed out the only hurricane that even attempted to venture north, sucked the energy right out of it. The water apparently was too cold. What does that mean?
As to the damage to New Orleans from Katrina, I checked-in that Monday morning when the winds began to die down. What I saw on television was encouraging. There was wind damage and some flooding in the city, expected for any hurricane, but the storm was dissipating so the city had stood against the storm. Then, the announcer mentioned a single report of water rising in a suburb. That was not right! I knew it immediately and everyone in New Orleans knew it as well. Those still in the city who could leave did so knowing without being told that a levee had broken. (This is a first hand account from a friend of mine in New Orleans at the time. “The water receded from the third step to the first step as it always does. Then, it started rising again!”) The dramatic damage was caused by the flooding from a broken levee, not the wind and rain of the hurricane.
How is this for reframing? The real question is why New Orleans suffered so much damage, not the question of whether global warming caused Katrina. Was it President Bush’s fault? Was it the Army Corp of Engineers? Was it CO2? Everyone in Louisiana knows that Katrina was able to break the levee because the levee was poorly constructed, something we all grew up to expect in Louisiana due to the corruption that had been endemic in the state for hundreds of years. That corruption is almost gone now which is why Louisiana is booming for the first time since before I was born a while back. Katrina delivered the coup-de-grace on a culture that the Feds had spent decades trying to take down. At one time the FBI office in New Orleans was one of the largest in the nation. Even the deacon in my church when I was a kid ended up in jail for stealing money from the parish (i.e. county) for decades.
I have seen Katrina invoked as the star of global warming, bringing to mind those awful pictures of bodies floating in New Orleans. The intended impression: Global Warming = Death. That is the framing of a lie. Those people died due to the incompetence and greed of other people they did not know, not from CO2. Using their deaths to advance a political objective and divert attention from true causes is disgraceful.
“Statistically speaking, it’s astronomically unlikely that such a sequence of rare heat waves would occur by chance, if the climate wasn’t warming” is a nice example of the elementary failures in mathematics and logic shown by the global warming believers.
Firstly, as everyone who has taken a course in simple probability should know, one cannot simply multiply the individual probability of three events to work out the probability of them all happening. Before you can do that you need to determine whether the events are independent, and obviously consecutive weather events are not statistically independent.
Secondly the “argumentum ad ignorantiam” is a lamentable logical fallacy – but it is the basis on which the climate change fanatics work. It is not a valid argument to say, “We do not know what caused the unusual heat waves in Australia therefore they must have been caused by global warming.” Anyone who puts forward that argument has either never taken a first course in logic, or is unable to see that it is a pathetic failure in good reasoning.
You hear the argument from ignorance all over the climate debate, for example, “We cannot explain the sharp rise in temperatures from 1979 to 1998 therefore it must have been caused by increased CO2.” That sort of reasoning should not be acceptable in any form of debate.
“You hear the argument from ignorance all over the climate debate, for example, “We cannot explain the sharp rise in temperatures from 1979 to 1998 therefore it must have been caused by increased CO2.†That sort of reasoning should not be acceptable in any form of debate.”
I’m glad they don’t use that sort of reasoning.
Is “no” really a good answer to whether katrina was caused by global warming?
Did the gambler roll double 6 because he used loaded dice? Well, it certainly increased the chances of it happening. I also think that is a good answer to the katrina caused by warming question. Notice there is no “No” in that sentence.
greenaway,
“”no†would not be a correct answer. Neither would “yesâ€. Sometimes, things aren’t so simplistic.”
Exactly. To pretend it is a yes or a no question is the fallacy of excluded middle.
This is exactly the same sort of question as ‘did smoking cause my friend’s cancer?’. No doubt the tobacco lobby would be very pleased with a “No” answer to that too, and no doubt that would be just as ‘technically correct’.
As for the comparision to politicians it is obvious that reframing a question to answer it and provide additional more useful information (RC) is not the same as dodging a question and providing no information at all (politician).
In fact the “No” type of answer suggested by Lucia is just the sort of misdirection, oversimplification, and lying by omission that politicians, lobbyists, and climate denialists (but I repeat myself) are known for.
“Patrick Hadley (Comment#26935)
December 8th, 2009 at 4:55 am
“Statistically speaking, it’s astronomically unlikely that such a sequence of rare heat waves would occur by chance, if the climate wasn’t warming†is a nice example of the elementary failures in mathematics and logic shown by the global warming believers.
Firstly, as everyone who has taken a course in simple probability should know, one cannot simply multiply the individual probability of three events to work out the probability of them all happening. Before you can do that you need to determine whether the events are independent, and obviously consecutive weather events are not statistically independent.”
They are three seperate ‘waves’ over two years, and so are independent in terms of weather. They are not independent, I guess, in terms of climate, which is what is being considered as well.
Also consider the number of ‘high’ records and the number of ‘low’ records. The highs are outnumbering the lows.
Can you say with confidence that global warming had exactly zero to do with the strength of Katrina? I don’t think you can. So you certainly cannot answer with “no.” I don’t mind if you do, actually, as long as the point about attribution is explained. But I don’t see how you can fault someone for not giving a yes or no answer when it’s impossible to answer definitely yes or no.
Bugs wants us to consider three heat waves as being “climate” rather than “weather”. Funny, I thought that “climate” referred to long term averages of the weather conditions, and that you needed rather more than a few years before you could change from “weather” to “climate”. My point is that the events are highly unlikely to be independent – and that what has caused them is not known. Just because we do not know the cause it does not follow that the cause must be global warming.
Frank O’Dwyer tells us about the fallacy of the Excluded Middle, but unfortunately he then makes a classic example of the fallacy of “Begging the Question”.
. .
If there were strong evidence that global warming causes significantly more hurricanes – as there is that smoking causes many more cases of cancer – then it would indeed be pointless to take the line that we do not know if any particular hurricane has been caused by global warming.
. .
The science does not yet tell us with any confidence that global warming causes an increase in the number of hurricanes, or it tells us that warmer temperatures will make hurricanes less frequent but perhaps more severe. But Mr O’Dwyer’s comparison with smoking only makes sense if the causal link between AGW and significantly more hurricanes is already established. He is therefore “begging the question” by assuming the validity of his case in order to prove it.
. .
This is a typical AGW line of argument
Hypothesis: “Warmer temperatures mean more hurricanes”
When a hurricane occurs: “That hurricane must have been caused by warmer temperatures since that follows from the hypothesis.”
Conclusion: “Therefore I now have proof of my hypothesis, since a hurricane has occurred that has been caused by global warming.”
“Just the fact that you believe the only honest answer is ‘no’ without any explanation shows this ”
Neven, why don’t you read what Lucia has written rather than making things up. Sheesh, I entiely agree with Lucia which is that the answer must contain the word No, anything else is being misleading. But the answer should go further with more explanation.
What you should not do is cahnge the question to the one that you wish had been asked. In other words you should always answer the question.
“Can you say with confidence that global warming had exactly zero to do with the strength of Katrina?”
Global Warming – Where Everything Is A Maybe
Good science, that.
Andrew
Patrick Hadley
“He is therefore “begging the question†by assuming the validity of his case in order to prove it.”
Strawman. I’m not trying to prove that AGW causes hurricanes.
And the difference in the level of evidence is not relevant. There IS a strong level of evidence linking smoking and cancer, and the ‘correct’ answer to the question ‘did smoking cause my friend’s cancer’ is STILL not yes or no.
“Can you say with confidence that global warming had exactly zero to do with the strength of Katrina?”
The answer is absolutely “Yes”. Think hurricane Camille – 1969 Gulf Coast:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Camille
Camille, or course, occurred right before we were plunged into the Global Cooling of the 1970s…
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
Didn’t read the posts, so sorry if this was mentioned. But, what I noticed RC does is they will often let you post a question. Then someone will answer it, and badly. When you try to pursue it farther, they moderate your responses–block them. The effect is that your question looks like it was answered. That happened a few times to me, and it revealed to me the nature of that site. In this case the backlash made me much more skeptical, because I assumed I couldn’t get answers…why? It’s clearer now.
Neven (Comment#26908)–
Please note that 3 ≠1. This is an important distinction. Also, note that many activists who believe in catastrophic warming think individual (i.e. single events and in one time events) weather cannot be attributed to warming.
But maybe I’m mistaken. If you think so, go ask the authors at RC whether AGW caused Hurricane Katerina– see what they say. If you get a long answer that seems unclear, ask if AGW can cause single weather events. See if you can get them to say, unequivocably “AGW caused specific weather event ‘X’. )
Boris
No. Just as in my hypothetical hitting a deer accident, I can’t say that being neglected as a child has nothing to do with any individual car accident later in life. However, I have never used the word “caused” for this sort of generous relationship, and my impression is almost no one does. So, I don’t think you can say “AGW ’caused’ Katerina”.
bugs (Comment#26910)–
Almost a perfect answer. If you added a “No” right like this Did AGW cause Katrina? No. It played it’s part,. . .
I would say this is an answer– because it says “no”.
Lucia,
You begin with:
“Many of us have noticed the habit of Real Climate authors to not answer questions they are actually asked”
I can’t say that I have, actually, since I’ve not asked any questions there. However, I have come across that at CA.
Would not answering questions directly at CA be just as much an issue for you as not answering them directly at RC?
Simon–
In the past, people have posted their questions and the green in-line answers from RC here along with the link. The answers weren’t answers to the question actually asked. When responding with green in-line answers, gavin was often guilty.
I haven’t seen SteveMcIntyre giving answers to “reframed” questions. If you have examples, post them. Diagnosing may be a bit trickier because SteveM doesn’t use those inline answers much. This means you need to be certain his response is related to question X–so give the link so we can see.
Lucia,
I asked you a pretty straight question. With bold for emphasis: –
Would not answering questions directly at CA be just as much an issue for you as not answering them directly at RC?
I’m very surprised that you didn’t answer that question directly, given the theme of this thread.
Bugs
Regarding Hurricanes, please head over to Roger Pielke Jr’s web site and note the graph which shows no trend in normalized Hurricane losses over the last 100 years.
See link at: http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/
A quote from:
“The two normalized data sets reported here show no trends either in the absolute data or under a logarithmic transformation: the variance explained by a best-fit linear trend line=0.0004 and0.0003, respectively, for PL05, and 0.0014 and 0.00006, respectively, for CL05. The lack of trend in twentieth century normalized hurricane losses is consistent with what one would expect to find given the lack of trends in hurricane frequency or intensity at landfall. This finding should add some confidence that, at least to a first degree, the normalization approach has successfully adjusted for changing societal conditions. Given the lack of trends in hurricanes themselves, any trend observed in the normalized losses would necessarily reflect some bias in the adjustment process, such as failing to recognize changes in adaptive capacity or misspecifying wealth. That we do not have a resulting bias suggests that any factors not included in the normalization methods do not have a resulting net large significance.
