The Blackboard

Postmodernism at its finest. Truth is not to be found, it is to be created. Truth is what works for the community. Truth is mine and any attack on that truth is an attack on me. The universe centers on me. How sad.

It seems that some people have incorrectly calculated the

‘My Belief In AGW = My Belief That I’m Intellectually Enhanced…

…Therefore I Can treat You Rudely’ Equation

Uh Oh…

BZZZZZZT!

Wrong.

Andrew

Re: Andrew_KY (Feb 2 12:18),
The part they don’t get is that even if they grant themselves of those who they consider “us” the right to treat “others” rudely, “others” are not required to say to themselves, “Oh! They treated me rudely. That means their claims must be correct!!!”

Well, to be fair, miss Kimberly was also a jackass in her article, with her words clearly trending towards fu**nuttery and tin foil hattism at its finest, full of innuendos and sneers about what scientists are “hiding” (perhaps the decline? Perhaps??), and without even realizing that perhaps the scientists declined for a good reason, and perhaps the reason they stated is the truth: there’s no point in debating with “so-called skeptics”, because most “so-called-skeptics” (and I do not include a small bunch of them, such as you Lucia) are just in complete denial of any evidence (data!!) that shows how the planet is warming. Many of them are complete Glenn Becks full of Gish Gallops, and perhaps most scientists do not look forward to a gamed show where reason would probably be shouted out by red herrings, distortions, hyperboles and emotional right-wing drivel (mostly always right-wing drivel… wonder why).

Yes, perhaps that’s it. And one may well read in miss Kimberley’s tone that the scientists would not find in her any favorable (or not-unfavorable) moderation, at all. And in the end, whining about the coward scientists for not showing up to her little number.

Lucia, you may have a point about the rudeness displayed, but frankly that’s the only minor point you have here.

“because most “so-called-skeptics” (and I do not include a small bunch of them, such as you Lucia) are just in complete denial of any evidence”

This is not true. We just observe that the claim of “Evidence!” is different from actually having the “Evidence!”

If Warmers actually had the “Evidence!” to display, they could ship it to Northern Wisconsin so everyone there could evaluate it.

Coward Scientists wouldn’t be compelled to be rude to anyone, or need to travel in the cold. Just put the “Evidence!” in baggies, label, box it up and send it FedEx.

But that’s not going to happen either, is it?

Andrew

Luis–
Kimberly may be all you say. Certainly, the her argument is also nothing more than induendo. Had Michael not risen to that bait, I would have never even been aware of her complaint. (So, Michael served to make more people aware of her complaint than otherwise.)

But Kimberley’s poor argument was not why I posted. I posted because Michael Tobis actually seems to be asking how to respond to that sort of thing. If his goal is to sway anyone to believe AGW, he would have been wiser to ignore her article rather than write his truly counter productive post.

For some reason, Michael and those commenting on his blog seem truly blind and deaf to how one might persuade people. Yet they discuss this issue constantly. At some point, someone needs to tell these guys that when trying to discover why their screeds do not sway people to agree with them, it’s because their screeds are woefully unpersuasive.

On this:

without even realizing that perhaps the scientists declined for a good reason,

They haev a right to decline. That’s not the issue. Moreover, had they merely declined, she would have almost nothing to write. Her post would say something like, “In early January, I decided to try to schedule a debate on very short notice. Turns out prominent climate scientists from California declined telling me that they can’t squeeze a trip to North-of-Nowhere Wisconsin into their schedules on two weeks notice, especially not the first week classes commence at their universities. And anyway, I didn’t offer money to cover the flight, car rental and hotel. Silly me. I should have known this is something that needs more advance planning!”

..perhaps the reason they stated is the truth: there’s no point in debating with “so-called skeptics”, because most “so-called-skeptics”

Perhaps they see it this way. I think they are unwise to think so. But even if they are correct in thinking this, they would have been wiser to decline on the basis of having too busy a schedule.

If Michael Tobis’s goal is to help people figure out how to respond and communicate science (and it appears that is one of his goals) he would be wise to think about positive steps those who he is advising might take. In this case: Don’t be rude. Being rude will provide talking points that will circulate in PajamasMedia. That doesn’t help you become more persuasive.

Instead, he decided to slam those he claims he is trying to persuade.

Then, to add icing to the cake, he said something very stupid about science.

It’s an impressive display of mental filtering for Luis Dias to get from Kimberly Jo Simac’s posting to “fu**nuttery and tin foil hattism at its finest.”

There’s no there, there.

Maybe the invitations to the rude scientists were littered with these truther code words like ‘debate’ and ‘data’. Or maybe the rude scientists were teleconnected, no — chronoconnected, to the future and would know that Kimberly Jo Simac would post her “fu**nuttery and tin foil hattism at its finest” and so declined the invitations.

Or maybe, just maybe, the rude scientists are all hat and no cattle. I don’t know. What conclusion might Mr. Occam reach?

As for Michael Tobis even considering posting on the issue? Well Mr. Tobis competence in the area of public pursuasion strikes me as a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

a tea bagger group is inviting climate scientists, and you are telling them how to respond?

sorry Lucia, but you can t be serious abou this!

these are lunatics, as the very first comment on her blog illustrates. (“green NAZI”. a term and context, that is showing up a lot in those comments…)

she neither tells us, whatv she wrote in her invitation, nor what the replies were.

i am willing to bet, that she wrote quite insane stuff (like in her blog post) and that replies were pretty mild.

it simply is not a good idea, to discuss science in such an environment, or with such people. and scientists, like all people have the freedom to tell her what they think of her event.

i don t really get what is wrong with the Tobis post. pretty strong critisism from the people who have been mostly discussing stolen mail lately….

Given the amount of data that is turning out to be suspect these days, it doesn’t surprise me that a staunch AGW proponent like Tobis would let slip the bon mot “Science is not data.” I work in a lab, Michael. From where I sit, it’s all data.

Having seen the many errors on the climate.nasa.gov webpage, I decided to take a peek at the NASA Kids page linked to in the head post.

Here’s an interesting statement:

“”the area of the Arctic Ocean covered by sea ice is only 34% as large at the end of summer 2009 as it was in 1979.”
Ref: http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/ right upper box “Planet Health Report”, roll over “sea ice”.

If you follow the link you will find a map under the title “SEA LEVEL: What if it keeps rising this fast? ” showing how much of southern Florida and gulf coast will be underwater if the SEA LEVEL RISES 20 FEET!

That’s a nice alarmist statement that can be used to scare kids in Miami.

SOD: the Nazi comment was from a commenter on pajamas media, not Kimberly’s blog. Her request looked reasonable to me. My own experience with RC people and some warmers has been very disappointing. Some of them hurl insults to such an extent that I think they have mental problems. e.g. the insulting comment about Kimberly having 9 kids. What was Tobis’s point? Why insult people like that? If as is claimed people desire the truth then rational discussion is called for , but a lot of warmers will not partake of a discussion.

We may not agree with Monckton’s approach and facts but here is how warmers treated him in Australia-personal attacks-making fun of his eyes etc.

http://tinyurl.com/yevuqpz

Re: sod (Comment#31710) February 2nd, 2010 at 1:48 pm

a tea bagger group is inviting climate scientists, and you are telling them how to respond?
sorry Lucia, but you can t be serious abou this!
these are lunatics, as the very first comment on her blog illustrates.

They may very well be lunatics, but then they must be skilled lunatics.

There are reasons why PR departments exist.

Micheal wrote also:
.
“A modern society cannot continue to exist for very long when people take this attitude of contempt toward expertise. No average person doubts that Colt McCoy is a better athlete than they are. Why do people refuse to acknowledge that there are smarter people than themselves? A modern society cannot continue to exist for very long when people take this attitude of contempt toward expertise. No average person doubts that Colt McCoy is a better athlete than they are. Why do people refuse to acknowledge that there are smarter people than themselves? It is not just arrogance and ignorance. It’s dangerous.”
.
Micheal once again demonstrates his tenuous connection with reality. Most of us (maybe even Michael the brilliant) understand perfectly well that Nobel Prize winners in physics and chemistry are almost certainly much smarter than we are. But climate science is not quantum electrodynamics, protein chemistry, or even thermodynamics. It is a new field studying a very complicated stochastic system, with poor data and lots of uncertainties, and a field which has been grotesquely twisted by an overwhelming left/green political bias, morphing into a vocal advocate for draconian public actions which are consistent with that political bias.
.
That Micheal and other climate scientists can’t understand why this leads to legitimate doubts about climate science and climate scientists is not just arrogance and ignorance. It’s dangerous.
.
And, Michael, should you visit this thread, please don’t say this is a malicious argument, it is quite the opposite.

“Well, to be fair, miss Kimberly was also a jackass in her article, with her words clearly trending towards fu**nuttery and tin foil hattism at its finest, full of innuendos and sneers about what scientists are “hiding” (perhaps the decline? Perhaps??), and without even realizing that perhaps the scientists declined for a good reason, and perhaps the reason they stated is the truth: there’s no point in debating with “so-called skeptics”, because most “so-called-skeptics” (and I do not include a small bunch of them, such as you Lucia) are just in complete denial of any evidence (data!!) that shows how the planet is warming.”

Luis, why do you claim to be trying to be “fair” and then immediately resort to insulting someone. That isn’t going to raise anyone’s opinion of your point.

I do agree that there are some skeptics that do disagree with the actual data. However, that disagreement seems to have some potential validity, given the studies that are showing that the data was frankly “massaged” and “corrected” in ways which appear, at least currently, to be highly suspect. In addition, recent evidence also shows that the thermometers being used to record the “data” have been pared down recently to dis-include cooler and more rural temperature stations.

That being said, the satellite data, which is purported to be the most reliable, does show some warming. Most likely, SOME of that warming can be attributed to CO2, and SOME of the warming that can be attributed to CO2 can be attributed to the fraction of CO2 in the atmosphere which is emitted by humans.

Most skeptics do not actually doubt this. The thing that many skeptics doubt is the idea that the portion of the warming which can be attributed to not merely CO2, but the fraction of CO2 in the atmosphere which humans are directly responsible may not be all that significant.

Out of all the things in your post, “Or maybe the rude scientists were teleconnected, no — chronoconnected, to the future and would know that Kimberly Jo Simac would post her “fu**nuttery and tin foil hattism at its finest” and so declined the invitations.” is simply even more condescending, insulting, and downright stupid than the stuff that Michael Tobis said.

Until people like you and Tobis start treating other people (regardless of whether they are skeptics or not) with a certain amount of humanity and respect, the default position of the general population is going to be that you are arrogant and condescending, and since you are insulting rather than logically defending, most likely you are wrong.

The danger in that is that there is a possibility that you are not wrong. By definition, skeptic does NOT mean DENIER OR UNBELIEVER. A skeptic DOUBTS your position, but does not completely deny that it COULD be correct.

My advice would be for the AGW side of the argument to use the scientific method and the peer review process soundly and openly (as opposed to what they have been doing), not give the appearance of bad data manipulation (as opposed to what they have been doing), and treat other people with respect, even if they hold an opposing view. If none of that happens, more and more people are simply going to default to the position of “AGW is wrong” simply because that side of the issue appears to be doing bad science and treating people with arrogance and condescention, just as you did in your post.

Personally I’ve stopped debating with the NUTTERS who deny that we should have access to code and data. And I’m writing to Northwestern to see if we can get Tobis’ degree revoked.

Re: sod (Feb 2 13:48),

a tea bagger group is inviting climate scientists, and you are telling them how to respond?

sorry Lucia, but you can t be serious abou this!

Michael Tobis appears to be asking a question. Yes. I am taking the liberty to tell him his post may be an example of the worst possible way to respond anyone could have conceived of in a short amount of time. I assume Michael’s question was serious, and my answer is equally so.

Out of curiosity, why do you think Kimberley’s affiliate with the tea party movement means I can’t point out that Michael’s response to her post is tailor made to alienate the audience he ostensibly wishes to persuade to act to prevent or minimize Global Warming?

I think her being a member of a tea party movement makes Michaels behavior worse. His rude snark in her direction is likely to alienate precisely the group he claims he wants to persuade. Following that with a scientifically indefensible claim about data isn’t going to help.

On the other hand the snark, may cause a lot of cheering some climate activist echo chambers. Maybe the sound of that applause gives him more pleasure than thinking and acting in ways that might actually advance the cause he claims to value– that is getting people to act on climate change.

“a tea bagger group is inviting climate scientists, and you are telling them how to respond?

sorry Lucia, but you can t be serious abou this!

these are lunatics, as the very first comment on her blog illustrates. (“green NAZI”. a term and context, that is showing up a lot in those comments…)

she neither tells us, whatv she wrote in her invitation, nor what the replies were.

i am willing to bet, that she wrote quite insane stuff (like in her blog post) and that replies were pretty mild.

it simply is not a good idea, to discuss science in such an environment, or with such people. and scientists, like all people have the freedom to tell her what they think of her event.

i don t really get what is wrong with the Tobis post. pretty strong critisism from the people who have been mostly discussing stolen mail lately….”

Sod,

As you well know, the term “tea bagger” is extremely condescending and insulting, and certainly isn’t going to win you any points with most serious people here. Also, you are completely speculating, with no basis whatsoever, as to the actual content of her invitation, as well as the actual content of Tobis’s response(s). You have no actual idea what the content of either was, so what purpose does your speculation serve? Do you have a crystal ball which you are using, or are you just applying your notion of what a skeptic “normally behaves like” and what a “scientist” “normally behaves like” and painting with a broad brush?

Recent evidence has shown that many “scientists” have in fact behaved quite badly, scientifically, ethically, and in the way in which they treat other human beings. I am afraid that your post is simply a sad reflection of that instead of the refutation you intended it to be.

As I said before, until scientists show that they can use the scientific method soundly, not manipulate data in ways which appear to be highly suspect, and defend their data by showing that it is indeed sound science rather than simply shouting down or insulting their “opposition”, more and more “regular people” are simply going to stop believing anything which they have to say, regardless of whether it is right or wrong.

If you want people to believe that you are wrong, give the appearance of dodgy, fudged data and manipulated peer review, and then insult and belittle anyone who disagrees with you or points out the flaws in your methodology rather than attempting to honestly defend your method and data. That is a SURE way to turn the average person TOTALLY against your position.

I love when I hear this:

“there’s no point in debating with “so-called skeptics”, because most “so-called-skeptics” (and I do not include a small bunch of them, such as you Lucia) are just in complete denial of any evidence (data!!) that shows how the planet is warming.”

Well, there IS a point to debating with them. see if you can figure it out

They haev a right to decline. That’s not the issue. Moreover, had they merely declined, she would have almost nothing to write. Her post would say something like, “In early January, I decided to try to schedule a debate on very short notice. Turns out prominent climate scientists from California declined telling me that they can’t squeeze a trip to North-of-Nowhere Wisconsin into their schedules on two weeks notice, especially not the first week classes commence at their universities. And anyway, I didn’t offer money to cover the flight, car rental and hotel. Silly me. I should have known this is something that needs more advance planning!”

Vidoeconferencing equipment is commonly available even in obscure places like Wisconsin

Re: PeterB in Indianapolis (Feb 2 14:33),
Actually, I like Luis.

Also, I don’t think Tobis was invited to speak in North-of-Nowhere Wisconsin. I think others were. I’m criticizing Tobis for what he wrote in his recent blog article. We can’t be entirely sure what the scientists who turned down the invitation said, but we know Kimberley thinks it was rude and she said so in an open forum.

It appears however that Tobis and others at his blog pretty well assume accepts her characterization of the tenor of their declines. No one has suggested that Kimberley is lying about the responses.

Re: steven mosher (Feb 2 14:43),
I agree with you that there is a point in debating skeptics.

In contrast, there is no point with coming up with endless excuses why it’s just futile to debate. Even more futile to expend energy explaining why debate is futile. If debate is futile, why not rest your weary fingers, pop a beer and go play some Pong!

Do you want the Truth, or something beautiful?

Out of curiosity, why do you think Kimberley’s affiliate with the tea party movement means I can’t point out that Michael’s response to her post is tailor made to alienate the audience he ostensibly wishes to persuade to act to prevent or minimize Global Warming?

i don t know what audience you are talking about. no serious person is accepting the tea baggers as a serious voice. sorry.

I think her being a member of a tea party movement makes Michaels behavior worse. His rude snark in her direction is likely to alienate precisely the group he claims he wants to persuade.

again, what group are you talking about?

Following that with a scientifically indefensible claim about data isn’t going to help.

well, i do get the idea that everything is data somehow. like everything is noise.

it still is quite a stupid thing to shout during a classic concert..

ps: Tobis is getting hate mail, after Morano decided to link and post his mail. you folks are on the wrong side of this thing!

oh and just in case you missed this one (might have been a hoax, though…)

http://tpmlivewire.talkingpoin.....nstead.php

Re: sod (Feb 2 15:31),

i don t know what audience you are talking about. no serious person is accepting the tea baggers as a serious voice. sorry.

Some voters are.

again, what group are you talking about?

People who vote.

it still is quite a stupid thing to shout during a classic concert..

huh?

ps: Tobis is getting hate mail, after Morano decided to link and post his mail. you folks are on the wrong side of this thing!

It’s unfortunately people tend to send hate mail, and I feel sorry for Michael if he’s a target. But his being a target doesn’t make what he says or does any less counterproductive.

Now, since you posted something so cryptic, whic mail did Morano post? Do you have a link? Who sent the hate mail? did they send it to Tobis’s home? Enquiring minds want to know.

Welcome to the intelligentsia. The little people just can’t understand big concepts like AGW, health care legislation ect. They’ve taken on the characteristics of “art” critics that sneer at you if you don’t grasp the “cosmic meaning” in a group of random paint splashes.

Oh and just because a person has a high IQ or high position doesn’t mean they’re not nutters about some subject outside of the realm they made their achievements in (or even inside of it).

“i don t know what audience you are talking about. no serious person is accepting the tea baggers as a serious voice. sorry.”

sod,

Being a Tea Partier myself (and sometimes a Serious Person), I wonder if maybe the word ’serious’ doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Andrew

Ok.. I found the Morano tie in:

Climate Alarmist Michael Tobis Disses Skeptical Mother of 9 kids who Questions Climate Fears: ‘How much time [have] you had to think about complicated grownup stuff? Email: xxxxxx@gmail.com

Let’s see… what did I write… Let’s see..

Well, let me tell you a secret Michael: yah’ shouldn’t have gone there. Sorry, no, you can’t retract that statement and then pretend people are required to forget your first response was to argue by tossing out the equivalent of a school yard taunt.

I had a recent run in with Tobis and am probably still p****d off about his rudeness, but I gotta say that’s just about the most clueless thing I’ve seen someone write about the climate wars yet. He is making Joe Romm look like a gentleman.

“Why do people refuse to acknowledge that there are smarter people than themselves?”

Being ’smart’ doesn’t preclude one from being ignorant or wrong. I’m pretty sure ‘Club Fed’ is filled with people who believed they were smart.

It took 400 years for someone to work out how to build Michael Angelo’s helicopter.

Gosh,

Somewhere log ago on a tamino thread and then again here I tried to explain my views on this whole “dont debate denialists” I argued and do now that it is a dangerous position to take. And the dangerous one is the person who will not debate.

Michael:

““A modern society cannot continue to exist for very long when people take this attitude of contempt toward expertise. No average person doubts that Colt McCoy is a better athlete than they are. Why do people refuse to acknowledge that there are smarter people than themselves? A modern society cannot continue to exist for very long when people take this attitude of contempt toward expertise. No average person doubts that Colt McCoy is a better athlete than they are. Why do people refuse to acknowledge that there are smarter people than themselves? It is not just arrogance and ignorance. It’s dangerous.”

Well, first a few irony points. Why does Mann still refuse to admit that he got some things wrong ( like tiljander, like the rain in maine, like decntering.. list goes on) its not just arrogance and ignorance. It’s dangerous.

But lets get to Michaels deeper point. he thinks that a modern society depends up some people recognizing that other people are smarter. And if they dont recognize that fact that somehow modern society is threatened. Well, a few points here.
Micheal really means more than this. I surely recognize that Gavin is smarter than I am. I still would like to debate him on the issue of open science. And there are some other issues where I think I’d like to debate him. Even though he is smarter, I think he is wrong. What does my experience tell me? Well, I was smarter than all my students. Still sometimes I was wrong and they pointed it out. Other times I was right and they made me strengthen my argument or simplify it.. So micheal really doesnt just want the RECOGNITION that some people are smarter. he wants them to obey smarter people. At least that is how I will read him until he comes here and clarifies. he doesnt want to argue with dumb people because they wont listen to words. he just wants them to trust him and obey him. And when they WONT, then that’s a danger.

So since these people are a danger to modern society. What do we do with them?

The real danger? people who think like micheal.
Where’s my little red book.

Some voters are.

you don t really think that the people moved by the tea baggers would swing to the AGW side, if Tobis hadn t made a comment about that mother?

the idea that a real scientists should speak at a tea party event about AGW is simply stupid. it would be completely useless and a tactical error.

and i also think that a scientist has the right and actually should tell them his real opinion. again, making up excuses (i t s not on my way) would not be a good idea and a tactical error.

Let’s see… what did I write… Let’s see..

sorry lucia, but this sounds a little too much like “get what you deserve”.
the real problem here is with the right wing lunatics, not with Tobis.

Being a Tea Partier myself

why am i not surprised?

ps: Tom, will you write a post to educate your readers about the satellite datasets?

sod–
I can interpret your question in a range of ways with the extreme being:

Do I think a confirmed member of the tea party movement would swing toward Michael’s alamist POV if Michael had not be utterly rude toward Simac? The answer to that is no.

Do I think people in general who might be open to listening to members of the tea party movement might be open to listening to Michael’s ideas about taking steps to reduce CO2 emissions if he had not been utterly rude to Simac? The answer to this is absolutely yes.

I think plenty of voters who do not participate in the tea party movement, listen to arguments on all sides and are willing to vote in either direction according to which side seems more persuasive in their eyes. Some of these have equal sympathy for members of the tea party movement and AGW activists.

Michael’s rude behavior, and active mischaracterization of the role of data in science will tend to make them swing away from the group he claims to represent. Michaels unnecessary nastiness toward Simac will make some feel sympathy Simac. Feeling sympathy, some will spend more time listening to her than the otherwise might have.

If Michael is hoping to persuade people to act on AGW, he would be well advised to either a) get some communication coaching or b) learn to sit in the background writing scripts and while permitting someone who doesn’t say stupid things to do the actual communicating.

i like the reply that Tobis has posted (February 2, 2010 2:21 PM )

i disagree about your data claim,. Tobis has not said anything that i consider to be blatantly false.

More Tobis–

I say that being a mother (or father) of nine is the opposite of a qualification for taking a substantive public position on a complex matter.

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8524070301101240472&postID=588205887388799105

Wow. Just wow!

Tom Fuller (Comment#31736),
“He is making Joe Romm look like a gentleman.”

Naw, they are cut from the same cloth, and besides, Joe is more practiced at abuse and character assassination. I just hope that Joe and Micheal become more widely heard and read…. every word they utter or write makes implementation of their political agenda less likely.

I fully agree with Mosher that all publicly funded code and data should be available unless there is a specific military or public safety interest to the contrary.

I said so recently:

http://initforthegold.blogspot.....ative.html

I happily say so again.

On this matter I am strongly sympathetic to the Climate Audit community, and quite taken aback by the shallow defenses I have seen from the climate science community.

I appreciate that Lucia has focused on the important bit of controversy in the article, which is the relationship between data and science. When the current publicity burst from Morano settles down we should discuss it.

“I say that being a mother (or father) of nine is the opposite of a qualification for taking a substantive public position on a complex matter.”

Double wow! No wonder he gets hate mail. I was willing to believe Micheal was intelligent but misguided, but I have changed my mind, I think he is a malintentioned idiot.

I say that being a mother (or father) of nine is the opposite of a qualification for taking a substantive public position on a complex matter.

Gee, I wonder where he draws the line. Seven? Five? Oh… how ’bout four?

http://clinton1.nara.gov/White.....family.gif

John M,
“Gee, I wonder where he draws the line. Seven? Five? Oh… how ’bout four?”

He has already drawn the line… at zero. But he has a thousand non-fiction books, not counting what his wife has forced him to throw away.

“I’d start out by saying I am a father of zero.”

Tobis is wearing this like a badge of honour. Seriously. Clueless.

SteveF–
The line seems to be at two. Here’s the relevant quote.

I think having more than two children per family in an overcrowded world is ethically dubious,

Unless Tobis missed modifying cause lie “having more than two born after 19XX”, then Gore is ethically dubious. Wikipedia indicates Joe Biden has 4 kids. Clearly, Obama should not have picked someone so ethically dubious as Veep.

Nancy Pelosi is listed as having five children, which must certainly prevent her from thinking about complex grown up stuff.

So many important government representatives unable to think about complex grown up stuff. No wonder the country is going to heck in a hand-basket!

Sod,

“Tobis is getting hate mail, after Morano decided to link and post his mail. you folks are on the wrong side of this thing!”

And twana brawley was raped. Please. If he is getting hate mail he should post it. That way we can all argue that it is being taken out of context, that it is a hoax, that people could not really mean the things they are saying. You know all the defenses for the climategate mails.

hehe. thats a joke sod.

GUESS WHAT? if you insult people they will insult you back. If you tell people that they should just listen to you, and stop arguing, if you tell them that there is no debate because they are stupid, if you tell them they are dangerous, GUESS WHAT? you reap exactly what you sow.

Thanks for that Micheal. I’ll stop my petition with NU. hehe.
good to see you again.

perhaps we should refine the “to debate or not debate issue”

PS TOM.

A long while back Micheal and I conversed offline via email.
Our discussion was reasonable etc. I think he may have a bit of the Moshpit in him. basically, worse in pubic than in private.
Funny but when I met Watts back in 2007 he said the same thing about me.

John M.,

The Clintons had one kid and are both qualified to be President. The Gores had four. I would not vote for Tipper.

Mrs. Gore has expressed strong opinions about profane lyrics in popular music. This is a topic for which being an effective mother of four whose husband is qualified to be President can reasonably be said to have expertise.

This doesn’t seem very complicated to me. There are 24 hours in a day. Hours you spend reading “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey” aloud are hours you do not spend doing the exercises in A. Papoulis’ “Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes”, for instance. It is not impossible to do both, of course, but it is more difficult.

If you find that insulting, explain it to me rationally without huffing and puffing. Are there magic powers of parents to devote many hours to their children’s development and many hours to their personal development at the same time? All else equal, hours spent on one thing are hours not spent on another. You make your choices and you live with them.

The only way the argument makes sense to me is by beginning with the presumption that there is no significant skill set involved in climate science. That’s a peculiar world view, unless you believe there is no science of any relevance, just raw observations and poorly constrained graphs of temperature against time. If that was really all there is to climate science, I suppose you would have a point.

Lucia,

I have 6 children (by three different women), ranging in age from 31 to 2. And 6 more poor kids I help support in developing nations; and one poor college student (a girl) I support in Honduras.

I guess all that disqualifies me from any further comment on serious grown-up stuff. Since I clearly have no vested interest in the future, I’ll have to leave the serious matters like climate change to brilliant self-sacrificing people like Micheal Tobis.

Sod–

the idea that a real scientists should speak at a tea party event about AGW is simply stupid.

I disagree with you. But for what it’s worth, in my post, I didn’t criticize the scientists for not speaking at the event. I criticized Michael Tobis for being unforgivably rude to Ms. Simac when he claims he hopes to persuade people like her to support actions to mitigate AGW. This is a different thing.

If I had made a value judgment about the scientists choices, I would mostly observe they would have been wiser to decline with “Sorry. My schedule won’t permit it.” Adding the other tidbits was unwise. If nothing else, it provides talking points– and has. (

But that wasn’t the topic of my post. My topic is: Michael, is asking how he can better respond to people like Simac. The answer is: By not saying any of the things Michael chose to say in his post.

Also didn’t say Michael got what he deserved. I do observe that the inevitable occurred. You drop a stone in a pond and ripples form and radiate out. This has nothing to do with what you deserve; it’s just what happens. Sometimes, it is worth understanding that certain reactions are inevitable. Or you can go through life spitting into the wind. Not my problem.

By the way, you might want to clarify who said “Being a Tea Partier myself”. It wasn’t me.

Well, I joined in at my normal place of business–just cheering on the food fight. Like a football game where you don’t have a stake in the outcome, I’m just rooting for no injuries. Mr. Tobis, you may mean well, but you have inserted your foot in your mouth. Have you done a simple search to find the very modern stories of mothers who are practicing scientists?

There is not one thing you have said here or on your own weblog that could not have been said about a much larger section of the public that do not have children. And you are starting to make climate science into a Guild of Mysteries that only the few Adepts are capable of comprehending, and you as one of the very few who can pronounce oracularly to the masses on Their preachings.

Fess up, say you’re sorry and don’t let this turn into some Greek tragedy.

“By the way, you might want to clarify who said “Being a Tea Partier myself”. It wasn’t me.”

…because being a Tea Partier is the Worst Thing In The World!

An Elite Progressive American Liberal would never dirty themselves with such an association.

Andrew

Michael–
Pappoulis — a book I own– ain’t that complicated. Pappoulis is also utterly unnecessary to understanding the basics of the enhanced greenhouse effect or appreciating the observational evidence for the effect. If you think otherwise, you may be educated, but you are very foolish.

Tom Fuller (Comment#31757),
“I’m just rooting for no injuries.”
.
Does shooting yourself in the foot count as an injury?

Re: Andrew_KY (Feb 2 17:41),
No. Because the way sod organized his comment makes it appear I said I am a tea partier. However, I am not a tea partier. I am also not a member of the Elks or a Daughter or the American revolution.

Hmm.

Lets see. Who do I trust more with the future of the planet.
a mother of 9 who knows if her kid is hiding something it cant be good.. or a scientist who hides his data and the tribe that supports him inspite of the fact that they know better.
you see micheal
Since I’ve spent some time with uneducated people explaining Global warming to them I know what it takes to convince the uneducated. But I will be damned if I can find anyone beside you
with a three digit IQ in climate science who will agree that climate scientists should turn over their code and data.

Now, what is more scary. being ruled by the ignorant who are at least capable of being educated or being ruled by the educated who KNOW they are wrong about data and code sharing, who KNOW IT, and still deny it. It was one thing to be blithely ignorant of the holocaust. It is quite another to be an educated person seeing the signs and looking the other way.

Sorry, I’m with Mom.

gotta love a woman who votes for the future of the planet with her uterus. Hmm, which has more adaptive value. Micheal’s IQ or a uterus?

All else equal, hours spent on one thing are hours not spent on another. You make your choices and you live with them.

Wow, have you discussed that with your local “Women in Science” chapter?

If you think you’re getting hate mail now…

“And you are starting to make climate science into a Guild of Mysteries that only the few Adepts are capable of comprehending, and you as one of the very few who can pronounce oracularly to the masses on Their preachings.”

Not exactly. But I have spent twenty years on it and there are people whose opinions I would take over mine in a heartbeat.

I recall an instance where I confidently said something about polar amplification, and Matt Huber jumped in to say I was wrong. I withdrew my argument immediately. When I say something about climate and he says I am wrong, my money is on Matt. It isn’t a matter of years; Matt is a fair bit younger than I am and started in on his doctorate later than I did. He’s more focused, though, and in relevant ways, smarter. If it’s a question of climate physics, I defer to Matt without hesitation.

A lot of people have a lot of trouble admitting that other people’s opinions are worth more than their own. I think that is a very bad mistake, terribly misplaced arrogance, and if it becomes widespread, poisonous for democracy.

This doesn’t mean that science is inaccessible except to a priesthood. On the contrary, I believe it is something everybody should do more of!

As Clifford Johnson said to me once, “Scientists aren’t special people. We are ordinary people doing a special thing.”

But along with the sort of skepticism that you all celebrate, a very key ingredient of science is self-skepticism. I see that horribly undervalued by the public. This debate just brings it into focus. Ray Pierrehumbert knows more about climate than Matt Huber does, Matt Huber knows more about climate than I do, I know more than Lucia does, and Lucia knows more than Madame Teabags, who in turn knows marginally more than her trained horses.

That’s just the way it goes, and it’s not easily corrected because it is a field with real depth. Like any such field, hard work , intelligence and a particular set of personality characteristics all
go into determining who is good at it.

In the past, pop science would be the mechanism for sharing the insights in science. When pop climatology decided it would be more fun to destroy climatology by burying it in a blizzard of amateur charts and graphs, and grossly exaggerated accusations, a new kind of problem emerged.

(None of this means that I believe that the practice of science these days doesn’t have problems, by the way. That there are some is obvious. Perhaps you all don’t understand how thoroughly you aren’t helping, though. You aren’t just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You have completely forgotten that there is a baby.)

If Micheal is asking for advice on how to convince people to do what he wants, he should consult somebody who has spent their life getting people to do things they dont want to do.

Like a mom.

You see, Lucia is right. Micheal asked for advice on rhetoric. he should really consult some experts on rhetoric. Guys in marketing. Guys in advertising, PR, people who have taught rhetoric (grin) but best of all somebody who has spent all day with irrational little creatures. Moms.

“But I will be damned if I can find anyone beside you
with a three digit IQ in climate science who will agree that climate scientists should turn over their code and data.”

sigh…

Try the same stunt in any other science. See if you get a different result.

They are not hiding their code and data from you. They are hiding their code and data from each other.

This is because for every real scientist there are three hacks and a huckster who will happily steal your work and call it theirs for a chance to get out of the lecturer track at East Podunk U and a shot at tenure at a real university. (The huckster won’t even bother giving you any credit.) Some of them get away with it too.

The computationally adept will note that this shouldn’t work anymore, so it should be a nonissue. Somebody needs to inform the journals, the hucksters, the hacks and the real scientists though.

Micheal,

Thank you for writing all the offensive drivel. It is like a gift to my children, since with each word you help ensure that unjustified global warming legislation will never be enacted. I don’t think you appreciate how much you are helping.