Please read AGW studies carefully, they all say things like: “If AGW is true then __________________ (fill in the blank) might increase (species extinction, forest fires, floods, famines, droughts etc).”
That statement does not establish a “causal link” to the (fill in the blank), it is an attempt to draw a correlation. Based on my experience from High School debate, AGW does not prove a causal link to any harms as of this date and it a weak correlation at best. There are only suggestions of what AGW “might” do over a 100 year period. You would not win an High School Affirmative policy debate on that basis when you can use Willis Eschenbach’s Australian example to show how much the warming data has been fudged in the first place.
See link at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
I think the world will be very much amazed at what the raw temperature data actually shows in terms of trends before the AGW cabal “tricks” it into showing warming trends.
“Only the Data Knows”
Shiny
Edward
Frank O’Dwyer the reason I said that you were “begging the question” was because you said that the question about whether AGW caused an individual hurricane was “exactly the same sort of question as: ‘Did smoking cause my friend’s cancer?'”.
. .
It is not exactly the same – in fact it is radically different – because whereas we have scientific proof that smoking causes many cases of cancer, the scientific case that even a single hurricane has been caused by AGW is not proved. In fact you can take away the anthropomorphic and say that the causal connection between increased hurricanes and warmer temperatures is still not at all clear.
Simon– Heh. The answer is “Yes”.
But this is also why I want examples. The “not answering questions” at RC was much more severe than. The answer really addressed a different question. If people post examples of what they mean from both sides, we can compare.
Do you have examples?
Tommy
Yes. Imagine if I blocked Simon’s question noting I didn’t actually say “yes” in answer to his quetstion?
RC’s habit of blocking followon questions after responding in line aggravates ths situation. On the one hand, we can’t know if any individual “non answer” is intentional or accidental, but the fact that followon questions are sometimes (possibly often) blocked looks bad. If their moderation policy permitted all comments to appear immediately then we might have more information.
Arthur Dent:
Neven, why don’t you read what Lucia has written rather than making things up.
Arthur, you’re right. I oversimplified and was wrong on that point. I apologize.
However, I still stand by my assertion that Mrs Liljegren describes herself falsely as a lukewarmer. To be a lukewarmer suggests that you are on the middle ground between the two extremes, ie alarmists (very warm, catastrophe) and deniers (not warm at all, limitless freedom).
This piece is much ado about semantics in communication, and what’s bothering me about it and many other pieces is that it’s always about one of the two extremes. However, when for example a Monckton or a Plimer reframes questions, does the Gish Gallop and misrepresents scientific facts, we will not hear a word from Mrs Liljegren. It is always about one extreme of the AGW debate.
For me a lukewarmer is someone who believes Global Warming is very probably happening and very probably caused by human activities, but who doesn’t believe it will cause catastrophes in the short term. Nevertheless, a lukewarmer IMO must agree on the fact that it’s best to take some kind of action to mitigate adverse changes caused by AGW.
However, after several months of reading this blog I couldn’t escape the feeling that Mrs Liljegren would rather not see any action taken until there is 100% certainty that AGW will cause adverse effects, in which case of course it will be too late. I associate such a view with climate denial, as exhibited by Morano, Watts and the like. The denier extreme of the debate doesn’t want any action whatsoever, even though no action on AGW (whether warm or lukewarm) whatsoever is also a form of action.
I could very well be wrong on this, but why would a lukewarmer only criticize and scorn the warmist extreme of the debate?
Simon:
Why is “so’s your old man” your response to everything? You toss up a blanket accusation against Climate Audit in response to a blindingly obvious observation that RC uses the redirection technique under discussion in this thread.
For a detailed example of RC technique, review the rather tiresome exchanges in which Gavin largely eludes and misreports the measurement problems raised by Pielke Sr and how Pielke responds to that Here and here. I think it unlikely that Gavin Schmidt is in over his head on the science so the sidestepping and mischaracterization is more likely intentional.
To claim that SteveM operates in a similar manner is simply silly. If anything, his posts suffer from overkill on to the point in question and too much detail. Conclusory appeals to an authoritatitive consensus or haughty dismissal (or deletion) of critics is more of an RC thing.
Neven–
If you are going to address me formally, why not use “Dr. Liljegren”? Otherwise, I prefer Lucia.
I fit your defnition of lukewarmer.
I’ve said the contrary often. I want to see some action now. In particular, I would like to see increase focus on Nuclear Energy, and funding to develop alternative fuels. I’m also for deploying more “green” measures like conservation, solar and wind energy.
Huh? I’ve criticized Monckton. I’ve contradicted quite a few cooler visitors on their statements when posted here.
As for Morano– I’m sure I disagree with him on tons of stuff, but he mostly runs something that appears to resemble an agregator. What is one to write: “OMG! Morano posted a LINK to X!!! and XX!!! and XXX!”
I recently posted the following comment on realclimate regarding Richard Lindzen’s column in the WSJ, “The Science Isn’t Settled” and received a response from Gavin.
“56.The article makes the following statement:
“So how do models with high sensitivity manage to simulate the currently small response to a forcing that is almost as large as a doubling of CO2? Jeff Kiehl notes in a 2007 article from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the models use another quantity that the IPCC lists as poorly known (namely aerosols) to arbitrarily cancel as much greenhouse warming as needed to match the data, with each model choosing a different degree of cancellation according to the sensitivity of that model.†http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574567423917025400.html
I wonder if one of the modelers here could comment on this assertion?
[Response: There is uncertainty in both climate sensitivity and the degree of aerosol forcing (see figure 2.20). No model simulation can ‘prove’ that it has exactly the right sensitivity and aerosol forcing, but each of the simulations that match the 20th Century trends are plausible estimates of what might have happened. Projections going forward are obviously going to be a little different depending on that balance, but that is a real part of the uncertainty in those projections and shouldn’t be swept under the rug. – gavin]
I am curious how people here would construe Gavin’s response? Does he agree or disagree with Dr. Lindzen’s assertion? I have my own views on this question, but would be curious what others think.
“The denier extreme of the debate doesn’t want any action whatsoever”
Yes we do. We’d like to see the criminal proponents of AGW thrown in jail.
Andrew
Lucia,
Well, for example, here’s Ross McKitrick, whose paper was the subject of the thread, reframing my question. In post 62 I ask him about the APEC paper that he’d linked to:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5278
Were you aware when you wrote it that your figure 3 (taken from the FAR) is actually a working of Lamb’s reconstruction of the Central England Temperature record, and not a global representation at all?
He responds in post 67:
On Lamb: the caption in the IPCC Report refers to global temperature variations (extracted here). The fact that they took the graph from Lamb’s CEt doesn’t change the point that it was the prevailing view of the global picture.
Which clearly is a reframing of my question. I try again in post 70:
I am very well aware of that. I was asking whether you were aware that it was only a reconstruction of Central England when you wrote the paper you linked to. Is it your view that the temperature record of Central England is a good representation of the global picture? If not, then why did you present it as such? (I’m not interested in what the IPCC FAR suggested, but in what you wished to suggest).
– which doesn’t get a further response after Steve’s interjection that the matter should go to unthreaded (McKitrick could have responded on unthreaded, of course, but didn’t).
I don’t think this is particularly interesting/shocking/whatever, but any notion that reframing of questions is a habit peculiar to ‘AGW-concerned’ scientists seems untenable to me.
Here’s a second example of questions going unanswered, of a different kind. This CA thread leads with an account of Garth Paltridge’s take on a paper being rejected, in which he suggestst that the rejection was
largely because of an unbelievably vitriolic, and indeed rather hysterical, review.
He quotes a critical comment in support of that assessment but gives no indication whatsoever of the grounds for rejection that underlay the opinion he quotes.
I pick up on this in comment 28:
Garth Partridge has quoted a particular comment from a peer reviewer.
May I ask him to – snip-
quote all peer review comments fully, so that readers may make their own assessment of the comments in relation to his paper, rather than being obliged to accept his own assessment of an “unbelievably vitriolic, and indeed rather hysterical, review”?
(I can’t remember what was snipped from that).
Most of my comments thereafter have disappeared, but you can see a quote from one of them surviving in comment 51 :
You have every reason, it seems, to demand that any member of ‘the team’ releases the details of their laundry bills but when I ask if Paltridge could post the full reviewer’s comments rather than a selected quotation along with his own interpretation of the whole (to which we do not have access) you suggest that I am being ‘shameful’ and ‘pre-judgmental’
Anyway, suffice to say that my question gave rise to considerable reaction from many other posters which led to Steve McI deleting most of the dialogue as being a ‘food fight’. So, no direct answer to my question, then.
Those are a couple of examples of my few forrays at CA. Of course it does not operate in exactly the same way as RC (whose moderation approach I have made clear, elsewhere, I do not like), but the notion that controlling the agenda in the manner of responses to questions is a peculiarity of RC does not describe my experience.
Sorry, missed the link to my second example in my post 26966 above –
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=5416#comment-331225
Myself, I would *rephrase* the question, but I would not *reframe* it. I would also make sure that my rephrasing captures the essence of the question before continuing. Reframing is acceptable only after the question has been answered satisfactorily. I loathe the reframers, whose goal is to SHUT DOWN discussion, and not merely contextualize it.
Simon Evans:
Re: The McKitrick exchange. What was your motive in that discussion? Were you just playing “gotcha”?
Wow, Simon! Talk about quote mining your own comment!
This is what you posted.
Based on the structure, it looks like the first phrase ending with a ‘?’ (which you posted in your quote here) is what is known as a “rhetorical question” i.e. a statement that is formulated as a question but that is not supposed to be answered; “he liked to make his points with rhetorical questions”
The reason it looks like a rhetorical question is that you follow it with a short discourse– as is typical of rhetorical questions. At the end of the discourse, you appear to ask this real honest to goodness question, “Can you clarify that for me?”
It appears Ross treated the first bit ending with a “?” as a rhetorical question and then answered the real, honest to goodness question. This strikes me as entirely fair.
(Note: I have made numerous negative statements about advancing arguments using rhetorical questions. However, I permit people to use them, but not as an endless stream of bare rhetorical questions. But, I’m not going to pretend obviously rhetorical questions are intended as questions and will not apply the same rule for answering these as for real questions. FWIW I’m virtually certain Hassol was not giving advice about answering rhetorical questions. Or if she was, then she is a very poor communicator.)
So, so far, I don’t think the question you posted here was “reframed” because it was not a real question. Your real question was “Can you clarify that for me?” and Ross answered that.
The entire conversations is interesting. The by steve says:
Steve answered this
You answered this
Then, skipping a few.Ross comes back and answers “Can you clarify that for me?” — which I take to have been the non-rhetorical question in your long comment.
So, he confirms that it’s CET, and he answers “Can you clarify that for me?” which appeared to be the question you asked. This does not seem to be an example where Ross reframed your question. He asked the answered the question you asked.