The ubiquitous sod is just as disingenuous as ever; the AGW supporters have from day one assumed a superiority, both moral and intellectual, over the barbarians disputing AGW; at this basic level the psychology behind AGW is a sense of superiority and the ego invested in that will make recognition of error difficult; it is not sufficient to say that it is a matter of expertise; people engage expeerts at particular times in their lives and to do particular tasks; you don’t engage an expert to decide your life and this is what AGW experts are claiming to have the right to do under the egregious justification of saving the world. In law, which has a profound effect on people’s lives, there are myriad hierarchies of checks and balances. In Australia the appeals system smooths out the rough edges of peculiar or outlier decisions; the system is not perfect as the Peter Spencer debacle demonstrated but there is no equivalent check and balance in the scientific peer review system which must now be regarded as a corrupted vehicle for scientific discourse. Given this it is no wonder that non scientific experts such as Lord Monckton are receiving such public attention from a public which is heartily sick of arrogant pronouncements from science experts wrapped in dismissives of layman concerns; still the assumption of superiority is manifest in dealings with Monckton by ’scientists’;

http://blogs.news.com.au/heral.....alitarian/

A final comment on expertise; the court and legal system recognises that experience in a field may enable a non-academically qualified person to be regarded as having as much expertise as an academically qualified expert; no such latitutude is present in the science arena despite people like McIntyre demonstrating equivalent understanding as the Schmidts and sundry AGW proponents.

Lucia,

“Lucia knows more than Madame Teabags, who in turn knows marginally more than her trained horses.”
“When pop climatology decided it would be more fun to destroy climatology by burying it in a blizzard of amateur charts and graphs”
.
I could be mistaken, but I think you have been dissed.

“This is because for every real scientist there are three hacks and a huckster ”

In My Climate Science study, it appears there are at least 10 criminals to for each real scientist found.

Andrew

Re: SteveF (Feb 2 18:21),

I could be mistaken, I think you have been dissed.

Yes. But considering the obvious intellectual deficiencies of the source, who cares? It is also rather obvious that Michael’s ability to discern who knows more than he is impaired.

In respect to the Tobisian view of people who are smarter than other people.

Jane Jacobs wrote “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”. It is about the massive failure of the urban renewal effort. This effort housed people in large developments over which they had no control. As a result, these developments rapidly became vertical slums rampant with crime and violence.

These projects were the product of the minds of the leading urban theorists of their day. Jacobs was an untrained housewife who also happened to be one of the few true geniuses of the 20th century. Now go back to 1960. On one hand, you have he opinions of learned thinkers from prestigious universities. On the other hand, you have a housewife. Now whom would you believe. Taking the Tobisian view you would reject the views of a housewife who would know “marginally more than her trained horses.” You would be completely wrong of course.

Taking another example, who would know more about physics – Einstein or Planck. Did they agree on the science?

lucia (Comment#31776),

I suppose. But if the source has no respect for a bunch of experienced (though skeptical) scientists and engineers, people who really do know a bit about the rational evaluation of theory and data, how much respect can he have for the general public, or the process of democracy for that matter. And that really is dangerous.

Michael Tobis,

“There are 24 hours in a day. Hours you spend reading “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey” aloud are hours you do not spend doing the exercises in A. Papoulis’ “Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes”, for instance.”

And exactly how many hours does she sleep a day Mr. Tobis??

What? You don’t know?? I felt like an underachiever myself until I heard that bloke who owns Virgin Airlines only sleeps about 3 hours a day!! I guess you can’t judge everyone’s abilities by what you believe about yourself. She may have read more than you have BEFORE she had the kids!!! She may have babysitters…

You haven’t the vagues idea yet are willing to pass judgement on her and her accomplishments which you know nothing about. Typical AGW’er!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

SOD,

“tea bagger” seems to be a term familiar to you. Please share your personal experiences. Maybe Pauchari can use some of it in his next book!!

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 2 18:00),

A lot of people have a lot of trouble admitting that other people’s opinions are worth more than their own. I think that is a very bad mistake, terribly misplaced arrogance, and if it becomes widespread, poisonous for democracy.

This doesn’t mean that science is inaccessible except to a priesthood. On the contrary, I believe it is something everybody should do more of!

and

In the past, pop science would be the mechanism for sharing the insights in science. When pop climatology decided it would be more fun to destroy climatology by burying it in a blizzard of amateur charts and graphs, and grossly exaggerated accusations, a new kind of problem emerged.

One group of people who seem to have this trouble of admitting other opinions are worth more than theirs is climatologists when considering the effects of non-stationary phenomena on confidence intervals rather than statisticians. They also seem to be into amateur charts and graphs with gross exaggerations (on the tightness of confidence intervals). But in their case, a new problem did not emerge, it was an old problem, instead. It is the problem of the loss of trust. Blaming “pop culture” is a “red herring”. Some of these scientists are publishing the PRL, and it is their criticisms that have gained traction.

In fact, I think Mosher and Fuller’s book would be a good read for you MT. It does a good job of examining aspects of the controversy, such as “hide the decline,” in a way that illuminates the perception problems, as well as showing how it MIGHT effect the results. After all, until released and verified, certain claims of the science may have not undergone a critical review. Or is this what you really mean to say in deferring to Matt Huber: No challenges, no verification, just unreasoned acceptance. Although you give reason to accept Matt as an expert, each and every argument should be able to stand on its on, whether or not Matt agrees, don’t you think? If it can’t stand on its on, then I would claim its acceptance is unreasoned.

Oh, I also think “arrogance” is the most correct and useful word to describe climatologists and AGW advocates response to the evidence the emails have given the world in support of certain skeptics and their positions. I also think arrogance is the best description when someone states

A lot of people have a lot of trouble admitting that other people’s opinions are worth more than their own. I think that is a very bad mistake, terribly misplaced arrogance, and if it becomes widespread, poisonous for democracy.

if they do not allow that the person complaining that their opinion is worth more than another person is the person who is paying for it, or being taxed for it. I would maintain that, taxes and a household budget being simpler than climate science, these persons complaining of climatologists arrogantly claiming to know more about what to do with someone else’s finances (their’s) and what should be budgeted, by your own arguments are correct. They do have a valid reason and right to complain and climatologists are poisonous to the proper discourse in democracy.

Imagine a male politician who openly states that women with more than X number of kids are likely not intelligent enough to participate in politics, and they have no right to question whatever social issues are being debated at the moment. Before you can say the word “sexist” he’ll be distanced by his friends, lynched by his foes, and made fun of all over the news media, and be forced by the “higher-ups” to resign in three days. Luckily academia is a slightly different environment. Or maybe not. Is Dr. Tobis teaching any classes? Would be nice to let his students learn about his unique POV on the relationship between women’s intelligent level and childbearing.

Mr. (Dr?) Tobis:

Thank you for taking the time to respond. Even if your responses are met with scorn, the fact that you decided to engage in the discourse should be applauded.

Here ya go sod,

Since you are completely uninformed regarding what Tea Parties are about, here’s a good story to get you started learning about them.

“Keli Carender, blogger, teacher and star of the movement, organized some of the earliest Tea Party-style protests — before they were even called Tea Party protests. As far back as February of 2009, Carender held a rally against the economic stimulus package in downtown Seattle.”

“I tried to boil down in essence what makes me so angry about it,” Carender says. “And it was this idea that he and other people decide what the needs are in society. They get to decide. But in order to fund those things, they have to take from some people in order to give to the other people.”

http://www.npr.org/templates/s.....=123229743

Andrew

This video will help, too:

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

Andrew

Tobis: I say that being a mother (or father) of nine is the opposite of a qualification for taking a substantive public position on a complex matter.

plus he’s got 1000 nonfiction books!!

Michael Tobis,

1. Stop digging.

2. Get a clue. Your argument from authority is a fallacy. Give it up.

3. Insulting people because of the number of children they have. C’mon, man. Really?! You really want to go down that road?

4. Hubris. If you are as smart as you want us to believe, you should be well aware of the concept. Embrace its lessons.

5. If all the AGW experts are so brilliant, perhaps you can pass along some ideas that will help them communicate better. First, calibrate the instruments. Real scientists do it every day. They should try it. And site those instruments in accordance with basic scientific standards. School children have done it. I’m sure they could handle it, too. They can even ask for help, if they find it too hard. And on that asking for help idea — get them some help from some stats and software pros. Really. If they’d stop screwing the code and stats so badly, we’d stop laughing so hard.

But I must say that your claim that they are smart is certainly an interesting twist. We’d sure never be able to tell from their work.

stan (Comment#31789),

Good advice, all of it. But you might as well be talking to a wall.

Michael,

” Lucia knows more than Madame Teabags, who in turn knows marginally more than her trained horses.”

Madame Teabags would be referring to a transgendered individual.

Hence, you should avoid attempts at communicating, your command of contemporary language and human anatomy is insufficient to even correctly communicate something as simple as gender.

1. Stop digging.

I seem to have violated a tabu. Motherhood, apple pie good. More motherhgoood, more apple pie, better. Most motherhood, most apple pie, best. Got it.

2. Get a clue. Your argument from authority is a fallacy. Give it up.

Argument from authority is a fallacy when arguing among authorities. It’s pretty clearly impossible for everybody to figure out everything for themselves, as y’all demonstrate regularly.

See http://www.juliansanchez.com/2.....fallacies/

3. Insulting people because of the number of children they have. C’mon, man. Really?! You really want to go down that road?

Hey. She brought it up. For some reason.

And I didn’t insult her. I just suggested it didn’t actually support her claim to be a good source on this matter, and if anything, argued the opposite. Apparently this is tabu. But we covered this in point 1, didn’t we? Oh, sorry, that was so long ago you must have forgotten.

4. Hubris. If you are as smart as you want us to believe, you should be well aware of the concept. Embrace its lessons.

Dude. I will if you do.

5. If all the AGW experts are so brilliant, perhaps you can pass along some ideas that will help them communicate better. First, calibrate the instruments. Real scientists do it every day. They should try it. And site those instruments in accordance with basic scientific standards. School children have done it. I’m sure they could handle it, too. They can even ask for help, if they find it too hard.

School children are not asking for cooperation from 190 countries, some of which have bigger problems than thermometer siting. The thermometers in general are used for weather and not climate, so the moves are not controlled by climate people. But we appreciate your advice. Perhaps you might wonder if climate observation people have not been making the case for long continuous, high quality records. Naw, they wouldn’t do that. It’s all about the evil windmill conspiracy, isn’t it?

And on that asking for help idea — get them some help from some stats and software pros. Really. If they’d stop screwing the code and stats so badly, we’d stop laughing so hard.

I guess we somewhat agree on this point. While I don’t agree that achievements to date are laughable, I do think progress has been painfully slow of late. I think many of us would like to get funding and resources for things like that. I sure would. I try to advocate for this all the time. If you’d stop wasting the field’s time with inquisitions, and advocated providing funds for more collaboration with software professionals and statisticians instead, you’d see improvements, I figure.

I love when I hear this:
“there’s no point in debating with “so-called skeptics”, because most “so-called-skeptics” (and I do not include a small bunch of them, such as you Lucia) are just in complete denial of any evidence (data!!) that shows how the planet is warming.”
Well, there IS a point to debating with them. see if you can figure it out

Perhaps Steven Mosher won’t be here reading this any longer, but still. You missed the part where I stated that most “skeptics” are Glenn Beck types doing Gish Gallops. Perhaps you like to read Monckton’s red herrings and distortions, or Bob Carter’s for all you care, but I can see why many scientists don’t. A debate of that kind would instill confusion and FUD, which is precisely what these people want most, to create enough uncertainty to stop action.

Not that I mind people showing how the bad apples inside Climatology are rotten. Be my guests, and please show us how the models are all overstated, and how feedbacks are exagerated. But in peer-review, not in high-schools, mkay?!?

Lucia, I get your point. And I appreciate Tobis coming by.

Michael Tobis (Comment#31794),

Like I said, talking to a wall.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 2 20:48),

I seem to have violated a tabu

No. What you did was substitute snide remarks for reasoned argument.

And I didn’t insult her. I just suggested it didn’t actually support her claim to be a good source on this matter,

First: you absolutely did insult her.

Second, she did not claim to be a good source on the matter. She actually specifically said she was not. Since she did claim to be a source, even people whose wombs have not brought forth a nine children can easily grasp the notion that the fact you chose to rebut a non-existent claim reflects poorly on your intellectual skills.

Also, I never got much into that whole discussion of the mother of 9 being “unable” to understand “climate science”. Yeah, that may well be true, but I never understood that she would be the “skeptic” one.

If that was the perception, perhaps the 9 kids did distract her from being more clear on the matter in her invitation letters?

stan (Comment#31789) February 2nd, 2010 at 8:08 pm

Michael Tobis,

1. Stop digging.

2. . . . . . .

Stan, good summary of the “debacle du Tobias”.

May I add that what I think we are seeing, unfortunately, is his unrestrained real beliefs peeking out. Wow, if his intention is to promote AGW we need to wonder about his judgement.

John

John Whitman (Comment#31803),

“if his intention is to promote AGW we need to wonder about his judgement.”
.
Naw, no need to wonder, his judgment is crap. Which is why he doesn’t appreciate that “pride goes before a fall”. AGW zealots like Micheal should be looking for a soft landing spot, but I suspect they are not.

Lucia,

This is the first occasion that i’ve spent some significant time at your site. I heard good things about you over at WUWT were I have spent alot of time recently.

I like the your style. Best of blogging to you.

John

Micheal:

“Try the same stunt in any other science. See if you get a different result.”

We’ll in some sciences you don’t even have to ask. It’s provide as a matter of course. Further, listen to your mom. Even if Johnny does something bad doesnt mean you can. NEXT.

“They are not hiding their code and data from you. They are hiding their code and data from each other.”

False: jones provided the so called “cnfidential data” to Rutherford and Webster, and one other who slips my mind.
Mann provided his residuals to Osborn. Don’t you read the mail.
NEXT.

“This is because for every real scientist there are three hacks and a huckster who will happily steal your work and call it theirs for a chance to get out of the lecturer track at East Podunk U and a shot at tenure at a real university. (The huckster won’t even bother giving you any credit.) Some of them get away with it too.”
Simple: GPL license. It doesnt prevent theft, but it would allow someone to be called up on academic charges. Again, just because someone may do something bad with your data does not relieve you of your intellectual and moral responsibility. NEXT.

In fact, I’m not a zealot about AGW. I really am a zealot for truth. If you guys really had the goods, I’d change sides very quickly. Alas for all of us, you don’t.

Now to be sure, Mrs Simac did not explicitly claim that her background qualified her. But she implied that it did not disqualify her and then went on to make extravagant and baseless claims that showed she was not, in fact, qualified. Then she mocked various ideas without engaging them, and finally claimed that it was “outrageous” to propose that high school students would not understand scientific ideas in the presence of active disinformation campaigns. It’s the outrage itself I find outrageous.

The issue is whether it is sensible for some people to claim to know more than others. If it isn’t, I don’t really see how we have come as far as we have. If, on the contrary, it is reasonable to believe in expertise, then the opinions expressed by Mrs Simac are dangerous, whether or not the climate science consensus is well-founded.

Now, we can go back to our usual game of examining that question, but you should realize that Mrs Simac has greatly upped the ante.

She believes a high school student is as qualified as anybody to make judgments about anything at all, that it is unreasonable to propose otherwise!

This is an old and dangerous trend in America, this celebration of ignorance. It is terrifying to see Mr. Murdoch successfully promoting it, demoralizing to see a major political party embracing it, and disappointing, Lucia, to see you coddling it to earn a few cheap points at my expense. These days it is a bigger risk than climate change.

Michael Tobis (Comment#31811)
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:22 pm
“In fact, I’m not a zealot about AGW. I really am a zealot for truth.”
——-
Michael, good. Does that mean you will go the debate Mrs Simac requested to provide your “zeal”?

John

Steven Mosher, I agree with your solution (open source and open content), but the culture is a long way from understanding that, never mind implementing it. Do you suppose your approach is encouraging them to be more openminded about it?

Yes, scientists share data with allies and not with strangers or opponents. Yes they form cliques. Do I like that? Nope.

But they are in a competitive environment. They are simply not motivated to share. Should that be changed by the force of public policy? I think so. Could the change be supported by relatively modest changes in the culture? Certainly. (But so could deep cuts in carbon emissions in the culture at large!)

As I said, I’m on your side on this. At least, I agree with what you say you want.

I can’t imagine that you expect that your charming efforts at defamation and obstruction and conspiracy mongering (not to mention your selective approval of data theft) are going to influence matters in the direction you claim to prefer. So I don’t know what you actually want.

“Hours you spend reading “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey” aloud…”

To give children a firm foundation for dealing with the subject at hand, I suggest you start with The Emperor’s New Clothes and The Sky is Falling aka Chicken Little

Let me see if I can explain something for Micheal here and take things down a notch ( insult wise )

The other day McIntyre and I were talking. ( dont get your tin foil hats on, we rarely talk ) anyways, we both were kind of puzzling about what BAD sales people the climate scientist were. And basically, we came up with the supposition that they are not used to closing on objection. That means finding out what the buyer objects to and handling that issue. Part of this may come from the academic environment. Students take notes. they do what you tell them to. Only the really bright ones can come close to questioning you. Getting a higher degree is a matter of passing tests. putting up with shit. And then putting your grad students through shit. Its a caste system. You see how micheal knows his place? That’s how that system works.

people who have been through this system are ill equipped to debate with their “lessors” They are not used to being challenged.
They have the last word. you can see this in micheals appeal to hierarchy. ( note I didnt say authority) There is this shared value and that value is intelligence or talent or pedigree. And consequently they simply have very little practice in meeting and convincing someone with a different set of values. Someone who doesnt worship intelligence, or degrees.

in sales and marketing we do this all the time. We cant do our job of controlling other peoples behavior unless we identify what their values are and find a way to connect with them. Micheal ( and I probably should not personalize this ) can’t convince other people because he does not know how to find a common set of values with them. You can see how disconnected he and others are from the values his opponents have. Our culture ( for the most part) worships allowing people to have a say. When it comes to dealing with our enemies ( say Iran) there are great many people who believe you talk to them even if they are irrational. We tend not to value intelligence ( school bought variety) over practical experience. We hate it when incumbants dont want to debate. We believe that one man can change the world ( all sorts of crazy things)

When you know your opponents have a rough set of these values AND you want to modify their behavior you do not:
1. rule out debate
2. outcast them
3. Mock their values.
4. try to convince them that your valuing of intelligence is superior. that’s dumb. ironically dumb.

So if Climate scientists really want to know what they can do to convince people…

Mr. Tobis is tapdancing at this point. He’s investigating Ms. Simac’s background and statements after his remarks about her, which is… interesting. He conflates high school students’ ability to listen to two sides of a proposal with the ability to pronounce judgement–which nobody has proposed they do. Shocked to find himself perilously close to agreement with Heathen Mosher, he has to invent data theft of emails (nobody has shown any evidence they were hacked as opposed to leaked, which is telling) to insure the Moshpit still bears the brand of Satan, no matter how seductive his whispers about ‘free the data, freeeee the coooode.’ And like all good alarmists, any time one of his points is refuted (see Mosh above re: sharing data with colleagues) it disappears down the memory hole without acknowledgement.

Heathen Mosher. I like that. Sounds like a character from an old Western.

Michael Tobis (Comment#31811)

“Then she mocked various ideas without engaging them, and finally claimed that it was “outrageous” to propose that high school students would not understand scientific ideas in the presence of active disinformation campaigns. It’s the outrage itself I find outrageous.”

“She believes a high school student is as qualified as anybody to make judgments about anything at all, that it is unreasonable to propose otherwise!”

Dr. Tobis, I read your blog occasionally and found that you are in dialogues quite regularly with Kate, the blogger of climatesight, who is a high school student (that’s how she describes herself). Hmm… so according to your standard, is Kate qualified to make judgment on climate change issues, or “about anything at all”? If so, how does she different from the high school students that Ms. Simac planned to invite, whom you don’t even know? If not, would you agree that Kate’s indeed ill-advised to host a blog about climate change which she’s not even qualified to make judgment on, and you’ve been wasting your time by giving her the attention she doesn’t deserve? Just curious.

Micheal.

You make some good points. personally, I would like nothing better than to have people like you and judith curry and gavin pick up the push for openness.

If mciNtyre is a thorn in the side of climate science there is a very easy way to co-op him. Ammann almost agreed to do a paper with him.

If Watts if a thorn in the side of climate science, Menne and Karl should have agreed to do the joint paper on equal terms.

If my tactics annoy people, Simple, you go beat the drum in a nicer fashion. Marginalize me.

I can’t believe I have to explain these tactics to people.

WRT data theft. I’ll say it very clearly. If the data was taken by someone who had no legal right to it, then they should be prosecuted. I dont approve of data theft. But if somebody steals a murder weapon from a killer and hands it to me, I will report that its a 357 magnum, that has been recently shot and is covered in blood spatter.

I’ve said clearly that the mails cannot change the science.
I wish you would say just as clearly that violating IPCC policy or illegally denying and FOIA request damages the public trust.
Conspiracy mongering? Read the mails and talk to michael mann.
I’ll say this. When I speculate about any conspiracy ( the only one is cru’s refusing FOIA) it’s with some evidence that nobody has seen fit to challenge. When on Jan 14th I wrote that it looked like CRU violated policy, I wasnt engaging in conspiracy theories. I was reading the mails and interpreting what I read. The ICO office agreed with me. When I wrote that Phil jones and Wang had screwed up, but that Wang was no guilty of academic misconduct, I wasnt just voicing my opinion, but Tom Wigleys.
When I questioned Briffa passing IPCC documents under the table to Wahl, I wasnt engaging in conspiracy theories I was applying the RULES that Overpeck explained to the team and roberts in particular in a mail.

When I argued that the certainty was oversold in Chapter 6, I wasnt giving my opinion, I was seconding the Opinion of Rind who warned briffa about this very thing.

In short, almost every opinion I have taken on this is an opinion that you can find a climate scientist taking somewhere in the mails. I love irony. And finding my opinions in the mouths of climate scientists in the mails was a very tasty discovery.

gt, nice one! clever!

So in the usual way, a clever thrust is followed by a longer and more complex parry.

Kate is extraordinary, but if she were presented with a debate at a level beyond her preparation, she would not be qualified to make a judgment on matters of fact. As I think she would agree. As I think she would say.

She has had excellent insights, and she is learning quickly, but in fact they are originally based on the sensible trust model provided by Greg Craven in his book “What’s the Worst That Could Happen? A Rational Response to the Climate Change Debate”.

I myself began having doubts about “cap and trade” but after poking at it a while realized that I would find the time to learn enough to make a cogent case either way on my blog. So I stopped trying to write about it and merely stated that I was inclined against but wouldn’t rock the boat.

Mrs Simac, on the other hand, states “The idea that a subject like man-made climate change is a done deal just doesn’t make sense to me…” She bases this on her experience as a mom and a horse trainer. Then she proposes a “debate” as if matters of fact were settled by debate. We debate goals, ideals, strategies.

Debating facts makes little sense, but that is what is being proposed.

The idea that exposing a random group of high school students to 30 minutes of science and 30 minutes of anti-science slander is good idea is not going to appeal to a lot of scientists.

Mrs Simac’s belief to the contrary constitutes further evidence that she is not qualified to be an active participant in this topic. She should identify someone she trusts who is an expert, or should bide her time until she has acquired expertise of her own.

Her feelings should not be a matter for public concern, any more than mine on cap and trade or Kate’s on future trends in midlatitude baroclinic instability (yet).

But the skeptics do have the truth. The truth is that no one knows what the hell most of climate variability is and it’s a travesty that we don’t.

Mr. Tobis, do you think Richard Lindzen, John Christy or Roy Spencer are anti-science? Do you think that Steve McIntyre, Steve Mosher or Lucia Liljegren are anti-science?

Do you think that it would be harmful for high school students to hear two sides of an issue of global importance about which feelings are intense and opinions vary widely? (Why am I flashing on Inherit the Wind and high schoolers hearing about evolution…) Or is it just that you think it a waste of their or the debaters’ time?

Do you think they should hear that the science isn’t settled (not the greenhouse effect, but forcings, feedbacks and sensitivity)?

Steve Mosher – {You can see how disconnected he and others are from the values his opponents have.}

The biggest difference that I have noticed between the pro and cons, is that the pro take things too serious, it seems that they have no joy. Whilst the con seem to be sincere and still want to celebrate.

Dunno, have tried some small jokes at RC, SS, and very rarely are they accepted.

the best comment on this subject what posted on Tobis blog:

Scruffy Dan said…

Why the double standard?
February 2, 2010 2:30 PM

Mosher:

” I surely recognize that Gavin is smarter than I am. I still would like to debate him on the issue of open science. And there are some other issues where I think I’d like to debate him. Even though he is smarter, I think he is wrong. What does my experience tell me? Well, I was smarter than all my students. Still sometimes I was wrong and they pointed it out. Other times I was right and they made me strengthen my argument or simplify it.. So micheal really doesnt just want the RECOGNITION that some people are smarter. he wants them to obey smarter people. At least that is how I will read him until he comes here and clarifies. he doesnt want to argue with dumb people because they wont listen to words. he just wants them to trust him and obey him. And when they WONT, then that’s a danger.”

Will you people please spell my name correctly? It’s Michael. *A* before *E*. Like every other Michael in the world. If that’s too hard to remember, I’ll happily answer to “mt”.

Other than that, a very sound and well-posed question. I am really being sloppy with “smarter” here. I should say “expert” vs “inexpert”. And I am not one for rolling over for the expert community just because they claim to be the expert community! I have a great deal of doubt about economists and financial analysts, myself. So I don’t think that just because some community claims to be the experts that this ends the question.

I do claim that it CHANGES the question though. The question becomes “how sophisticated and complete is the knowledge of the community that is claiming a consensus”? To address this, one has to be very careful to separate out what that community says form what others say that the community says. And one has to look at the relationship between that community and other communities of expertise.

So I would ask what the other sciences think of the state of climatology vs what the other sciences think of the state of economics. I would ask how well the hierarchy (not of position but of skill) has been established, and how well the top of the hierarchy has performed in prediction. In climate I’d refer to the 1979 Charney report as the benchmark, the earliest predictions of anthropogenic climate change by the founders of physical climatology. Compare their expectations with the outcomes.

http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/~bri.....eport.html

If you find something comparable in economics I will be astonished, yet consequential public decisions are made on the basis of economic advice on a regular basis.

By the way, with regard to Steven’s latest submission, it is certainly true that

“violating IPCC policy or illegally denying and FOIA request damages the public trust.”

I do not personally know whether this has occurred and don’t choose to stake out a position on specific incidents. If, however, anything like this has happened I have no intention of defending it. I don’t deny that the public trust has been damaged, but I am concerned about the matter of proportion.

I will also concede this much. The position of von Storch in this article does strike me as a matter for concern:

http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.c.....ch-by.html

But it’s a long way from there to “therefore the sensitivity is zero” or “not the IPCC”. As von Storch concludes, “the summit must make sure that emissions are sufficiently reduced so that the climate change does not become too drastic. At the same time we must deploy massive efforts so that the impact of that part of global warming, which has become unavoidable, is intelligently handled”

When people who don’t know very much want to debate, publicly, in a few minutes, these sorts of deeply informed and very broad conclusions that almost every informed person shares, it’s just craziness, and arrogant craziness as well. I don’t know what to do about such craziness. But I know it is not helping…

Mr. Tobis, do you think Richard Lindzen, John Christy or Roy Spencer are anti-science? Do you think that Steve McIntyre, Steve Mosher or Lucia Liljegren are anti-science?

none of these were part of the debate. but Dr. Willie Soons and Dr. David Legates were.

and yes, the George Marshall Institute is anti-science.

Do you think that it would be harmful for high school students to hear two sides of an issue of global importance about which feelings are intense and opinions vary widely?

your feelings are intense? eh?

more seriously, yes, i think such a debate would be harmful. and i don t know, who is giving access to that students to a teabagger group. i don t think a reasonable debate can happen in such a context. (how many assault rifles would show up at the debate?)

Leo,

Your point is well taken.

I hang around the Python community for joy. An amazing, creative and brilliant group… Also music helps.

I don’t know what other climate scientists do, especially those trying to take some responsibility for outreach or policy. It is depressing and of late has been getting more so. It’s another innate disadvantage we have.

Blackboard/RankExploits/LuciaBlog ate another of my postings this evening, relating to Steven’s sales advice.

I admitted that our product sucks. We are selling certain and substantial misery now to avoid a likelihood of much greater misery later and a risk of monumental misery after we are long gone. It’s a hard sell even without the lies and exaggerations of our opponents, and now the dramatic accusations directed at us.

How do you expect us to feel?

Tobias,

Where is your evidence that someone cannot understand the proposed debate on climate issues? Are you saying that you are an expert in judging whether someone can or cannot understand? You assume alot and your assumption can not have any cognitive basis in this argument. Could you understand such a debate? We just have your word, no evidence.

John

Sorry miceal

Sorry miceal.

whew there is an edit function.

Crap time expired.

Sorry about misspelling your name. michael.

Not sure what your point is. I do get the whole evaluating experts thing. Once back at NU there was a very cool paper given at the book store on Foster avenue on the topic of consenus. It was a mathamatical proof that consensus could be reached as long as every reviwer had a positive vector of approval toward other reviewers. basically, you have 10 reviewers. They all review and issue ( any issue) the proof showed that the reviwe process could converge only if every reviwer viewed the other reviwer positively. So for example you review something and give it a 6.
Lucia gives it a 2. I give it a 5. In the next round I look at you and her. Lets say I rate you as a rater. I give you a 1. I give lucia a 10. Then we review again. I’m going to move my 5 score down toward lcias 2 score. Why, cause I value her rating more than yours. Fascinating paper. ( shit that was like 1979 and I remember)

BTW in my book I put myself down for warming between 1.5C and
2C per century.

Python is cool..

Ya MT the product sucks. Lemme ponder on that. no flip answers.

Remember I once sold an opensource phone that ran Python and sucked.

Sod,

Assault rifles in eagle river wisconsin? be real.
( a very cool place I might add)

If you’re looking for violence related to movement politics in Wisconsin.. you want madison, the math science building.

Michael Tobin

I’ve read through this thread with some disbelief – all Kimberley Jo Simac is guilty of is naivety, and you know it. Yet you chose to bully and belittle her with calculated, sneering cruelty. Despicable …

As to your disingenuous defence of climate scientists being unwilling to share data and code with each other –

your quote:

” … They are simply not motivated to share.”

and you further opined “Try that in other areas of science”

Geology is another area of science. I’ve worked in it for over 30 years and I *know* we share data and other hard information routinely and regularly because I have participated many times. Both Government and Industry actually rely on that, albeit somewhat tacitly. We do this because we have found it actually promotes and furthers good science … but then, we are not trying to hide the fact that tree rings from selected species make lousy temperature proxies, are we ?

Oh, and where, please, is the hard peer-reviewed refutation of Gerlich & Tscheuschner, March 4 2009, Physics Journal “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics” ? A refutation that Gerlich & Tscheuschner were permitted by the Journal Editor to reply to ?

Still chuckling about this one.

I find it inordinately amusing that someone who criticizes another for not having enough time to consider ‘grown up’ things obviously is so incapable of understanding social dynamics.

Michael is correct that there is only so many hours in the day, and a near infinite number of things for the intellectually curious to explore.

He seems to miss the point however that this is a failing common in all, and the more time one spends in esoteric cogitation the less time one normally devotes to interpersonal skills or basic household skills. Hell, I have it on good authority Noam Chomsky can’t wrap a Christmas present, though it was cute he would try himself.

Ego is certainly a necessity in science these days in order to proclaim your work against the background noise. It’s this very fact that makes scientists so inept in expressing themselves and why at this point in time the climate science community is so clearly and obviously losing the political game.

Ultimately, the ability to communicate successfully with other human beings is indeed a ‘grown up’ skill. And a tea partier mother of nine just schooled yet another ‘expert’ on how to successfully get your message across.

Michael Tobis wrote,

“Why do people refuse to acknowledge that there are smarter people than themselves? It is not just arrogance and ignorance. It’s dangerous.”

Well, Michael, most of them do. More importantly, they also acknowledge that, on many topics, others are better informed than themselves. With respect to climate science, however, only the second acknowledgment is necessary, because climate scientists are not, on the whole, any smarter than physicians, civil engineers, architects, novelists, poets, historians, computer programmers, accountants, chemists, agronomists, geologists, actuaries, meteorologists, economists, or financial analysts. Or in general, than most educated professionals, any of whom could acquire the theory and analytical tools necessary for climate science with a modest investment of time (if they were not already in possession of them). Acquiring the relevant data would require more time, but then you don’t seem to think that necessary.

Unfortunately for those climate scientists who believe they constitute a priesthood in exclusive possession of arcane knowledge, and are thus uniquely qualified to lead the ignorant masses from the cave, climate science is not quantum chromodynamics or string theory. Competence is easily within the reach of just about anyone with access to a computer and a bit of spare time. If you wished to be adulated as a guru by throngs of worshipful acolytes you should have taken up Zen Buddhism or Scientology.

“The only way the argument makes sense to me is by beginning with the presumption that there is no significant skill set involved in climate science.”

Oh, there is a significant skill set. But not one which is particularly difficult to acquire. Surely less difficult than that possessed by a good chef.

“(If it’s true highschool kids can’t understand information on climate change, one wonders why NASA bothers with their NASA kids web page.)”

You changed the claim there, Lucia. The argument isn’t that high school kids can’t understand the science, it’s that they can’t be expected to tell when they are being misled and lied to about the science. Adults have this problem too (See any WUWT comments section for evidence).

“Hmm.

Lets see. Who do I trust more with the future of the planet.
a mother of 9 who knows if her kid is hiding something it cant be good.. or a scientist who hides his data and the tribe that supports him inspite of the fact that they know better.”

Even if your “tribalism” argument had widespread merit, it would be absolutely illogical to trust someone who knows nothing. You might logically conclude to trust no one, but to trust someone because they supposedly have some “instinct”? Bizarre. Oh, but this is just more of your “free the code” mantra.

If you were really concerned about “freeing code” you might want to point out to EM Smith over at your buddy’s page that he is incompetent. Do your part, man. If people are going to make boneheaded blog posts about the code that has been “freed,” then doesn’t that mean people will be less likely to free said code?

But of course, you don’t really care about the code at all. It’s just a method to score points in a political game, which is fine. Just have the courage to admit it.