The correct answer to AGW and Katrina is ‘No”.
Hurricanes happened long before we invented the concept of global warming and will continue to do so.
Some believe that if the Copenhagen talks fail etc the world will heat up significantly and that hurricanes will happen more as a result but there is zero evidence that anything like that is happening now.
The top hurricane expert in the United States (Chris Landsea) resigned from the IPCC precisely because the staff who write the reports kept including statements about climate change leading to hurricane increases that were not supported by the science.
Katrina was formed for the same reason that hurricanes have formed for millenia–there is no substantive reason to believe that there are any new causative factors and no one has produced any proof otherwise. There are no new weather patterns or changed ocean currents. There has been no change in hurricane frequency or intensity.
There is no scientific reason to entertain the idea that Katrina was somehow different in its formation or behavior. There is highly credible evidence that claims of hurricane increases in the 20th c. have been overstated and unfounded.
This does not prove that some future climate change of one kind or another could not or would not affect hurricane frequency or intensity. However, such a change has not yet taken place and therefore no current hurricane activity can be attributed to AGW.
Why is that so hard?
Simon
On the second bit:
Isn’t this a rhetorical question? Did you really want someone to answer either ” Yes, you may ask.” or “No, you may not ask?”
Doesn’t this statement, phrased as a rhetorical question, in fact, ask “him” to quote all peer review articles ‘yada, yada, yada’?
You may, of course, elect to respond to rhetorical questoins as if they were questions. If so, I think the answers are “Yes. It’s a rhethorical question”. “No, I didn’t really want anyone to answer in that way.” “Yes, I had, in fact, already gone ahead and asked “him” to quote all peer reviewed articles for reasons ‘yada, yada, yada'”?
bender (Comment#26970)
Re: The McKitrick exchange. What was your motive in that discussion? Were you just playing “gotcha�
McKitrick asserted in his response to me that the Lamb Central England reconstruction was “the prevailing view of the global picture.” AFAIAA, that is straightforwardly not true. My motive was to examine that implication in his APEC paper and in his comments elsewhere.
lucia,
Simon is alleging that he scored a gotcha point that Ross still has not conceded. If Simon is right, then it is true that Ross dodged the question and reframed the issue. At the risk of being accused of reframing, however, I will suggest that *nothing turns on this*. This is about Simon wanting his point.
.
Everyone reframes. It is a necessary part of dialogue. The problem is when there is nothing BUT reframing. Witness Oppenheimer in the Campbell CNN piece. There was deception but not a deception that matters; therefore there was effectively “no deception”. Say what?!
Simon,
If that was your motivation, then why didn’t you just ask him what was the basis for his assertion that it was the prevailing view of the global picture?
lucia (Comment#26971)
Of course my first question was not rhetorical. What I asked him to clarify was as follows:
It seems to me that you either were not aware that this was based on Lamb’s reconstruction of CET or else you were not being suitably clear as to what the graph showed. Can you clarify that for me?
You have simply mined “can you clarify” from that paragraph and applied it otherwise!
bugs:
First of course “there have been plenty of candidates for hurricanes”. If you knew anything about hurricane genesis (not a requirement for somebody to spout talking points), you would know that there is a “candidate” storm roughly every five days coming off the African coast, with and without AGW. (African land uses changes may have increased their intensity though.)
Secondly, if you look at it in terms of global ACE (probably the best measure), storm activity is way down since 2005 see here and here for a longer duration. Feel free to add your own metric.
The problem with pointing your finger at weather phenomena, especially when there is no crisp causative link, is you are inevitably going to become a chicken little by the time you are done.
If you look at the factors needed for hurricane genesis, SST above 26.5°C is just one of them. I’m not going to get into it here, but the real effect of AGW on number of storms and storm intensity is pretty much a wash in practice. To get any effect, you pretty much have to rewrite history, which is what some people have undertaken to do.
No confirmation bias there. No sir. >.>
Simon:
Actually RC is more direct.
They simply delete comments and questions they don’t like. Just one of many questionable tactics they employ.
Patrick Hadley:
“It is not exactly the same”
And I did not say it was, so this is still a strawman. I said it is exactly the same SORT of question.
The amount of evidence for the link in each case is different and I acknowledge that – but that is the point: I deliberately chose the smoking example in part to illustrate that the amount evidence for the link is immaterial. According to Lucia’s argument, the ‘correct’ answer in the smoking instance would still be ‘no’.
But it is not a yes or a no question – neither of them are. It is at best stupid to pretend otherwise.
lucia (Comment#26973) December 8th, 2009 at 10:35 am
Simon
On the second bit:
May I ask him to – snip-
quote all peer review comments fully, so that readers may make their own assessment of the comments in relation to his paper, rather than being obliged to accept his own assessment of an “unbelievably vitriolic, and indeed rather hysterical, review�
Isn’t this a rhetorical question?
Hard to say, since there’s a snip in what I wrote.
Anyway, your play on the stylistic matter of beginning a question with ‘may I’ is trivial. Of course the direct answer to that is strictly ‘yes you may/ may not’. It’s a stylistic courtesy of asking permission to put a question which is usuallly responded to without then asking for the question to be repeated, as you very well know. The question was evident – what were the reasons for the paper’s rejection which were not being communicated to us?
Bender–
Maybe he did. But that only points to his question being rhetorical. His final and non-rhetorical question was “Can you clarify”. Ross clarified.
It appears Ross disagrees that Simon landed a gotcha. But that issue is separate from the question of whether Ross evaded a real question.
Simon
I quotemIned? I posted your full comment. The whole freakin’ thing.
I showed both phrases ending with “?” in bold and gave a lenghty explanation why I think only the second one is non-rhetorical. Ross answered that question.
If you want to claim the question you mined out of it and posted here was not a rhetorical one, go ahead and do so. Explain how anyone is to know. If you want to suggest someone picking one of the questions you asked and answering that is the same as reframing– go ahead. But I disagree. Ross answered a question you asked. It appears he asked the only one that was a non-rhetorical question.
Lucia,
It seems to me that any question you choose is ‘rhetorical’ if you choose to say so. I repeat, I asked for clarification of this:
It seems to me that you either were not aware that this was based on Lamb’s reconstruction of CET or else you were not being suitably clear as to what the graph showed. Can you clarify that for me?
I wanted an answer. Did McKitrick know or did he not when he wrote the paper?
How is that a rhetorical question?
Neven:
The issue for a “luke warmer” isn’t over warming, but over what the consequences of that warming are, and what actions should be taken now.
And many of us would like to see action. Improving energy efficiency and developing alternative energy sources should both be on the agenda.
I would prefer action that didn’t resemble a total melt down of rational though. Cap and trade is total insanity. Even people like James Hansen, who favor very aggressive action, realize it’s a brain dead concept. No action would be better than that action.
Other things, like not including the effect of forests on CO2 in the United States and Canada is insanity, or just European politics as usual.
Finally, it’s insanity to claim we know enough to make any sorts of long terms plans, we need to continue to improve our instrumentation and our modeling. We need to focus on improving transparency and exchange of information, especially on key scientific issues like the instrumental temperature record and its interpretation.
It’s bogus to say “the deniers have had an equal chance to examine the data” when Phil Jones gets 22 million dollars, and he and his crew collude to block funding of people who disagree with him.
George (Comment #26972),
That is not the correct answer. The correct answer is �Given our current abilities, it is impossible to know.�
Again, �Katrina� was only �Katrina� because of the strength AND the path of the storm. It is conceivable that either of these two may have been altered because of enhanced greenhouse gas concentrations. I have little doubt an Atlantic tropical cylone named Katrina would have formed without AGW. But did AGW in any way turn Katrina into �Katrina� I just can�t say. Nor, in my opinion, can anyone else. Too many factors involved.
As more and more greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere, more and more the occurance of all-things-weather can�t be separated from them. The weather is what it is. And it got that way because of a complex interaction of a huge number of factors. The atmosphere�s greenhouse gas concentration is one of those factors�and one that is growing in significance.
-Chip
Simon
So, you start by saying you don’t remember if it’s a rhetorical question, and then explain that it’s obviously rhetorical. Yes. Rhetorical questions can be stylistic. They also aren’t real questions.
If you had wanted to ask “what were the reasons for the paper’s rejection which were not being communicated to us?” you should have asked that.
As for your claim that your “May I” question translates to something obvious,, I thought your statement translated to, ‘Could people please post full quotes (and I can’t believe you aren’t already doing this, you *&%$#@s!!!”
Sort of like “May I ask someone to please pass the potatoes”? might translate into “Will someone pass the potatoes, (and by the way, I’ve asked twice and I’m exasperated this has not been done yet!!!)” The potato question doens’t ‘obviously’ translate into, “What’s the reason no one is listening to me?” or “Why don’t people around here have the courtesy of passing the food around after the help themselves?” or any number of other questions the person asking for the potatoes might be muttering to themselves. If he complained no one guessed the specific implied question hidden in his mind and then answered it, I’d tell him he was nuts.
bender (Comment#26976) December 8th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Simon,
If that was your motivation, then why didn’t you just ask him what was the basis for his assertion that it was the prevailing view of the global picture?
The CA thread was on the McCullough & McKitrich paper on ‘Due Diligence’, which accused Mann of misrepresentation by not disclosing points adverse to their argument. McKitrick either didn’t know that the graph was only of Central England or else he was misrepresenting it as the prevailing view of the global picture (that was the either/or question I asked, which was not rhetorical) .
I would have pursued the question you suggest had the dialogue continued. In the first place I simply wanted to know whether he knew or not, so that any subsequent question would be informed of that.
So, you start by saying you don’t remember if it’s a rhetorical question, and then explain that it’s obviously rhetorical.
No, I started by saying I can’t remember what was snipped, then went on to say that even if the “may I” part of it was rhetorical the substance of the question was not.
So, I should have written
“what were the reasons for the paper’s rejection which were not being communicated to us?â€
rather than
“May I ask what were the reasons for the paper’s rejection which were not being communicated to us?â€
Having written in the form of the latter, do you consider that to be a rhetorical question which is not looking for an answer? (That question is either rhetorical or not, according to your preference. I ask it looking for an answer, but you may consider it to be rhetorical, for all that I know).
“No. Just as in my hypothetical hitting a deer accident, I can’t say that being neglected as a child has nothing to do with any individual car accident later in life. However, I have never used the word “caused†for this sort of generous relationship, and my impression is almost no one does. So, I don’t think you can say “AGW ’caused’ Katerinaâ€.”
Has someone hypothesized that being neglected leads to more accidents? I mean, be serious for a moment: this example is horrible. No one has ever asked someone if their accident was caused by being neglected–and if they did, “I don’t know” would be just as good an answer as no. Which is my point.