“Unfortunately for those climate scientists who believe they constitute a priesthood in exclusive possession of arcane knowledge, and are thus uniquely qualified to lead the ignorant masses from the cave, climate science is not quantum chromodynamics or string theory. Competence is easily within the reach of just about anyone with access to a computer and a bit of spare time.”

Given all the vapid comments one runs into on the subject, climate science must be far more difficult than you imply.

Tobis,

They may be hiding data from each other (which is disigenious in itself), but clearly that is due to a lack of conviction of their beliefs. A good scientist (which is arguably hard to find in this discipline) makes his data available to others so that he can be proved right. And he takes his lumps when errors are discovered.

I dare say that the tea bagger’s horse knows more about the truth than you do. Any single digit IQ person can make up nonsense, but it takes intelligence to actually come up with strong ideas that withstand intense scrutiny from others.

Please do not stop responding. You are only digging your hole deeper for all the world to see that indeed, your emperor has no clothes.

Dr. Tobis brought up a good point in specifying “climate experts”. Put simply, among the experts the point of contention seems to be the accuracy climate modelling. Among the non-experts the contention is more political than factual. Unfortunately the political influence has leaked into both expert camps and severely injured professionalism. The publicized shortcomings of the IPCC and HadCru reinforce the lack of confidence in experts’ scientific/non-political motves.

Even in the expert community, experts may think disagreeing experts have been biased, and are not merely wrong. That distrust leads to a lack of confidence that proof will sway opinion.

Open forums mix expert, non-expert, political, and scientific arguments. Segregating the arguments in my own mind is helpful in containing my own bias.

Too bad the MSM reading public doesn’t see the kind of exchange that has taken place on this thread. If Newsweek or Time would run this thread in it’s entirety, that would be a real public service. This thread shows that the AGW debates have as much to do with political inclinations, values and personal priorities as with the validity of climate data and theory. It is clear that climate science is dominated (with only a few exceptions) by people with personal values, political views, and political objectives that are broadly in conflict with the views of the majority of voters. It is also clear that many climate scientists do not believe that voters are intellectually capable of making choices about climate policy.
.
Voters should understand this when deciding on public funding of climate research, evaluating the credibility of climate science, and choosing public action in responce to global warming.

I am predicting that when “all is said and done,” one of the most important outcomes will be the records of how people acted and behaved in talking/debating (and thinking about) the issues.
Hopefully, we can learn something useful from this.

It is good to remember how easily we can fool ourselves, and how easy it is to behave badly.

I think people often get smart, intelligent and wise mixed up. I’ve met and conversed with many a “smart” “educated” people in my long life and found some to be not wise at all.

We measure smart and intelligent with IQ tests and diplomas etc, but how do we measure wise? We don’t I think. We sense, detect and experience wisdom. Having read the Tobis response, I assure you, here is a man who is not wise, not by a long shot.

“Why do people refuse to acknowledge that there are smarter people than themselves? It is not just arrogance and ignorance. It’s dangerous”.

mmmmm need I say more?

Breaking news Michael – a miracle has occured (just had to say it! )

From RC:
{Barton Paul Levinson

3 February 2010 at 6:14 AM
Vendicar,

That reminds me of another quote:

“Science makes everything sound painful, Spongebob!”
–Sandy Paws}

Fianaly quoting someone with real knowledge!

Off to work for me now, have a fun day all!

Re: Boris (Feb 3 05:28), “>Michael Tobis (Feb 2 23:45),

You changed the claim there, Lucia. The argument isn’t that high school kids can’t understand the science, it’s that they can’t be expected to tell when they are being misled and lied to about the science. Adults have this problem too (See any WUWT comments section for evidence).

I didn’t really change the claim. The second part is irrelevant to whether or not teens have the ability to judge arguments. Teens have been lied to and advertized to all their lives. Even if Soon is paid to lie (which I sincerely doubt) I don’t see any reason why any rational person would assume that if a highschool student listen to says, Michael Schlesinger v. Soon, they would be unable to weigh which argument is stronger. I would also think some might be intellectually challenged and do further reading.

As for the NASA kids example: If there is really is some group being paid to lye, the kids reading NASA kids are not going to be insulated either. Despite this NASA clearly thinks the outreach is worth the effort whether or not others are lying and they don’t just say “The other side spends money on lies. Kids will never be able to tell our page is right and those lies are wrong! Let’s just give up!!!”

Finally, the fact that some people in comments at WUWT is no evidence that, on the balance, high school students listening to two people presenting evidence for their views, would be unable to discern which argument is better. While it is certainly true that you can’t expect 100% of students to have perfect judgment, my experience is that high school students are pretty smart — though they do lack specific training in specialized fields. But their native intelligence is pretty good and, they are pretty good at discerning marketing spin.

If scientists consistent policy is to publicly denigrate the intelligence of highschool students, or their ability to discern the truth even in the presence of an active disinformation campaign, scientists are going to loose this political battle.

I don’t think it’s wrong for a person to say that they aren’t prepared to debate through the intricacies of the global warming issue in an hour in front of high schoolers. Perhaps a way to defuse Ms. Simac would be to ask her to help compile a list of essential topics for kids to be introduced to in preparation for understanding the debate. I’d put Hershel’s discovery of the infra-red at the top of my list, but that’s because I feel science educators neglect history of science.

Oh boy I’m still in a daze reading these comments.
One question.

Life is more than just science.

Would Mr Tobis please tell us to whom we should defer to in all the other aspects of life?

I can feel a “yessum bowanna” coming on. Sad state of affairs.

Mr Tobis I’m really interested in this. WHAT DOES having 9 kids TELL YOU about Ms K J Simac?

Odd that you should pick Schlesinger, a not particularly appealing or convincing speaker, as a representative of the consensus. I suppose there is a good reminder there for me. I can see how I can be painted with that brush here.

But the fact is that people who are suspicious and expect to be lied to are especially susceptible to certain kinds of misinformation, the kind that says they are being lied to even when they are not. And it’s hard to find a polite way to say about your opponents that “either you are lying or ignorant of the evidence” when this is in fact the case.

So you guys have us cornered, even though the predictions of 30 years ago are more or less on track. Most likely nothing will be done until matters get much worse, by which time merely remedial actions will be plainly insufficient. How a world that cannot agree to restrain emissions growth is going to agree on how to manage and pay for the massive and dangerous efforts at actual physical repair via geoengineering escapes me. I hope it works out somehow. I expect the world will not continue to evade a huge crash for much longer, and that climate will play a role in that.

I intend to keep making the case as best I can, and recommend the same to others. If somebody knows a better way, a way that we can make the case without being vulnerable to accusations of arrogance, please let us in on it. Is it really arrogance, though, to claim you understand something better than someone else does, when the other person’s claim is simply a vacuous claim that “nobody understands this at all”?

So it may be the case that “to publicly denigrate the intelligence of highschool students, or their ability to discern the truth even in the presence of an active disinformation campaign” is a loser. I am using “smart” loosely to mean relevant skill, not raw intelligence, but the latter part, about vulnerability to convenient untruths, is certainly not without validity.

Professor Mike Hulme of CRU has written about the sort of attitude displayed by Tobis and other climate scientists. He noted that that these scientists forget that people (this would include housewives) have minds of their own and that they are not going to just accept the assertions of scientists on face value. So Tobis’s statements here seem puzzling. Just what is Tobis attempting to accomplish? Is he attempting to intellectually bully people into accepting his view of climate science. As Hulme noted, this hasn’t worked and with the revelations of Climategate is even less likely to work now.

However maybe Tobis is smarter than Hulme. Maybe Professor Hulme isn’t smart enough to understand the subtleties of climate scientists like Tobis.

My old friend King of the Road provides a useful link on the question of arrogance and expertise here:

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/PSE.....ptdExp.htm

and Scruffy Dan points to this excellent analysis of the unlevel playing field in climate debates here:

http://www.juliansanchez.com/2.....fallacies/

I asked this before but I am going to ask it again.

Einstein and Planck disagreed fundamentally on physics. Now which one should people have believed at the time if belief depends on which one is smarter?

Jane Jacobs founded the modern version of urban studies. She was an untrained housewife. Her ideas were contrary to the consensus beliefs of distinguished urban theorists from prestigious universities.

Who was smarter Jane Jacobs or these theorists who built the infamous projects that caused so much damage.

I posted this in response to Michael Tobis. I’m sure it probably wont show up.

“Science is not data.”

Wow, if I stood on my head in a convent in the deep South while attempting to impregnate a walrus outside of mating season, I couldn’t have been more wrong that that.

Yes, Science is data. Data is *ALL* that matters in science. Theoreticians come up with models that attempt to explain data and make predictions. But those predictions are little more than flights of imagination before data again tells us whether we were right or wrong.

—>”The question of whether scientists are hiding anything depends crucially on whether “man-made climate change is a done deal” and indeed whether “high school students would not be able to understand the information and especially when the opposing side was paid off and presenting lies”.”

So, in other words, the ‘Ivory Tower’ has decreed that climate science is a done deal, and therefore scientists are not hiding anything. That’s essentially what you are saying in that paragraph.

Your intellectual arrogance is truly astounding.

kuhnkat (Comment#31781) HAHAHAHAHA, good one kuhnkat. Haven’t seen SOD on WUWT in a long time, he’s still trolling about though.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 3 09:12),

Odd that you should pick Schlesinger, a not particularly appealing or convincing speaker, as a representative of the consensus.

I picked him for two reasons a) he debated Singer at Argonne about 1-2 years ago and b) he in Illinois, a state that is not ridiculously far from Wisconsin.

I agree that Schlesinger is an unconvincing speaker. After the debate at Argonne, my husband turned to me and said “They both lost”.

I’m going to write a post explaining what you should have done. If you admitted people you consider on “the other side” to your planet 3.0 group, you might actually get useful advice. But I suspect that coming from me, or Mosher, you will resist the info.

Still… it will be up there.

Jeremy, yes, that “Science is not data.” was deliberately provocative. What do you think I might have meant if I had been making any sense at all?

TAG, it happens that I’m a big fan of Jane Jacobs too, but I fail to see how that supports your point regarding the consensus within geophysics, which is of a very different and far more rigorous sort.

An analogy I saw once said “I know nothing about a jumbo jet and what makes it fly, but I sure know when it’s being flown badly”.

Regards playing fields. I don’t think blogs or high school gymnasiums are the real playing fields. They are akin to playing football in the backyard. The real playing fields are the IPCC reports. The WG1 is the superbowl field.

Talk about uneven playing field. This field has goal posts on one side only and only one team on it.
Where is the other team (the dissenting views)? Where are the references to these papers, are there none? Surely in a field that even the IPCC says “medium confidence” “high confidence” etc, there are other views.

So you are absolutely correct, this has been an uneven playing field since 1988

Here we finally get to the crux of the matter.

Contrarian:

“Oh, there is a significant skill set. But not one which is particularly difficult to acquire. Surely less difficult than that possessed by a good chef.”

No.

“…less difficult than that possessed by a good chef.”

Do Climate Scientists know not to touch the pan when it’s really hot? It seems to me they have a problem with knowing what the temperature is and stuff.

What DO they know, BTW?

Andrew

Lucia,
“I’m going to write a post explaining what you should have done.”
.

Why? What has Micheal done to deserve your help? Why waste your time?
.
Based on all he has written over the last 24 hours, it is clear that he is not able to really hear what is said by anyone who disagrees with him, not able to accept that he is saying things that are 100% counterproductive to his professed goals, and seems to prefer offending people to working toward a constructive consensus. Some people have a tin ear for effective communication. Michael is completely deaf.

(not PeterB in Indianopolis, btw).

Michael Tobis, you say:

“Most likely nothing will be done until matters get much worse, by which time merely remedial actions will be plainly insufficient. How a world that cannot agree to restrain emissions growth is going to agree on how to manage and pay for the massive and dangerous efforts at actual physical repair via geoengineering escapes me. I hope it works out somehow. I expect the world will not continue to evade a huge crash for much longer, and that climate will play a role in that.”

I am willing to make any bet to the effect that there is no chance whatsoever that the world will “agree to restrain emissions growth”. There was never any chance that Copenhagen would achieve anything significant besides talk – and in the end it did not achieve even that. It was totally predictable that countries such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa would refuse any specific target (at most they might have “agreed” but then done nothing about it). FWIW, I speak as someone with several years’ work experience in two of those countries and claim a reasonable knowledge (or, in the spirit of this thread, some “expertise”) of their politics and broad public opinion. There is no way that those countries will agree to severely limit their economic growh by agreeing to set carbon emissions at per capita levels *much below those of developed countries*. It’s the equivalent of asking poor people to willingly agree that they should pay higher income taxes than rich people. Those countries won’t be bullied into cooperating, and neither will richer countries be able to afford the bribes they would demand in order to do anything significant.

So this whole discussion is rather pointless. Regardless of what the US, the EU, Australia, Japan etc agree or not to do to reduce their own emissions, carbon emissions will continue to grow on account of those other countries (and others like them) alone.

So within the next decade or two we will have more concrete data on their influence on the climate one way or the other. If by then it will be “too late”, then so it will be, because that’s exactly what is going to happen (and I am willing to take any kind of bet to that effect).

Michael,
“I expect the world will not continue to evade a huge crash for much longer, and that climate will play a role in that.”
.
I suggest you read the 1960’s and 1970’s predictions of the infamous Club of Rome group: famine, wars over raw materials, a worldwide decline in wealth, the widespread failure of governments and even civilization itself, with subsequent worldwide chaos….. sounded a bit like your prediction of a huge crash due to climate change. The Club of Rome was hugely influential in the 1970’s, and they were 100% wrong. Prediction is hard, especially about the future.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 3 09:57),

What do you think I might have meant if I had been making any sense at all?

How would you have worded it if you’d wished your words to reflect your meaning?

Seriously Michael, it’s your responsibility to try to write sentences that communicate what you mean in the first place. When you discover you have been misunderstood, just explain. It’s idiotic to write mangled prose, and then tell people they shouldn’t assume you meant what your words say, and that instead, they should imagine what a rational well informed person would think and then suggest what such a person would have written!

Re: SteveF (Feb 3 10:32),

Why? What has Micheal done to deserve your help? Why waste your time?

Why not? It’s written and posted.

The fact is, I’d like action. I’d also like people to better understand the science behind AGW. The case for the enhanced greenhouse effect is strong. The case that we’ve increased the amount of CO2 is strong. Some action is prudent. Communicating this would not be that hard– provided the group doesn’t want to go off into the hinterlands of alarmisms advancing claims that are easily rebutted.

Regardless of what case they wish to promote, there were actions they could have taken in their own interest. They did not take these because they let their emotions and tribalism overwhelm their brains.

I think Michael is likely to continue on his preferred course of moaning, whining and gnashing teeth. But who knows?

Way upthread (Comment #31767) February 2nd, 2010 at 6:00 pm, Michael Tobis offered this quip about Kimberly Simacs:

“I know more [about climate] than Lucia does, and Lucia knows more than Madame Teabags, who in turn knows marginally more than her trained horses.

Two insults in one sentence. Completely gratuitious, designed to offend a person of lower socioeconomic status. Like a Baron would talk to a scullery wench.

Don’t hold back, Michael–tell us what you really think!

The “admissions against interest” that follow in this thread make fascinating reading. As does some of the advice offered by Steven Mosher (“closing on objection”, #31817) and others. There would be little chance that such wisdom would benefit somebody as hard-hearted and hard-headed as Michal Tobis makes himself out to be.

- – - – - – - – - -
Michael Tobis claimed (Comment #31769, February 2nd, 2010 at 6:13 pm) that data-hiding and code-hiding is not particular to climate science and paleoclimatology, but that it is the norm in other scientific disciplines.

This is an incorrect depiction of the situation in biology. Sharing is not always done graciously, but it is the professional norm and expectation. Most journals now require electronic deposition of relevant data in common formats prior to publication.

So which scientific disciplines does Michael Tobis have in mind?

- – - – - – - – - -
Michael Tobis (Comment #31877, February 3rd, 2010 at 9:12 am):

“If somebody knows a better way, a way that we can make the case without being vulnerable to accusations of arrogance, please let us in on it.”

Here you go!

1. Print out this thread. Read for content.
2. Per Steven Mosher, ask a mom.

After reading all of these comments; I am reminded of the comment of a Real Smart guy, Barney Frank. I think he would have not spoken to Michael Tobis or answered any of his questions because “It would be like having a conversation with a kitchen table”. It must be true since he has no children either.

lucia (Comment#31894),

“The fact is, I’d like action.”
.
Fair enough, so would I, in part due to the potential for ecosystem disruption from global warming, but even more because humanity must, and so will, ultimately move away from fossil fuels as the primary energy source. But I see absolutely no willingness of people like Micheal to:

1) honestly assess the likely magnitude and timing of global warming,
2) honestly evaluate the consequences of that warming,
3) consider a rational discussion of costs versus benefits for any public program to mitigate future warming, and most important,
4) accept that everyone (even ‘madame tea-bags’) must have a voice in the discussion.

Consensus is impossible without respect for the rights and the opinions of others, and Micheal clearly has none.

It can be enlightening to ask a person who is knowledgable, educated, and committed to the AGW Consensus to comment on one story that McIntyre and McKitrick investigated.

That is the use by Mann et al. (PNAS, 2008) of the Lake Korttajarvi lakebed sediment series (described by Mia Tiljander, 2003) in their paleoclimate reconstructions.

So: this was a major and high-profile effort by some of the world’s most prominent paleoclimatologists to establish a high-quality reconstruction of world and Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past 2,000 years. The publication was designed to show that such reconstructions do not need to rely on any particular proxy series, such as bristlecone pine treerings. Rather, the claim is that the picture they paint is consistent, and robust.

This work was published in one of the highest-impact general science journals, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA.

1. Mann’s group erroneously calibrated the four Tiljander proxies.

2. The careless calibration led to two of the proxies being used in an upside-down orientation. For example, Tiljander interpreted “more mineral deposition” in the LightSum proxy as meaning “colder.” Perversely and without comment, Mann used it to mean “warmer”.

3. McIntyre and McKitrick challenged Mann on this point in a “Response” in PNAS in 2009. Mann’s reply was to denigrate the charge as “bizarre.”

4. There the matter rests. Mann et al are plainly wrong. Their reconstructions need to be recalculated or retracted. Mann has doubled-down, refusing in print to address the substantive issues.

5. To my knowledge, nobody in the AGW Consensus community has challenged Mann et al on their obviously-wrong work. The only responses that have diverged from Silence have been in-your-face sophistry and illogical argumentation (see William Connolley’s posts on the subject at Stoat).

Michael Tobis asked earlier: What could the AGW-Consensus Community do to strengthen its case?

Well: AGW-Consensus Climatologists could start behaving like Scientists. Hold your fellow climatologists to the proper standards of professional conduct. Stop excusing bad behavior.

Michael Tobis: What’s your opinion about Mann et al’s use of the Tiljander proxies?

“How would you have worded it if you’d wished your words to reflect your meaning?”

(Sheepish grin)

I might have done better. Sometimes I need an editor. But it really is a teaser for a summary of the state of play that I am working on. If you want to figure out where I am coming from on this question, I’d refer you to this article by Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon

http://is.gd/7D1tl

(NB: I am not claiming that John agrees with me, just that I agree with him!)

The idea that there is no significant skill set in climatology beyond elementary statistics is wrong. The idea that global mean temperature is the main subject of climatology is wrong. The idea that the historical record is the main test of climate theory is wrong.

If I correct you about the geography of my home town which you have never visited, I am not being arrogant. If you do not accept my correction, it is you who is being arrogant.

I am not sure if anything has replaced Peixoto & Oort ‘92 as the default textbook of physical climatology (“Physics of Climate”) but it still gives a good idea of the lay of the land. Probably a year of calculus and a year of physics is enough to get a grasp on it formally, in other words, but I wouldn’t throw this material at a sophomore. From the preface of my well-worn copy: “The level of treatment is geared mainly to graduate students, but the material should also be understandable for motivated undergraduate students since we have kept the mathematics to a modest level and concentrated on the physical understanding.” In other words, there’s plenty more where this came from.

There is not a single temperature trend graph in the whole book. CO2 accumulation and its related greenhouse forcing gets a couple of pages in a later chapter, where they assert an equilibrium sensitivity of 3 C +/- 1.5 C per doubling as the most likely value.

SteveF

But I see absolutely no willingness of people like Micheal to:

1) honestly assess the likely magnitude and timing of global warming,
2) honestly evaluate the consequences of that warming,
3) consider a rational discussion of costs versus benefits for any public program to mitigate future warming, and most important,
4) accept that everyone (even ‘madame tea-bags’) must have a voice in the discussion.

I see this with many activists too. If the follow my advise about the debate but then present distorted positions, they will still fail. The reason they will fail is that the general public does have bullshit detectors.

People know that even if they do not know the meaning of “intertropical convergence zone”, that some claims are testable. If enough claims fail tests, they lose confidence in the person making claims. If those participating in debates puff up the claims for effect, and members of the audience detect these, the audience will equate those making inflated claims with the proverbial used car salesman.

Michael-

But it really is a teaser for a summary of the state of play that I am working on. If you want to figure out where I am coming from on this question, I’d refer you to this article by Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon

No one, i mean no-one has time for this sort of thing. Either say what you think or don’t. But I’m not going to waste my time figuring out what you think by reading long article by other people — who you tell me may disagree with you.

The idea that there is no significant skill set in climatology beyond elementary statistics is wrong. The idea that global mean temperature is the main subject of climatology is wrong. The idea that the historical record is the main test of climate theory is wrong.

There you go rebutting strawmen at least with respect to anything i have said anywhere, and/or the main topic of this blog. If you are arguing with someone else, feel free to find them and present your rebuttal to them.

If you want to learn to communicate science, you would be wise to engage claims that have been made in the forum where they have been made.

Michael Tobis (Comment #31908) wrote:

“If I correct you about the geography of my home town which you have never visited, I am not being arrogant. If you do not accept my correction, it is you who is being arrogant.”

Michael Tobis, you appear to believe that your comments on the Simac-invitation issue are analogous to (politely?) correcting a correspondent about the geography of your home town.

I sometimes have occasion to caution my children that analysis-by-analogy has limits. In particular, I note that people often choose analogies because they are self-serving, rather than because they are insightful.

AMac: I do not consider Mann’s work important in the grand scheme of things, nor relevant to any expertise which I have, and will continue my policy of expressing no opinion on it.

I did read Stoat’s comment on the polarity business and found it plausible. If you did not understand it that hardly encourages someone who does to spend time addressing your concerns. If you disagree on substance that’s another matter, but William was perfectly clear about what he was saying. He was clear enough that despite the peripheral nature of my interest I was satisfied with his explanation.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 3 11:52),

I might have done better. Sometimes I need an editor. But it really is a teaser for a summary of the state of play that I am working on. If you want to figure out where I am coming from on this question, I’d refer you to this article by Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon

http://is.gd/7D1tl

(NB: I am not claiming that John agrees with me, just that I agree with him!)

Look. No one has time for this. I’m not going to read a long link to someone else’s post to figure out where you might be coming from.

The idea that there is no significant skill set in climatology beyond elementary statistics is wrong. The idea that global mean temperature is the main subject of climatology is wrong. The idea that the historical record is the main test of climate theory is wrong.

There you go engaging strawmen again. At least it’s a strawman if you think you are rebutting any position I have taken or the main topic of my blog. If you are engaging arguments advanced by someone else somewhere else, you would be wise to present your rebuttal to them. Otherwise, you are just wasting people time and– quite honestly– behaving disrespectful by not bothering to discover their actual positions when pretending to engage them.

Re: steven mosher (Feb 2 22:52),

When you know your opponents have a rough set of these values AND you want to modify their behavior you do not:
1. rule out debate
2. outcast them
3. Mock their values.
4. try to convince them that your valuing of intelligence is superior. that’s dumb. ironically dumb.

The political and ideological movement for which AGW science is a front was never interested in persuasion, consent or discourse. The sanctimonious references to The Consensus and the weird need to demonize heterodox ideas have nothing to do with any scientific notions.

There is some unfortunate and unhealthy identity politics at work. Michael Tobis is a more sophisticated version of sod-bugs-boris in that he apparently really needs to believe that he is among the enlightened and that the rest are knuckle-draggers. It is noteworthy that bugs, for example, has never posted a single original idea, never deviated from what appears to be the simplest version of CAGW orthodoxy, often never even quite gets the point of many threads but is nevertheless clearly convinced of intellectual fitness by virtue of unswerving ideological loyalty to CAGW.

Denigrating the moral and intellectual worth of those who disagree is not an accident or a byproduct of academic culture. It is an essential element of the movement.

The obsession with who is “qualified” to even listen to a discussion of CAGW, the weird need to ascribe malicious or anti-scientific motives to anyone who disagrees and the ritual demonization of “denialists” are evidence of that the CAGW phenomenon is more psychological or ideological in nature than the rational enterprise it claims to be. The whole thing is quickly degenerating into an unmasked mass event of narcissism by proxy.

Michael Tobis (Comment #31914, 12:06 pm) wrote –

“[AMac,] If you did not understand it that hardly encourages someone who does to spend time addressing your concerns.”

Michael Tobis, as far as salting your remarks with gratuitously offensive commentary, perhaps you have a tin ear. Or perhaps not. Your style brings the blog SWPL to mind, which admittedly makes it harder to engage in the substantive issues you raise.

Thanks for the response on Tiljander.

Wrong answer: “I do not consider Mann’s work important in the grand scheme of things, nor relevant to any expertise which I have, and will continue my policy of expressing no opinion on it.”
.
Correct answer: “I do not consider Mann’s work important in the grand scheme of things, and I do not consider myself and expert in historical proxies. But that being said, I think it unfortunate that Mann has been unwilling to fix a simple and obvious error of inverted proxy data, especially since the researchers who originally gathered the data have publicly confirmed that the data was used ‘upside down’. This is the kind of thing that hurts the public image of Climate Science; I think Mann would have been wise to issue a simple correction and avoid all the negative publicity.”

This whole thread gives me a headache. Can we get back to talking about science Lucia? :-p

Zeke–
But you participate in Tobis’s google groups whose motto is

Toward improved communication among scientists, policy experts, and the public on questions of global sustainability, especially focused on climate and anthropogenic forcing of climate.

Don’t you want to discuss whether certain actions serve to improve or diminish communication among scientists and the public on questions focused on climate or antropognic forcing of climate?!!

If not, we can always go back to discussing the Leprechaun theory of Global Warming!

Michael Tobis (Comment#31769) wrote:

They are not hiding their code and data from you. They are hiding their code and data from each other.

Hiding their code and data? In Nature and Geophysical Research Letters? Seriously?

Lucia,

Being part of a mailing list doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with everything in it. In this particular case, while I think a debate sponsored by a local tea party involving Willie Soon probably would not have a productive outcome (scientists generally not being good public debaters, and the audience being predisposed), I do agree with you that it was handled exceptionally poorly.

Watching poor Michael put his foot firmly in his mouth with the children remarks and the resulting discussion is pretty off topic from climate science, however :-p

There is an interesting debate (on Planet 3.0 and elsewhere) regarding if “the science can save us”. That is, supposing that the science of climate change were completely “settled”, would the weight of scientific evidence convince voters? Or do Glen Beck’s words have a larger impact on policy decisions in a democratic society than technical publications in peer reviewed journals read by specialists? I suspect that, for a growing segment of the population, belief in climate change is influenced much more by political ideology than scientific understanding, and this applies to people on both sides of the divide. Such is the tragedy of the politicization of climate science.

Michael,
Your blog re: Simac was the most vile, nasty bit of condescension I have read in a long time. I don’t understand how a professional can get away with a dismissive attitude like that.

In my profession (structural engineering), the science is still disputed and constantly evolving. Everything we do goes through a peer review process consisting of other engineers who evaluate our work and send comments for correction or clarification. We must respond to each and every comment! I admit I often take a long walk so as not to break all the windows in my house out of anger. But that is the nature of work in this profession.

Laypersons sit on the Boards that develop codes, license us, govern and discipline us. Clients, reporters and organizations all have opinions of our work and are free to speak, write or broadcast their opinions. But we can never respond the way you did. We wouldn’t work again. I am baffled how you maintain your jobs when you are so horrific to the general public. And why should the public fund you when you are dismissive and unwilling to explain yourselves?

If you argue the public doesn’t generally opine about engineering, please recall the nuclear industry protests that still continue and includes many current politicians and also the twin tower discsussion that were all the rage after 911.

Re: Zeke Hausfather (Feb 3 13:13),

Watching poor Michael put his foot firmly in his mouth with the children remarks and the resulting discussion is pretty off topic from climate science, however :-p

Sure. But I’ve never claimed to only discuss science.

That is, supposing that the science of climate change were completely “settled”, would the weight of scientific evidence convince voters?

Well… convince them of what? That AGW is real? More articles in journals may not accomplish that.

But it’s probably more important to figure out how to get the voters to endorse certain actions– like building nuclear power plants, funding R&D for sequestration etc. One might be able to get that even without convincing some of the “the ice-age cometh” types.

Behaving well is important if we are go form a coalition that can move forward on those things. If we move forward, does it really matter if some people still reject the science? Not to bring religion into this, but notice that Baptist, Catholics, Jews, Moslems, Atheists Mormons, and etc. often manage to agree on some political paths, and they’ve learned to live with the fact that they mostly avoid getting bent out of shape that they have important disagreements over matters of faith. Those matters of faith are important to each individual, but they don’t say, “Dammit! How can we join together to fund a library when we don’t all believe the same of you are soooooo wrong about GOD!”

I suspect that, for a growing segment of the population, belief in climate change is influenced much more by political ideology than scientific understanding, and this applies to people on both sides of the divide.

To some extent sure. But taking the path of rudeness and arrogance only aggravates this.

Keith Herbert (Comment#31938),
“Laypersons sit on the Boards that develop codes, license us, govern and discipline us. Clients, reporters and organizations all have opinions of our work and are free to speak, write or broadcast their opinions.”

Let’s see… structural integrity is really important, hence, people who design structures are closely licensed, governed, etc. by laypersons (AKA the public). Climate science is really important if the public is going to make huge investments to reduce global warming, hence, climate scientists should be similarly licensed, governed, and disciplined by laypeople.

It’s the perfect solution!

Lucia,

Agreed. Though lamenting that scientists are poor lay communicators is a tad cliche these days.

Though I’m not so sure that climatologists are in the best position to opine on optimal mitigation strategies or consensus building. That’s more the specialty of economists and political scientists. The science serves as the foundation for future policy; others are needed to build upon it.

That’s not to say that scientists should “shut up and do science”; indeed, one can reasonably argue that the taboo on “public scientists” has been deeply pernicious in the past. The classic example is the National Academy of Science refusing to induct Carl Sagan as a member. But scientists should be careful to avoid using the general halo of scientific objectivity to cloak opinions that reach beyond their fields.

Zeke Hausfather wrote (Comment #31937, February 3rd, 2010 at 1:13 pm) –

“That is, supposing that the science of climate change were completely “settled”, would the weight of scientific evidence convince voters? Or do Glen Beck’s words have a larger impact on policy decisions in a democratic society than technical publications in peer reviewed journals read by specialists?”

In the present circumstances, I’d guess that the answer to your hypothetical is No. The weight of scientific evidence wouldn’t convince voters.

Partly, that’s because of the sacrifices that a carbon-neutral economy would demand of most voters (as Michael noted earlier).

Partly, it’s because of the bad behavior of AGW Consensus scientists, and the bad behavior of their supporters in the broader AGW Consensus community.

Many people don’t trust Consensus advocates. As a whole, they haven’t done much to earn such trust.

As a small example, you frame the contest as being between “Glenn Beck’s words” and “technical publications in peer reviewed journals read by specialists.” That speaks to rusty analytical skills, and to tone-deafness with respect to communication. That so many in the Consensus community will go out of their way to give offense to their lessers adds credibility to the argument advanced ~10 comments back by George Tobin (Comment #31917, February 3rd, 2010 at 12:17 pm).

Re: Zeke Hausfather (Feb 3 13:35),

Though I’m not so sure that climatologists are in the best position to opine on optimal mitigation strategies or consensus building.

Oddly, engineers are more suited than climate scientists to opining on mitigation strategies since they are the ones who generally actually implement any mitigation system that requires an engineered response (which is quite a few). That is, provided they actually get involved in that studying mitigation. Some don’t work in that area at all. (I never have.)

On that topic, I was wondering something. Most mechanical engineers are required to take 1 economics course as an undergraduate. It’s not a lot of economics — but enough to help you understand the rudiments of deciding whether investing in a plant improvement is cost effective relative to just persistently using more staff etc. (Industrial engineers take much, much more.) Are scientists required to take any econ course?

But scientists should be careful to avoid using the general halo of scientific objectivity to cloak opinions that reach beyond their fields.

My bigger objection with MT is that to some extent he tries to use the halo of scientific objectivity as a justification for not explaining anything to the public. At times, he seems to think the idea he needs to communicate is the following:

Scientists with Ph.Ds. are really smart and have studied “things” a lot. So, you should just listen to “our” conclusions about “things”, not ask questions and just recognize that you don’t know enough to judge anything remotely related to climate science at all. Period. Nothing. Oh. And “we” also get to tell you which people with Ph.D.s you shouldn’t listen to.

Clearly that doesn’t work. One of the reasons that approach doesn’t work because quite often people who don’t know the intertropical convergence zone from the arctic can still judge when they are being fed exaggerations and they know they can so judge. That is to say: The argument doesn’t work because it shouldn’t because it’s wrong.

SteveF,
I assume were you responding tounge-in-cheek. I, of course, don’t suggest licensing scientists. The point is if climate scientists feel they are being unfairly targeted, they should take a look at other professions and see that perhaps they have become spoiled. Professionals are generally held to standards of ethics and cooperation and expected to perform in an open society. Where they become unethical, exclusive, combative or dismissive they generally get smacked by the public.

AMac:

Perhaps I should have said breathless claims of imminent demise by Greenpeace or accusations that climate change is a socialist plot to create a world government by Glenn Beck. That more fair and balanced? :-p

Regardless, the general point was that the communication to the public about science often differs greatly from the science itself.