ANd if you are hung up on “caused” just change it to “contribute”?
Simon–
You followed the first question with a discussion explaining you whyasked — and that reason was not the one you now claim. When providing your reason, you quoted Ross and summed up by appearing to ask him to clarify what he meant in the quote. Ross answered that– clarifying what he meant. That is: He appears to engage precisely what you provided as the motive for your question.
This not “reframing” your question. It appears he answered precisely what you asked.
The only way you can make this sound like evading question is to quote only the first question, remove your explanation of why you ask, stripping off your final question asking of clarification, claiming your true motive was something other than what you said at the time, and expecting Ross to have known that.
If you want people to answer “Were you aware of ‘X”?” then either don’t immediately follow this with a a lengthy explanation of your motive that suggest your question is not to specifically learn whether or not he was aware of fact “X”, but merely to get clarification on his thought or knowledge surrounding “X”.
Simon
When this is all you want to learn, you need to learn to ask question directly.
Admittedly they might be ignored. In that case, you could complain your question wasn’t answered. But that’s a different complaint. They might be reframed– and if they were, you could point that out.
But in this case, you followed what appears to be a phrase ending with a “?” with an explanatin of what you ask, and sum up asking for “clarification”. It looks very much like you are asking for clarification surrounding the quote. Ross tried to clarify as you specifically requested.
Boris–
Haven’t you met people who blame every bad thing that happens in their adult lives on the bad things that happened to them as children? Usually not care accidents– but I’ve heard people complain their divorce is due to their father not paying enough attention to them after their parents divorce. I’ve heard people coming up with all sorts of tenuous connections. I’ve heard them phrase things things as questions– and really mean the questions.
As for my example: Of course it’s an exaggeration. I’m trying to explain how I see cause and effect. If I don’t exaggerate, it might not be clear. Sometime there is a connection between two things, but no one would call it “cause and effect”. In my book, Katerina as an individual weather event was no more “caused” by AGW than it was “caused” by the Coriolis force and the answer is “no”.
But if someone wants to answer, “Yes”, they are going to have to face the follow-on question: “What about the hurricane that wiped out Galvaston way back when. Was it caused by AGW? “
Ross tried to clarify as you specifically requested.
Nope. Here was the specific request, yet again:
It seems to me that you either were not aware that this was based on Lamb’s reconstruction of CET or else you were not being suitably clear as to what the graph showed. Can you clarify that for me?
And here was my follow up to his response:
I was asking whether you were aware that it was only a reconstruction of Central England when you wrote the paper you linked to. Is it your view that the temperature record of Central England is a good representation of the global picture? If not, then why did you present it as such? (I’m not interested in what the IPCC FAR suggested, but in what you wished to suggest).
Simon–
1) You presented him with false dichotomy that it seems to you that he must pick door #1 or door #2, an then asked him to clarify. He clarified by picking. picked “door number 3”. This is not the same as reframing. Similary, given the direct answer of “neither” to a “yes or no” question is not reframing. Similarly, if someone says, “Would you like chocolate or vanilla? I can answer, “Neither. I want strawberry”.
None of these is “reframing” or “answering a different question”.
The fact that you posted a follow-up does not magically transform your previous questions which Ross answered. It you wanted answers to these new, and different questions.
It looks like Ross didn’t answer your follow up question. It also looks like he didn’t return to that thread for something like 6 days. It’s possible he never saw the follow up response.
But lets look at the two actual questions in your closing part:
My response would have been:
I was asking whether you were aware that it was only a reconstruction of Central England when you wrote the paper you linked to. Really? I thought you wanted Ross to clarify what he meant in the quote. He did so.
Is it your view that the temperature record of Central England is a good representation of the global picture? I, Lucia, would say “no”.
If not, then why did you present it as such?Ross didn’t represent CET as global.
He wrote this “The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) is an interval from approximately AD1000 to AD1300 during which many places around the world exhibited conditions that seem warm compared to today. In the 1990 First Assessment Report of the IPCC, there was no hockey stick. Instead the millennial climate history contained a MWP and a subsequent Little Ice Age, as shown as in Figure 3.â€
The second bit simply reports how the IPCC represented this in their 1990 report. When you asked, he clarified that what he meant was the IPCC represented it as such. If I had been jumping into comments, I might have pointed out that Ross had already answered this question and had doen so clearly.
(I’m not interested in what the IPCC FAR suggested, but in what you wished to suggest).
If I’d been jumping into comments, I would have told you that Ross already explained what he wished to suggest. It appears Ross meant to suggest in the paragraph you wish him to explain is that, back in 1990, the IPCC FAR made suggestion “X”.
Obviously, I don’t know what Ross would have answered if he hadn’t gotten busy and left comments for nearly a week.
But if all you wanted to ask Ross was whether Ross thought CET was a good proxy for the globe, you should have asked that sooner and more directly.
If you wanted to know what Ross thought of the IPCC using CET as a good proxy for the globe, you should have asked that directly and sooner. If you just wanted to know whether he had known that figure 3 was CET and not global– you should have asked that question and dispensed with all your explanation of why you wanted to know and avoided ending with a request he clarify.
To me, it appears he a) answered your first question with no reframing, b) did not answer your follow up question because he left comments. In the case of the latter, he did not try to gain himself false credit by reframing and answering a different question. Everyone can see he didn’t answer. That’s different from reframing.
PaulD
Hmm… You asked “I wonder if one of the modelers here could comment on this assertion?”
The assertion immediately preceding your question is “”the models use another quantity that the IPCC lists as poorly known (namely aerosols) to arbitrarily cancel as much greenhouse warming as needed to match the data, with each model choosing a different degree of cancellation according to the sensitivity of that model.”
That is: aerosol loadings are chosen according to the sensitivity of the model.
In his answer, Gavin ignores the assertion and merely explains that both aerosol loadings and climate sensitivities are uncertainty. In other words: He did not answer your direct question.
Unlike Simon’s question to Ross, your question is clealry not rhetorical, not an open ended “will you clarify” and not (as Simon now claims) a statement that conceals some hidden but unasked question whose unstated meaning is “evident”.
Lucia,
You think that Pielke’s response to Revkin was direct and did not reframe. I disagree. He was asked about attribution and responded about scale of warming and CS. We could probably go on disagreeing till the cows do whatever.
You keep asserting that my question to Ross was rhetorical. It simply was not, I was looking for an answer. So, I disagree, and I have repeatedly quoted precisely what I asked for clarification of, whilst you assert that I was asking for clarification of something else. We disagree, cows, etc.
I think that everyone, regardless of their affiliation engages in reframing from time to time. I think you did that yourself on this thread, as I pointed out.
I could write just as many words as you have done defending Steig against your charge of reframing. No point – I think his answer was as good as or as equally reframed as Pielke’s.
I don’t think debates that come down to the pedantics of pointing out that a question beginning with “may I” includes a rhetorical precursor have much to tell us about what is or is not going on with the climate, so I’ll leave this floor to you.
It is clearly unethical for scientists (but not politicians or lawyers) to mislead their peers by omission, distortion, deception or evasion. (Reframing a question is certainly a form of evasion.) Do or should the same rules apply when a scientist is speaking to the public? Some, like Steven Schneider, feel that scientists will not be effective advocates for their science if scientists don’t behave like politicians in the public arena by: making one-sided presentations, exaggerating dangers, ignoring normal scientific doubt, reframing questions, etc. Others, like Feynman, believe one should be scrupulously candid so that your work can not be misused by others. IMO, Climategate is what happens when scientists feel free to act like politicians: They risk being corrupted by the political process, losing their scientific integrity, and destroying the credibility of other scientists.
So a proper answer to a question about Katrina would be: “One single event can never be attributed to climate change because climate is an average of many events. For example, an excellent superintendent of schools may be able to make changes that raise the district’s average test scores, but no one should claim that the superintendent was responsible for one particular student’s getting into Harvard. HOWEVER, you will hear others say that Katrina was caused by climate change because many, but not all, scientists think that the average hurricane has become more powerful (but not more frequent) as the earth has warmed. All scientists agree that hurricanes only form where sea surface temperature are above 26.5 degC (80 degF) and that hurricanes require warm waters to strengthen. If the above good student just barely got into Harvard, it is possible that the excellent superintendent’s influence actually provided the decisive edge that tipped decision. Likewise, warmer oceans might have strengthened Katrina just enough to break the levees, dramatically increasing the damage. In the case of Katrina AND the student, HOWEVER, we can not prove a direct cause and effect. Perhaps the excellent superintendent’s policies promoted a style of teaching or an easier curriculum that was better for most students, but actually hindered the Harvard applicant. Similarly, hurricanes are influenced by a wide variety of factors that don’t respond in a simple way to global warming. In particular all scientists agree that increased wind shear can destroy or weaken hurricanes and their precursor storms, leading a few scientists to predict that global warming could produce fewer hurricanes because warming may increase wind shear. These same scientists note that hurricanes are powered by the difference in temperature between the surface of the sea and the top of its clouds, so that warmer oceans won’t lead to stronger hurricanes if the temperature difference remains the same. IMO …” and then the speaker can express their personal opinion.
Simon–
If your question to Ross was not rhetorical, than you were very unclear. I suspect you know this because, otherwise, when making your case, you would not have snipped to eliminate all the verbiage after the first “?”.
I’m sure you could. I’m equally sure the argument to defend your position would be poor.
With respect to the “May I” question:
a) A complaining this equation was not answered
b) You admit that you did not intend for anyone to answer the “May I” question as written — you intended that to stand in for some other unstated question,
c) You think they were supposed to guess the real question hidden inside that question. In fact, someone presented with that question could easily think it was either 1) not a question at all or 2) any number of possible questions.
d) You admit that by convention, “May I” questions are often not questions at all
Taking a-d together, it is highly probably that the reason you “may i” question was not answered was that people other than you did not know it was a question.
I don’t see how you can complain that it wasn’t answered. In any case, providing no response to questions would not be the same strategy as substituting a question you prefer and answering that while pretending to answer the question that was asked.
You may, of course, complain about one, the other, or both. But they are not the same strategy, and have strengths and flaws. In my opinion, it is perfectly acceptable to refuse to answer questions, not give interviews etc. It is also not sneaky. Reframing is sneaky.
Lucia,
Well, I said I’d leave the floor to you, but your further misrepresentations make me reconsider that attempt to leave this –
If your question to Ross was not rhetorical, than you were very unclear.
Rubbish. This was my first question, and it’s as clear as could be:
Were you aware when you wrote it that your figure 3 (taken from the FAR) is actually a working of Lamb’s reconstruction of the Central England Temperature record, and not a global representation at all?
Perhaps you’d like to explain to us why you judge that question to be rhetorical or why you think it to be unclear? The fact that I went on to explain why I thought the question was important has no bearing whatsoever upon its form or its clarity.
Simon
I explained why I thought it was rhetorical in “lucia (Comment#26971) “. I think most people reading your comment in context would think it was rhetorical.
You now tell me you didn’t intend it to be rhetorical. In that case, you’re posted comment was unclear. Specifically: As written the question appears rhetorical, but you did not intend it to be rhetorical Hence what you wrote did not convey your intended meaning. Hence, it was unclear.
The fact that the words immediately following the question gave the impression that you did not want an answer to that quesition, but merely wanted a clarification of the quote, does have bearing one whether readers would interpret the question as rhetorical.
If you don’t want people to think a question is rhetorical, don’t explain that you are really seeking some information other than what the question seems to ask.
I explained why I thought it was rhetorical in “lucia (Comment#26971) “. I think most people reading your comment in context would think it was rhetorical.
Yes, and I think your ‘explanation’ is spurious , and I disagree with you as to what most people would think.
You now tell me you didn’t intend it to be rhetorical.
It was a straightforward question in the first place.
In that case, you’re posted comment was unclear. Specifically: As written the question appears rhetorical, but you did not intend it to be rhetorical Hence what you wrote did not convey your intended meaning. Hence, it was unclear.
Only to you, Lucia, because you consider it to be rhetorical. I take the view that “most people” would consider the question to be straightforward, viz., my question:
Were you aware when you wrote it that your figure 3 (taken from the FAR) is actually a working of Lamb’s reconstruction of the Central England Temperature record, and not a global representation at all?
I don’t think that ” As written the question appears rhetorical”. You do. What do “most people” think? I dunno – shall we have a poll?
Dr Liljegren, thanks for answering. I hope you don’t mind my addressing you formally. I think I might’ve called you Lucia in the past, but considering the fact I’m not sure about whether you are a lukewarmer occupying the middle ground or not, I would now find it hypocritical to do so. Of course, I could be entirely at fault here by questioning your lukewarminess, due to confirmation bias. I am a warmist after all.
I want to see some action now. In particular, I would like to see increase focus on Nuclear Energy, and funding to develop alternative fuels. I’m also for deploying more “green†measures like conservation, solar and wind energy.
Then you must really be disgusted at the tactics and misrepresentations by certain elements on the denier extreme of the spectrum. Because they throw whatever they can get, with an utter disregard for science and ethics, at politicians and public to disseminate as much as doubt as possible in order to stifle action.
You want to see action, the warmists call for a lot of action, and I can see that a lukewarmer would want to oppose and criticize that, but in my view as a lukewarmer you should be more appalled by the deniers that don’t want any action, either because it upsets their (mostly free market libertarian) ideology or because they’re in it for the attention/money.
Huh? I’ve criticized Monckton. I’ve contradicted quite a few cooler visitors on their statements when posted here.
I know you criticized some graph Monckton used, that’s what tickled my curiosity, as I’m on the look-out for genuine lukewarmers. But the ratio of criticism you hand out to warmists and deniers respectively is unbalanced, to say the least.
As for Morano– I’m sure I disagree with him on tons of stuff, but he mostly runs something that appears to resemble an agregator. What is one to write: “OMG! Morano posted a LINK to X!!! and XX!!! and XXX!â€
Pray tell me, why does Morano run this agregator? Is it to downplay alarmism, so appropriate action can be taken to tackle the effects of AGW? Are you kidding me? That website, just like the site by Joe d’Aleo of which I forgot the name, and just like Watts Up With That, is riddled with misrepresentations, exaggerations, no clear and honest statement on what the position on AGW of the blog owner actually is (it couldn’t be as it would be contradicted by the variety of articles that only differ in their degree of denialism; some say it’s not warming, others say it’s warming but it’s natural, and yet others say warming is great). All of that can be meant to do only one thing: stifle any action whatsoever on AGW. And the truth is they are being very successful at what they want to achieve.
Now why, if you’re a lukewarmer wouldn’t you pick articles from one of those sites – of which there are many – and say: ‘Look, I’m not a fan of the way science is being misrepresented by alarmist scientists à la RealClimate, but I find this and that from this self-proclaimed skeptic blog as awful if not worse, because it most probably is aimed at stifling any action only, who knows for what obscure reasons (ideology/attention/money). As a lukewarmer, however, I believe that action is needed.’
The same goes for people like Stephen McIntyre and Roger Pielke Jr. I cannot blame warmists for accusing them of being in the denier camp while portraying themselves as something else. I just don’t get it that someone would portray him- or herself as a lukewarmer and then (practically) only criticize those elements that want to see a lot of action to mitigate AGW. I hope you see my point.
George Tobin (Comment#26961) December 8th, 2009 at 9:23 am
Simon:
Why is “so’s your old man†your response to everything?
I have a strong reason for that, George (well, you might not think it’s strong, but it’s important to me).
My only interest in any of this is to get towards a better understanding of what is going on with the climate, of what is likely to go on and what we should consider doing or not doing. I am not motivated by wishing to avoid paying taxes nor by wishing to see a World Government (or whatever, whatever).
I don’t think that the tribalism is good for science. I don’t think that focusing on the uncertainties, limitations, human failings, manipulations or whatever on one side of the ‘debate’ to the exclusion of considering all those things on the other side of the ‘debate’ is a way to get closer to a reasonable view.
We are changing the conditions I don’t think the ‘default position’ is that we should go on changing the conditions. I don’t think that looking for vulnerabilities in the statements/attitudes/emails/scientific papers of those who think we should respond to our changing the conditions whilst ignoring the equivalent weaknesses in statements etc. from those who think otherwise is anything other than confirmaion bias, and that’s not a very intelligent way to make a judgement. You’re welcome to think otherwise, and to think that it’s perfectly reasonable to object to matters to do with statements from those with whose conclusions you disagree whilst ignoring the falsehoods coming from those who generally support your view of what should not be done. That’s up to you.
Neven
Disgust is a strong word and it involves emotion not thought. I tend to be more moved by thoughts than feelings. As it happens, I don’t think I need to feel disgusted to think something merits criticism. Even assuming I edit what you write to replace the notion of feeling disgust with thinking something warrants criticism, I gotta’ tell you: You have resorted to a level of vagueness that makes it impossible to know what it is about my blogging that bothers you.
You don’t describe or give any examples of the specific tactic or misrepresentations that ougth to disgust me. You don’t name who might be counted under “certain elements’. I doubt I share your view that lukewarmers by definition must feel disgust at whoever these certain elements are for whatever it is they do. But, I think the whole claim is so vague as to be unworthy of debate.
Did it occur to you that inaccuracies in IPPC reports or by those who write have more political impact than the some denialist so obscure you can’t even name them or tell me which or their machinations I ought to criticize?
It also may be that you don’t notice when I criticize though you think are worth of criticism. For example, as we both agree I criticized Monkton. I also criticized that ENSO/ SOI paper here. I’ve said Miscolski (sp?) is incomprehensible. It also has no impact– and being incomprehensible to me it’s impossible for me to say more.
Of course. Morano wants to block action. I suspect he and Monckton is one of the few people who gets funding from someone somewhere.
But I’m not quite sure what you think I am supposed to do. Post daily saying “It’s Monday and Morano is still running his aggregator!”, “It’s Tuesday and Morano is still running his aggregate!”, “It’s Wednesday and….”?
Ice cap. He re-publishes other peoples blog posts. In particular, he’s published Monktons’s stuff. Not only did I criticize one of Monkton’s papers with what I consider a misrepresentation of IPCC projections when that paper appeared there but I emailed Joe personally and alerted him of my opinion. After that, it was in Joe’s lap.
As for Watt’s blog: I don’t slam it because I don’t think it’s worse than RC and it’s a darn site less bad than Joe Romm’s blog which is truly wretched.
As for the rest all I can say is there is a self identified group of lukewarmers. Most of us know who the others are, and if you collectively look at our actions, those, presumably define “what a lukewarmer is likely to do”. If you want to call us all something else, fine. I’ll continue to call myself lukewarmer, and I think SteveMosher is one as is Tom Fuller.
Did it occur to you that inaccuracies in IPPC reports or by those who write have more political impact than the some denialist so obscure you can’t even name them or tell me which or their machinations I ought to criticize?
Actually, no – I think that IPCC inaccuracies have less political impact than denialist falsehoods (e.g. Ian Plimer’s – thereyago, I named him). I think the ‘activating’ impact of IPCC inaccuracies is much less than the ‘deactivating’ impact of the falsehoods.
You’ve made an an unquantifiable assertion, so I’ve made one in response.
Simon
In some circumstances, lack of quantification is a problem– but not in others. I don’t see any problem in this case.
Although, as it happens, I was responding to Neven. I don’t read Ian Plimer. He’s Australian, right? I have to admit I don’t follow your politics much, but I don’t think Ian Plimer has much impact in the US or the World. I could be wrong of course. In contrast, I think the IPCC does. Once again, I could be wrong.
But getting back to Neven’s notions of what I should do: I act on my perceptions and I think IPCC inaccuracies have more impact that anything Ian Plimer says.
Lucia,
Well, Plimer has been having an impact here (UK) following the publication of his deeply awful book ‘Heaven and Earth’. i think he’s also had an impact in Oz. We’ve had him on mainstream meeja and we’ve had him cited as the ‘epiphany’ for various politico types who do have an influence. Basically, as you won’t be so naive as to not realise, if there’s something published to support the inclinations of those who are looking to be inclined then it will be influential. I’m not sure how the ‘inaccuracies’ of the IPCC weigh up against that, since I think the debate inclines towards a binary choice. I wish it didn’t and that we could talk about realistic considerations.
Ok– My mistake on Plimer.
I agree that anyone who has written a book could, conceivably have an impact. I also know that Monbiot and some other people whose stuff I don’t read interviewed Plimer. But I’m afraid the guy is not on my radar screen. Also, as far as I’m aware, no one in comments here has cited Plimer as an authority for their position.
As for the notion of discussing a book: I haven’t done book reviews. Nearly all the books are PR. If someone wants to discuss a claim I’ll engage that, but I’m not going to write a thoughtful book review for any book. Not Gavin’s, Not Plimers, Not Romms, not Singers’. It doesn’t interest me.
In the US, the people who might stand in for Plimer might be “Inhofe” ( A senator, who John Stewart referred to as an energizer bunny in his program on climategate), Limbaugh (who is on radio and I never listen too. He argues by labels) and Glenn Beck. I don’t get cable, so I’d always be late to the table with Beck. Regardless, all three of these men are difficult to blog– and it’s not as if their activities are in anyway secret. They are right out there.
Lucia,
Well, Plimer, Inhofe, Limbaugh, Beck…. the inaccuracies of the IPCC….
Which do you think are more damaging to the public’s understanding of the circumstances?
I’m curious now – do you think that WUWT informs us better of the circumstances than RC? Straight question, not rhetorical.