Keith Herbert (Comment#31950),

Well, only half way in the cheek. But your point is well taken. Professionals in many fields are licensed by the public when their work is judged to be very important or to have the potential to endanger. Climate scientists need to recognize that their advocacy of vast public expenditures to combat global warming based on publicly funded research does set them apart from someone studying plate tectonics, chemistry, or pure mathematics. If they want less public scrutiny, they ought to focus on good science and tone down the advocacy.

Re: Zeke Hausfather (Feb 3 14:19),

…accusations that climate change is a socialist plot to create a world government by Glenn Beck.

Ahhh! The things I miss by not paying for cable!

Zeke Hausfather wrote:

“That more fair and balanced?”

Why, yes!

On communication, one recurring issue is that many adherents to the AGW Consensus see “the science” as being settled–at least as far as what its implications ought to be for public policy. Few if any lukewarmers and skeptics share that view.

Is correct and complete communication to the general public of the story of “Hide the Decline” or “Upside-Down Mann” a good thing or a bad thing?

If the highest good is to quickly move on Kyoto/Copenhagen/Cap ‘n Trade/Etc., then this is “sowing doubt” and dooming our children.

If Science always had and always will have warts — viz. today’s belated Autism retraction — then perhaps it’s better if voters get to see things as they are. Even though the electorate apparently includes flyover country multips who are barely brighter than their trained horses.

That’s a straightforward point that some other Planet3.0′ers haven’t come to terms with. Lucia’s tried to help, but it’s tough sledding.

Explanation is necessary, and some good explaining still happens, but it keeps running into obstacles that have very little to do with the weaknesses in the explanatory style.

Explaining is hard work, and there is plenty of explanation out there.

I didn’t start my blog until I had given up on the idea of explanation as sufficient. What I explore in the blog is why, and what to do about it.

If people want to make the AGW message more plausible they should start by writing a nice thorough essay on the shortcomings of the greenhouse metaphor. It doesn’t take most people long to realize that there is something wrong with that thing. This is not to say I dismiss the reality of a degree of warming due to greenhouse gases. I just think a greenhouse is a little too simple an example to hold up as a comparison.

“If people want to make the AGW message more plausible they should start by writing a nice thorough essay on the shortcomings of the greenhouse metaphor.”

Google is your friend!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

http://moregrumbinescience.blo.....nomer.html

http://amsglossary.allenpress......se-effect1

Want more…?

Lack of explanation is not the problem.

Mike, I agree that lack of explanation is not the problem. It has been explained to death.
.
Rather, the problem is lack of data that agrees with the explanation (i.e., data that allows one to reject a null hypothesis that AGW is not so significant that unless we ***ACT NOW*** that irreversible, catastrophic consequences follow).

Ryan O,

If only we had a spare planet to do empirical experimentation on :-p

Until than, we’re left with radiative physics, lapse rates, WV feedbacks, and albedo effects that we can be reasonably confident modeling; aerosols, clouds, methane, and carbon cycle feedbacks that are more uncertain; an instrumental temperature record that seems pretty decent in the past century and less so in the prior; and various paleoclimatic proxies with differing degrees of uncertainty depending on the distance from the present and the time resolution desired.

We won’t be 100% certain in the near future that undesirable levels of warming will occur; hell, depending on who you ask, we might not even be 90% certain. It all depends on the significance test you choose for your null hypothesis and the damages you associated with various levels of warming.

As Marty Weitzman is fond of saying, climate change is like a scorpion; the sting is in the tail. I always thought of the metaphor of GHG mitigation as insurance was apt.

Michael Tobis (Comment#31879)
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:21 am

Nice strawman, and totally irrelevant. It is not a question of “what” as the what is simple. Some good, honest science. Not the shenanigans that is going on. Reproduceable results. None of that has been forthcoming yet.

Apparently you still do not understand. It is not denialists (or deniers as you like to call those who do not believe in the church of AGW), it is just people (many scientists as well) looking for REAL science in the debate. So far, there appears to be very little of that. A lot of dogma and religion, and very little science.

Michael Tobis,

your argument about the ability of HS students to make judgements appears to reduce to 2 areas.

1)Their prior instruction in critical thinking, which obviously will vary

2) You ability to present valid, persuasive arguments

My biased belief is that the second issue is far more important and the area that you and the warmists have the most to worry about. In fact, you appear to be losing that argument in the arena of post HS graduates at this very minute compounded by your elitist attitudes!!

Take them up on the offer to debate and use it as a forum to hone your skills, that is, if you have any belief in the actual Science!!

Lucia,

“Ahhh! The things I miss by not paying for cable!”

You can find episodes on the internet of course!! ;>)

The response to this woman’s request and the debate in this comments section is the main reason there are as many sceptics as there are.

When some one like myself doubts the science behind this they get told that the science is done we have all the answers.
When that person asked for this ‘done’ science to be explained and summarised, they get told ‘it’s complicated’.
Well so is string theory but that can be explained complete with evidence to the level most people can understand it (if they are interested).

As it cant be summarised up the next logical step is to entire about the details involved and ofcourse the first step is the raw data.
So that person asks to see the raw data that supports AGW. If my life’s work was proving AGW and I had the data to back that up I would make it is available as possible. Nothing convinces people like testable repeatable results. Yet shocking repeated request for this raw data are denied and this information has yet to be made public available.

The next logic step to to look for other evidence to back up this science such as a warm spot in the atmosphere that an increase co2 impact on the green house effect would have. However that can not be provided either.
After that the person stops being unsure and starts being sceptical and starts asking hard questions.

Usually the answers to questions are laced with insults. The answers are insulting in themselves.
For example the science is complicated? Are you saying I’m too stupid to understand your theory?
Comparisons between Holocaust deniers and people who question the science of AGW is another example of responses which are not only pointless they are counter productive.
If some one does not agree with your theory you dont insult them or try to bully them if your theory is valid you try and convince them with evidence.

Why would this not make people like me sceptical. We have a bunch of people with a theory which can only provide evidence that is anecdotal at best. These people appear at first glance to e doomsayers who bridal and insult at any level of questions or queries for more information.

AGW evangelists seem to be asking for a lot of money be it as research grants or emission trading schemes. If these evangelists can not back up there claims in a way there sceptics accept, how does this make them different to any other con man.
Come on if you are asking people for a lot of money which lets face it 90% of the AGW proponents appear to be; be it in increased research funding or emissions trading schemes. If you can not back your claims up in a way your sceptics accept why shouldn’t people think you are trying to con them?

Frankly most sceptics are not big polluter shills nor are they unconcerned with the environment. They are average people who feel they are being mislead and dislike that feeling and people who want justification if regulators are going to raise taxes and/or the cost of living.
And why shouldn’t we demand justification?

Luke Carter (Comment#32014)
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:40 pm
When that person asked for this ‘done’ science to be explained and summarised, they get told ‘it’s complicated’.

I dont recall the speaker, but – “If you cant explain your idea on the back of this post it note, you do not understand what you are talking about.”

To PhilJourdan:
Exactly my point. That ofcourse is the most innocent interpretation. A more cynical person might believe that they understand what they are talking about, however are trying to deceive others for their own personal gain.

If nothing else no one can explain to me why in the 80’s a lot of environmentalists where scaring us that we were entering a new ice age cause by carbon emissions. That was ‘complicated’ as well.

Michael Tobis (Comment#31975) February 3rd, 2010 at 4:15 pm

“If people want to make the AGW message more plausible they should start by writing a nice thorough essay on the shortcomings of the greenhouse metaphor.”
Google is your friend!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect
http://moregrumbinescience.blo…..nomer.html
http://amsglossary.allenpress&.....se-effect1
Want more…?
Lack of explanation is not the problem.
Thank you for this information.

End quote

Unforchantly the wikipedia link simply states increase warming is happening without whys or where fors and allarmingly has many discredited (such as ice cores) concepts under pinning it. In addition uses could in most cases when ddescribing AGW. It is unclear around the details.
The other two links simply state what the green house effect is (an why it stops us freezing to death) without even touching on AGW.

Yes I do want more. Specifically I would like you to describe in your own words given that according to the material you provided CO2 only traps a small range of infra-red frequencies (to be exact three narrow bands of wavelengths, which are 2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), given there is a finite level of radiation the sun (and earth) will emit and given that that the expect behaviour for the absorption is logarithmic growth; Why do we see AGW predictions (The largely discredited Hockey stick for example) that appear to be exponential growth? What level of satiation do we currently have, that is what percentage of the infra-red frequencies absorbed by C02 are currently being absorbed.
Inaddition what direct evidence can you provide of increase absorption by the C02 layer in the upper atmosphere (thermal imaging, spectral analysis, etc)?

I don’t recall the speaker, but – “If you cant explain your idea on the back of this post it note, you do not understand what you are talking about.”

That assumes a situation of trust, which we don’t have here. I can explain briefly, but only if you believe my good intent.

If you are hoping only to shoot me down, and have infinite time and space to attack, my explanation becomes longer and more legalistic. What else could it do?

Then you say my explanation is too complicated!

It is almost as if you had made your mind up before we started talking! But that couldn’t be, could it?

Perhaps someone less arrogant than myself would care to help Mr. Carter?

MTobis
“Want more…?
Lack of explanation is not the problem.”

I like the second of those that you linked to. Of course, when I read in the first that the “percentage contribution to the greenhouse effect [of] the four major gases are:
water vapor, 36–70%
carbon dioxide, 9–26%
methane, 4–9%
ozone, 3–7% ”
I have to say to myself, aha, there’s all the uncertainty right there.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 3 20:44),

That assumes a situation of trust, which we don’t have here.

First, I have my doubts that you can explain any physics because I read your blog and as far as I can tell, you never do. I’ve seen you link and suggest someone else might give a good explanation; I’ve read your book recommendations. But I have never, ever seen you break down and give an explanation of anything having to do with physics at all.

But assuming my experience stems from the fact that you gave up giving explanations years ago when you began blogging, and you could explain if you had to, I have to ask this:

If you know trust is important to communicating your views, why do you behave the way you do? Writing posts accusing people who you wish to listen to you of being evil? (Or seeming to do so?) Attacking the values of those who you wish to listen to you? Writing divisive tomes dividing the world into two sides and making it sound like you are convinced all on the other side are bad, wrong, stupid, craven, bought and paid for, blah, blah blah.

In short, what do you everything to create strong divisions, and then make sure the people you think are on the ‘other side” do not trust you?

Start Quote—
Michael Tobis (Comment#32021) February 3rd, 2010 at 8:44 pm

Perhaps someone less arrogant than myself would care to help Mr. Carter?
— End quote

Sorry Michael but you have just proven my earlier point.
At no point did I call or imply that you are arrogant.
And at a side note I apologize if indirectly I made you feel that way.

I simply responded to your comment.

Your reply does not answer any of my questions and is passive aggressively implying that I insulted you by calling you arrogant and as a result you are withholding your reply.

Now if you had a response to my points that you believed in I would expect for you to take to opportunity to convince me to your point of view.

So the simple question is why didn’t you?
Why did respond with passive aggression rather than a reasoned argument?

Start quote —
Michael Tobis (Comment#32020) February 3rd, 2010 at 8:44 pm

–SNIP –

That assumes a situation of trust, which we don’t have here. I can explain briefly, but only if you believe my good intent.

If you are hoping only to shoot me down, and have infinite time and space to attack, my explanation becomes longer and more legalistic. What else could it do?

Then you say my explanation is too complicated!

It is almost as if you had made your mind up before we started talking! But that couldn’t be, could it?
– End Quote

You seem to be reply to both PhilJourdan and myself as if we are the same person.
While I agreed with his point it does make your statement confusing.

That said it appears that I owe you an apology. I mustn’t have communicated my view earlier clearly.
I was not stating that arguments such as yours where too complicated. I honestly do not think they are.

I was stating that when asked for a summary describing how AGW impacts the climate the common answer seems to a dismissive response to the effect (or in some cases word for word): “It’s complicated”.

As for my mind being made up. That might be how you perceive someone who questions your belief but I do not feel that is the case.

I am happy to let you and others like you believe what ever you want without baiting or questioning you, under normal circumstances. Just like I am with Sciencetologists, Muslims, radical Christians and any one else who has a personal belief system that is different from my own. Right up until it starts costing me money or personal liberties.

Sure, I’m not willing to trust you without a reason to. But that is because I am unwilling to part with either cash or freedoms unless there is a justifiable reason. The fact of the mater is responses just as the ones you have given give me less reason to trust you.

An additional point as far as only posting to shoot someone down:
The Blackboard is a blog which is skeptical of climate change.
Most readers here will disagree with you. Yet seem to react on a personal level when they question you. As if you are shocked their views would differ from yours.

Why is that you think?

Tobis wrote:

Science is not data.

Surely only a mother of nine could make a statement that stupid.

Tobis wrote:

yes, that “Science is not data.” was deliberately provocative.

Try indeliberately ignorant.

Tobis wrote:

Hours you spend reading “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey” aloud are hours you do not spend doing the exercises in A. Papoulis’ “Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes”, for instance.

Yeah, Papoulis is so very tough that the rest of us must rely on the experts to interpret it for us, since we’re too busy reading to our children.

Tobis wrote:

When the current publicity burst from Morano settles down we should discuss it.

Yes, when it dies down, Tobis, let’s talk it over.

Tobis wrote:

I think that is a very bad mistake, terribly misplaced arrogance, and if it becomes widespread, poisonous for democracy.

We don’t, for one thing, live in a democracy, thank goodness. Democracy is poison. It is majority rule. It is rule by consensus, which is one of the reason you fear it being poisoned. Democracy, as John Adams said, is the tyranny of the masses. It is mob rule. The United States is, as Benjamin Franklin said, a Constitutional Republic. Which is one of the many reasons that the word “democracy” does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution.

Tobis wrote:

I seem to have violated a tabu

No. But the fact that that’s how you interpret what you did tells us much. What you actually did was jettison reason in favor of shooting off at the mouth. Again. It reminds me of Boris trying to argue — again — that cap-and-trade makes good sense because it “worked for sulfur dioxide” (as if regulating millions of different and individual sources of emissions is no different from regulating 450 plants).

Tobis wrote:

I really am a zealot for truth.

I’ll tell you what, Tobis: sign that, have it notarized, and I’ll take it under consideration.

Tobis wrote:

They are not hiding their code and data from you. They are hiding their code and data from each other.

Tobis wrote:

Yes, scientists share data with allies and not with strangers or opponents. Yes they form cliques.

Give them enough rope, they hang themselves every time.

Sod wrote:

Tobis is getting hate mail, after Morano decided to link and post his mail.

It’s tough, isn’t it, Sod? I know what you’re feeling. It breaks my heart too. Still, no one I know of ever said shooting off at the mouth was all gravy.

Well, I suppose I should chime in here.

It is really something to read comments on your character from people you have never met.
One has to at least throw a few jabs in self defense! It’s only natural!

To Lucia, Tom, halfacanuck, Kevin, Glenn, Mr. Pitt, Mr Bressler, Swami, Boar Patch and Cartoonaurus, amac and all who defended a mom, “Thanks” your Mom taught you right!

I will try to keep this “above the line” and all in “good fun” if you know what I mean. Should I offend anyone, like perhaps Mr. Tobis, please accept my apologies ahead of time; I really am a good humored person.

Here we go:

I began working on inviting scientists the second week in November, so I believe I was on target with the time line to host an event. Our group went into this knowing that is was highly unlikely that any AGW scientist would be willing to debate. Worldwide it seems to be a “no-show” for such discussion from the AGW side..

I thought I could do it. I was wrong, and I apologize if it seemed that some ulterior motive was in mind other than trying to get some more information on a subject that is being taught in our schools. Further, a subject that has been scrutinized recently due to the “climate gate” or the Himalayan glacier controversies. A debate or discussion seemed like a good idea. To the comments on travel costs or expenses: such information would have certainly been addressed if anyone would have even inquired about coming.

As for the premise of my story printed on pajamas media: I noted that not only did AGW scientists decline to attend our event but many tended to be rude and arrogant… BINGO! Numerous posts here only enforce my conclusion that many in this circle are well, let me think…let’s put it nice, let’s see…Snobs!
That was polite!

As for the reference I made of myself being a mother of nine and a horse trainer, I sincerely was just trying to relay how confusing it was to a “simple person like me” (I know you love that Mr. Tobis) that discussing a subject is always worthwhile and when absolutely no one on a side of an issue will agree to face off, it tends to raise one’s curiosity.

Let’s not talk about my doubts about AGW. That was never my role in the story though it seemed that many of the comments were directed at my apparent opinions on this subject, I never claimed to be an expert. All I ever said was it was peculiar no one would sit down to defend AGW and what a bunch of inconsiderate people I encountered.

Now…
as for my uterus, (I told you I had a good sense of humor) I must confess… my uterus only gave birth (and I mean birth – not “birther” here!) to 6 children. I was divorced and re-married and gained 3 more. Now I know at first Mr. Tobis is thinking “maybe her IQ is higher only six!”, but of course the word “divorce” calculates data that enforces lower class statistics of broken marriages, so you are still assured of my stupidity! Splendid!

Now while Mr. Benson is dismayed at the prospects of not only me voting, but my children…
Let’s see here:
A 5 year veteran, masters military intelligence – Corporation owning daughter—Master Tradesman—Plumber-Nurse—Police Officer—Biologist—and a taxidermist (which is an interesting thought) HAHA!

I have tried to stop them from voting but these simpletons don’t listen! Mercy!

Did I tell you I have 8 grandchildren?

Sorry to report:
I train about 100 little girls a year in the art of equestrian competition (or mere mucking stalls and horse %#@&) and have been doing such for over 25 years now. Most alarming (no pun intended) is that after participating in my equestrian program and spending time with me, year after year, most students report that when they grow up they want to be “just like me” OMG!!!! OMG!!!!
Calculate that Mr. Tobis! 100 kids X 9 X 25= holy cow, this could be more serious then AGW!
Inferior breeding programs and over population of the nincompoops’! Save the world, save the world!

Remember… all in fun here!

So to conclude and while it has been a barrel of laughs I would say two things: to my buds
Martin, Clifton, Mr. Benson, Mr. Tobis and any others who degrade a faceless person on the number of children she has raised.
Final thoughts:
It is important to put a face to things, if you know what I mean. What if Mr. Tobis and I were to run into each other one day? I mean, certainly not that he would ever be near where people like me live and breed, how distatesful! No, I mean, you know it’s a small world and who knows. Here is my picture. There is a face behind the words you blog.

What I have learned from hosting an ill fated debate is this: “That I am thankful Mr. Tobis is not part of my family because the thought of having to spend holidays with the likes of him would be more then I could take!”

Now that is my last joke! It has all been in good fun.. right?
And now…
Take us now to my group’s blog spot that seemed to be the reason some commented I was a “propaganda nutter” or whatever. I would say that our patriot group is made of people who honor GOD, live for their families and love this great country. That is our base. Whatever that makes us is exactly who we are. Every one of us shares a very genuine concern for the welfare of our country these days.

As for the last year, I would have to say it has been an amazing time in my life. It was as if an alarm clock went off in my mind, or in my heart saying “get going your country is in trouble”. Since then it seems like each and every day is driven by something I cannot put a reason too, other than that, I love this country and I fear it is slipping away.

Going to GOD is my first route and after that I look to the Founding Fathers.

I believe you would hear a similar story from tea party people across the country.

If I am an idiot, or an imbecile for those thoughts, then I am proud of it!

And so I ask… What is important to you?

I expect the world will not continue to evade a huge crash for much longer, and that climate will play a role in that.
.
Well I expect something very different .
I expect the world will ignore talks of “huge crashes” and the climate will play a role in the correctness of this attitude .
Some people are still scared despite everything ?
Some people would still like to <b<ACT ?
Some people would still “save the planet” ?
.
No problem with that . There is even a perfectly acceptable and long experimented solution .
Perfectly acceptable for EVERYBODY .
I suppose that everybody here ignores the german tax laws .
Why is the german tax law relevant to climate beliefs ?
Well many german considered once that having a good working religion was a good thing .
Some german didn’t think so or didn’t care .
So when you fill up your tax form in germany , you check whether you belong to a recognized religion . Or you don’t .
If you check yes , you pay a tax that finances actions of the said religion .
If you check no , you pay no tax .
And it works REMARKABLY well .
.
That’s why the best and definitive solution to all this tired talk about “precaution principle” , “necessity to act” , “insurance” etc is exactly that .
You check on your tax form whether you believe in the necessity to “act to fight the global warming” .
Tobis or Hansen would check yes – they would then pay a tax financing the fight .
I would check no – I would finance no such actions .
Everybody would be happy .
People like me would think that there are people who just love to waste their money but it’s theirs to be wasted so no problem .
People like Tobis or Hansen would have a warm and fuzzy feeling to save the planet so no problem either .
.
Last but not least , note that the question whether one is smart or not , with a PhD or not has nothing to do with the case they check .

Oh, the sophistication of these types….I mean compared to mothers of nine.

EliRabett said…
Eli believes the accurate and precise answer to Lucia is “You are full of crap”

February 3, 2010 8:32 PM

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=8524070301101240472&postID=5678211682803609869

Kimberly Simac,

You have a fan down here in KY. (me)

Tom Fuller and Steven Mosher,

I am on pg. 172 of Climategate. “All things being equal” I shall finish reading it tonight (where I anticpate I’ll have to tolerate a Lukewarmer Ending… I’ll stop and get some Pepto on the way home)

Andrew

The exchange appears to be:

Blogger Steve Bloom said…
Lucia pretends she’s never visited WUWT, and denies that what she does is simply a more sophisticated version.

February 3, 2010 8:13 PM Blogger EliRabett said…
Eli believes the accurate and precise answer to Lucia is “You are full of crap”

Eli can think whatever he wants. People are making up “sins”. I’ve never claimed I never visit WUWT. It’s on my freakin’ blogroll! I check everything on my blogroll at least once a week, and I visit WUWT, rabettrun, initforgold, realclimate, climateaudit, noconsensus and the Pielke blogs every day!

I don’t deny that what I do is “different” from what any of those blogs do. Of course all of are blogs are different in some ways and they are all the same in some ways. Big whip.

Lucia: “People are making up “sins””

Yes, Steve Bloom has a habit of doing that:

Steve Bloom Jul 7 2008, 08:16 PM Post #24:
“So you believe Lucia Liljegren, hmm, monsoon? FYI she’s a mechanical engineer with zero education relevant to climate science, and as she says on her blog just started learning statistics a few months ago. Unsurprisingly she completely screwed up this analysis but, since the point of blogs like hers is to provide talking points for people like you, won’t ever admit the mistake.”

And Rabett knows it.

Kimberly Simac,

Michael Tobis has apologized.

A debate or discussion seemed like a good idea.

Listening to a high-end oral debate is not the best *introduction* to a complex field, and climate science is one of the more complex studies of the human mind. It’s not that laypeople cannot gain a substantial understanding, indeed they can, but start with textbooks first right?

An excellent, free, online book…
Spencer Weart, The Discovery of Global Warming

Andrews, David G. An Introduction to Atmospheric Physics. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

when absolutely no one on a side of an issue will agree to face off

The sides have faced off already, in the peer reviewed literature, on blogs, in newspapers, in textbooks. Practically every issue the ’skeptics’ raise has been discussed, and the dust settled. Those sources are easy to find, and easier to follow than an oral debate.

many tended to be rude

Alleged rudeness in response to a polite request is of course inexcusable and unnecessary.

Lazar–
I’ve never understood why anyone who knows anything about climate science thinks Wearts book addresses the questions voters have. It’s a nice history… but … with regard to what to do… so?

“and as she says on her blog just started learning statistics a few months ago.”
As usually, Steve Bloom is a bit confused. I did say I started reading about how to deal with estimating the uncertainty in a trend when the residuals exhibit correlations in time series about when I began my blog.

That’s hardly the same as saying I “started learning statistics a few months ago.”

I took probability and statistics as an undergraduate and graduate student. If you google, you will find an abstract that reads

“Ensemble-averaging theorems are applied to derive transport equations for the fluctuating kinetic energy of a particulate mixture consisting of a continuous fluid and solid particles. The evolution of fluctuating kinetic energy in a homogeneous flow is examined and discussed. {copyright} {ital 1996 American Institute of Physics.}
Physics of fluids

The author is me. That is to say: My work was in the area of statistical fluid mechanics as applied to multiphase flow.

If you’d like the link, it’s here:

http://www.osti.gov/energycita....._id=283628

There is nothing “screwed up” about my analyses. They make certain assumptions– as do everyones. The assumptions can be discussed. I don’t think Steve Bloom understands the assumptions, or their consequences. But I could be wrong. If he does understand the assumptions, he is welcome to give a specific explanations why those assumptions are inappropriate. If he is correct, I can always modify my analyses to take into account his concerns and see if that makes any difference. Modifying to incorporate criticisms and shortcoming is something is a normal part of the pursuit of knowledge, and I’m glad to do it.

Luke Carter (#32019, #32029) –

You had asked Michael Tobin to explain the Consensus AGW case.

I am not charmed by the online persona that Michael has constructed for himself at his site and in these Blackboard threads, and hope for his colleagues’ sake that it doesn’t represent his real-life self. Yet he makes some valid points.

Under the best of circumstances, it would be impossible for a climate scientist to write a blog post or comment that makes a compelling case to you for any stance on AGW. It’s too technical and requires too much background. And it would take way too much of the explainer’s time.

This is not to say that an educated, interested layperson like you (or me) cannot come to an informed opinion. The sophistication of that opinion will depend on what our education is (e.g. in physics or statistics or the philosophy of science), how committed we are to learning the foundational concepts, and how much time we are willing to devote to such “homework.”

And it’s probably prudent to recognize limits to our insightfulness.

FWIW, after a couple of months of spare-time reading, here’s what I see as the main issues on AGW.

1. The physics of the “greenhouse gas” effects of CO2 and other atmospheric components on surface temperatures are clear. As far as AGW, the main effects of rising CO2 will be to affect water vapor (another greenhouse gas) and, possibly, albedo. These secondary factors will be the main drivers of climate change in the coming decades and centuries. Will they be large or small? How confident is this prediction? The Consensus says, “large changes with modest uncertainty.” Lukewarmers (skeptics) say, “changes might be modest, the uncertainty is great.”

2. Part of the Consensus case stems from the picture of global warming that emerges from looking at the instrumental temperature record, ~1800 – present. The Consensus position is that this record is robust. Lukewarmers counter that the data have been poorly handled and subjected to ill-documented adjustments. This has likely exaggerated the magnitude of the rise in the blade of the hockey stick.

3. Another part of the Consensus case emerges from the study of paleoclimate. Consensus advocates believe that reconstructions prove that global temperatures are higher than they have been in 2,000 years. Skeptics challenge the robustness of all of these studies, and even the validity of the most prominent ones.

4. Consensus advocates believe that computer models of the planet’s climate are good enough to forecast the likely changes to climate over the next decades. Lukewarmers disagree.

5. Consensus advocates are untroubled by the practices of climatologists as regards data collection, data selection, statistical treatment, analysis, interpretation, and sharing of data and code. They assert that this represents a normal state of affairs for a physical science. Skeptics are dismayed by these beliefs. On detailed examination, they repeatedly claim discovery of conduct that violates good scientific practice.

There is a wealth of information on these topics to be found in the archives at The Blackboard, and among the sites at Lucia’s blogroll. Soon enough, you’ll get pointed back to the peer-reviewed literature, and to textbooks. How deep will you go? Up to you.

Neither Michael Tobis nor anyone else will be able to answer any one of these points in one sitting. Much less all five (plus whatever I’ve neglected).

My two cents.

Lucia,

I’ve never understood why anyone who knows anything about climate science thinks Wearts book addresses the questions voters have. It’s a nice history… but … with regard to what to do… so?

You’re assuming / dictating the only questions voters have is about policy response. That clearly isn’t true — even from scanning the comments above. Consider what questions high school students might have. Nor was it the premise behind Ms Simac’s invitation.

Lazar

You’re assuming / dictating the only questions voters have is about policy response. That

Actually, I’m not assuming that. I can see why you might thing so though.

The difficulty is that the book tells us nothing that helps us judge if projections for the future are high /low/ about right. It tells us very little about how much late 20th century warming might be natural vs. anthropogenic etc. I think these sorts of questions are important to understanding the various important arguments about AGW and Wearts book doesn’t engage them.

The book is fine as far as it goes. I think lots of students should read that book, but I don’t see why people think just fobbing them off with “read this book” answers the questions people are really asking.

well, we all agree that the second Tobis post was pretty reasonable.

i will watch you folks now focus on the guys who used terms like “green nazis” and “eco terrorists” in their replies to the Simac post…

Lucia,

I don’t see why people think just fobbing them off with “read this book” answers the questions people are really asking.

a) the book contains citations to much more detail
b) it’s given as a starting point, not “fobbing them off” as the one and only source you need to read
c) start with the basics
d) understanding the history and basics / “settled science” gives more confidence, and more reasonable confidence, in the knowledge and evidence pertinent to current research
d) i.e. the questions you pose and the knowledge and evidence needed to answer are not independent of prior work as presented in Weart’s book
f) you’re still assuming/dictating “the questions people are really asking”
g) “what is the greenhouse effect”… “how does carbon dioxide warm the atmosphere”… “what are the other influences on climate”… “is the world warming”… “how has it warmed in the past”… “why are temperature trends not monotonic”… “what is a GCM and how does one work”… “how do we know all this”… are questions a high school student and a reasonable member of the voting public might and have asked.

h) Let Ms Simac and others decide if Weart’s book helps ‘answer the questions they are really asking.’

Michael Tobis (Comment#32020)

Any excuse will do? You are the one that has exalted himself among us. I am just looking for some of your wisdom to be passed along.

I see 2 possible reasons for your hesitancy:

1. You have no clue how to explain it and do not want to be embarrassed.
2. You are afraid that your beliefs are not strong enough to withstand scrutiny.

The ball has been served and is in your court.

“If I am an idiot, or an imbecile for those thoughts, then I am proud of it!

And so I ask… What is important to you?”

You are certainly no idiot, Mrs. Simac. You certainly shouldn’t have been insulted for having nine kids. You probably deserve a vacation or nine.

But then you do seem to imply that scientist’s not attending your debate is an example of fear or reluctance when in most cases it was certainly due to being busy. You are quoted as saying:

“Who ever heard of any subject that was not open to debate? If this science is so settled, come and prove it.”

But certainly the science is open to debate. And certainly engaging in a debate for a couple of hours will “prove” nothing. It seems somewhat rude to imply that scientists are afraid to debate or consider opposing views just because they have declined your invitation.

Nicely said, AMac. I agree with the thrust of it, and it’s helpful to have someone in the lukewarmer camp say it. I have to disagree with the details though.

I save your first point for my last because it shows a very common and very important misunderstanding of the situation.

exaggerated the magnitude of the rise in the blade of the hockey stick…

challenge the robustness of all of these studies…

These recent data carry much more weight in the public debate than they do in the scientific community, especially if the question is boiled down to the “global warming”, i.e., global mean surface temperature, question.

The history of how this came to pass in actually very interesting. Frankly, there is not enough information there to be determinative by itself. It has to be seen in the context of the rest of the picture to be useful.

Consensus advocates are untroubled by the practices of climatologists as regards data collection, data selection, statistical treatment, analysis, interpretation, and sharing of data and code. They assert that this represents a normal state of affairs for a physical science.

I am not untroubled by it, and as far as I know I’m practically alone in coming out and saying 1) it’s common to many sciences and 2) it’s a bad thing, However, 3) the track record of science shows that it is not a showstopper. But don’t take that as a consensus position; as far as I know most people behaving this way don’t get it.

You will find these behaviors do not exist in medicine or engineering, from which quarters many of the complaints we get emerge. This makes perfect sense. The culture of climate science emerged as a pure science, mostly curiosity-driven. As far as the culture at large was concerned, it was an affordable eccentricity, not an important branch of research. When this field discovered matters of serious importance, it became an applied and controversial discipline with the traditions of a modest and collegial scientific backwater. This is what you are seeing, and what you are interpreting as a vast conspiracy.

These secondary factors will be the main drivers of climate change in the coming decades and centuries.

Not exactly the usual use of “drivers”, and perhaps understating the importance of direct anthropogenic forcing terms, but roughly correct.

Will they be large or small? How confident is this prediction? The Consensus says, “large changes with modest uncertainty.” Lukewarmers (skeptics) say, “changes might be modest, the uncertainty is great.”

Here is the nub of the whole issue. Are we discussing science, or policy? If we are discussing science, I think we have to acknowledge that the uncertainties are large. I don’t believe that the scientific community claims otherwise. So this is a misrepresentation of the mainstream at least.

But it is a much larger misrepresentation of the community of people opposed to policy action. If uncertainties are large, then risk is large, and policy action is called for. It is the implicit position of those opposing policy that sensitivity is small and uncertainty is also small. That is, rationally, the avoidance of policy relies on far greater certainty in science being wrong, than advocacy of policy requires in it being right.

This is a crucial point. I agree with you that the uncertainties are great. I disagree with you on the balance of evidence about the sensitivity. But even if I accept your low sensitivity you are far from done in making a case for no vigorous emissions policy. You must make a case for low sensitivity and LOW uncertainty. As far as I know nobody does this. This is the key incoherence of arguments for no vigorous policy.

(Alas, now my “arrogance” cuts in.) It seems what I am saying is just a tiny bit too subtle for the general public. At least, I never hear a politician making the point. “The science is uncertain, therefore we must act with even greater urgency” has essentially been Wally Broecker’s position for decades. Maybe we should really try to explain this.

Anyway your argument that mainstream climatology is overconfident about the bottom line sensitivity (that so much of this argument revolves around) is simply not true. The spread in estimates is either large or huge, depending on whom you ask. It’s the people who advocate against a response who, at least implicitly, rely on excessive confidence. The way this particular point has been garbled has been a point of frustration for me ever since I first got involved in public discussions of these things 17 years ago.

Re: sod (Feb 4 09:57),
Some commenters on Simac’s post seem un-appealing and post vapid and repellent comments.

Still, why would anyone spend a lot of time focusing on terms used by nearly anonymous commenters instead of what is discussed by features bloggers given the more prominent area above fold?