Simon:
Simon and intent of your words belong to you, but whether it is “clear as could be” belongs to the reader. As author, you don’t get to dictate that to us, lol.
Like Lucia, when I read your comment, it didn’t come across to me that you really intended an answer.
Lucia:
Beyond which, Anthony does post pro-AGW articles occasionally, just did today.
And further he even does his own research, even if it p*sses some people off that they can’t publish results before Anthony completes his study!??? >.<
Imagine that… a privately funded study where intermediate archival results are available, and that's a BAD thing because we can't get all of the (readily constructible) metadata before the study is finished. Bad thing.
But it's a GOOD thing that CRU tries to hide everything behind a barrier. That's a GOOD thing.
I'd say more, but you told me I had to play nice. 😛
I have listened to Rush Limbaugh on the radio (and have additionally been reading his blog) as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, I don’t get to hear his show much these days because it’s on in the middle of the work day. It’s always nice when I do get to hear his show, though.
There is a reason he has been the king of talk radio in the USA for all those years- He’s a critical thinker and an excellent communicator. Now, I’m not saying that he’s perfect, he’s not. But he is honest about most everything he talks about, from politics to personal stuff.
Of course, Liberals (especially elected Democrats) want his show eventually silenced, because he promotes freedom of thought and speech. When you don’t toe the Party Line (like promoting AGW), you become a target.
My 2 cents
Andrew
The term “sophistry” comes to mind whenever I hear warmers speak. RC employs sophistry in the extreme to excise arguments and control the debate through moderation. Not answering the “questions” is just another form of sophistry and here I mean the modern definition of sophism; “a confusing or illogical argument used for deceiving someone”. Plato is largely responsible for the modern view of the “sophist” as a greedy instructor who uses rhetorical sleight-of-hand and ambiguities of language in order to deceive, or to support fallacious reasoning. In this view, the sophist is not concerned with truth and justice, but instead seeks power. (Thanks Wiki)
Given the political motivations of what is going on in Copenhagen, does anyone care to refute that AGW sophistry is concerned more about the political power of regulating CO2 than discovering the truth about climate? The email hack has done more to illuminate truth than all of the comments by “sophists” on the Hockey Team RC blog.
The warmer just can’t give you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, just the parts they wish to use to paint the picture to foster a political agenda. That’s where the science has been corrupted and reaches all the way down into how they create their datasets and how they parameterize their models to get the results they want.
For you Warmers, give me the truth without the sophistry.
Shiny
Edward
Well said, Edward.
does anyone care to refute that AGW sophistry is concerned more about the political power of regulating CO2 than discovering the truth about climate?
Yes, I care to refute that. Like. d’oh, where do you want to start? radiative physics? No? give me a hint then.
Your post was otherwise simple sophistry (though well done for looking up the meaning in Wiki).
Simon:
I’d say dishonest dialogue and lack of transparency in the science community is the worse. It is this compost that provides fertile ground for the other nonsense to spread.
And further, for every Limbaugh follower there’s a socialist nut that adheres to cap and trade and other socialistic solutions not because they care a wit whether AGW is real or not, but whether it contributes to their cause of world socialism.
Why are you only bothered by denialists? Why not by the “ZOMG, the forests are going to spontaneously combust!” nuts?
The IPCC. For sure. Because the public expects the IPCC to provide balanced information. I suspect no one expects that of Inhofe. Few expect that of Limbaugh or Beck. Everyone knows they have a POV (point of view.)
I think they are about equal. Seriously.
does anyone care to refute that AGW sophistry is concerned more about the political power of regulating CO2 than discovering the truth about climate?
By your use of inflammatory language and accusations that supporters of AGW are deceiving others about their true motives, I suspect this is one of those rhetorical questions that Lucia talks about.
As such, I suspect that you don’t really want to engage any of us in a debate, but want merely to make an accusation. As such, I realize I could not engage in a real discussion with you or a serious debate, so there is no use bothering to respond.
Lucia,
I think they [WUWT & RC] are about equal. Seriously.
Ok Lucia, that’s really interesting. Seriously.
I am recalibrating.
greenaway–
It is, indeed, one of those. People get a few of those and occasionally. But it’s a very, very bad habit.
The other negative is that the technique is that rhetorical question
* are sometimes used to give the impression that an unarguable point was scored, when, the only difficulty is the counter argument is really, really long.
* give the person making them plausible deniability about what point they were trying to make
* make obscure points and
* generally are unaccompanied by any evidence to support the hidden claim.
So, I don’t like that method of advancing arguments. Although, if the person answers the question themselves, that can be ok. When the answer follows, at least they aren’t “bare”.
Edward provided some answer to his rhetorical question. So, it’s not a “bare” rhetorical question. (You have to see endless “bare” rhetorical question in action to grasp the full horror!)
Still, at their best, rhetorical questions don’t work well at blogs. (That said, even I use them sometimes. When I do, you get to whomp on me.)
Simon–
1) WUWT doesn’t claim to be balanced. 2) RC does claim to be balanced and then twist things in so as to distort. They play accurate but untrue quite frequently.
I think WUWT is often mistaken; so you have to check and take stuff with a grain of salt. I think people know that.
But the result of RC’s “accurate but untrue” games is that RC does not inform well. Readers who want to learn anything need check everything to guard against being tricked. Unfortunately, many readers don’t even know they need to check– and so RC’s spin can be more pernicious than WUWT’s mistakes.
In the end, the two are about equal as vehicles to be informed.
Then there is Monckton who is in a whole other category.
The difference between the IPCC and Rush Limbaugh is pretty elementary.
The IPCC wants to set the stage for the forced regulation of the worlds industries .
Rush is a talk show host that people can listen to if they want to .
Andrew
Lucia,
1) WUWT doesn’t claim to be balanced.
Can you point me to the WUWT statement which makes clear that it doesn’t claim to be balanced in contrast to the RC statement claiming that it is? Don’t be daft – that really is a specious argument.
I think WUWT is often mistaken; so you have to check and take stuff with a grain of salt. I think people know that.
You think you know that – but are you seriously asserting that those who respond on WUWT know that? Really? We’re talking about influence on perceptions here – you want to tell me that the WUWT respondents know how grain of salt it should be? Honestly, Lucia, are you really, really serious?
But the result of RC’s “accurate but untrue†games is that RC does not inform well. Readers who want to learn anything need check everything to guard against being tricked. Unfortunately, many readers don’t even know they need to check– and so RC’s spin can be more pernicious than WUWT’s mistakes.
What? You really think that RC needs checking more than WUWT???? Tell me please if you’re actually being serious and we’ll pursue it if so. You give me an example of RC wrongness and I’ll give you an example of WUWT wrongness. Let’s do it, heh? Do you want to play, or is your statement just without any real substance?
“You really think that RC needs checking more than WUWT????”
Simon,
You are appealing to the authority of two letters of the alphabet (RC) here. FYI. (Logical fallacy)
Andrew
Simon–
First: It’s not a specious argument.
Now to respond to all the things you ended with a question mark.
1) Yes. 2) Yes. 3) Yes. Most. 3) Yes. 4) Could you clarify that question. 5)Yes_s_s_s. 6) Is that a question or a request? 7) I’m not even sure what this statement ending with a question mark even asks. I wasn’t proposing a game. I was answering you question.
Now, I want you to look at your questions prior to Simon Evans (Comment#27100) and reflect on whether you’ve asked the question you intended to ask. ‘Cuz I suspect you didn’t.
A feeble response, Lucia. If you want to ban questions from your blog then go ahead – you’d save me some wasted time.
You think that WUWT & RC are “about equal”.
That’s an interesting view, ho hum.
.
I didn’t respond to the question before, because it was directed toward Lucia, not posed as an open question. But since it continues, I will say that I also feel neither is unambiguously better than the other (at informing us). As Lucia points out, RC is stuff handed down along with the claim of authority, not all of which is exactly correct. On the other hand, WUWT requires a pretty astute filter to separate out the noise. Both attract a lot of groupies for their respective camps.
Qualitatively, I’d say WUWT is slightly more entertaining, since I encounter stuff with some frequency where I have no idea what it’s meant to say.
As a further overgeneralization, I say you have to be brave to disagree at RC and ruthless to disagree at WUWT. 😉
I think that when scientists communicate with the public about climate science or global warming, they should present the state of the science as they understand it, including as much about the uncertainties in the research as would be understandable, depending on the audience. They should, if asked, offer their opinion, but they should ensure that the audience knows it is their opinion and should not be construed as scientific fact.
It would be far better for the public to get its science information from a scientist than Rush Limbaugh or Al Gore, however entertaining their shows might be. This doesn’t mean scientists should try to become like Limbaugh or Gore, who are obviously partisans, but they do perhaps need to work on their communication skills. I think the writer of the article in EOS was trying to help scientists communicate more effectively with the public. Advice on reframing questions wasn’t an attempt to teach them to deceive but to answer a question in a way that doesn’t make them uncomfortable.
I think some people here are a bit paranoid and see evil intent where it is not present.
In the case of the question about global warming and Katrina, while it might be that the audience wants yes/no answers, but the scientist might feel that a yes/no answer is inadequate because the issue is more complicated than a yes/no answer can convey. There is nothing wrong with reframing the question in that case.
In the case of the question “Did global warming cause Katrina?”, a simple “no” without a further discussion of weather/climate, cause/effect may be technically correct in that it is impossible to claim that global warming was the “cause of any given hurricane” but a yes/no answer can also mask the uncertainty in the science. A more correct answer is that we are unable based on our understanding of climate to claim that any given weather event like a hurricane is solely the result of global warming.
A straight yes/no answer may be expected in a court of law, but in the case of a scientist giving a talk on global warming to a community group, it is not adequate and it certainly isn’t educating anyone about anything.
From what I’ve read on the subject, and I am no expert, a no/yes answer does not give a full accounting of the issue of “cause” and “effect”. “weather” and “climate”. The more accurate answer is that “It is premature based on the evidence we currently have to claim that global warming has affected hurricane activity, or that it caused Hurricane Katrina. The theory and models suggest that global warming will result in increased sea surface temperatures which in turn is predicted to increase hurricane intensity but we have no conclusive evidence that it has already done so.
Simon–
I have no plans of banning questions. But you aren’t posting any views claims or arguments of your own. I have no idea what conversation you want to have; the best I can do is answer those phrases you end with a “?”.
I’m not going to twist myself into a pretzle trying to guess the true, underlying question associated with the phrase you terminate with a “?”. If you want to discuss what you and I think of the various sites, groups etc. Fine. Tell me what you think. I’ll tell you what I think.
But stop this attempt to argue by asking questions. Adding four ???? at the end doesn’t give a whole lot of weight to whatever argument the question was intended to advance.
Oliver–
Qualitatively, WUWT also digs up more stories and provides links so you can go out and find out more for yourself from external sources. If you want to work it sets you on paths of discovery and lets you break out of WUWT. RC is very self referential.