Lazar

f) you’re still assuming/dictating “the questions people are really asking”

Sure. I’m basing my assumption on the quesitions they ask. They aren’t asking “Who first conceived of the CO2 affected the earth’s temperature?” or “What’s the history of weather modeling?” and “How did that transition into climate modeling?” or “Who are the famous names in climate science history”?

Those are the sorts of questions Weart’s book discusses. I don’t read anyone asking those anywhere on blogs. I’ve certainly never seen the recommendation to read Weart’s book be given in response to a question actually answered in the book. If your experience is different, fine.

But my impression is Weart’s book is interesting as far as it goes. Many people will enjoy reading it. But with respect to the questions they usually ask, recommending that book is fobbing them off and giving them a red herring.

If this weren’t a situation of active hostility and I had a (rather large) postcard to “explain” the consensus, it would go like this:

===

Earth scientists and physicists have discovered through various lines of evidence that the climate of the earth is sensitive to the amount of certain gases in the atmosphere. Most notable among these for practical purposes is CO2, which is, by geological standards, accumulating very rapidly in the atmosphere as a result, mainly of our burning of fossil fuels.

The climate system which we tend to think of as stable is actually a fluid flow pattern, and it doesn’t take much input to change the patterns of flow of a fluid. Changing the composition of the atmosphere is like throwing large rocks in a fast-flowing stream. In the end, the stream will find its way. But we are like little riverbank creatures who rely on a particular pattern of eddies. We will not find the ever increasing boulders being tossed into the stream convenient.

The extra CO2 is also leading directly to ocean acidification, which will dramatically change ocean ecosystems at a time when they are already under severe stress.

We are very reliant on energy, and changing infrastructure takes decades, so farsightedness in these matters is crucial. The changes we have seen to date are expected to be small compared to the ones we will see in future. There are many uncertainties, which means the worst case risks are large. The bottom line is that we need to think very seriously now about our energy infrastructure in the future.

===

A lot left out there, of course. Especially about aerosols. But that’s my first attempt. Notice I did not use the word “warming”.

Re: Michael Tobis #32107 –

Thanks for your response to my remarks to Luke Carter (and by extension, to Kim Simac).

Having no exposure to you prior to yesterday’s appearance at this website, I had concluded that you are unwilling to engage in reasoned discussion with those who don’t subscribe to the AGW Consensus, and that you place little value on civil discourse. Unfortunately this isn’t an unusual Consensus stance–see some of the more prolific commenters on your site.

It is nice to be proven wrong. I will try to refrain from further snark, and hope you will do the same.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 4 10:42),

You must make a case for low sensitivity and LOW uncertainty.

Why do you think AMac is required to make this case? He doesn’t claim it and doesn’t believe it’s true. So, clearly, he has no burden to prove it.

You are very confused when you transition into discussing which policy actions are advocated by lukewarmers. Many advocate some action. Some don’t. The position of lukewarmer is somewhat orthogonal to one’s position on action.

As for your claim that the blade of the hockey stick carries little weight with the science community, that may be true in some sense. Of course, as usual,you leave the sense in which it carries little weight ambiguous. Is it looked on as dubious in the paleo-reconstruction community? To the extent that the reviewers are telling authors to stop wasting their time? Or funding agencies have decided it’s so pointless as to cease funding?

Or do you mean the hockey stick is not the main proof of warming? Of course it’s not. No one here claims it is the main proof nor does anyone claim the scientific community ever thought so. The support for AGW is a preponderance of evidence argument, and the paleo-reconstructions are a plank in that argument. The reality is that no matter which plank someone criticize, you or anyone can say “this plank isn’t given that much” weight.

Projections inaccurate? That’s not the whole argument. Hockey stick inaccurate? That’s not the whole argument. Models parameterizations not well constrained by data? That’s not the whole argument. Scientists appearing to behave badly to keep public from learning any individual plank is wobbly? That’s not the whole argument.

In each case, the response is true. That’s because AGW really is a preponderance of the evidence argument. People discussing the problems with the indiviudal planks are perfectly aware of this. You’re jumping to the conclusion that the fact that they inspect the argument plank by plank means they don’t understand there is a whole floor shows your lack of understanding of what’s going on.

As for the hockey stick: it has weight in AGW activist promotional materials and matters for that reason. It gets attention commensurate to its visibility in the argument for AGW. Given the iconic status accorded early on, and the valiant defense as people publish new papers, it continues to get attention. You can say scientists give it little weight (in some sense). But at this point, unless the science community steps forwards and, in a loud united voice, declares that the hockey stick is irrelevant to the argument, and anyway, it’s accuracy is dubious, people will continue to inspect that plank.

When scientists get to the point of filling all the wormholes in the plank with putty, or replacing that plank with something sound, people are going to continue to discuss it.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 4 11:03),

The climate system which we tend to think of as stable is actually a fluid flow pattern, and it doesn’t take much input to change the patterns of flow of a fluid. Changing the composition of the atmosphere is like throwing large rocks in a fast-flowing stream. In the end, the stream will find its way. But we are like little riverbank creatures who rely on a particular pattern of eddies. We will not find the ever increasing boulders being tossed into the stream convenient.

Whoa Nelly! You really don’t know the cause of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Your explanation doesn’t even mention radiative physics and suggest the main issue has to do with fluid mechanics. Wow! Who’d a thunk?!

When you write your explanation, you sound like you actually do know less about the physics of the greenhouse effect that the average readers of… of… Oh. It’s just too delicious to say.

I actually kinda liked the metaphor. I know that others have used flow patterns as a way to explain dynamic equilibrium in chaotic systems; Fritjof Capra comes to mind.

Oh please. I didn’t say the *cause* was fluid dynamics.

I had, under the terms of the challenge, a postcard to paint the whole picture. Of course I left important stuff out.

That is my point. The postcard approach makes sense in the absence of opposition. If you were being collaborative, youd have said “Perhaps you might have spent a sentence or two on the greenhouse effect itself”. Perhaps.

When I saw Schlesinger completely screw up a public talk on anthropogenic climate change, he spent a lot of time on the physics of the greenhouse effect, and on why certain molecules absorbed certain frequencies, and on why most of the audience didn’t have enough calculus to follow the details. The net effect was wretched, along the same axis I’m being accused of wretchedness.

We are in a bind. That’s the whole point. Be accessible, and be accused of oversimplification and evasiveness. Be complete, and be accused of obscurantism and elitism. There is no single presentation that is useful and effective for every audience. So if people want to criticize us, there is hardly any statement we can make that they can’t critique.

I’ve done a few radiative convective column simulations in classwork. (In Pascal. Who knows, I may still have the source somewhere.) That means I get the picture at the level it matters most for climate. It might be fun to redo them in Python someday.

I do, admittedly, dislike quantum physics and, admittedly, try to leave it to smarter people (physics-smarter, I mean) than myself whenever I can. As an electrical engineering student I simply hated the Pauli exclusion principle. I hate living in a universe where that thing makes any sense as an explanation of semiconductor diodes. I have decided to just look the other way whenever I can.

For present purposes I simply accept the radiative properties of the various materials and start from there. It seems a good place to draw a line.

Whoa Nelly! You really don’t know the cause of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Your explanation doesn’t even mention radiative physics and suggest the main issue has to do with fluid mechanics. Wow! Who’d a thunk?!

When you write your explanation, you sound like you actually do know less about the physics of the greenhouse effect that the average readers of… of… Oh. It’s just too delicious to say.

you misunderstood Tobis. he s comparing adding CO2 to another situation, which does involve a river.

Re: Michael Tobis #32107 and #32111 –

On your #32107 notes on my remarks to Luke Carter:

You wrote,

These recent data [studies of the instrumental temperature record and paleoclimate reconstructions] carry much more weight in the public debate than they do in the scientific community, especially if the question is boiled down to the “global warming”, i.e., global mean surface temperature, question.

Here and later in your essay, you highlight a symptom of climatology’s state of disrepair. Science is an exercise in understanding the physical world. We obtain the best (most relevant, most complete) data and then use our talents to make sense of them. Logic, multidisciplinary crossover, computers, statistics, higher-order maths. The result might be comforting or awkward, but there it is.

Note that policy implications do not enter into my description. Policy should follow from the science, and from much else as well. (Roger Pielke Jr. discusses this nicely.)

I have come to the opinion that AGW-Consensus climatologists know what policy should be, and that this informs some of the output of AGW-Consensus research. These climatologists and their lay supporters may well be right in their policy views. But what follows from such advocacy is not science.

It also blinds scientist/advocates as far as what proper research conduct is, and as far as evaluating the motives of those outside their narrow circle.

As to the latter, you state that I interpret climate science as “a vast conspiracy.” You note, “It is the implicit position of those opposing policy that sensitivity is small and uncertainty is also small.” You believe I am “making a case for no vigorous emissions policy.” These are straw men. Of course the world is full of idjits as well as sages, and your profile fits somebody. But this is a common pitfall of Believers: to dispute their opponents’ weakest points, instead of seeking out the best counter-arguments.

My position is much simpler. Climate policy should be informed by good science. Much AGW-Consensus climatology is not good science.

I don’t need to have expert status in atmospheric physics (etc.) to defend this opinion, e.g. –

* World-leading paleoclimatologists make reconstructions that include gross errors in data compilation and statistics. These publications are accepted and unchallenged in the Consensus community. These scientists engage in gross violations of the norms of scientific conduct. Their bad behavior also goes unchallenged.

* World-leading climatologists construct the instrumental temperature history based on primary data that suffers from major deficiencies, including undocumented alterations and ignorance of metadata (e.g. UHI effects). These scientists show no urgency in repairing the source data set, preferring to defend its reputation rather than improving its integrity.

As a third point, AGW Consensus climatologists may privately recognize the size of the uncertainty in their future projections. If so, this is not carried forward into the policy realm–many of the embarrassments being suffered by the IPCC stem from this issue.

All that said, I think your view of how to deal with the case of unknown sensitivity and high uncertainty is well within the circle of reasoned opinion. As you no doubt know, this class of problem is not restricted to climate policy.

It seems to me that the AGW Consensus community segues from that stance to a message of urgent policy prescriptions on the basis of high sensitivity/modest uncertainty.

Do I trust that? Should I trust you?

No, and no.

Fix the science.

It would help your cause if you’all could teach leading AGW Consensus advocates like Steve Bloom and Eli Rabett how to conduct themselves in an open society.

But mainly, fix the science.

Lucia,

They aren’t asking “Who first conceived of the CO2 affected the earth’s temperature?” or “What’s the history of weather modeling?” and “How did that transition into climate modeling?” or “Who are the famous names in climate science history”?

Those are the sorts of questions Weart’s book discusses.

That is an extreme misrepresentation of the content of Weart’s book which anyone can check by reading, e.g. here, here, and here.

Evasion of points a-g) noted.

Lucia’s #32113 is quite interesting. I will try not to ignore it but I don’t want to rush into a response either.

Re: Zeke Hausfather (Feb 4 11:48),

actually kinda liked the metaphor. I know that others have used flow patterns as a way to explain dynamic equilibrium in chaotic systems; Fritjof Capra comes to mind.

Metaphors for explaining chaotic systems are fine. Unfortunately,for Michael’s explanation of the greenhouse effecct chaos is not the cause of the greenhouse effect or the enhanced greenhouse effect.

Chaos is the reason weather is difficult to predict. Chaos is involved in the explanation of why climate sensitivity and specific trajectories of climate change– and even the average effect in particular regions is difficult to predict.

Michael

Oh please. I didn’t say the *cause* was fluid dynamics.

No. When explaining the cause, you managed to leave out the main cause from your explanation. I didn’t say you don’t know the main cause; only that when you explain, you leave it out. This makes it appear you don’t know it even if you do.

Look, in comments you have patted yourself on the back as clearly knowing more than me or Ms. Simac. You spend tons of time complaining that people aren’t convinced by your simple explanations. And yet, when you attempt to provide a simple explanation of the greenhouse effect, you leave out the major physical mechanics.

Be accessible, and be accused of oversimplification and evasiveness.

Do you not get that I didn’t accuse you of over-simplification? I observed that when giving a simple explanation of the enhanced greenhouse effect you a) left out the main physical mechanics and b) included a long, nearly irrelevant discussion of fluid dynamics.

I’ve done a few radiative convective column simulations in classwork. (In Pascal.)That means I get the picture at the level it matters most for climate.

No it doesn’t. It means that if someone write down a derived equation, you know how to translate that into code. Lots of students who do not understand the assumptions or derivation of a final result can, nevertheless, write a simple code to spit out results. Learning is a bit of a circular process and writing the code often helps them better understand the physics. However, one often does not need to know the physics to write a code.

For present purposes I simply accept the radiative properties of the various materials and start from there. It seems a good place to draw a line.

Sure. But I wasn’t suggesting you explain WHY CO2 exhibits the radiative properties that it exhibits. I was simply pointing out that when crafting a brief explanation, you failed to mention anything about radiative physics at all. The words aren’t even in there.

Lazar–
Evasion of things like this?

a) the book contains citations to much more detail

“things”? what things? How is sending people on a goose-chase reading a book containing citations useful? I see how it’s useful if you don’t want to answer questions or are unable to answer questions put to you. But other than that, what?

If you want to keep believing “read spencer weart’s historical recounting of discoveries” accomplishes whatever it is you think you want to accomplish, fine.

By the way, people clicking the links will see that my description perfectly describes Wearts book. It is discusses history.

Lucia,

You really don’t know the cause of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Your explanation doesn’t even mention radiative physics and suggest the main issue has to do with fluid mechanics.

Sigh. He was clearly describing by analogy the effects of greenhouse gas perturbations on the fluid flow of the climate system. He didn’t even claim to be describing the enhanced ghg effect. I do not accept that you sincerely believe that mt is unaware of the relevance of radiative transfer. You’re here (and elsewhere) choosing a context of statements and interpretation of words to change mt’s meanings into something which no reasonable person would believe when obvious, plausible, and reasonable alternative contexts and interpretations exist. That’s fine as a lawyer’s ploy, it doesn’t work for discussing issues rationally.

“No it doesn’t. It means that if someone write down a derived equation, you know how to translate that into code. Lots of students who do not understand the assumptions or derivation of a final result can, nevertheless, write a simple code to spit out results. Learning is a bit of a circular process and writing the code often helps them better understand the physics. However, one often does not need to know the physics to write a code. ”

I said I had done some simulations, not just that I had written the code. Nobody would write code like that in the context of a geophysics class and not play around with it after they had.

You’re just being pointlessly contrary now.

perfectly describes Wearts book. It is discusses history.

rotfl

Michael Tobis (Comment#32111)
Thank you! I think that is all that anyone was asking for. And it did not take a large postcard. It is a good explanation that can lead to further discussion/debate. But I dont think anyone wanted an ironclad dissertation on the proof of AGW.

When you stop thinking of questions as hostile attempts to prove you inept, lots can be accomplished.

p.s. You can even cut it down further if you think about it.

A bit of Lucia’s “history” i.e. fundamentals of climate science within a historical context…

What happens to infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface? As it moves up layer by layer through the atmosphere, some is stopped in each layer. (To be specific: a molecule of carbon dioxide, water vapor or some other greenhouse gas absorbs a bit of energy from the radiation. The molecule may radiate the energy back out again in a random direction. Or it may transfer the energy into velocity in collisions with other air molecules, so that the layer of air where it sits gets warmer.) The layer of air radiates some of the energy it has absorbed back toward the ground, and some upwards to higher layers. As you go higher, the atmosphere gets thinner and colder. Eventually the energy reaches a layer so thin that radiation can escape into space.

What happens if we add more carbon dioxide? In the layers so high and thin that much of the heat radiation from lower down slips through, adding more greenhouse gas means the layer will absorb more of the rays. So the place from which most of the heat energy finally leaves the Earth will shift to higher layers. Those are colder layers, so they do not radiate heat as well. The planet as a whole is now taking in more energy than it radiates (which is in fact our current situation). As the higher levels radiate some of the excess downwards, all the lower levels down to the surface warm up. The imbalance must continue until the high levels get warmer and radiate out more energy. As in Tyndall’s analogy of a dam on a river, the barrier thrown across the outgoing radiation forces the level of temperature everywhere beneath it to rise until there is enough radiation pushing out to balance what the Sun sends in.
While that may sound fairly simple once it is explained, the process is not obvious if you have started by thinking of the atmosphere from below as a single slab. The correct way of thinking eluded neary all scientists for more than a century after Fourier. Physicists learned only gradually how to describe the greenhouse effect. To do so, they had to make detailed calculations of a variety of processes in each layer of the atmosphere. (For more on absorption of infrared by gas molecules, see this discussion in the essay on Basic Radiation Calculations.)

lucia (Comment#32118)
February 4th, 2010 at 11:19 am

Lucia, his post was in response to a challenge to state his belief succinctly. As such, I did not take him to task for any over sites or omissions. I think at least he is being a good sport in answering the request, and given the theme of this article, I did not want to get into a challenge on the specifics of his belief.

Michael–
You supply irrelevant evidence in your defense of knowing things. The fact is, when you are required to explain the greenhouse effect, and why we expect AGW to be true, you leave out the main physical phenomena. Whether or not you once ran simulations, that exercise does not seem to have caused you to be able to properly regurgitate the explanation for AGW when called on to do so.

As it happens, even people who ran simulations from code they wrote do not necessarily end up truly understanding the physics in their code. You can protest this doesn’t happen all you like, but it happens. It may not have happened with you, but it happens.

“As in Tyndall’s analogy of a dam on a river, the barrier thrown across the outgoing radiation forces the level of temperature everywhere beneath it to rise until there is enough radiation pushing out to balance what the Sun sends in.”

Tyndall thought the GHE was a river? Idiot.

Lucia,

Methinks I hath been misquothed in #32129 :-p

Thanks to Lazar, for coming up via Spencer Weart with the sort of postcard Lucia seems to have been looking for, and a better one (especially last paragraph) than I would have come up with.

Now we are up to two postcards.

Does anybody think it will stop there?

It is an interesting exercise.

Lucia,

How is sending people on a goose-chase [...] useful?

Let’s retry without begging the question;

How is sending people [...] reading a book containing citations useful?

Because, umm, the information in books is useful? Citations are pointers to further sources.

What about b-g)?

Michael Tobis,

Today it seems we get ‘reasonable Micheal’. What prompted the change? I don’t know, but it’s an improvement.

With regard to the uncertainty/sensitivity/urgency issue: This really is the nub of the divergence among people who have thought a bit about the subject. For me (a lukewarmer, if you will) the analysis really boils down to the question which is better: immediate draconian action, or delay until sensitivity and uncertainty are much better defined (perhaps in 10 years?). There are two factors to consider:

1. What is the potential additional cost of action/remediation due to a 10 year delay?

2. What is the net (lost opportunity) future cost of the investment required for immediate draconian action versus the most likely future value of draconian action.
.
It seems to me that (1) the additional cost for a modest delay is not likely to be that high, but that (2) high uncertainty in sensitivity makes the 100% certain net cost of immediate action much greater than the most likely future value that accrues from immediate action. This is not an original analysis; I’m sure I have heard similar analysis from economists, among others.
.
CO2 is going to rise by about 2 PPM per year for the next 10 years anyway. In 10 years, sensitivity should be pretty well constrained, or at least much better constrained than today.
.
There are lots of good reasons, climate and otherwise, to move towards nuclear power (preferably breeder), and it has the advantage of making a real impact on CO2 emission at relatively low economic cost. So i’m 100% for it. Economic incentives for improving efficiency of energy use also make a lot of sense, climate and otherwise.

Also, on the dynamic equilibrium in a chaotic system remark, I was thinking more about attractors in non-linear systems than short-term weather chaos. Something along the lines of this: http://www.springerlink.com/co.....027143501/

Lazar–
If your points is that buried between long discussions of the history, there is a teensy-beensy discussion of the physics, sure.

But unless people ask about history, why send them to that book? If they just want to know the basis for the green house effect, why not just find a 2 page pdf that discusses the physics?

Telling people who ask questions with 2 page long answer to read a long book that conceals the answer to their question in a short paragraph in an inner chapter is fobbing them off. The book is a history; it should be recommended to people who have historical questions– like the ones I mentioned. Otherwise, if you wish to be responsive to their actual question, you should suggest something more to the point.

If you are not, and try to get them to read lots of long irrelevant (to them) material, they are likely to never get to the part that answer their question because they don’t give a hoot about the rest of information in the book (even if you judge they should.)

I have nothing against people reading that book.

As far as I can tell, people recommend Wearts book because those making the recommendation want others to be interested in the history even when others are asking about issues that have nothing to do with history. Possibly, they want others to waste as uch time as possible reading material they don’t care about before finding the few paragraphs that address their question. The book is rarely recommended in response to a question that is best answered by reading that book!

Lucia, I am not interested in defending my own expertise. Having long ago shed any ambitions toward being a faculty member, I can afford to be wrong sometimes.

I respect the expertise of the climate community. It’s their expertise, not mine, that is at issue.

I was asked for a summary in my own words of the facts as I understand them. I didn’t have room there for an explanation of the greenhouse effect. It’s not as if I hadn’t heard of the thing! That simply wasn’t what I understood to be the question.

Anyway, Weart’s effort is quite elegant. One could hardly do much better without resorting to actual mathematics that would defeat the purpose of accessibility. I certainly couldn’t. So if you are interested in the postcard answer to the question, there it is. If you are interested in whether Tobis could have come up with it, I just have to wonder why that is important.

Michael’s rude response to Kimberly Jo Simac may violate the University of Texas diversity policy that requires respect for all individuals and groups. As Lucia writes, Michael’s initial statement is the equivalent of a “school yard taunt”, which puts it in conflict with the policy on harassment and verbal conduct.

To understand the problem, replace “Well, let’s leave aside the business of what the 9 kids tells us about you, ” with
“Well, let’s leave aside the business of what being a woman tells us about you, ” or “Well, let’s leave aside the business of what being black tells us about you,” or “Well, let’s leave aside the business of what being Muslim tells us about you, ” and you may understand the problem.

The University of Texas diversity policy can be seen here
http://www.utexas.edu/policies/hoppm/04.B.01.html

Michael may be very smart about climate science; however, he may wish to contact his university’s diversity vice president for assistance from the smart people in that office that are smarter than him in that subject area.

Re: Lazar (Feb 4 12:40),
When people ask you focused questions that can be answered simply and briefly, assigning them a research project involving hours of effort, and checking out numerous other references, is not useful to the or you.

Spencer Wearts This Website created by Spencer Weart ” The Discovery of Global Warming ” is primarily a historical document. The discussion at AIP’s page says emphasizes that it is a) not the document to learn basic facts about climate change and it is b) a history.

s Website created by Spencer Weart supplements his much shorter book, which tells the history of climate change research as a single story. On this Website you will find a more complete history in dozens of essays on separate topics, updated annually.

If you want basic facts about climate change, or detailed current technical information, you might do better using the links page. But if you want to use history to really understand it all…

You can read more here. http://www.aip.org/history/climate/

When people ask you basic facts and you recommend Weart, you are providing a reference that asks them to pick a needle out of a haystack and afterwards look up articles cited. This is disrespectful of people’s time. If you are personally able to answer their question, sending them to that book is fobbing them off — because you don’t want to spend the time (which can be ok. But it’s still fobbing them off.)

The book is fine as far as it goes. But I don’t understand why people recommend it to those ask about basic facts or who ask the types of questions I read. People are rarely asking about history.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 4 12:50),

If you are interested in whether Tobis could have come up with it, I just have to wonder why that is important.

I should think it’s important because you have been saying you understand climate science than others in comments at your blog. I also recall you seem to have been telling us you gave up explaining because you found it doesn’t work, and seemed to blame that on some sort of extrenal to you forces.

The fact that your try at an explanation of the consensus about AGW is so poor is enlightening.

As for Weart’s book: If someone asked for an explanation of the greenhouse effect and you went to the trouble to locate that and cut and paste it into comments, I would have no objections. But if your answer is “Read Spencer Weart’s book”, I say you are fobbing them off. I’ve stated the reasons above, but briefly: The book is very long mostly on another topic, and you are expecting them to find the needle in the haystack.

You may think that’s good for their moral character or something — but you are still fobbing them off.

I haven’t been recommending Weart. I haven’t even read it. I hope to find time for it now.

I think I understand the big picture better than you, and I think if you understood things better you would act otherwise than you do. But that’s sort of implicit in our disagreements, isn’t it?

The key point was that some people understand important things better than others, and any discussion that fails to acknowledge that is doomed to reach foolish conclusions. How to leave this fact on the table without being accused of elitism is exactly the issue I am raising.

Obviously I did not do well in this case. Point taken.

But I am not here to subject myself to pop quizzes from you. Let’s discuss the merits of the evidence, not of the messengers.

Michael,
Thank you for your recent tempered tone. It is much easier to read (as is a tempered tone of those who disagree with you).

I appreciate your trying to simplify the science and sometimes that is helpful. I disagree with you (at least I think we disagree) when you seem to imply non-scientists should stay away from technical papers and discussions and should resort to simplified books that explain.

I consider myself agnostic about the studies and implications of climate science. I suspect most people are agnostic to a certain extent in this regard. I read climate related papers because I want to discover what scientists are trying to decipher or believe they have discovered, not what reporters interpret them to mean.

Though my understanding is limited, I still form opinions to aspects of the papers or studies. I suspect you are thinking I am not agnostic if I have an opinion. But I am referring to opinions like, “there seems to be uncertainty with that claim” or “the result seems to lack math skill” or “that behavior is generally unacceptable for a professional” or “this seems well presented”. What level of knowledge is required before a person can form an opinion? This becomes especially tricky when a layperson agrees with a scientist’s point of view. Are they too not entitled to an opinion?

I keep referring to my field of engineering because that is what I know. When I was at Universities in the 70s, nuclear facilities gave tours to the public. Engineering students were invited (yes the FBI approved my visits) and our questions were welcomed though many people on the tours were adamantly opposed to the existence of nuclear facilities.

This seems to be missing in climate science. The public is not invited in to see how business is conducted and our questions are waved aside as trivial or irrelevant. I believe this tends to make people suspicious and distrustful. So even though there will be considerable pushback from opposing factions, I would recommend a more open debate from climate scientists.

Michael Tobis,

You have been a good sport by engaging in the comments here.

Points from me for writing a postcard-sized explanation. v 2.0 would be more incisive, which is (partly) the objective, I imagine.

Michael Tobis,

I have found it unwise to dis a smart woman. She doesn’t forget.

Keith Herbert, unfortunately my problem is tearing myself away.

The discussion is fascinating, and I believe I have gained some useful insights into the nature of the debate, which has more than two sides!

Regarding your suggestion that “I disagree with you (at least I think we disagree) when you seem to imply non-scientists should stay away from technical papers and discussions and should resort to simplified books that explain.” that is not my position at all!

I am very unhappy with the state of communication of climate science. I would like to spend less time putting out fires and more on working with the community toward a more cohesive strategy. I believe anyone can learn more about these matters, and that it is in everybody’s best interests to make the whole business as interesting and accessible as possible.

This includes making a huge effort to improve transparency. Data and code are only part of it. Good review articles at every level of sophisticationare crucial to allow people to make effective use of the code and data, and are woefully lacking.

That all said, there are severe problems with the types of criticism the field is subject to. One of them is the consistent undervaluation of the achievements of the field and the consistent overvaluation of the opinions of its critics. This is called skepticism but it is anything but. Skepticism must be applied to one’s own opinions first. This sort of humility is woefully absent from the critiques of the field. And it often comes defended by accusations of elitism and arrogance.

You can’t convey tens of thousands of mostly earnest and competent and sometimes brilliant person-years of PhD level research in an hour’s debate with a hostile opponent who has spent their efforts on learning to debate and not on engaging with the community. Saying so is portrayed as elitism and maybe it is. But I don’t know what else to say about it.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 4 13:24),
Lazar did.

One of the oddities of your rhetoric is using nouns that make your sentences mean almost nothing.

I may think I understand the picture better than you,

“The picture”? Its possible to figure out if someone understands “the major mechanics involved in the enhanced greenhouse effect” or “how one would test whether a prediction is consistent with observations” or “how to write efficient Python code”. But we can hardly argue about who understand “the picture” without figure out which “picture” we are talking about, can we?

The key point was that some people understand important things better than others,

Of course some people understand “important things” better than others. But unless we identify which “important things” we are discussing, we have no way of even guessing who might understand any particular “important thing” well.

But I am not here to subject myself to pop quizzes from yo

I didn’t subject you to a pop quiz. You decided to provide your synopsis of “the consensus”, in response to someone else. Assuming you were discussing “the consensus” on the case for AGW, I observed your synopsis is bungled in that it leaves out the major physical mechanisms. This might be unremarkable, but my impression is one of the ‘things’ you claim to know better than Ms. Simac or I is the consensus about the major mechanism underlying AGW and the evidence supporting it.

I agree what you wrote may not reflect what you know. That said, I do think you are wise to avoid giving explanations of AGW because you aren’t very good at it!

This has been a great thread. Lots to see. When mt, wrote this it reminded me of some of Hitler’s stuff. “As a pure…” the rest of us are just the meal ticket. At least that is the way it reads to me.

You will find these behaviors do not exist in medicine or engineering, from which quarters many of the complaints we get emerge. This makes perfect sense. The culture of climate science emerged as a pure science, mostly curiosity-driven. As far as the culture at large was concerned, it was an affordable eccentricity, not an important branch of research. When this field discovered matters of serious importance, it became an applied and controversial discipline with the traditions of a modest and collegial scientific backwater. This is what you are seeing, and what you are interpreting as a vast conspiracy.

How are we, the unwashed masses, to comprehend; what only trained scientists funded with public money, can discern? They will save us all from a fate worse than death. They are sure. I only wish we would have been given the chance to vote on this “affordable eccentricity”…

Tom: Godwin. Sheesh.

I was criticizing the field’s failures, not commending them.

“How are we, the unwashed masses, to comprehend; what only trained scientists funded with public money, can discern? They will save us all from a fate worse than death. They are sure. I only wish we would have been given the chance to vote on this “affordable eccentricity”…”

Yes. That is basically the question I am asking. Thanks.

However:

“Sure” only applies to a very small selection of facts, although sometimes even these are called into question, often to deliberately draw outraged responses and thereby charicature scientists as arrogant! Many important things are uncertain, as any mainstream climate scientist will attest.

“Affordable eccentricity” refers to the status of climate science before the scale and urgency of the greenhouse problem became an unavoidable feature of the field’s knowledge base, not to the policy strategies that this knowledge may imply.

Notice how easy it is to misread the opinions of someone you don’t trust. This is crucial to our quandary, not just in climate but in democracy as a whole.

Hey, this thread made it to almost 250 posts before a Godwin. Not bad by usenet’s standards.

Tom,
I have to agree with Michael on this one. When he wrote of “pure science” I took it to mean devoid of ulterior motives such as profit, influence or the like; not Aryan pure.

It sounded more a concession than a praise.

Hi mt, I don’t know if you are aware of the FOIA file “the rules of the game” & “New Rules, New Game”, a futerra.uk, PR piece, where they discuss strategy.

8. Not all messengers are equal
Egg-head scientists are important messengers: they have authority, and reassure people that someone understands the complicated issue of climate change. But we need common-sense and likeable intermediaries as well, to translate the opaque pronouncements of scientists into practical and obvious advice.

We did believe all of you, pretty-much but it is now known that there are lots of people in the world working on strategy; as they have said; “Not if but when…” You even say that, “I would like to spend less time putting out fires and more on working with the community toward a more cohesive strategy.” I thought it is all about science?

Michael, to highlight something you wrote earlier —

You will find these [bad] behaviors [displayed in climatology] do not exist in medicine or engineering, from which quarters many of the complaints we get emerge. This makes perfect sense. The culture of climate science emerged as a pure science, mostly curiosity-driven. As far as the culture at large was concerned, it was an affordable eccentricity, not an important branch of research. When this field discovered matters of serious importance, it became an applied and controversial discipline with the traditions of a modest and collegial scientific backwater.

That strikes me as a good diagnosis. As others on the thread have noted — and as you agree — Medicine and Engineering are suitable models for Climatologists to contemplate, to the extent that they wish to influence public policy or determine how billions and trillions of dollars are to be spent.

In Comment #32156, you elide what I think is the central point: Climatology’s Broken Science.

Partly right: “Good review articles at every level of sophistication are crucial to allow people to make effective use of the code and data, and are woefully lacking.”

Wrong: “there are severe problems with the types of criticism the field is subject to. One of them is the consistent undervaluation of the achievements of the field and the consistent overvaluation of the opinions of its critics. This is called skepticism but it is anything but.”

To take paleoclimatology as an example: McIntyre, McKitrick, Jeff Id, Jean S, Roman M–among others–have reported on the many ways that prominent AGW Consensus scientists have striven to prevent them from gaining access to data and to computer code, sometimes in contravention of explicit journal and funding-agency policies. They have made their reasons abundantly clear, in public and now in private (Climategate emails).

Dozens of brilliantly written review articles will do nothing to further the cause of transparency if this bad behavior continues, and if it continues to be celebrated by the lay advocates of the AGW Consensus.

Consensus climate science probably never had the trust of Kim Simacs, to take an example. You have actively lost the trust of many others, including people who have good reason to be confident in their judgment: physical scientists, statisticians, engineers, and clinicians, to name some areas of expertise.

Clean house. Archive data. Share code. Speak up about what constitutes proper professional conduct.

If you want to gain the public’s trust: work on fixing the science.

AMac (Comment#32171),

Hear, hear!

Mrs. Simac,

I do apologize for how I handled the matter of your family size. It was off my main point and I should have let it slide. I handled it in a way that was sure to be disturbing to you if it were called to your attention. I didn’t expect that, and now I am embarrassed by it.

I am sure you are a great asset to your family and your community.

I appreciate that you are doing God’s will as you understand it. I think I have to say that I am doing the same. My job as I understand it is to try to explain to people that what is good for themselves and their families is not the same as what is good for the world.

Now that humans have covered the earth, we must stop multiplying. The multiplying part is done. I am deeply certain of this.

This is not to say that successfully raising a large family is anything but a great accomplishment. I congratulate you for all the good you have done in your family and your community, but caution you against being too overconfident when operating at a grander scale.