Simon may not value these things, but I do. And given the question Simon Asked– well… RC and WUWT end up about equal.
greenaway–
No one is advocating a “yes/no” followed by stopping. I know I said this last time you told us that would be a bad idea. You can keep repeating that, and the next time, the answer will still be “no one said to say ‘yes or no’ and then stop”.
Also, if your concern is that scientists would do that, you haven’t been around many scientists. The difficulty is getting them to give shorter answer not longer winded ones. If Hassol’s advice is really to not give simple “yes/no” answers, then she is bringing coals to New Castle, because no ph.d. in the world needs to be told that. None.
So: If that was here advice, then her article was utterly useless for a totally different reason.
The IPCC wants to set the stage for the forced regulation of the worlds industries .
I see no evidence provided to back up this claim included in your post so I am treating it like all such claims and giving it the credit it deserves – no more and no less than any other unsubstantiated expression of opinion.
As far as I know, the IPCC does not advocate for any particular policy response to global warming. The summary for policy makers does provide a detailed overview of various policy responses to global warming, including an assessment of the costs and benefits of each based on existing research. If a nation accepts the science embodied in the IPCC assessment reports, some kind of policy response is warranted.
Of course, if a nation does not accept the science presented in the IPCC report or any climate treaty, it can choose to ignore it. For example, Canada was a signatory to Kyoto but has actually increased its GHG emissions by 29% above the targets it set in Kyoto.
Lucia,
I can certainly agree with that.
greenaway,
You should note that I wrote “set the stage” for regulation. In other words, provide a justification for regulation. Is that better?
Andrew
greenaway and Andrew,
Actually, if you think the head of the IPCC actually speaks for the IPCC, it looks like regulation of personal behavior is also on the agenda.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/29-0
“Of course, if a nation does not accept the science presented in the IPCC report or any climate treaty, it can choose to ignore it.”
I was under the impression that nations were pressured/expected to go along with the charade. Are you saying that any nation can just ignore the IPCC if they want to?
Andrew
No one is advocating a “yes/no†followed by stopping.
You may not be, but others on this thread have suggested it is the correct answer to the question.
1. Andrew_FL (Comment#26806) December 7th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
The answer is no, no, NO.
2. Calvin Ball (Comment#26809) December 7th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Let’s do it this way.
Short answer: no.
Long answer: hell no.
OK?
3. Tilo Reber (Comment#26890) December 7th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
The answer “no†to the question that was asked is excellent communication. It is short, direct, truthful, and easy to understand. What you are proposing is not that they be better communicators, but better propagandists.
4. lucia (Comment#26902) December 7th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
greenaway–
… in the case of the individual weather events: AGW does not cause any individual weather events. The answer to “Was Katerina caused by AGW†is “noâ€.
5. ChrissyStarr (Comment#26905) December 7th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
I am a scientist, and testify in court regarding scientific analyses. The correct answer is “noâ€.
6. George Tobin (Comment#26972) December 8th, 2009 at 10:27 am
The correct answer to AGW and Katrina is ‘Noâ€.
I recognize that you (and several others) have also said that a “no” followed by more explanation is a good idea, but others have clearly said that “no” all by itself is the proper answer.
Thanks for the link, John M.
Fortunately, greenaway has led me to believe that I can safely ignore that psychopath and his criminal organization. 😉
Andrew
greensaway–
It may be that Andrew_FL meant say no and only no. Or they may also believe you can or should add more. You don’t know. (Although, I guess I would interpret Tilo as advocating it, so that would mean I shouldn’t have said no one.)
But you might want to omit some of the quote mining. In the case of ChrissyStar, your quote ends with “no” when she clearly discusses that if the person answering things that’s badly framed they add more:
ChrissyStarr (Comment#26905) December 7th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
When you quote me– I think it’s pretty clear in all the above that I advocate saying more. I said so repeatedly, and from the very beginning.
George Tobin is correct that the correct answer is ‘no’. That is not the same as advocating that when a scientist is asked by a questioner, he think one should or must omit all further elaborative detail.
I was under the impression that nations were pressured/expected to go along with the charade. Are you saying that any nation can just ignore the IPCC if they want to?
Assuming that this isn’t another rhetorical question, of course. What can the IPCC do if they ignore the science and its implications?
Nada. Nichts. Rien. Nulla.
Even if they sign off on the assessment reports, what is going to happen if they don’t in fact do anything? Nothing. There is no mechanism to demand or enforce action.
Action is entirely voluntary.
Oh, it might be possible for the head of the IPCC to tsk tsk and even stomp feet, but there is no way to punish a country for ignoring the document they sign. They are only agreeing to the validity of the science. They are not required to act or to do anything in particular in response.
Kyoto signatories made “commitments” to meet targets, but as we can see from the results, many signatories like Canada failed to meet their commitments. In fact, Canada will likely sign the Copenhagen agreement (if Obama does) and then go on its merry way developing the tar sands and increasing its greenhouse gas emissions even more than it already has over Kyoto targets. It’s all window dressing and political posturing.
Here is what Hassol actually writes:
Reframing
Rather than accepting the premise of a poorly framed question, reframe it. When people ask if global warming can be blamed
for a particular hurricane, heat wave, fire, or flood, a simple “no†does not respond to the essence of the question. What they really want to know is whether global warming is having an effect on such events, and the science suggests that it is. You can reframe such questions to explain that global warming is increasing the chances of such events occurring, and you can also explain some of the connections.
I don’t see that her advice goes beyond the bounds of what you and others have said was an appropriate answer.
She doesn’t tell the speaker to lie or conceal. She suggests that the questioner really wants to know if climate change can affect weather. She says that a simple “no” does not respond to the essence of the question. She says the speaker should reframe the question from the particular to the general — getting to what the questioner actually wants to know. That way the speaker can answer the “essence of the question” and talk about how global warming is “increasing the chance of such events” and “explain some of the connections” between global warming and weather events.
You have disagreed that this is in fact what the questioner wants to know. Fine. To suggest she is trying to teach scientists to deceive the public to push her agenda is to go too far IMO.
I think it is possible for people to see deception it where it doesn’t exist because — they expect it.
That says more about them and their views that it does about the person they are condemning.
greenaway, you said:
“action is entirely voluntary”
IPCC chief says:
‘We should put pressure on the developed countries to tackle the phenomenon of climate change,’ said Pachauri, the man who heads the IPCC which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore for its seminal report on climate change that year.”
http://indiainteracts.in/news/2009/11/23/IPCC-chief-has-little-hope-from-Copenhagen-climate-summit.html
Applying pressure makes a decision less than entirely voluntary.
Andrew
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
The age of Aquarius
Aquarius!
Aquarius!
Harmony and understanding
Sympathy and trust abounding
No more falsehoods or derisions
Golden living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal revalation
And the mind’s true liberation
Aquarius!
Aquarius!
Translation-For once, I agree with greenaway.
Greenaway:
I am so relieved to learn that the IPCC has no political dimension and that the motive for all the resources poured into it was pure altruism.
1) When granting permission to reframe, she fails to explicitly advise that one must answer the question that was asked. To my way of thinking, this is a very important point. Since we are reading a formal publication that appeared in EOS, I doubt the omission of this particular information was accidental.
2) After assuming the questioner didn’t ask what they actually asked, she claims she or any person being question can know that the questioner really wanted to ask. Except possibly in a class room setting where students are paying to be guided and the professor knows what he thinks they should ask to help the student learn material ion the syllabus, it is highly unlikely the person ‘reframing’ the question really wishes to ask anything other than what they actually asked.
3) She happens to pick examples where, if one follows the climate debate, it is almost certain that one of the potential question the person really wants to ask actually is “Did Global Warming cause hurricane Katerina?” More over, she should know this.
Even if you think none of this is designed to be deceptive, and the person following the strategy intends no deception, if people follow this strategy on purpose and consistently, they will be seen as less than frank. They will be seen as disrespectful. The strategy will backfire badly.
This article represents bad advise.
We should put pressure on the developed countries to tackle the phenomenon of climate change,’ said Pachauri, the man who heads the IPCC which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore for its seminal report on climate change that year.”
Please. I doubt there’s much pressure Pachauri could put on Canada to make it stop developing the tar sands or do it in an environmentally sound manner other than … scowling. Folding his arms in disgust. Not inviting Canada to lunch at the next meeting. Yeah, that’ll do it.
greenaway,
It sounds like it’s his intention to apply pressure. Whatever form that takes, makes the decision less than “entirely voluntary”, as you stated.
Andrew
I think that Ross thinks he answered the essence of Simon’s question. If Simon thinks otherwise, he should ask again. It’s not like Ross to dodge if an important and legitimate question is being asked.
Well, Lucia, I must disagree once again and repeat that I think you are reading a lot into this that simply isn’t there.
You are suggesting that because this is EOS, there is something deliberate in her response that is intentionally deceptive, or at least that is what it sounds like to me. This is not a rhetorical question, but what do you mean to suggest? Why EOS? Do you have something against EOS that makes you distrust them? This is not rhetorical. Please answer.
Whatever form that takes, makes the decision less than “entirely voluntaryâ€, as you stated.
It is entirely voluntary in every sense. It is not binding. There is no enforcement mechanism.
Countries can say bad things about each other, but they can do that without signing the reports. Signing the reports is more about appearing to do something without actually having to do something.
It has no force in law, international or otherwise.
There is no body that could enforce compliance.
Politicians know that. You couldn’t get them to sign such a document otherwise.
greenaway
EOS is a formal publication, not a blog post/ first draft/ archive X etc. I’m suggesting because it is a formal publication rather than a blog post, she thought out what she wrote and carefully edited. So omitting the very important stricture that one should always remember to actually answer the question is unlikely to have been an oversight.
“It is entirely voluntary in every sense.”
Not if there is pressure applied to steer the decision toward a particular outcome. Also, nothing needs to be written down for this to happen. It could be the result of a conversation. This is why there are such things as meetings. Sometimes there are notes. Sometimes there aren’t.
It’s like when my girlfriend finds out I plan on watching football all day, when she wants to go to a birthday party. The entirely voluntary outcome is me watching football all day with no consequences. The pressure-enhanced outcome is me watching football and then going to the birthday party, thereby avoiding the inevitable grief. 😉
Andrew
Anyway, if pressure is a non-factor, why is Dr. Crazypants even bothering with the “pressure” stuff?
(Rhetorical question…the obvious answer is that it has potential to be a factor)
Andrew
For chrissakes she knew what she was saying. She was advising to stay on message by dodging inconvenient questions. Next.
” I’m curious now – do you think that WUWT informs us better of the circumstances than RC?”
and Lucia:
“I think they are about equal. Seriously.”
Oh dear. That is incredibly disappointing to me.
That tells me enough that I won’t be spending more time here.