I am not interested in a debate about climate science with Willie Soon or anybody. I don’t believe the debate format is useful, and for pretty much the reason you found outrageous. I don’t know what to do about that outrage. The fact is that this is basically correct. A debate is not the best way for people to learn about a body of knowledge.

I would be willing to talk about sustainability issues to any group you care to propose in a non-debate format, next time I am in Wisconsin. I am usually up there around Thanksgiving time. You could also probably attract various faculty at UW and U Minn to talk to you.

No scientist wants to do this in a hostile environment. We have learned our lesson. While we have been studying the earth, others have been studying debating strategies. It’s not doing anybody any good for science experts to lose debates to people who are mostly experts at debating.

Better respectful late than never, I suppose, therefore,

yours respectfully
Michael Tobis

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 4 10:42), said

Here is the nub of the whole issue. Are we discussing science, or policy? If we are discussing science, I think we have to acknowledge that the uncertainties are large. I don’t believe that the scientific community claims otherwise. So this is a misrepresentation of the mainstream at least.

But it is a much larger misrepresentation of the community of people opposed to policy action. If uncertainties are large, then risk is large, and policy action is called for. It is the implicit position of those opposing policy that sensitivity is small and uncertainty is also small. That is, rationally, the avoidance of policy relies on far greater certainty in science being wrong, than advocacy of policy requires in it being right.

This is a crucial point. I agree with you that the uncertainties are great. I disagree with you on the balance of evidence about the sensitivity. But even if I accept your low sensitivity you are far from done in making a case for no vigorous emissions policy. You must make a case for low sensitivity and LOW uncertainty. As far as I know nobody does this. This is the key incoherence of arguments for no vigorous policy.

MT, this is wrong. You need to do a risk matrix with ranking. First increased uncertainty is increased uncertainty, not risk. Secondly, one of the axes is cost. Another, in this case is uncertainty. You statement of “that the uncertainties are great” means your

case for low sensitivity and LOW uncertainty

is invalid. You left out the uncertainty axis. And as you stated, the science has great uncertainty. With a proper matrix, the case for doing nothing, is a justifiable position. As I am a practitioner of risk management, with education and experience, I am sure that you will now agree that continued calls for action should be reconsidered; and you will join myself and others in stopping this incorrect application of risk management. Since, this has been your position concerning expertise.

Short version: due to the cost axis, increased uncertainty can indicate that the correct position is to do nothing. In fact, following the standard risk management criteria, increased uncertainty almost always means doing nothing is preferred. “”Don’t know”" means one should address those that are known.

Hello again mt, I am hoping that you are reading the above PR pieces. I would love to know your thoughts on the brochures and the thrust of it all…? I know it is not as thick as “Probability, Random Variables & Stochastic Processes” by A. Papoulis. Just a few pages; really. As to the Hitler thing… when I think science; I think of Goodyear. Nothing pure about that at all.

Mr Tobis: Long time lurker here surfacing to say that attitudes like yours will lose you the fight.

This debate will not and cannot be won on the science alone as policy decisions made in regards to mitigating or preventing global warming will eventually affect everybody directly. I.e. life, in a great many ways, will become a lot more expensive. IF you want MY money and MY cooperation to fight YOUR fight, you better not insult my intelligence or my life style choices.

Kimberly – who I had never heard of before– has one thing right: the children who will have to live with either the consequences of global warming or wasted resources in fighting a non-existing problem, upon whom YOU have to rely to continue your fight, should be taught to properly look at any topic from all angles, should hear from proponents of both sides and should be allowed to form their own opinions.

It was an attitude like yours on RC which set me upon the path towards scepticism. If your case is strong there is no need to insult your opponent. Attacking the person disagreeing with you and not their message is the very last resort recommended by Schopenhauer in his treatise on how to win an argument – best reserved for debates otherwise unwinnable. If you employ those tactics, it always suggests your case is too weak to be convincing on its own merit.

Being an environmentalist, atheist and from a formerly communist country I have no problem with recycling, preserving energy, renewables, or even wealth-redistribution if that should be your fancy but as a feminist, house-wife and mother of three I have a big problem with your misogynist opinion of the intellectual capacities of mothers.

I have spent more time educating myself in too many sleepless nights with a baby in my arms and a brain starved for stimulation as a mother than when I was studying for my degree. I discuss science, philosophy, economics and literature with my kids as well as Spongebob, Star Wars and Dr Who. We are currently reading about German politics, David Macaulay’s excellent “The Way We Work” and Peppa Pig.

You are welcome in my house for a test of your intellectual abilities against mine after you’ve coped with a sleepless night with a toddler, breaking up fights, cleaning the house, feeding a hungry horde of irate gourmets, helping with homework, answering a million question about the universe and everything in it and then tidying the house again after they’re all in bed. I am confident of my performance. What about you?

And yes, you have violated a taboo – to declare yourself intellectually superior based on a woman’s number of children and to make it worse with explanations when challenged – as you have – is reprehensible, unacceptable and unwise in the fight for acceptance. Like politicians, alarmists have to win hearts and minds in order to succeed in their goal of saving us all from catastrophe but your remarks suggests you wouldn’t mind excluding a large number of people from your rescue efforts. Badly done, Mr Tobis, very badly done.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ll go back to lurking now, Lucia, and leave the statistical discussions to you and your more knowledgeable readers. Have to say, though, I enjoy them as well as your Haikus and the cat photos. Good work, keep it up!

Lucia,

If your points is that buried between long discussions of the history, there is a teensy-beensy discussion of the physics, sure.

That’s a pointless debate over choice of adjectives which I’m not going to entertain. The book is online and free, so readers can decide whether the history content is too high for them… and ‘too high’ will vary between individuals.

I’ll continue to recommend it as;
a) an introduction to physical processes, metrics, and methodology.
b) with historical context
c) an organized collection of excellent links/citations for further reading, from basic pop-primers to the primary literature
d) universally available and free

If you think there are better alternatives, you’re free to recommend them.

Historical context is important… for one it severely diminishes the ‘AGW is a conspiracy’ meme.

Universally available and free is important too… it makes it easier for individuals to find help with difficult material.

When people ask you focused questions that can be answered simply and briefly, assigning them a research project involving hours of effort, and checking out numerous other references, is not useful to the or you.

Sigh. You’re misrepresenting a broad issue as a narrow one. The issue is not ‘how do we answer a single pre-specified question’, it’s of helping someone who has a general interest in AGW, and/or climate science, find a useful one-stop source that at least partly satisfies their interests and thirst, a number of as yet unspecified, tentative questions, and an unknowable number of as yet unformed future questions as their understanding evolves. Helping them by pointing to a resource which covers a large number of bases. Yep, coming to an informed opinion about AGW does require hours of learning, even days, weeks, months, and years.

The discussion at AIP’s page says emphasizes that it is a) not the document to learn basic facts about climate change and it is b) a history.

No. It says, emphasis theirs;

If you want basic facts about climate change, or detailed current technical information, you might do better using the links page. But if you want to use history to really understand it all

Lazar

You may of course continue to recommend it. I will continue to not understand why you recommend it to people who aren’t asking specifically about history or an an introductory text. But that’s fine– we disagree whether that’s a good recommendations. People diagree which books are good at Amazon all the time. If you want to recommend it, go ahead. People can check it out from the library like I did and judge for themselves. I thought it was pretty much of a snooze.

Lucia,

I didn’t say you don’t know the main cause

Oh yes you did…

Whoa Nelly! You really don’t know the cause of the enhanced greenhouse effect.

So an alarmist admitting that the uncertainty in the science is large. Moreover we get to be lectured by other alarmists that the science is settled… So do we get the bigger picture that uncertainty is the only settled aspect of science? That is true of course, but hardly worth the billions if not trillions of dollars that the alarmists are demanding from mothers to fund their (alarmists’) vanities and insult their milking cows.

John F Pittman:

Are you a risk expert? Or are you a troll? I must say I am not sure.

The costs associated with climate change are nonlinear. A temperature change of 1 C is quite tolerable. A temperature change of 100 C is total doom, far worse that 100 times worse. We do not know that we are at an exact optimum, but we do know that very large changes are much worse than very small changes and very fast changes much worse than slow ones. So the risk weighting is skewed toward the tails. The wider the tails of the risk profile, the bigger the insurance policy it’s worth taking out. This is clear enough to me.

I can’t make out what you are saying. If you are saying something real please try again.

Re: Michael Tobis (Comment#32216) February 4th, 2010 at 8:12 pm

John F Pittman:
Are you a risk expert? Or are you a troll? I must say I am not sure.

Dr. Tobis, surely there was a better note on which you could have started this reply.

Re: lucia (Feb 4 11:19),

I don’t think the rocks in a stream thing is all that bad an analogy. There are several analogies along a similar line that one can use. For example, you have a field with a number of people on it. If a ball comes close to a player, he kicks it in a random direction. At one end of the field new balls are kicked onto the field at a constant rate. Any ball kicked toward that end of the field is returned to play. Balls are taken out of play at the other end of the field. You can put walls on the sides or assume the horizontal extent is very large. As you add more players, there will be more balls in play and it will take longer for a ball to reach the other end of the field. The net flow of balls is constant. That one can be elaborated quite a lot. Or there’s a Pachinko game. Add more layers of pins and the balls take longer to reach the bottom.

I’ve learned a lot from this exchange, but it may be too hostile around here for me to keep it up.

Lucia has been very scrupulous in letting everything get posted, for which thanks.

Being a bit more of an elitist, I do some filtering on my blog. This does lower my blood pressure, but at the expense of missing out on the incredible zoo of positions that people really have on these topics. It’s been interesting.

Michael Tobis,

I think it is fair to say that many people have learned via this thread a great deal about the incredible positions that some climate scientists have on many different topics.

Michael Tobis (Comment#32180)
February 4th, 2010 at 3:42 pm

Michael, I have gained a lot of respect for you reading your posts here. And you apology was very good. I hope you keep posting as I would like to keep reading your responses to these issues. I am a skeptic of the Hockey Stick and the East Anglia shenanigans, but not a denier of AGW (I just have not been convinced by the science).

Thank you for posting.

oliver (Comment#32217),

“surely there was a better note on which you could have started this reply”

Just perfect.

After reading Michael’s apology to Mrs. Simac again, and the much more civil tone of today’s comments compared to his earlier comments, I must conclude it is possible he really did learn something about constructive dialog with people you do not agree with.

I’ll peek at his blog now and then to get a sense of the climate he encourages there.

Michael,

Thanks again for seeing this topic through. Like PhilJourdan, supra, I finish up today’s reading with respect for your position. You are capable of discussing climate issues cogently and without arrogance. All sides could do with more of that.

As far as the hostility of Lucia’s regular commenters, seems that has diminished as your own posture has changed (mine has too). By contrast, most commenters at your own site are reliably collegial. As long as Consensus thinking is on display. Takes me back to high school, it was always clear which team to cheer for, which referee calls were grreat, and which called for hisses and boos.

Some of what you’ve written here might not be orthodox enough for your hometown crowd, if they read with any great care. Bug or feature, I dunno.

Re: Lazar (Feb 4 19:20),
I guess my shock did overwhelm me and I did say that! What I should have written is that what Michael wrote made it appear he doesn’t know the main cause of AGW. I apologize to Michael for saying he actually doesn’t know. I’m sure he does, but he often needs to stop and reread what he wrote.

I accept the apology Mr Tobis and I would have to say it had been a very interesting debate! Though it was ugly at times, we came through it with dignity and realized that certainly we could not agree nor unite on all the data, yet there is one thing that could not keep us apart… we are Americans and it is the most honored gift of our lives. A gift that came from our parents and their parents before them. To do less then at least realize that would be a slap in our parents face! Let’s rise past that which attempts to divide us and waste no more time on issues which we cannot use to protect this great land. We must admit these are dire times and the” left” or “right” of such does nothing more than to assist in our demise.

Now I am stopping because I am starting to sound like all of you!

Just kidding! It has been a pleasure.

We really have proved one thing for sure here, DO NOT under estimate the American spirit, we really are in this together, that is one thing we cannot forget.

Now, when should we have that get together up here in Eagle River?
God Bless,
Kim Simac

Michael Tobis:

“There are 24 hours in a day. Hours you spend reading “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey” aloud are hours you do not spend doing the exercises in A. Papoulis’ “Probability, Random Variables and Stochastic Processes”, for instance.”

I’m sorry I missed this exchange…working on a poster for a conference that starts Saturday morning….

But this begs the question, “How many hours does it take Michael Tobis to read Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey and does he read Papoulis aloud?” (I find the latter helpful, but that’s just me.)

Michael Tobis wrote,

“If uncertainties are large, then risk is large, and policy action is called for.”

That is false. The *risk* is the product of the expected loss times the probability of its occurrence. The probability of its occurrence is product of the probabilities of each condition necessary for it to occur. Thus the more conditions which must be satisfied in order for the undesired outcome to occur, and the lower the probabilities (more uncertainty) of each of them, then the smaller the risk. You seem to be equating “worst conceivable outcome” with risk, and then adopting the Precautionary Principle — an utterly irrational approach to risk.

Michael Tobis wrote,

“A temperature change of 1 C is quite tolerable. A temperature change of 100 C is total doom, far worse that 100 times worse.”

That is irrelevant. What is relevant is, What is the risk (loss X probability) of a 1C change? What is the risk (loss X probability) of a 100C change? And the probabilities in each case are the products of the probabilities for each of the factors which must coincide for the loss to occur.

Interesting discussion.

Steven Mosher makes some good points (eg 31817), but I would word it slightly differently: “There is this shared value and that value is intelligence or talent or pedigree AND MOST OF ALL, TRUTH. And consequently they simply have very little practice in meeting and convincing someone with a different set of values. Someone who doesnt worship intelligence, or TRUTH.”

The thing is, persuading other people isn’t in the scientists’ job description, and it isn’t important in order for them to do their job. It’s very unfortunate that climate science (and also some parts of medicine) are being attacked for extra-scientific reasons, and that in order to prevent being misconstrued, that scientists feel a need to defend the science. They’re good at defending their science against honest scientific questioning from their peers who share their core value in searching for the truth (eg at a conference), but not at defending it against people who do not share that core value (or who are very confused about in which direction the truth lies, yet exhibit a very certain attitude in their misguided opinion). Scientists would indeed to well to take advice from PR, marketing and sales professionals in that respect.

But as mt noted, the scientific message sucks, and that serves as a very strong incentive for people to find reasons to decrease its believability. Scientists saying insensitive things is apparently one of them.

Bart

Bart Verheggen wrote (Comment #32243) —

It’s very unfortunate that climate science [is] being attacked for extra-scientific reasons, and that in order to prevent being misconstrued, that scientists feel a need to defend the science. They’re good at defending their science against honest scientific questioning from their peers who share their core value in searching for the truth (eg at a conference), but not at defending it against people who do not share that core value (or who are very confused about in which direction the truth lies, yet exhibit a very certain attitude in their misguided opinion).

Well, that’s a compelling story. The world being a complicated place, and people coming in all flavors, there are surely times when it explains a lot.

But — human nature being what it is — we should be cautious about adopting narratives that confirm preconceived notions about our righteousness, and about the wickedness of those who criticize us.

If there was an incident that didn’t fit the narrative, would we recognize it, given the temptation to behave like Procrustes?

This, Bart Verheggen, is why the incident of Mann’s upside-down use of the Tiljander proxies is a revealing litmus test, for adherents to the AGW Consensus. It’s relatively easy to understand, no sophisticated maths or statistics required. The background information is in the public domain, accessible via Google or use these links. And while Consensus climatologists discuss Mann’s errors in private (Climategate emails), Silence or Solidarity are their public stances.

Mann’s use of the Lake Korttajarvi proxies is set out earlier in this thread, as Comment#31907 (February 3rd, 2010 at 11:51 am).

What’s your opinion of this incident?

Michael Tobis ducked (Comment#31914, “I do not consider Mann’s work important in the grand scheme of things, nor relevant to any expertise which I have, and will continue my policy of expressing no opinion on it.”)

Boris and sod ignore the issue.

(SteveF offered a much better answer (Comment#31927), but easy for him, not being a Consensus advocate.)

Until such time as there is evidence of “honest scientific questioning” on this issue among adherents of the AGW Consensus, I will view your narrative as a psychological justification for bad behavior, little more.

Looking for “evidence of “honest scientific questioning” on this issue among adherents of the AGW Consensus”? Go to a scientific conference near you (AGU, AMS, EGU, just to name some of the larger ones). Of course, even after you do so, you can still chose to complain about all those scientists agreeing with each other. Hopefully you’ll also wonder why they agree on the big issues, while realizing that they’re a very disagreeable bunch about details.

Bart

Bart,

You ducked.

I love this topic.

sod (Comment#31730)
The tea in Tea Party means “taxed enough already” and you object to people who feel this way and think they have no capacity to understand the issues? This world has gone completely bonkers.

“Now that humans have covered the earth, we must stop multiplying. The multiplying part is done. I am deeply certain of this.”

I’ve been hearing this blather for over 30 yrs (since I was a young girl). How convenient that men (and women) who dictate this sort of stuff to others were born to say it.

Zeke, sorry you got a headache. I ‘ve had one before. Because this little old mom/ non scientist had a few scientific questions/points made in another topic here and the conversation just went dead afterwards (I even commented that it might be the silence that gave me my answers.) (One of them was about Mann’s hockey stick too-Frustrating!)

AMac (Comment#32245) exactly.

AMac (Comment#32250)
“Bart,
You ducked.”

He sure did. As does every AGW alarmist when confronted with this kind of simple and clear issue. I do not, and never will, understand why people who agree with Mann’s research findings and his policy agenda can’t bring themselves to address such a simple and obvious error. Why can’t they just say, “Hey Mike, you know that’s just wrong, everybody else knows its wrong, and it’s really bad PR for you to not fix it, even if you don’t think it ‘matters’ in terms of the results of your analysis. So just fix the damned thing so we can all focus on real issues!”"
.
Were Mann a colleague of mine, I would absolutely hammer him for such stupid and counterproductive behavior. Why on earth can’t climate scientists bring themselves to do that?

Re: Bart Verheggen (Feb 5 04:59), Bart
It’s interesting that you comment that “persuading other people isn’t in the scientists’ job description, and it isn’t important in order for them to do their job”, when that’s exactly what Mann, Jones, Pachauri (who’s not a scientist) and others took it upon themselves to do. Had they kept to the day job, and not seen themselves as evangelists for a cause, their science might have been a lot better and there would be no Climategate or Glaciergate, to name but two.
Considering how much of the “consensus” rests on Mann’s work on proxies, which I would call pretty mediocre statistics, rather than science as such, and how many questionable methodological issues there are with MBH, you really need to get back to first principles. It’s no good scientists going to conferences and arguing about how many angels can fit on the point of a needle, when nobody has produced convincing evidence of the existence of angels.

Put another way:

Climate Scientists claim they have the knowledge of AGW.

Average Andrew doesn’t have it.

Should Average Andrew continue his life without the knowledge of AGW?

If the answer is no, who is supposed to pass the knowledge to him?

If the answer is yes, am I supposed to have a religious belief in it, instead? Am I supposed to accept it on faith?

Andrew

Re: Bart Verheggen (Feb 5 04:59),

“There is this shared value and that value is intelligence or talent or pedigree AND MOST OF ALL, TRUTH.

You should be cautious about claiming that activist scientists are dedicated to always telling the truth in any meaningful way. (The public doesn’t consider “accurate but not true” stories to be true and won’t really buy claims that sound like, “well… all the scientists specializing in the field understood the trick. It’s just the public and scientists in other fields who didn’t understand the big posters plastered on walls didn’t really mean what they seemed to mean”).

Recent observational evidence suggests a number of scientists have been less than straightforward. The fact that others have jumped to their defense has heighted the suspicions of some; prominent pro-AGW reporters number among these. One current challenge is to convince the public that behavior indicated in the climategate opus is unusual.

Until you convince people scientists actually tell the truth, claiming you are at a disadvantage for this reason is going to result in your audience blinking, which you should take as a sign that people suspect your claims of truthfulness are themselves lies, but they are too polite to tell you to your face.

I know you don’t like to read this sort of things. It’s unfair to the many scientists who are dedicated to the truth. But you need to understand that many people are thinking that a sizeable fraction may not be so dedicated to truth.

Contrarian, you are correct. Curious, do you come from the insurance/engineering (risk) background or the economic/policy background, or some other background? MT does not understand that the tails also have an increasing uncertainty and increasing improbable results/costs that tend to grow exponentially in a risk analysis.

“MT does not understand that the tails also have an increasing uncertainty and increasing improbable results/costs that tend to grow exponentially in a risk analysis.”

Quite right, I do not understand that.

Let’s suppose we knew the function from sensitivity to temperature; keep that fixed, but nonlinearly increasing as magnitude of sensitivity increases. Let’s suppose we had a Gaussian expectation of sensitivity. Then risk (the product of expectation and cost) increases with uncertainty of sensitivity. It is not hard to construct a pair of hypotheticals where the low sensitivity high uncertainty risk has a higher cost than a higher sensitivity low uncertainty case.

Do you understand this? If so, I am speaking in terms you understand. I will appreciate if you return the favor.

It seems to me you are applying some sort of standard industrial risk management formula. This isn’t a factory siting question, though, so we’d have to examine the origins of your method to see if it applies.

Re: Bart Verheggen (Feb 5 07:00),

“There is this shared value and that value is intelligence or talent or pedigree AND MOST OF ALL, TRUTH.

This is a ridiculous evasion. First, you know perfectly well conferences require one pay conference fees, which can be substantial. They also involve travel to the conference, which is costly. You may think of this as “public” because they are attended by many, but they are closer to “semi-private”. It’s also not at all clear how members would react if members of the public crashed the committe sessions.

Mind you, the proceedings can be public. Interviews with journalists, blogs, letters to the editor, calls to write your senator in the sidebar of your political branches (e.g. Union of Concerned Scientists)– these are public behavior.

Should you ever actually contact any decent PR people they will tell you to never suggest something as ridiculous as the notion that if the public wants to hear scientists disagreeing, they should spend thousands of dollars out of their own pocket to attend a professional society meeting and sit in on the sessions!

It is refusal by scientists to criticize obvious shortcomings of admit uncertainty when speaking in truly public forums that is resulting in a loss of trust with the public. Ridiculous responses do not help. Suggesting that you are forced to make these ridiculous responses doesn’t help. Presumably, intelligent people can learn that.

Andrew_KY has been quite difficult, but he asks a fine question:

Climate Scientists claim they have the knowledge of AGW.

Average Andrew doesn’t have it.

Should Average Andrew continue his life without the knowledge of AGW?

If the answer is no, who is supposed to pass the knowledge to him?

If the answer is yes, am I supposed to have a religious belief in it, instead? Am I supposed to accept it on faith?

I would like people to consider the hypothetical. Imagine that the AGW situation is pretty much as most scientists describe it, rather than as you currently believe it to be. How should we then address Andrew’s question in general?

There are many subquestions. What can we do about people who refuse to examine evidence? What can we do about people who demand a level of evidence they are not sophisticated enough to understand? What can we do about people who are eager to embrace false evidence? In this hypothetical world where science actually more or less works despite its flaws, given that the message we are sending is a troubling one, all of these cases would be likely to arise.

Contrarian,

As much as it pains me to defend such an arrogant creature as MT, his basic economic analysis is correct. When you are dealing with costs (as opposed to revenue), increasing uncertainty serves to increase estimated (negative) values under the theory of diminishing marginal utility. This is a mistake that Bjorn Lomborg made and was rightly criticized for by economists. You are correct in your actual wording (“Thus the more conditions which must be satisfied in order for the undesired outcome to occur, and the lower the probabilities (more uncertainty) of each of them, then the smaller the risk.”), but this is not what MT is arguing. He is referring to uncertainty around the expected mean. This does not in itself mean that we need to immediately implement emergency action. The risks need to be balanced against the current costs of adaption strategies that would make any material difference to expected warming. These costs are significant and even Stern has admitted he underestimated the cost of reducing carbon (of course he also says he underestimated the risks of climate change which makes two rather large errors. Probably the best is to confine his report to the trash heap where it rightfully belongs).

By the way MT, that was a horrible non-apology. You justify yourself with comments like: “because you never know when somebody will take note of something you say violating the norms of some audience you don’t understand.” In what world would a comment like “Lucia knows more than Madame Teabags, who in turn knows marginally more than her trained horses” not be regarded as a (rather puerile) insult? To claim your infractions were simply that of a lack of sensitivity to a foreign audience is just dishonest.

“Imagine”

Michael Tobis,

This only works if you are John Lennon singing it. When it comes to a Scientific discussion, I can’t accept it, dude.

Andrew

I agree with Lucia that Bart’s suggestion is not workable.

It reminds me very much of Ray Pierrehumbert’s plaintive suggestion that people just “get to know us”. Actually I do know Ray, and actually that has an enormous influence on my perception of the situation. Ray’s bona fides are obvious to anyone who has actually spent time with him thinking about how planets are put together.

The problem, of course, is that this solution does not scale. While at an international meeting, it may seem that there are a lot of us, in fact we remain very few. A small minority of the population (I saw a figure of 18%) is even acquainted with a working scientist, never mind a climate scientist.

We certainly could not cope with 100 nonscientists for every scientist at AGU. It would not be the same meeting, and the nature of the agreements and disagreements would shift dramatically, giving a very different impression. And nonscientists are not going to travel en masse to such a meeting anyway.

Yes, people horribly misunderstand who we are and what we do. And these misunderstandings are deliberately promoted on various websites, including this one, if not by the host then by some of the commenters. But much as we’d like to fix this at a retail level, that’s an implausible proposition.

Some people recommend conventional PR, an idea which I mostly detest. Others, lots more contact with the public, which is probably a good idea but very difficult to scale. I think what we need is far less division between the general public and the scientific community. This means making the science accessible as well as the scientists. There’s plenty of lip service to this goal; outreach is mentioned in every NSF RFP. But just as the public refuses to accept the scale of the carbon problem, the scientific community seems unable to accept the scale of the outreach problem.

brid, fair enough, I got into a defensive snit. I should have refrained.

I don’t think Mrs Simac is a useful authority on these matters any more than Andrew_KY who can’t even handle a hypothetical. But I should not have been more rude than necessary to make my point. This is something I always advise others, yet this time, I didn’t follow my own advice.

Again, I am sorry for that.

Who is refusing to examine evidence? Sheesh

Michael Tobis, oh please. Get over yourself. Science doesn’t “work”. Science is a set of protocols, not a “thing”and one of those protocols is sharing data so others can replicate what you did especially if you are making new claims about the world that are new to everyone else. I can do this. Anybody can.

And while you sit there talking about cleaning up the earth all day, my husband is out there in the cold right now actually doing it. He doesn’t hide uncertainty or data sets, or fudge numbers ; nor ignore or insult or dismiss the work that came before him even if it has a different conclusion- nor does he call people names or look down his nose if they ask questions. In fact, he covers those questions before they are asked in his papers and reports. He’s insightful that way and in the old days THIS is what scientific papers did all the time. He also gives data to ANYBODY who asks for it. If he didn’t he’d be fired and or sued because his work involves public and government lands.

And your “as most scientists describe”…”most” is a load of bs too IMHO.

“Andrew_KY who can’t even handle a hypothetical”

Anyone can offer hypotheticals.

I want to know what *is*.

Got anything for me?

Andrew

Lucia,

How is it evasion to suggest to someone who claims that scientists do not engage in
“honest scientific questioning” go and check that out for themselves? For a check that doesn’t cost money, check out some of the open journals from EGU, such as http://www.atmos-chem-phys-dis.....ssion.html. If they’re not willing or able to check it, than they shouldn’t make such a strong and unfounded claim.

You seem unaware of the catch 22 scientists find themselves in when speaking to the public. Mt described it as follows here: “We are in a bind. That’s the whole point. Be accessible, and be accused of oversimplification and evasiveness. Be complete, and be accused of obscurantism and elitism.” I think you could add to that: Talk with lots of qualifiers and weasel words, and the public will think nothing is known. See also http://ourchangingclimate.word...../catch-22/

Amac, SteveF, David,

I’m with mt on this one: Mann’s work on proxies isn’t nearly as central to the case for human induced climate change as you make it out to be. Even if it’s all bogus, it wouldn’t change the attribution of 20th century warming, nor the projections for the future. I’m not up to date on all the details regarding proxy studies, so indeed, I’ll decline the “friendly” invitation to “debate” those details.

Bart

Michael Tobis writes (Comment#32267, ~4 back) –

Yes, people horribly misunderstand who we are and what we do. And these misunderstandings are deliberately promoted on various websites, including this one, if not by the host then by some of the commenters.

Michael, you wrote that because you thought it was a point worth making. Of course some commenter or another on a high traffic unmoderated blog is going to have said something-or-other.

But you are implying that the deliberate promotion of horrible misunderstandings of AGW-Consensus climate scientists is stock-in-trade at this website, among others.

Eloquent commenter Neven made much the same point at your site, yesterday.

How about changing your comment from a drive-by smear into a constructive remark by citing which Blackboard posts and comments you are characterizing.

While I agree with Liza that noncommercial nonmilitary data should be shared, the tradition of replication in science is to offer the smallest amount of information sufficient to test a claim, not every last bit. Admittedly, this tradition arose in a time when replicating information was very much more expensive than it is now. But in fact that has proven sufficient for the advance of science in the past and is doing so now. So the demands from hostile quarters for handholding on every step of every result are not something science is ready for; nor could it do this at scale if every individual on earth who is interested in climate asked for a detailed explanation of every paper. Even in the age of the internet there are practical limits on tech support. Nobody has multiplied the field’s funding by a factor of ten to do this kind of massive outreach.

That doesn’t mean we are hiding anything. It just means that whatever professor you guys decide to harrass next, no matter how much she’d like to cooperate, will be able to do so if the propagandists decide she is the next one to be in the glare. You can always up the demands until she can’t keep up. If you want to tall about a “trick”, there’s one for you.

As for “as most scientists describe”, the fact that you fail to believe this makes you a victim of misleading propaganda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....ate_change

Finally, I am glad your husband does good work in the world. That said, “nor does he call people names or look down his nose if they ask questions” presumes that the people asking the questions do so in frame other than political hostility, which would mean they were willing to listen to the answers. Now, unfortunately we are always faced with a mix of sincere and hostile questioners. Sometimes we waste a lot of time on people we think are sincere, who turn out to be hostile. Sometimes we blow up at people who are sincere, but are repeating things they picked up from people who aren’t. All of this is regrettable.

Sometimes we get angry at people who are good at looking sincere, but who aren’t. This is another trick. These tricks are doing the world enormous damage. Most of you who think we are deeply dishonest for some peculiar motivation are as much victims of these tricks as we scientists are.

AMac, I can’t tell the bad guys from the sincerely confused. This is a key part of the bad guys’ strategy. Also I am a coward about such things. So I generally don’t accuse any particular individual.

Bart Verheggen (Comment#32272) –

I’m with Lucia on this one (Comment#32113, February 4th, 2010 at 11:09 am).

And as far as whether Mann’s work on proxies is or isn’t “nearly as central to the case for human induced climate change as you [AMac] make it out to be” — in the process of asserting that I’ve made that claim, you elide the actual point.

1. Mann is in the top tier of paleoclimatologists.

2. Mann’s reconstructions are prominent in the literature and in the public eye (e.g. Inconvenient Truth, IPCC).

3. PNAS is in the top tier of high-impact peer reviewed journals.

4. Mann et al (PNAS, 2008) is grossly flawed. They used the Tiljander proxies upside-down, then denied it in print.

5. This bad behavior is considered acceptable by the AGW Consensus. Name one Consensus figure who has either (a) offered a non-incoherent defense, or (b) called Mann to task. It’s not that you avert your gaze, it’s that every Consensus advocate and scientist does.

First, fix the science. Then, complain about the unwarranted public mistrust of Consensus climatologists.

Michael Tobis (Comment#32275) wrote –

I can’t tell the bad guys from the sincerely confused. This is a key part of the bad guys’ strategy.

My fervent denials that I am a part of the Denialist conspiracy is further proof of my complicity.

(Actually, I control a deep-cover agent who is engaged in corroding the public’s trust of the science of climate change. If you want to know his identity, look ~1 comment back at my Comment#32276).

Michael Tobias, I am talking about pollution; what is CO2 to you? Data has to be shared with any citizen who asks for it- government, public or private land-private sector or academically collected. Funny how asking for it is described as “hostile” by you; or do you think people should be left in the dark about what crap is in the ground, water or air in their neighborhoods? And the very word “publish” means “given to the public” does it not?

As for the “most” claims…I am sorry a wiki article that’s been locked from editing with links and references to the IPCC of all places and various other global or scientific”institutions” that are not up to date isn’t very convincing.
And you assume I don’t understand and know the data!

What boggles the mind is how in the good old USA-these political “global” groups even the scientific ones, have become the ones to “trust”. And you can’t understand how regular old Americans don’t like and question all this? Sheesh! Now I am getting a headache!

AMac,

I haven’t seen the movie in years, but I don’t recall Mann’s hockey stick being in An Inconvenient Truth. The cherry-picker scene was using ice core data from Lonnie Thompson, I think.

Its also worth noting that this isn’t 1998 any more. Plenty of other groups have done paleoreconstructions as well. Most aren’t quite as flat as the original hockey stick, but they don’t dramatically differ. Some are even by folks not on the “team” :-p

Zeke Hausfeather (Comment#32279) –

Thanks for the correction on “An Convenient Truth”. You are right.

As far as ‘plenty of other paleoreconstructions’ — A point Mann makes at the outset of his 2008 PNAS paper is that most reconstructions up till that time had been criticized for relying on particular tree-ring chronologies. His major high-impact claim was that he was showing the robustness of the overall picture painted by reconstructions in general — a particular 2,000-year-long flavor of the hockey stick. When he used varied other proxies in place of tree-rings, that didn’t appreciably alter the picture.

As far as I know, this characterization is untenable, if the computations are re-done with the Tiljander proxies placed in their correct rightside-up orientations. (But, they can’t be used in that manner, because of the way Mann structured the analysis. This is a bug and emphatically not a feature.)

Re: Bart Verheggen (Feb 5 09:25),

How is it evasion to suggest to someone who claims that scientists do not engage in. . .

It is an evasion of the point the person speaking to you made which is that scientists avoid explaining disagreements to the public in forum where the public normally finds itself. Instead, you try to shift the burden on them to attend conferences, which as practical matter cannot attend because it is much too costly in both time and actual hard earned $$. (Why should a voter take vacation time to attend a meeting you attend as part of your job? And pay their own hard earned money to pay fees you may well pay out of your grant?)

My having pointed that out, you are now making the suggestion they read open journals– which is a different thing. So, naturally, my objections are different.

Telling someone they can sifting through titles like “Chemical evolution of secondary organic aerosol from OH-initiated heterogeneous oxidation” is utterly unresponsive to the complaint that when asked by members of the public, scientists will not publicly comment on the use of upside down series in Mann’s reconstructions. Moreover, discussion at those journals is organized to remain tightly focused on the paper in questions.

While there may be a remote possibility a busy voter is willing to invest numerous hours hoping they might find an online journal article that permits them to ask what that paper’s author thinks about Mann’s use of upside down proxy reconstructions– or the robustsness of paleo reconstructions in general– the exercise would be extremely time consuming.

Since members of the public do have jobs, as a practical matter, individual members of the cannot get answers to questions they seek. Since most people know communication is a two way street, they aren’t going to react well to your suggesting that, in addition to working 60 hours a week on their jobs, they spend hours searching sifting through a haystack of irrelevant articles just so that, busy you (or any activist scientists exercising their fingertips writing comments at blogs), don’t have to spend 10 minutes answering a freakin’ question! (And all the while, as a group, scientists explain they all agree on the answer– but just won’t provide it in a public forum!)

As long as your solutions to ‘communication’ all seem to involve suggesting that you, who claim you wish to communicate a message should force people to come to discuss things on your turf, where they can sit still, listen, not pick the topics, and not ask inconvenient questions, and where you will still refuse to answer the questions they raise– people will perceive you as not wanting to communicate with them. They will be correct about this.

Worse, if your solutions to communication, require individuals to spend thousand of dollar, take vacation time or invest huge amounts of time to find discussions while you continue to ignore questions that have been presented to you directly– or which they have wrapped around bricks and thrown through the windows of your protective anti-communication fortress — the public will see you as being unwilling to communicate. They will be correct.

“Plenty of other groups have done paleoreconstructions as well.”

I thought such recons weren’t really that important.

Andrew

Good morning mt, I am pleased to see that this thread still has legs. I have not read any of your comments that deal directly with the question I posed to you yesterday, about the meaning of the PR pieces I mentioned in my post here; to you. To review; last night I read both pieces again to see how much time it would take a person to read both and comprehend what the meaning and views of the writers were. Far less than a half an hour, no problem… In the first few paragraphs they get us to their “uberprinciple” and then the writer moves on to the, “Changing attitudes towards climate change is not like selling a particular brand of soap – it’s like convincing someone to use soap in the first place.” The tone does not change as you read on… We are also told that “There is no “rational man”… If “he” is dead; what does that say about all the hard work that “group-think-scientists” have produced for the masses to accept? In blogs, AGW folks have no problem with calling themselves Pan-theists; the masses are called “poor-poe’s”… You all, if not saying it outright, truely see yourselves as “pure”. I don’t want to spoil the plot…please read as we all can, the PR pieces and give us your views. Do you think as the writer in the first piece states “Those who deny climate change science are irritating but unimportant.”? We are important. We think. We understand the real world better now than we did just a couple of months ago. See how fast we can catch up with the truth, once it gets out in the open? We love the truth. Our leaders are afraid of us getting the truth. Why do you think that is the case… we just can’t handle it? Once again please share your views with us all… Thank you in advance. Tom

http://www.futerra.co.uk/downl.....heGame.pdf

http://81.29.86.172/~nwdatk99/.....ewGame.pdf

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 5 09:36),

AMac, I can’t tell the bad guys from the sincerely confused. This is a key part of the bad guys’ strategy. Also I am a coward about such things. So I generally don’t accuse any particular individual.

This has the practical effect of seeming to accuse them all and causing huge numbers of people to dislike and distrust you. Is that your goal?

Thanks for the correction, Zeke.

Zeke: “The cherry-picker scene was using ice core data from Lonnie Thompson, I think.”

Who hasn’t shared or updated his data either has he?

“Its also worth noting that this isn’t 1998 any more. Plenty of other groups have done paleoreconstructions as well. Most aren’t quite as flat as the original hockey stick, but they don’t dramatically differ. Some are even by folks not on the “team” ”

There’s that “most” word again! I’ve seen plenty myself. The the data that comes from stalagmites for instance. Caves are pretty darn perfect places to collect paleo data from. MWP looks just about the same as today.

“Dramatically differ” See it’s interpretations like this that are bothersome to those mom’s in the know! I know that you are talking about fractions of just one degree of proxy temps. I bet the graph line is a glaring red color too. Does the public know this well? I don’t think so, and I think it’s on purpose.

Bart Verheggen (Comment#32272),

“I’m with mt on this one: Mann’s work on proxies isn’t nearly as central to the case for human induced climate change as you make it out to be. ”

This thread is titled “How NOT to respond to skeptics”.

Yet you continue to completely duck this simple error, demonstrating yet again by example exactly how not to respond to skeptics. So once again: The issue is not the validity or lack thereof in Mann’s proxy studies, and is not if the proxy studies are important in the overall case being made for AGW. The issues are 1) how Mann refuses to fix (or even respond!) when a simple and clear error is found in his work (an upside down data set!) that anybody can see is wrong, and 2) how other climate scientists and their lay supporters close ranks and either refuse to comment at all or declare that the issue does not matter, and then refuse to comment. If climate scientists who believe firmly in the threat of extreme AGW ever want to gain credibility with the pubilc, they just have to get past this. Everybody makes errors, and for climate scientists (and the IPCC as well) to refuse to admit errors only causes damage to their credibility skeptics and with the general public. And this really does matter!

sheesh, sorry for my typos! Doing three things at once off keyboard (and being angry about these issues for more then one reason) isn’t a good time to try and type (or look smart lol)

“Some are even by folks not on the “team” :-p”

Indeed. And from the leaked e-mails it is quite obvious, that these reconstructions and authors weren’t exactly liked by the Team. Even in case when they were former collaborators – see Moberg.

Liza–
Typos happen. I am the queen of typos. Rest assured no one will ever displace me from the throne.

Liza,

This stalagmite study? http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....h2006.html

Or did you have a different one in mind?

lucia (Comment#32290),
“I am the queen of typos. Rest assured no one will ever displace me from the throne.”

But I bet you type really fast!

Actually, this one appears to be more along the lines of your argument: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo.....i2005.html

The challenge with proxy reconstructions is getting a reasonable geographic distribution, because the temperature history of a single site is not necessarily that of the globe. That said, this record (and a number of others) so suggest a strong MWP in Europe at least.

Liza (#32278):

As for the “most” claims…I am sorry a wiki article that’s been locked from editing with links and references to the IPCC of all places and various other global or scientific”institutions” that are not up to date isn’t very convincing.
And you assume I don’t understand and know the data!

What boggles the mind is how in the good old USA-these political “global” groups even the scientific ones, have become the ones to “trust”. And you can’t understand how regular old Americans don’t like and question all this? Sheesh! Now I am getting a headache!

This idea that there is American science and un-American science is truly very disturbing to me. If there were a great difference between them it would indicate something very wrong, and more likely with America (a single country) than with the others (many). Fortunately I don’t know of any such concerns at present. However, it deeply alarms me that you suspect such a thing.

The wiki article is simply a verifiable list. You can complain about emphasis in other articles, but not in a verifiable list which you can easily check yourself.

Finally, the American Geophysical Union is the main organization of geophysicists in America. The American Meteorological Society is the main organization of meteorologists. The American Physical Society is the main organization of physicists. The American Chemical Society is the main organization of chemists. The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the main interdisciplinary scientific association. The National Academy of Sciences is the society that honors the most distinguished scientists in the USA by making them fellows.

Every one of these organizations has supported the climatological consensus as described by IPCC WG 1. The recent efforts to overturn the positions of ACS and APS failed resoundingly. Even the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has withdrawn its previous position against the consensus though it has not gone so far as to endorse the consensus.

Perhaps that is red, white and blue enough for you.

MT, yes, it is part of the “cookbook” risk part. It is considered “trivial”, but one is supposed to do it anyway for “due diligence.” brid has a couple of good points, but there is more to the discussion that should be voiced. As he points out, as you compare mitigation versus adaptation, as brid discusses it is about “immediately implement emergency action” or not. In that respect my post was to show that immediate implementation may not be advisable. Further, I may have reasons to disagree with brid on the basis of Santer et al. It is my hope you will understand the next two points as I am trying to do as you requested.

1. One of the interesting points of Santer is that if current trends do not invalidate these models, it means an essientially null effect is acceptable. Putting such in a matrix says we should not spend that money except perhaps we should spend the mony in adaptation. Easy to see. If we have a null, and wait to mitigate, we do not waste money on a non-existant problem. To properly access, the trivial is part of the mix.

2. The second point is about the framing of the climate response. Persons seem to like pointing out that it is asymptoic wrt 0, but not wrt say 30C. Though you talk of the fat tails, are you claiming the equivalent of runaway heating. I do not see support for such contention. I see unsupported hypotheses. So the tail will come back towards a mean, but the uncertainties and costs will keep increasing. You end up at the endpoint with a trivial solution of comparing a relative x function with a relative x^2 function. And yes, one does not spend the money.

Though one may argue that point 2 is trivial, point 1 made it not trivial. Not my fault. One of the problems that is encountered is that if one restricts the asymptoic endpoint one gets different answers.

This is why the statements of those who say the proxies don’t matter are incorrect. This was used by the IPCC to justify certain information as likely versus unliely in order to justify the costs. The Santer and current null trend indicate that without that proxy work reducing uncertainty, the crossover from adaptation to mitigation is extended into the future.

Persons do not seem to have read or understand the methodology of the IPCC 4AR and what is was used for.

“Finally, the American Geophysical Union is the main organization of geophysicists in America. The American Meteorological Society is the main organization of meteorologists. The American Physical Society is the main organization of physicists. The American Chemical Society is the main organization of chemists. The American Association for the Advancement of Science is the main interdisciplinary scientific association. The National Academy of Sciences is the society that honors the most distinguished scientists in the USA by making them fellows.”

Micheal Tobis,

Throwing appeals to authority at us has already been tried, many, many times, FYI.

It’s still a fallacy, no matter how many bowls of Alphabits you hurl. It’s old, dude, old.

Andrew

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot......3161867146

“I read Mann’s reply and don’t see where he outright rejected the claim that he used proxies upside down. What he wrote was:

“The claim that “upside down” data was used is bizarre. Multivariate regression methods are insensitive to the sign of the predictors.”

It looks pretty clear to me that he wrote that the claim was bizarre because the sign doesn’t matter and never outright rejected the claim that he used proxies upside down.”

I don’t think that it is a requirement for believing the consensus to defend a particular scientist and a particular publication. It is a ridiculous claim on its face; I would have to be able to defend everything anyone of ten thousand people had published, and all you would have to do is question it.

Nevertheless, I believe, based just on cursory blog reading, that Mann has addressed this question, as the above shows.

Mann says used a method where the sign of the data is cancelled out in the final result. A negative trend gets multiplied by a negative correlation coefficient before contributing to the final aggregate. Therefore it was not necessary to go through all the data records to establish the correct polarity. Rather, the objective mathematics of the algorithm did this for him. Or so he claims, and it seems perfectly plausible to me.

That said, I completely reject the idea that the consensus position requires absolute adherence to anything anyone has published that anti-consensus people don’t like. That’s an absurd requirement.

Andrew_KY

You are changing the subject, as you seem to do sometimes.

How much weight to put on that authority was not the question I was addressing, although, in the present case, that’s a lot of authority.

But I was addressing the question of whether the consensus actually exists.

I don’t understand Pittman at all. Does anyone here get it? Can you rephrase so I get it?

“But I was addressing the question of whether the consensus actually exists.”

If it exists, but is wrong about the subject, it’s still meaningless.

Andrew

Michael Tobias

You ask several specific questions. I will attempt specific answers

MT says:

I would like people to consider the hypothetical. Imagine that the AGW situation is pretty much as most scientists describe it, rather than as you currently believe it to be. How should we then address Andrew’s question in general?

Maybe we should tell them the whole truth as we understand it ? If Richard Feynmann can explain Quantum Electrodynamics in a lecture directly aimed at an english lit. major, I am sure we will manage somehow with something like AGW. Those that want to learn will learn and those who are incapable won’t. It is as simple as that.

It’s worth pointing out that Average Andrew, may not (and may never) understand something like CO2 diffusion in ice or thermal excitation and re-radiation, he most likely has enough experience with human interaction to recognize strawmen, dodging questions and inconsistent principles. Want to convince Average Andrew ? If it is going to happen you better dump the incoherent arguments and really stick to the science. Lie to him, (and you better believe that failing to address questions by spinning or reframing is just another form of lie) and you have lost any chance you ever had to convince him. In fact, you have probably convinced him that your entire argument is untrustworthy BS.

What can we do about people who refuse to examine evidence?

… and this is my problem how exactly ? I think most scientists and scientifically minded people are not on some holy crusade to persuade everyone of the one true path. It is really a question of “my” understanding of how the universe works and satisfaction of my curiosity is what drives me. I suspect that most serious objective scientists have a viewpoint similar to mine.

What can we do about people who demand a level of evidence they are not sophisticated enough to understand

If they are serious, you can simplify enough to make yourself understood. Look at high school chemistry for example. A real atom is nothing like a tennis ball orbited by ping pong balls. I don’t need to explain the wave equation and binding potentials to begin an explanation of the science. I can give the simple model (all the while making sure they understand this is the simple model and as the student gets more sophisticated so do the models).

I frankly think your “can’t explain because it is too complicated” excuse is bogus. Again to quote the late great Dr. F. “It you can’t explain something, you really don’t understand it”

What can we do about people who are eager to embrace false evidence?

Once again, not my problem. I don’t need to convince every Jehovah’s witness that comes to my door that their viewpoint is incorrect and they should look at the world logically.

In this hypothetical world where science actually more or less works despite its flaws, given that the message we are sending is a troubling one, all of these cases would be likely to arise.

First, I seriously don’t think we are talking about the same thing when we talk about “science”. Second, you should strongly consider the real message you are sending. The message you are sending is “We will lie to you as convenient because we believe that our viewpoint is true”. Yes, I do find that particular message very troubling.

As AMac has been pointing out, things like the response to upside down proxy data is very, very important. Yes, I know that the “easy” message is that it doesn’t matter because there are other studies. Once again this is a form of dodging the question that Average Andrew is going to see and can completely understand. You don’t want to answer the real question which is:

“What does this say about the existing climate clique that they can attempt to hide and spin a simple mistake an upside down data set for well over a year ? How do I trust a discussion about something more nuanced (like say aerosols) when I know that they will lie to my face about something I can actually check ?”

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 5 11:30),

Rather, the objective mathematics of the algorithm did this for him. Or so he claims, and it seems perfectly plausible to me.

If this is what he meant, he has a problem. The difficulty is that the his result relies on the ‘objective math’ flipping the proxy “upside down” relative to behavior expected based on understanding of the phenomenlogy That is, where the phenomenology of tree grown dictates the correlation has one sign, his math tells him the opposite. This is the meaning of “upside down proxie”.

It appears Mann either doesn’t check that the individual correlations spit out by the math to see if they make physical sense, doesn’t care or won’t concede the fact the mathematical correlations show the opposite sign expected by the physics weakens the argument the correlation is real.

Other paleo’s have admitted proxies were used upside down and that such use doesn’t make sense and weakens the argument in favor of the accuracy of any reconstruction that uses these. When accused of using upside down proxies, legitimate scientific answers should be either
a) No. I didn’t use upside down proxies. Explain why you think the proxy is not upside down or
b) Whoops! I did. Now that you point that out, it really doesn’t make sense. From now on, I’ll be checking for upside-downess.

Mann didn’t seen to say either. He seems to say it doesn’t matter if the math violates the phenomenology– providing no good reason why it doesn’t matter.

That said, I completely reject the idea that the consensus position requires absolute adherence to anything anyone has published that anti-consensus people don’t like. That’s an absurd requirement.

Good. I also notice you occasionally disagree with some in your “coherence network”. In particular, you support public release of code and data. So, I know you believe what you write here.

Michael T.:
My husband was an EPA regulator in California. A senior scientist with a cushy job and benefits. Why do you think he quit (totally disgusted with the whole entity) and went in to the private sector to be an environmental scientist there instead? Take a wild guess.

“Fortunately I don’t know of any such concerns at present. However, it deeply alarms me that you suspect such a thing.”

Well then you’d better wake up. My point was too; and you ignored it is that if a chemical plant in your neighborhood hired scientists and they told you “everything is fine trust me” or said some thing like the “science is settled” blah blah and behaved like the CRU crew and other team members did and do, you’d have a completely different reaction. If you do not demand the same standards …well I could call you all kinds of things that were not nice.

Add lots of money, funding, fame, seats on panels, power, prestige, acceptance with a dose of bigotry and insulting name calling, and a chance to “save the planet” hero stuff, and then bigotry toward anybody who doesn’t feel convinced including bringing up how many children they have as a diversion…and it all changes our whole way of life- costing us untold tax dollars; and you’d not question any of the chemical plant’s scientists or demand more information?
You can’t be serious.

Seems to me you are projecting! Shall I give you the wiki page on projection? I never said anything about Un american or American science. You are the one claiming there is a group of scientists that is better not I- and you are claiming yours is better because it is bigger then mine. lol AS IF that matters at all. It does not.

Mike Tobis, You seem to be, just like every other AGW scientist. It is the scientists of AGW who won’t address questions like mine. The woman who helped produced this is Solitaire Townsend, she sits on the board of Tomorrows Company and their home page has a picture of Algore. These are you friends… I have been polite and you have been rude. You wear the hat; now cowboy up… The words speak volumes in these two documents. You and yours are afraid of the truth. Talk to us big guy… I’m open to your words. Just so you are aware, I am not upset or angry. I am just trying to understand your side and your views.

Michael Tobis,

“I completely reject the idea that the consensus position requires absolute adherence to anything anyone has published that anti-consensus people don’t like. That’s an absurd requirement.”

Nobody has asked you to do that. All that is being asked is that you acknowledge that in this particular case (and in many others) climate scientists have communication with the skeptics and the general public badly.
.
I note also that another group (Kaufman et al I think) who used the same data upside down in a very similar analysis (on long term arctic temperature trends) promptly issued a correction with Science, with no bad publicity.

Liza claims she

never said anything about Un american or American science

but she also said, in the comment I responded to

references to the IPCC of all places and various other global or scientific”institutions” that are not up to date isn’t very convincing.
…
What boggles the mind is how in the good old USA-these political “global” groups even the scientific ones, have become the ones to “trust”. And you can’t understand how regular old Americans don’t like and question all this? Sheesh! Now I am getting a headache!

Perhaps I misunderstood. What is it that causes cranial discomfort to “regular old Americans”?

Bart:

“The thing is, persuading other people isn’t in the scientists’ job description, and it isn’t important in order for them to do their job. It’s very unfortunate that climate science (and also some parts of medicine) are being attacked for extra-scientific reasons, and that in order to prevent being misconstrued, that scientists feel a need to defend the science. “

Agreed. At several point in my book I point out what a PR blunder machine Mann is. I would add Tobis to the stack. Now scientists, per se, are not genetically incapable of persuading other people and they are not genetically incapable of understanding PR. I’m sure you all can think of some fine examples. But for the most part, life in the classroom is a poor training ground. To be sure the scientists have now received some training, ( see the climategate files ) and they have learned how to stay on message for the most part, but that’s also part of the problem. It’s a problem in two ways.

1. After a while people “get” that you are delivering a routine message. You see this same phenomena in politics where once
a “meme” is established and used repeatedly, it becomes stale.
“oh that’s the global warming standard pitch” Like when Micheal starts down the road of the painful future message. I KNOW IN MY BONES that somewhere the precautionary principle argument will come up. How do I know this? Studying the history of argument.
Debates that appear to be unsettleable by normal discourse invariably progress into a pragmatic appeal. invariably. There are
other progressions as well. Some of them include final solutions.
That is,power substitutes for reason.

2. its a problem because the tactics that they learned are wrong.
I’ve tried to make this point over and over again but folks dont get it. As I read through Mann’s words and the words of others on the blogs, it was very clear that they totally misunderstood their enemy. They see the enemy as organized: we are not; They see the enemy as corporate funded; well the two most popular skeptics are not. So when I read Mann I know he is unhinged.
When you think that your opponent is just an organized extension of a powerful group, the tactics employed make some sense. Isolate the opponent. by refusing to debate, by refusing them a seat at the table, by keeping them out of journals.

Those tactics work.

Those tactics backfire horribly when your opponent is not organized or a mere extension of corporate interest. They backfire because you become just like the organized interest.
Lets just talk about keeping people out of the journals. Now, when you read the mails you see that the principle argument against skeptics was that they were not published in peer review.
Mann suggests that everybody adopt this line of argument.
It’s Overpecks mainline of defense. First they tried to ignore the skeptics, always a good first option, but they transitioned into an active defense, draw along the lines of peer review. When you read the mails you can actually se them doing this. ‘ok, here is the line of defense that we draw’

Later, when the Soon paper is published ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.
In those mails one of the scientists actually realizes that the “peer review” defense had a fatal flaw. What happens when a skeptic paper gets in the journal? Well, I’ll tell you what happens.
chaos. Journal editors get attacked. People start playing around try to game the system, we have CRU employees on the board,
and then the same stuff happens in the IPCC, and then you get FOIAs aimed at the scientists.. and the whole mess you have today.

Why? bad tactics based on misunderstanding the enemy. Chatting with Stevemc one day, discussing this whole “scientists make bad sales people” idea and the craziness of Mann seeing Steve as part of some conspiracy, We wondered aloud about what would have made things different. I can be pretty sure of this. If Mann or Ammann had actually offerred to work with Steve and come to some kind of agreement or clear statement of mutually recognized disagreement, this part of the controversy all would have ended before 2005. At one point I think Osborn suggested sitting down with all parties and at least reconciling what was done. In other cases I know that merely giving Steve credit for some things, errors spotted, etc would have put issues to rest. But instead they adopt a policy of not wanting to say his name.

Very simply, because the mann’s of this world view steve through the meme of corporate shill, they can never see the tactic of co opting. never. And because Steve is not a corporate shill, and KNOWS that he is not, when mann accuses him of this it just makes mann look like a person who has lost touch with reality.
So you are going to have one long ass fight.

Anyways, Mann is now being investigated. I’d say the charges are true ( public trust is shot) but he will probably walk away with a favorable ruling, and the fight will go on. Funny, if he doesnt get a favorable ruling the fight will also go on.

A smart person on MTs side of things should actually ask Steve McIntyre what his demands are.

People always say that don’t give into skeptics because they will never be satisfied. Again, mistake.

Tom, geez, this is the point. There are more nonscientists than scientists. We can’t possibly answer everything. I have already spent too much time on this site.

You are asking me to read and comment on two articles that I have no idea what they are. They might even be porn sites or virus sites for all I know.

Now you suggest that I “won’t address” your questions, just because I hadn’t got round to it. OK, you have settled it. I won’t. I as an individual don’t personally owe you anything as an individual.

“I don’t understand Pittman at all. Does anyone here get it? Can you rephrase so I get it?”
.
I don’t understand either. It would be good if Pittman could clarify what he is saying.

Artifex:

“Maybe we should tell them the whole truth as we understand it ? If Richard Feynmann can explain Quantum Electrodynamics in a lecture directly aimed at an english lit. major, I am sure we will manage somehow with something like AGW. Those that want to learn will learn and those who are incapable won’t. It is as simple as that.”

I’m glad you mentioned him. Above where I talk about most scientists being incapable of good PR or persuading people I should have excluded the bongo playing skirt chasing good Dr feynmann.

Michael T says to me: “What is it that causes cranial discomfort to “regular old Americans”?”

I helped you to find out with the question about why my husband left the EPA. Try answering!

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 5 12:16),

You are asking me to read and comment on two articles that I have no idea what they are. They might even be porn sites or virus sites for all I know.

Yep. Tom has adopted the argument style commonly known as ‘argument by telling you to visit this link’, very commonly seen at Real Climate and other climate blogs. (Heck. Many blogs of all stripes.)

Michael has correctly identified some of the problems with that argument style. One of them is that it is completely disrespectful of the audience’s time and they know it.

Steve Mosher,
“There are other progressions as well. Some of them include final solutions. That is, power substitutes for reason.”

Godwin again!

a) No. I didn’t use upside down proxies. Explain why you think the proxy is not upside down or
b) Whoops! I did. Now that you point that out, it really doesn’t make sense. From now on, I’ll be checking for upside-downess.
Mann didn’t seen to say either. He seems to say it doesn’t matter if the math violates the phenomenology– providing no good reason why it doesn’t matter.

Another interesting thought experiment for MT. If Mann and the RealClimate crew had chosen the principled scientific response to the criticism as Lucia indicates above, how would the situation differ ?

Much of the explosion of the skeptic and lukewarmer ranks are due to the unprincipled handling of these issues. If they are handled in a principled fashion, there are far fewer folks who are going to show up at CA and here. Who wants to discuss boring math errors that are found and quickly fixed ?

On the other hand spinning and propagandizing these points cause great deals of outrage in folks that like their science more objective.

The current climate clique traded the support and trust of the technical community for the politics and support of the progressives. Doesn’t seem to be such a good decision in hindsight does it ?

Steven, the Soon paper was garbage. Von Storch said it was garbage and that is good enough for me. The story you are telling is mythological.

Lucia, if a correlation between a series and a multiplicity of other series is attempted, and some of the correlations are negative, and these are reprojected onto the data sets and aggregated, the sign of the original data does not matter. Mann claims that this is the case with his method.

It may not be the case with some other method where polarity matters, and that is not relevant.

I am not saying Mann is or isn’t correct. I’m saying it’s plausible to me that he is, and indeed more plausible that he is than otherwise. (Someone is likely to have checked this in detail as it is an objectively demonstrable fact. Would this have escaped the eyes of the review group at PSU, after all?)

Like with Pittman’s risk analysis, what you are saying just seems confused to me.

You seem very attached to the idea that Mann is doing something very silly. But why would he? Is he evil incarnate and stupid all at the same time?

It is much more plausible to me that what he says is true. That is, that his result would have been exactly the same if any individual proxy data series were multiplied by any constant, including -1.

It seems to me that it is the job of the accusers to work through Mann’s algorithm (not somebody else’s) and show this straightforward claim to be false before going off about ethics and standards and so on. Has this been done?

I think I see where John Pittman is coming from. He is viewing the problem in a real options framework. Preserving optionality has value. Sometimes when there is uncertainty, the value-maximizing decision is to do nothing until such time as we get better resolution of the uncertainty. This framework is used regularly in areas such as pharmaceutical R&D and mining exploration. Applying a real option model to climate mitigation is certainly conceptually feasible but would be very complex given uncertainties around inputs. It could, however, be quite interesting.

Michael,

“I can’t imagine that if he was wrong this would have escaped the eyes of the review group at PSU, after all.”

The review group did not get involved with anything like this. Their charge was limited to four specific question of academic misconduct, none of which were related to the analysis methods used in his research work.

Liza:

Add lots of money, funding, fame, seats on panels, power, prestige…

Yes. Please do. I’m in favor of this starting soon. Thanks in advance.

Moshpit. A great post above. The one where you discuss how inept and ineffectual the pro-AGW tactics re Steve Mc have been.

Onya!!

OT-

I finished Climategate last night, right on schedule. The ending was not as ‘bad’ (from a Denialist perspective) as I had ‘feared’. In fact, there is a lot of the concluding part I do/could agree with.

I definately recommend it for anyone who is a Climate Blog Junkie, like me. I know you guys had to get it together quickly. Make what anyone will of the emails, it’s still a bit of history, which we like to read about here in Kentucky.

Good job, Steven M and Tom F.

Andrew

I am saying this with a smile. Links have been provided on the PR pieces… If you are ever at Moose’s Saloon in Kalispell, Mt. You should lose the hat. If you were a real cowboy; you would understand it is more than just a hat. Good day…

brid, thanks. That starts to make sense.

That sort of consideration should indeed be in the mix (the risk of foreclosing future options) when you start to plan an ideal policy.

The fact is that we are so far from an even sensible policy now that it’s somewhat idealistic to go to that level of elegance. In the US, we had to forego a perfectly simple and sensible cap-and-dividend idea because the corporations have congress under their thumbs and had to engineer a ridiculous giveaway to the worst actors on the scene to come even close to a bill. If the other party could come up with a few votes perhaps something more reasonable might have emerged… Admittedly this is far afield of what Lucia likes to talk about. I will put in in the queue for my blog.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 5 12:29),

Lucia, if a correlation between a series and a multiplicity of other series is attempted, and some of the correlations are negative, and these are reprojected onto the data sets and aggregated, the sign of the original data does not matter. Mann claims that this is the case with his method.

It may not be the case with some other method where polarity matters, and that is not relevant.

You are very confused.

Of course it is true that it doesn’t matter how you enter the data fields or multiply by -1– though later when diagnosing upside-downess you ought to check. In principle, if your understanding of the phenomenology is correct and the proxy is not too noisy, the math will determine correlation, use that, and you will get the answer that the math gives you. Math is math.

The difficulty is that the details hidden in the interior workings of the math violate physics or phenomenology, one must be very concerned that something has gone seriously wrong. In the case of temperature proxies one ought to wonder whether or not they are really proxies at all. After all: The treenometer may be too noisy, or it may not be correlated with temperature at all.

If a mathematical reconstruction included a in glass mercury thermometer, and the mathematical fit gave the wrong sign to the correlation between the height of a mercury column and the temperature I would conclude that either a) there was something wrong with the mathematical methodology, b) there was something wrong with that thermometer c) there is so much noise in the system that it overwhelms the result.

After all, the only reason I use a glass-in-mercury themometer to detect tempeature is I expected a correlation, and I also expected it to be in a particular direction.

Multiplying the all input heights by -1 doesn’t help because the problem of “upside downess” in the proxy is that no matter how you do it, the math told you the correlation between temperature and the actual physical height of the thermometer was negative when you know it’s positive.

It’s true that if the analysist If you multiplies column height by -1 on input, the math will indeed sort this out and tell you that the correlation between (-1*physical hieght) and (temperature) is positive when you know it should be negative. Your final result will be unaffected.

Your final result will still rely on an upside down proxy because what “upside-down” the correlation used in the final result violates our understanding of the phenomenology that caused us to think the proxy might work in the first place.

The result of the math and either noise or inadequacy of the proxy, not Michael Mann any analyst, forces the proxie to be used upside down relative to the physics. The responsibility of the analysis is to notice that the output of his computer program and see that it violates physical understanding.

People who know that the physics of thermometers act a certain way. So if the math forces the themometer to appear “upside down” in a reconstruction you should be very concerned.

Michael–
I just noticed this:

You seem very attached to the idea that Mann is doing something very silly. But why would he? Is he evil incarnate and stupid all at the same time?

I don’t think Mann is evil incarnate. I don’t think he’s stupid. But what he did is incorrect. People can make mistakes and be unable to see them without being either evil or stupid. I should think others can point out the obvious errors without being accused of calling other evil or stupid.

Liza comments:

“What boggles the mind is how in the good old USA-these political “global” groups even the scientific ones, have become the ones to “trust”. And you can’t understand how regular old Americans don’t like and question all this? Sheesh! Now I am getting a headache!”

Now, when MT responds to this and doesnt understand the “cranial discomfort” . Michael, you really do need to put your thinking cap on as well as your rhetorical cap. Calling it cranial discomfort wins you no points. As a cute way of calling a headache a headache it actually loses you points, but I won’t tell you how. now let’s try to understand Liza’s concern. hell, she doesnt even have to express it and I get it. As you all know India said some things about pulling out of the IPCC. Why? because they saw that the interests of India were better protected by Indian scientists studying India and they didnt like the treatment they got from Pachy. keep your science research money at home. Like it or not MT there is a segment of the american population that does not trust international bodies. They have, on occassion, good reason to distrust them. Not in all cases to be sure, but just as people on one side dont trust corporate interests, people on the other side distrust things that don’t originate in the US. As you point out MT if global warming is happening we face a future that could be very messed up. In that future there will be winners and losers. As we take action today there will be winners ( Gore and his investments) and losers (american tax payers) That’s the game.
And Liza’s point could be made this way. In a present where the US may bear costs unfairly and in a future where the US may reap fewer benefits, who do you want calculating the numbers? Somebody with our interest at heart or not. Who do you want setting policy, somebody you can throw out of office or somebody you cannot. Who do you want getting DOE funds to calculate a global temperature index? somebody in England who doesnt share data and code and cant be prosecuted for violating FOIA or somebody in the us?

That’s at the heart of liza’s headache. IF what you say is true, IF there is a painful solution to a painful problem, if there is pain which ever way we go, which doctor do you want. One you know and can fire if he messes up; one that is controlled by our laws, or not.

As it is presently constructed the IPCC is beyond the laws of basic checks and balances. ( I think about food for oil scams) The IPCC is constructed in such a way and staffed in such a way that it is outside any FOIA process. That’s a danger.

Lucia:

MT wrote:

“Lucia, if a correlation between a series and a multiplicity of other series is attempted, and some of the correlations are negative, and these are reprojected onto the data sets and aggregated, the sign of the original data does not matter. Mann claims that this is the case with his method.”

And then you went on trying to explain these things to him. It’s pointless to debate these things with someone like MT who doesnt understand all the in’s and outs of the math in this particular problem. he’s like a mom with 9 kids when it comes to the Tiljander problem. he will never get it. Even if he does get it he will not be able to say what is obvious to all.

Lucia, the case you are describing is not the same as the case where one of the data series had the wrong sign and it came out in the wash.

If you are claiming that the series had the unexpected correlation, couldn’t Mann be criticized for excluding it as much as for including it? That would indeed be interesting and problematic, though.

My understanding is that this is not Mann’s claim. He seems to be claiming that the series was upside-down on input, and the correlation was as expected for the upside-down series. In this case, this isn’t even a tempest in a teapot. It would be just a perfectly calm teapot surrounded by a lot of complaining about the weather in the teapot.