Again, disappointing. Oh well.
“1) When granting permission to reframe, she fails to explicitly advise that one must answer the question that was asked. To my way of thinking, this is a very important point. Since we are reading a formal publication that appeared in EOS, I doubt the omission of this particular information was accidental.”
Much of the so-called skepticism is reframing.
IPCC – we have put together a comprehensive study of climate that, taken as a whole, provides enough evidence to make the case for AGW compelling.
Skeptics – we found an insignificant mistake!!!!!!! LOOK LOOK LOOK.
McIntyres presentation to the NAS put his hockey stick smashing into perspective. They hummed and haaahed a bit, made a note of his complaint, and found the case for AGW to still be correct. No wonder he doesn’t publish, the reality of his finds is rather insignificant in the big picture. Much better to use the web to reframe, pump it up, single out indviduals, stir up calls for legal action, charges, demotion, conspiracy. The punters love it.
Jack: “That tells me enough that I won’t be spending more time here.”
Goodbye, Jack.
Andrew
Bugs made a shrewd observation: “Much of skepticism is reframing”. When one is questioning AGW (rather than answering questions from the public as a scientist), reframing can be a useful approach for identifying what parts of the hypothesis are sound (CO2 absorbs infrared) and which aren’t (any conclusion based on GCMs that doesn’t begin with the phrase “If our models are correct, …”
Is the IPCC’s case for AGW really compelling? Which case? Greenland melting or a 1 foot rise in sea level? A climate sensitivity of 2? or 3? or 4? or higher? Emissions scenarios that project burning more fossil fuel than can economically be harvested from the planet? Since half of current emissions do not lead to net accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere, what should we project for future emissions? Talking about AGW without numbers is like the blind men and the elephant.
Skeptics do say: “Look! Look!” when they find an insignificant mistake, but McIntyre made a significant discovery. All of the IPCC’s GCM are inconsistent with the previous hypothesis that the MWP was as warm or warmer than today. Mann’s work had shown with >95% certainty that the current warm period is warmer than the MWP AND that climate is very stable in the absence of AGW. The NAS admitted that the reconstructions of Mann and others were not conclusive and that the MWP and LIA actually existed. Moberg now shows the highs of the MWP are about equal to the 1960-1990 average. Is this inconsistent with current GCMs? The only answer from the IPCC is to bury Moberg in a spaghetti graph.
Jack–
Too bad. I think RC has a very heavy filter, omits stuff and lacks balance. So, in response to Simon’s “I’m curious now – do you think that WUWT informs us better of the circumstances than RC?”
I think the two are about equal. If Simon asked a different question, I would give a different answer.
In Roger Pielke Sr.�s post today, he describes how greenhouse gases are an integral part of the climate system and necessarily change the patterns of atmospheric/ocean circulation which �cause our weather patterns, including drought, floods, tropical cyclones, and blizzards��
Everything is integrated. The only question is whether or not greenhouse gas increases are influencing events to a dectable (or perhaps more relevant, meaningful) degree. To answer flatly �no� to the Katrina question carries with it a huge burden of proof.
-Chip
Chip–
There are two conversations going on in parallel:
1) whether “yes” or “no” is the correct simple answer to the question about hurricanes, and
2) whether Hassols advices is good.
Topic (2) is the actual subject of my post– and my main one.
On (1): This is actually both a science and semantics issue. (For those who grouse about discussing semantics, the meaning of words does matter when we are arguing about whether or not a sentence containing “word X” is true.)
As I see it: On the science issue, I totally agree with you that greenhouse gases influence the weather over all. However, think “Influencing the weather over all” does not have the same meaning as “causing a single event”.
The corriolis force is also an integral part of the climate system, as is the location of the continents, our position relative to the sun and endless numbers of things. The way I see it, greenhouse gases no more “caused” Katerina than did the location of the African continent.
If someone has a different interpretation of the word “cause” they might answer “yes” or “we don’t know”. But if we elaborate, we can see this difference is semantic and relates to our use of the word “cause”. (We can then refer to a “Mr. Language Person” and find out whether one use truly is correct, or if there is some range of usage. The second often occurs in language.
But now let’s look at the second issue— which is the actual topic of my blog post.
With respect to Hassol’s advice, the issue isn’t which answer is correct. The issue is whether or not the person answering should clearly state the answer they believe to be correct.
In Hassol’s discussion, she assumes the person answering thinks the simple correct answer is “no” saying “a simple “no†does not respond to the essence of the question.”
She then appears to advise the person to avoid giving this answer. (At a minimum, she never says, anything like “if you think the answer is ‘no’, you say that, but then provide detail. Of course, no scientist need be told this by a PR person because none would just stop at ‘no’ in this circumstance. )
In my opinion, if you think the answer is “no”, you have to say so. Then, you can elaborate if you think elaboration is required. (All scientists are inclined to elaborate, so there really isn’t any need to advise them this is permitted, advised or required.)
But in my opinion, if you think the answer is no, you can’t get away without saying “no” or making it clear that you think the answer to that question is “no”. (That is: you can’t unless you tell the person you refuse to answer the question as stated.) If you think the answer is “yes”, you say “yes” and elaborate. If you think the answer is “we don’t know”, you say that. After you answer people can debate the meaning of “caused” vs. “influenced” etc.
Lucia,
One reason to avoid giving a direct answer to a reporter is that it can be taken out of context. So, sure, reframe the question to something that won’t be taken out of context.
Another reason is that you don’t want to answer that particular question. So, you play dodgeball.
The third reason is that you don’t know the answer.
Sure, in just speaking about the science, you should avoid doing the second.
-Chip
Chip–
Those are among the reasons it happens. But Hassol is explaining how to communicate more clearly. If you don’t know the answer, the most clear answer is “I don’t know the answer to that.”
Of course, someone might not want to say that… but their motive is not to be “more clearly”.
Lucia,
I think Jr. is having a moment:
“So the next time that you hear that the “science is settled” you can understand that it is settled, but the way that it is settled doesn’t provide any answers to questions of politics. Thomas Friedman gets this point:
If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve; the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.”
It’s already a hoax, sir.
And quoting Thomas Friedman on anything political is just forwarding spam.
Andrew
“The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn’t move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a “command-and-control” role over the process in a way that could hurt business.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/09/administration-warns-command-control-regulation-emissions/
Thuggery at it’s finest.
Andrew
Chip Knappenberger (Comment#27189) December 9th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Let me ask a slippery-slope-type question: It has often been complained that any new scientific paper which contains even a hint of “skepticism” (pejorative) gets pounced upon by the denalists/haters/conservative apparatus. Therefore, one should be wary of presenting such ideas because of the risk of misinterpretation (heavy disclaimers in the conclusions section seem to be a popular way to defend against this).
Is there a clear distinction between answering the hypothesis directly and answering a reporter directly, even when the answer may be taken out of context?
Just in thinking about this passage again, I also wonder: some people are astute (tricky?) enough to test my rating on the scientist—politician scale. Shall I confirm their suspicions by answering their question in the recommended but fairly transparent manner?
Oliver,
In a paper, the authors have a written documentation of the proper context (or at least the context that they applied). So if someone uses the results in a context besides the one originally given, they have to explain it to be convincing. There is nothing wrong with reinterpreting some findings (as long as the new interpretation is justified). But that is a different issue than someone taking someone else’s statement to mean something they didn’t.
-Chip
EOS is a formal publication, not a blog post/ first draft/ archive X etc. I’m suggesting because it is a formal publication rather than a blog post, she thought out what she wrote and carefully edited. So omitting the very important stricture that one should always remember to actually answer the question is unlikely to have been an oversight.
To take one last stab at this, you criticize her for not including something in her answer that you believe she should have — a statement that scientists should answer the question — and allege that because she didn’t include it, it was intentional and ultimately deceptive and bad advice.
When I read that paragraph the first time and even for the tenth time, I see no such thing. To me, she was saying that a “simple no” wasn’t good enough because the essence of the issue the relationship between AGW and weather. It is a complex matter and a “simple no” wouldn’t convey the important material — cause, effect, weather, climate, etc.
So, if a “simple no” isn’t good enough, a “complex no” would be required — one that addressed the complexities.
That is what I saw as the essence of her advice.
Cause and effect are complex concepts and have a complex relationship. Do you assume your questioner understands all the issues around cause and effect? No. Do you assume the questioner understands the difference between weather and climate? No. If they did, they wouldn’t ask the question.
If your purpose is to educate, you don’t make such assumptions. It depends on the audience, but I know that we science students spent a great deal of time in university discussing the pitfalls associated with determining or looking for causal relationships, etc.
To me, a “complex no” answer would discuss how it is impossible to claim that global warming “caused” any particular weather event (the no part to the question of “Did AGW cause Katrina?” or events like it), but that the science (or at least the theory and /or models) suggests that AGW may affect particular weather events like hurricanes or droughts, fires, etc. She also suggests that science shows it is already having an effect .
I assume she makes that claim based on her reading of the science. You may disagree with her reading of it, but that’s part of science.
Greenaway–
She has decided she knows what the essense of the question is and in the example, she specifically selects an essence that would be one an activist would prefer to answer.
But we don’t know what the essence is. That’s why if giving advice (which is what she is doing) if she is going to suggest you can guess the essense of the question and answer that, she should be specifically telling people to also answer the question as presented. I think not doing so is either a) an oversight one might expect of someone who is not a specialist in communcation speaking in an informal setting or b) an intentional omission.
(A) cannot apply to Hassol. So, I think (b). You may think otherwise, in which case we’ll have to agree to disagree.
Well, well, well,
It looks like someone’s girlfriend REALLY wants to go to that birthday party…
“More than 1,700 scientists have agreed to sign a statement defending the “professional integrity” of global warming research. They were responding to a round-robin request from the Met Office, which has spent four days collecting signatures. The initiative is a sign of how worried it is that e-mails stolen from the University of East Anglia are fueling skepticism about man-made global warming at a critical moment in talks on carbon emissions.
One scientist said that he felt under pressure to sign the circular or risk losing work. The Met Office admitted that many of the signatories did not work on climate change. ”
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2009/12/09/pressure-defend-climate-gate-scientists/
I guess now we know who has “hand” in this relationship. 😉
Andrew
Also, it looks like Jr. is throwing Climate Science under the bus, in favor of “decarbonization” for other reasons.
This is getting silly. Not that it wasn’t silly before. Now it’s REALLY silly. 😉
Andrew
Well, much ado about nothing, IMO.
I think you are looking for evidence of bad intent and are reading a lot into this that I just don’t see. You appear to be assuming you understand the intent of the writer, which is to teach scientists how to deceive. I see her as helping scientists communicate better to the lay public and/or policy makers, who don’t have the same vocabulary and knowledge of science.
Tempest in a teapot.
“much ado about nothing”
Much like Global Warming itself.
Andrew