We do (or at least I do) seem to be making progress. At least I can now grasp Mann’s claim as I understand it and yours at the same time. I see them each as coherent but distinct. Maybe each of you believes their distinct interpretations of what is upside-down, the data or the correlation. That is, in principle anyway, testable.

Dr Mann is a bit swamped with non-science these days, so I’d refrain from pursuing it for a while. But if you can provide more evidence, at least I understand what you are saying now.

lucia (Comment#32324),

Nice try, but I think Micheal will never admit that Mann just flipped the data and should have fixed it; it doesn’t matter how clearly you explain it.

#32323 Thinko.

I meant tax-and-dividend. Sorry.

Michael Tobis (Comment#32297) –

(This is the comment where you link Roger Pielke Jr’s blog on Mann’s upside-down use of the Tiljander proxies.)

My hat’s off to you for being willing to touch this Third Rail of the AGW Consensus.

Still, a couple of things.

1. You don’t quote Pielke’s defense of Mann, as the link might suggest, but rather mid-thread comment #13 by “deancrowe”, an AGW-Consensus adherent.

2. It’s interesting to read further along in that thread from late October 2009. Pielke and others (including me) show that deancrowe’s reasoning doesn’t make sense. (This was my first exposure to the tawdry side of AGW Consensus paleoclimate reconstruction. In retrospect, I was wrong to assume that surely there was some good explanation for Mann’s actions in this affair.)

3. There are a number of severe mistakes in Mann et al’s 2008 reconstructions in PNAS. The Pielke thread touches on some of the reconstructions’ worse conceptual problems, but these require some background to appreciate. In contrast, the upside-down use of Tiljander’s proxies is easy to comprehend. Mann’s decision to double-down rather than admit and correct this mistake is also readily understood.

Michael, you conclude your comment with

I completely reject the idea that the consensus position requires absolute adherence to anything anyone has published that anti-consensus people don’t like. That’s an absurd requirement.

Agreed.

But this might be a straw man:

Please point to where I (or Lucia, or another correspondent on this thread) raised that argument.

Thank you mosher! Its not rocket science!

( I got the “cranial discomfort” thing too. I wonder if he talks in person like that too? lol ) He also made it all about “him” in his last comment to me because…. he didn’t get the point? I’m silly? whatever! I am ignoring it. LOL)

MT. In your post #32264 you ask the following questions:

“There are many subquestions. What can we do about people who refuse to examine evidence? What can we do about people who demand a level of evidence they are not sophisticated enough to understand? What can we do about people who are eager to embrace false evidence?”

Can I add to your list a further pertinent question? What can we do about people who make statements, but refuse to make available the evidence that provides proof for their statements?

What the climate scientists don’t seem to get is that it is their credibility at stake when they refuse to provide the evidence (data, methods, code) that constitutes proof for their statements.
It is their credibility at stake when they refuse to acknowledge obvious errors like the Tiljander inversion.

BTW. Above you mention moderation at your site, where you say you “edit” comments. What I think you mean is that you simply delete comments that you do not like, in the same way RC does. An alternative approach, used by CA for example, is to post the post, snip, and then explain the reason for the snip.

Michael

Lucia, the case you are describing is not the same as the case where one of the data series had the wrong sign and it came out in the wash.

Yes. I’m describing the case SteveM discovered and reported in Mann and Kaufmann. After it was explained by SteveM, Kaufmann admitted it in his work and corrected it.

Mann gave a confusing response which does not address the actual accusation of what happened in his proxy. His response makes it appear that SteveM’s accusation is along the lines you are inferring from Mann’s response. However, the response doesn’t address the accusation at all. It is a response to an accusation of a hypothetical thing that might have occurred in some other hypothetical analysis discussed in some other paper.

If you are claiming that the series had the unexpected correlation, couldn’t Mann be criticized for excluding it as much as for including it? That would indeed be interesting and problematic, though.

No. Why would he be criticized for excluding it? And if he were he could just say why he excluded it and anyone who understood the definition of proxy and that it is a mistake to include these would agree it should be excluded. This is an open and shut question.

My understanding is that this is not Mann’s claim. He seems to be claiming that the series was upside-down on input, and the correlation was as expected for the upside-down series. In this case, this isn’t even a tempest in a teapot. It would be just a perfectly calm teapot surrounded by a lot of complaining about the weather in the teapot.

Mann is supposedly responding to SteveM’s accusation of finding an upside down proxy– not on input– but used the way I explained above. As such, Mann’s answer is not-responsive to the criticism or, at best, not clear.

It may be that Mann didn’t understand what SteveM was saying when he answered. But Kaufman understood it readily enough, agreed, and fixed the problem in his paper.

Dr Mann is a bit swamped with non-science these days, so I’d refrain from pursuing it for a while. But if you can provide more evidence, at least I understand what you are saying now.

You have to read Climate Audit because I’m not diving into proxies. But this is the argument. Whether CA is right or wrong… well, I too am not diving into the proxies.

I will readily admit I tend to believe SteveM because a) his stuff is detailed, b) Kaufman understood, agreed and issued an errata for his work and c) Mann’s answer is not responsive to the accusation. I take “c” to mean that either Mann did not understand what was alleged before he spoke and may still not understand. But if he doesn’t understand, that is a bad sign.

AMac, your 32276 seems to claim that the latest Mann business is central.

MT

So what you are saying is that if I took some temperature measurements, found some with a negative trend then took the signals that had a positive trend, inverted them and the correlated with the negative set and claimed I had significant global cooling you would buy my argument ?

Really ? You believe this ? Is there something I am missing ?

Andrew:

“Andrew_KY (Comment#32321) February 5th, 2010 at 12:44 pm
OT-
I finished Climategate last night, right on schedule. The ending was not as ‘bad’ (from a Denialist perspective) as I had ‘feared’. In fact, there is a lot of the concluding part I do/could agree with.
I definately recommend it for anyone who is a Climate Blog Junkie, like me. I know you guys had to get it together quickly. Make what anyone will of the emails, it’s still a bit of history, which we like to read about here in Kentucky.
Good job, Steven M and Tom F.
Andrew”

Thank you Andrew. I would say that two weeks into the project I was sorely tempted just to do it as a straight history, drawing no conclusions. We figured the Lukewarmer message would get us enemies on both sides. go figure. Tom and I have different political beliefs. But we found a common ground where we can agree. Our suggestion is that people do likewise. Find some common ground and build from that. That common ground allowed us to trust each other.

I like your reaction because you had an open mind to at least read something you probably knew you would disagree with.
Funnily, I read reviews from warmists who never read the book.
They didnt know I agree with many of their points. So, in my mind, you seem the more reasonable person.

Here’s my common ground on the mails.

1. we don’t know whether they are hacked or stolen and it really doesnt change anything in my conclusions. BUT we love the who dunnit ( its a distraction )

2. Nothing in the mails CHANGES the science. it can’t, they are mails, not science. and only scientific data and methods can CHANGE the science. This doesnt make the science right.

3. The mails do raise doubt about the integrity of the processes in science publishing. Raising doubt about the processes raises doubt about the results. Results dont change, but our faith in them does. Time to rebuild faith.

4. PLease redo the Global temperature index from the ground up with open data and methods.

5. Please follow the suggestions of Rind and others WRT open forthright statements of uncertainty about climate reconstructions.

We probably didnt put it as nicely in the book ( moshpit isnt much on the please and thank yous)

here is what I bet. I bet Judith Curry would concur with these 5.
And I bet that MT could probably be brought on as well.
I bet if if people stopped screaming fraud on both sides that a little common ground could be found.

here is another bet. If a warmist like MT would also read all the mails and blogs and come to the same conclusions as above ( worded a bit more generously for his side) good discussions could occur.

Lucia (Comment#32355)

You have to read Climate Audit because I’m not diving into proxies.

The best examination of Mann et al (2008)’s use of the Tiljander proxies by a pro-AGW-Consensus scientist to date has been by William Connolley at his blog Stoat.

Unfortunately, his aggressive moderation of comments and in-line insertion of his own commentary makes it hard to follow the non-Consensus arguments that are allowed.

I posted a ‘reconstructed’ record of the first Stoat thread on the subject, here.

That does ‘dive into the proxies,’ at least a bit.

MT.

WRT the upside down sediment series, Tiljander.

Let me recommend AMac.

He did a very good job of tracking down all the open issues.
Im not aware of his background but he was mind numbingly diligent about keeping a discussion moving forward and isolating issues and pushing to agreements or agreements to disagree.

Actually, I think that would be a great discussion for a group to hold. Since it discusses Mc and Mann, I’d suggest heavy moderation ( ha, moshpit suggesting a closed discussion) but with the right participants ( no flame throwers ) you could have a good solid discussion of the paper and the issues. Stoat tried a discussion, Amac can fill you in.

mondo, when I finally upgrade to a better blog host, I sometimes will do as you suggest, but I only want to move my blog once. Blogger doesn’t support editing submissions.

However, I am not just filtering on rudeness. I am filtering specifically on what mt finds interesting.

If you actually follow me you will find that this may be broader than you expect. But when somebody just keeps harping on a point and not seriously engaging, I eventually cut them off out of boredom. This has its plusses and minuses, to be sure. But it’s my blog and I can edit if I choose.

As for engaging, please note that 1) Lucia has succeeded in getting me to question Mann and 2) brid has succeded in explaining to me where Pittman is coming from, even though I couldn’t make any sense out of it from Pittman directly.

These sorts of outcomes result from NOT assuming that your opponent is your enemy, but from keeping some concept of collegiality in your discourse.

As for “Can I add to your list a further pertinent question? What can we do about people who make statements, but refuse to make available the evidence that provides proof for their statements?” I think a reference to the literature (or sometimes another website) suffices as evidence.

This is very different than an assignment from some Tom that I go read two sites he likes and report back to him. This is saying “if you want the backup of my position, I would refer you to X” or “the answer to your question is found at Y”. I think (and perhaps Lucia disagrees) that this is perfectly appropriate. It’s hard to imagine how science could proceed without this strategy being considered appropriate. It is then up to the questioner to either
1) trust the other party 2) withhold judgment or 3) investigate further. Rejecting the other party’s position when they do provide a reference is simply unfair.

If someone just makes a broad assertion without evidence, either that person is lazy, sloppy, incompetent, or uninterested in engaging with you. In any of those cases it is best to just move on to someone who is willing to play fair.

AMac,

Thanks immensely for the very useful link. This is soooo much nicer than wading through the mismash at Stoat.

liza (Comment#32332) February 5th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
Thank you mosher! Its not rocket science!

dang. I thought it was rocket science and I could add that to my resume. the cranial discomfort thing. I used to teach freshman english and they would do it all the time. I wanna show teacher that I am smart, so I will use a thesaurus and give the appearance of intelligence. Knowing big words is one thing, using them properly is quite another. At least he didnt through in a latinism like monkton. Again it gets back to lessons in rhetoric. Knowling your audience. knowing what they like. being empathic.

Ok, funny story. So I’m at dinner with a female variety of the species. And we order squid appetizer and octopus. Said female inquires as to my preference for the aforementioned appetizers and I respond that I like them both equally. She remarks “you like them both? ” And I respond that as an amateur teuthologist I found all cephalopods to be delectable. ( I actually talk that way when I want to impress women). Needless to say, the rest of the dinner didn’t go to well.

Re: AMac (Feb 5 13:27),

But this might be a straw man:

Please point to where I (or Lucia, or another correspondent on this thread) raised that argument.

I don’t think MT thinks we did. I think what he means is that he does not agree that if “his” side mostly says “foo”, while the other side says “not foo”, he must say “foo” because his side did.

MT does sometimes disagree with the group he seems to consider to be “his side”.

Michael Tobis wrote (Comment#32336) —

AMac, your 32276 seems to claim that the latest Mann business is central.

Michael,

32276 was responsive to Bart Verheggen’s remark in Comment#32272: “I’m with mt on this one: Mann’s work on proxies isn’t nearly as central to the case for human induced climate change as you make it out to be.”

I claim that Mann’s work is very important as a clear-cut example of bad behavior by a prominent Consensus scientist. It is also important as an example of how other Consensus scientists and Consensus advocates are willing to countenance such bad behavior. These two points are central to the thrust of this post, “How not to respond to skeptics.”

Whether or not Mann’s work in particular or paleoclimate reconstructions in general are “central to the case for human induced climate change” is another matter. Lucia put it well in her “plank” comment (#32113), I thought.

HA, I see Amac and I had comments cross in the night.

MT, i’ll repeat my recommendation of Amac as a guide to the issue.
FWIW.

Re: Michael Tobis (Feb 5 13:49),

But this might be a straw man:

Please point to where I (or Lucia, or another correspondent on this thread) raised that argument.

I’m actually content to have gotten you to understand what the accusation is. As for who is ultimately right on the merits of the accusation, I also don’t know in the sense I consider “knowing”. (That is, doing it myself and checking etc.) My spidey sense says SteveM is either a) totally right or b) partially right. But if you read above, some of that has to do with the sorts of circumstantial evidence on which all people must rely. Each person gives different circumstantial evidence different levels of weight– but my Quatloos are on SteveM.

Yes, brid that is correct. I see this through the eyes of AR4. Think of the methodology presented. If you do not account for value, it is an interesting intellectual exercise. But this is not the claim of the IPCC wrt climate change or the economics of climate change. One does not throw out a “trivial” solution becuase it is trivial. It is hte proof or relationship that is trivial. It can have real impact on decisions, or even be the main determinate of a response. In this case, since MT brought up about somehow not doing is somehow bad, I chimed in. I would also argue that cap and trade or cap and rebate are not good. But that is a separte argument.

lucia (Comment#32347),

You are remarkably generous in victory.

Michael–

I would refer you to X” or “the answer to your question is found at Y”. I think (and perhaps Lucia disagrees) that this is perfectly appropriate.

The difficulty I have is that quite often the answer to the question is absolutely manifestly not at Y or the 2 sentences answer is hidden somewhere inside a 600 page tome. In the latter case, the person recommending “Y” should at least add “it’s discussed somewhere in chapter 13. in the section about blah, blah blan.”

The answer only seems useful to those who did not ask the question and don’t click the link. Those interested in the answer are often angry when they click.

Of course, that’s not the case if a person drops useful links and people come to trust the link dropper.

Mosher–

And I respond that as an amateur teuthologist I found all cephalopods to be delectable. ( I actually talk that way when I want to impress women). Needless to say, the rest of the dinner didn’t go to well.

It may have been the language. If she’s a meat and potatoes type, it may have been the thought of future dates at restaurants where people eat squid. Or the thought of a future dates where she would watch someone eat squid. (I can imagine feeling that way if someone ordered monkey brains.)

Still, it may have been the language.

Amac:

“Whether or not Mann’s work in particular or paleoclimate reconstructions in general are “central to the case for human induced climate change” is another matter. Lucia put it well in her “plank” comment (#32113), I thought.”

I think Lucia put it well in her plank argument as well. I like another analogy so here goes. It’s rather like a case where the prosecution has a solid case on certain grounds. Say fingerprints of the perp on the gun. But they want more evidence so they bring in some fiber evidence ( or say handwriting analysis) and they make a huge to do about this piece of evidence, but its really rather flimsy. And as the defense pushes on that flimsy piece of evidence, the prosecution team starts to play around with the process of discovery, they start to do shady things like hire all the expert witnesses in the field. lab results go missing.
all the evidence is consumed in the testing so it cant be retested.
They really dont need that evidence, but they defend it to the death. and when push comes to shove, they switch gears and point back to the key evidence. Which leaves us scratching our heads. If it didnt matter all that, why in gods name did you stretch and bend and twist and turn? And so our doubt spreads to the key evidence. false in one false in all. Now that’s not a logical jump. It’s a practicality.

Lucia gets two points for appropriate use of “spidey sense”.

I am with Lucia on this proxy business in this sense: I am just not interested enough to reach a definitive conclusion on Mann vs McIntyre.

Of course my reverse spidey sense leans the other way, but I’m really not sure.

What this means, though, is that when people rant and rave about Mann, the only response I can actually afford is to shrug and say “I dunno”.

I need to sign off for a while. It’s been interesting.

Y’all come visit at “In It”! (Click my name up there.)

Oh don’t tell me you have a thing against eating squid. WRT brains, I prefer calves brains. I’m pretty sure it was the language. I say the eff word a lot too. Kinda like William F Buckley only born in the hood.

MT does sometimes disagree with the group he seems to consider to be “his side”.

Agreed. I recommend him on the basis of this. I used to visit his site more regularly. I probably should return to that practice. It’s easy to get out of wack when you only post in your own tribal space.
basically, you have to

1. Learn to ignore insults.
2. Make measured statements.
3. Find points to agree on.

I’m supposed to be working on other stuff now, but I’ll plan to visit MT’s and behave. As I said in the past we had some nice offline chats ( email). Anyways, I’m signing out as well

Re: steven mosher (Feb 5 14:39),
I like squid when properly prepared. I also know that some people are grossed out and would not date a squid eating person. I don’t say eff word very often. My blog prose is more colorful than my spoken prose.

Lucia,

I know you said you don’t want to dive into the proxy data, but I think what happened with Mann and the inverted proxies is not difficult to understand.
.
There were two serious problems. First the varve proxies were badly corrupted in the latest portion of the record by human activities (digging), which in fact flipped the expected (pre-human) relationship between temperature and varve thickness, but only for the recent (last 100-200 years) period, when the instrument temperature record says it has been warmer. This made it look on inspection like the data was “upside down” relative to the expected warming. So someone in the group looked at the data and said something like, “crap, that data is going opposite the temperature record, so it has to be upside down”, and flipped the “sense” of the data to make the data line up with the known recent temperatures. When the analysis was done, inspection of the results looked OK… reasonable correlation with recent temperatures (even if this was due to lot of recent digging).
.
But the data for the pre-human influence period was in fact flipped, and as a result pushed down the reconstructed temperatures for the MWP, and raised them for the little ice age and the dark ages. Which was a wonderful and hoped for result (confirmation bias?).
.
So it is unlikely there was anything willful going on, just some sloppy work with a bit of added confirmation bias.
.
The bad stuff started after Steve M found the mistake.

SteveF–
I understand the points qualitatively. What I mean is I’m not going to dive in, try to write a code to find the PC’s, grab all the data and run everything myself to know in the way that I consider “really truly knowing”.

My spidey sense says SteveM is right. If I knew Mann, and he was amenable to questions, or if I were on a panel, I would ask him specific questions and require specific supporting information to determine who is right. But… I’m not going to do that. Plenty of other people already are. Eventually, Mann and other paleos can do things that make my spidey sense of those of others switch to believing them, or not.

Lucia,

I hope someone digs in deep enough to “really truly” know, but I’m convinced on the overwhelming weight of the evidence. Upside down data isn’t that hard to understand.
Cio.

Lucia,

One final thought… the best thread ever.

Whilst I am in absolute agreement with Steve M and AMac that the use of the Tiljander sediments upside down was a very bad error by Mike Mann I have a different interpretation of the events.

The key for me is that when it was first discovered by a poster calling themself “Varve” at CA the only place that Steve then documented it was in an obscurely named post called Saturday Night Live.

At the time it gave Steve some good sport at the expense of Mike Mann but it was not considered a major issue. The paper the Steve and Ross submitted had space limitations and did not detail the mechanism which caused it to be upside down. It just stated that the sediments were upside down and the modern portion was not a valid proxy. Steve and Ross were more concerned about other issues.

Steve has an assumption that Mike Mann would have read the post but the evidence from Climategate is that Mike Mann rarely reads CA. He actually stated that he did not read CA in one email with an excuse that the content was rubbish and not worth the effort. The real reason is probably Mike Mann just cant take criticism so would only go there if given a reason.

As a result in my opinion the response by Mike Mann to Steve and Ross was a result of his inadequate knowledge of his own choice of proxies and a desire to hit gack at Steve and Ross with what he believed was a gotcha in response. In my opinion the response by Mann was caused by a combination of ignorance and a desire to strike back against the criticism.

On the other hand Steve M has the view that Mike Mann was deliberately failing to correct a legitimate error just to spite Steve.

I put the timeline up at AMac’s blog

http://amac1.blogspot.com/2009.....jarvi.html

I would still suggest that Steve M should get a response submitted to the follow up paper published by Mann et Al in Science last year which just details the error and its significance (poor proxy selection, use of same erroneous data in at least 3 papers etc). Currently the only place where the error is detailed anywhere in the blogs is in the original Saturday Night Live post at CA and two follow ups in October last year called Upside-Side Down Mann and the “peerreviewedliterature” and Connolley Endorses Upside Down Mann.

SteveF, sort of OT and if you are still around:
I have a question. My husband’s prof and thesis adviser is one of the leading varve experts in the country, retired just recently. We’ve asked him about what these proxies can tell us (not too long ago by email) and temperature down to a tenth of a degree was not one of them. do you know where or when this assumption/practice started or by whom? thanks.

Michael Tobis (Comment#32297)
February 5th, 2010 at 11:30 am

Michael, and now for the rest of the story.

If Mann, who I assume is fairly proficient in the English language, wanted to say that he had in fact used the data upside down but that it didn’t matter, he could have said something like “While I did use the data upside down, it does not affect the analysis because …” But he did not say anything like this, instead he said that the accusation was “bizarre.” Sorry, but you don’t call a correct accusation “bizarre” unless you are rejecting it.

Clearly Mann was not excusing or dismissing his mistake, but avoiding the question (as several have done here on the very same question). Scientists are not great word smiths by any means.

Re: clivere (Feb 5 15:28),
clivere,
Just a minor correction to your timeline. I posted the “Varve” comment on CA, but I wasn’t the first to “discover” the upside-downess of Mann’s use of Tiljander’s varve proxies. Steve McIntyre had previously hinted that there was something remarkable about the proxies and gave a link to Tiljander’s paper. So Steve McIntyre had obviously spotted the upside-downess first and was expecting one of his readers (like me) to comment on the amusing mistake.
I have no expertise in varve-o-meters or any other climate proxies. Indeed, I’m not a scientist at all. I’m just a lawyer (although my undergraduate degree was in mathematics), with a curious streak. But Dr. Mann’s error was so obvious to me after reading Dr. Tiljander’s paper that frankly I can’t believe anyone of good faith would even argue about the matter.

liza (Comment#32368),

I am no expert on this subject. I do not know if a resolution of 0.1 C from Varve data makes any sense (but being skeptical of these things, I would have to be convinced). Since my last comment to Lucia, I have thought a bit more about the most likely explanation for the ‘upside-down’ varve proxies. I believe now that the Mann et al upside-down varve proxies has an even simpler explanation, which does not even involve confirmation bias.
.
Mann et al, threw the varve proxies into their ‘I don’t care about the orientation’ sausage making software, and the software automatically determined that the recent instrument temperature rise correlated reasonable well with the varve thickness. The problem was that it was a completely false (in fact, inverted) correlation, driven by direct human influences on sediments from digging trenches and foundations, etc. over the last 100+ years, which have absolutely nothing to do with temperature. So the sausage making software spit out a temperature/varve correlation which was exactly the opposite of the known (physically correct) temperature/varve correlation.
.
So Mann is right in what he says about his sausage making software : it really doesn’t care about the sign of anything, it just looks for an instrument record/proxy record correlation for the instrument record period, and then mindlessly applies that correlation constant to the entire historical proxy record, to generate a temperature reconstruction. In this case, the correlation was exactly opposite the known (physically justified) varve/temperature correlation… and it was in fact upside down.
.
The whole story would be quite humorous, save for all the commotion it has caused, which is a bit sad.
.
Mann claims he is completely correct (and says any complaints about up-side down proxies are bizarre), and in a mindless sense, he is correct. But the reality is that SteveM is correct: the correlation applied to the varve data to generate a contribution to the multi-proxy temperature reconstruction over the pre-instrument period was in fact not just in error, it was the opposite of correct. As applied by Mann et al, the varve proxies elevated the reconstructed temperature in the pre-instrument period whenever the temperatures were actually lower, and decreased the reconstructed temperature when the temperatures were actually higher. So Mann et al understates the MWP temperatures, and overstates the LIA and dark ages temperatures. By how much, I do not know.
.
Mann et al’s error is simple and easy to understand: they didn’t pay attention to the clear warnings from the people who gathered the data that the varve thicknesses from the last 100+ years are not at all connected to temperature.

Re: steven mosher (Feb 5 13:36), said

2. Nothing in the mails CHANGES the science. it can’t, they are mails, not science. and only scientific data and methods can CHANGE the science. This doesnt make the science right.

3. The mails do raise doubt about the integrity of the processes in science publishing. Raising doubt about the processes raises doubt about the results. Results dont change, but our faith in them does. Time to rebuild faith.

Mosher this needs some critical review. In 2 you say it does not change the science, but if the methods are wrong the science is bad. The emails indicate they knew that the methods they used were wrong or questionable. In 3 you correctly point out the process of integrity. I would point out that methods must have integrity. Your two statements have conflict as stated.

So… the Malthusian…. Is it gone now?

Iam simply amazed AGW peeps go out of their way to make people question their actions? if they really wanted to end the debate just take the time to discuss the topic.

Sadly all they offer are insults and no answers (only more questions)

John Pittman, brid, and Michael Tobis may be interested in this (if you haven’t seen it already):

“On Modeling and Interpreting the Economics of
Catastrophic Climate Change”

http://www.economics.harvard.e.....deling.pdf

Thanks Contrarian. As the author notes. the extreme fat tailed approach CBA has not been done or done in a limted manner. I agree with his analysis. I do not agree with the model. Conceptually within the constraints of his model, he allows infinite heat or infinite harm. The way he limits the temperature is given. However, it is unlikely in the physical sense. With TOA wanting to reject heat at 3T^3 for a temperature change. Setting the temperature change asymptoic to 0.0 and asymptoic to a series of temperatures each with decreasing probability and increasing requirement of emitted CO2 for any given temperature change is the correct model. I think he has expressed in his paper what MT was trying to get across in his comments.

steven mosher (Comment#32343)
I missed your squid story. lol She just wasn’t the right girl. On our first date I suggested my husband pick me up and drive us to the Vasquez Rocks not far from where I lived. I thought he would like to see them and we could go hiking. As we came around the corner and they came into view; he drove right through a stop sign because he was looking so hard at it! You can see them on Star Trek episodes as a back drop for alien planet explorations. Also the town of Bedrock in the Flintstones movie, the Lone Ranger tv show and others. Named for a hiding place for the bandit Tiburcio Vasquez. http://www.3drealms.com/prey/images/gorn2.jpg.

I got the whole scientific explanation for the rock formations big words and all. He still stares out the window at the geology (or at the waves) where ever we go and I have to remind him to pay attention to the road!

SteveF (Comment#32378)Thank you for your reply. That’s just crazy. I think they make up stuff up as they go along! NO ONE good enough is checking the details or is allowed to question their work (and they review each other). I respect Lucia (and all of the luke warmers in some way ) but if they do not question the very recent (teeny tiny geologic time) past temperature reconstructions in detail I do not see how they can see/feel or imagine the “global warming” being charted in fractions of a degree at this time; means anything at all. My husband would say… So what!

derek (Comment#32387) It sure is amazing. AGW stuff reeks with wrong wrong wrong in every single way- IMHO!

“Boris and sod ignore the issue.”

I know you read WMC’s thread on this, so I don’t know why you are bugging sod and I for a response. Instead of trying to make some sort of talking point out of it, you skeptics should put a coherent paper together that shows the import of Tiljander in Mann 09 and the effects without using it at all (although I think Mann already showed this, right?).

If Tiljander argued for an inverse relationship from the one Mann used, then that is obviously wrong and negates the value of Tiljander as a proxy at all. Meanwhile Mann calibrated Tiljander and it passed out of sample verification, correct? It seems reasonable to argue that Tiljander was wrong about the relationship between this proxy and temperature–correct? So, how can you say that it is “upside down”? That claim makes no sense at all. You can say that it isn’t a temp proxy and shouldn’t have been used based on calibration and verification alone: that makes sense. But the “upside down” claim is just wrong and is not verified by any comparison to temperature records that I know of.

But claiming Mann used something “upside down” does make an awfully nice talking point, so I doubt you or folks at CA will stop using it.

Varve – re Comment#32376

Fair enough – your post was the first place where the nature of the issue was actually described which from a timeline perspective was a few weeks after the original Mann 2008 paper was published.

Steve F – re Comment#32378

There is some subtlety that is missing from your statement “So Mann is right in what he says about his sausage making software : it really doesn’t care about the sign of anything……”. The software did care and the proxy probably should not have made it into the original PNAS study due to a negative correlation with modern temperature. The proxy was manually flipped to get it into the study. Mike Mann then had to change the software to get it to “legitimately” automatically accept the proxies in the follow up paper published in Science late last year. However in my opinion all of this was done by Mike Mann without any understanding of the “perverse” nature of the modern portion of the proxy.

As I caught up on my reading this morning, I came upon this…

Symptoms of groupthink
To make groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight symptoms indicative of groupthink (1977).

Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking.
Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions.
Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group, causing members to ignore the consequences of their actions.
Stereotyping those who are opposed to the group as weak, evil, biased, spiteful, disfigured, impotent, or stupid.
Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”.
Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement.
Mind guards — self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information.
Groupthink, resulting from the symptoms listed above, results in defective decision making. That is, consensus-driven decisions are the result of the following practices of groupthinking[5]

Incomplete survey of alternatives
Incomplete survey of objectives
Failure to examine risks of preferred choice
Failure to reevaluate previously rejected alternatives
Poor information search
Selection bias in collecting information
Failure to work out contingency plans.

It strikes me that true leadership, has morphed into this “new-age-groupthink-world” where there is no real truth… People who feel in their minds that; God does not exist. They also feel that over 80% of the people, lie 47% of the time, 12% of the year, therefore there is no reason why a person in their right mind; should in reality, expect anything other than the best guess estimate of what the truth model could have looked like, if we just keep looping stuff until it looks good in a graph… Now, look at just the last thirty years of U.S. History; Congress, Challenger, Columbia, Iraq Invasions 1 & 2 with direction coming from the group of Neo-Cons, Credit Default Swaps, Health Care Reform, Cap & Trade and AGW. All of these mistakes and at their heart, has been a group of scientists/experts who exibit all the same traits listed above. Look at what it has cost us as a nation and the world. Now, “the people”; are being asked to trust MM, PJ et al. I would not play poker with any of the AGW folks, all they want IS our money so they may further their views about the risks facing the unwashed… Now if there is any confusion about this we can still ask Bill, “what the meaning of is; is.” If you are one of the people who feels that AGW science is some sort of backwater… doesn’t the bill seem Big to you for what has been accomplished? Does anyone have a ballpark number for the last thirty years? World wide? I bet it is Real-Big. Not that this is just about money…. I say: Down with the Smarty-Pants.) Up with the Truth.

w

Long thread, and John Pittman may or may not check back, but John, I owe you an apology.

On another blog, the subject of “experts” and climate policy came up, and I referred an AGWer to your discussion with MT, ’cause I thought it was pertinent and interesting.

http://www.climate-skeptic.com.....tions.html

True to form, he immediately jumped into ad hom mode, against you

I’m keeping him at bay, but in case your ears are burning, sorry about that chief.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Wb7g.....nAdams.jpg

Boris,
“If Tiljander argued for an inverse relationship from the one Mann used, then that is obviously wrong and negates the value of Tiljander as a proxy at all.”
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While this is true, there is a bit more to it. The earlier portion of the Tiljander record does (according to her) correlate with temperature. The later portion (last 100+ years) had been corrupted with sediment from non-natural activities (digging of trenches and foundations). These caused the later part of the record to correlate reasonably well with the instrument temperature record, but in the opposite direction from the correct sense of the early part of the record. So yes, Mann et al should not have used that proxy calibrated against the recent instrument record at all, because that correlation was false (and in fact inverted from the correct ’sense’). This is what Tiljander had said about the proxy all along.
.
The more subtle error in Mann et al’s reconstruction was that with the varve proxies actually included, and (spuriously/inversely) correlated with the instrument record, the uncorrupted early part of the varve record (which according to Tiljander, really does correlate with temperature!) would be expected to reduce the reconstructed temperature when the true varve contribution should have been positive, and increase the reconstructed temperature when the true varve contribution should have been negative. So assuming that Tiljander knows what she is talking about, Mann et al’s reconstruction should have been slightly warmer when the temperature was higher (eg. MWP) and slightly cooler when the temperature was lower (eg. LIA and dark ages). This is where the “upside-down” description of the proxy comes from.
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I’m all for just removing the varve proxies from the calculation. But this would for certain change the results of the reconstruction, leaving the published reconstruction incorrect as it stands. This is what SteveM and many others have been saying for a long time. I do not know exactly how much removing the varves would change the reconstruction, but SteveM suggests it would make a significant change. I also do not know why Mann et al have not addressed the problem, since Kaufmann et al did so immediately when they learned about the problem.

Boris,

I’ll just rely on Matti Saarnisto for a characterization of the
upside down series.

http://climateaudit.org/2010/0.....ary-rerun/

liza (Comment#32398) February 6th, 2010 at 8:05 am

The Lukewarmers do question the climate reconstructions.

One one hand you have those who defend them no matter what. If we find a small error, they brush it aside, won’t correct it. or if they do correct it wont give people credit for finding the error. even when finding that error IMPROVES the strength of their conclusions. That the latest oddity. Get this. Kaufman published a paper and got the sediment series wrong. Steve McIntyre points it out. They fix the problem ( and others) the fix IMPROVES their paper by their own admission. And yet they wont give him even a thank you. And yet people like sod and others arge that mcintyre is a skeptic who only wants to destroy the science, the scientists, and the planet. Evil Steve.

On the other hand you have people who disbelieve in all climate reconstructions.

In the middle of those two you have lukewarmers.

OT
John M, Not a problem. I responded in the manner they talked of me. FYI, I respond this way to this type of input. Normally, I just like reading and trying to reach an understanding. MTobis is corect that I am opaque. It is somewhat suprising he did not come to a conclusion why and respond accordingly. If my post at that site is opaque, just ask, and I will try to explain.

John Pittman,

The Weitzman paper poses some challenging questions. But I believe his arguments amount to a *reductio ad absurdum* of the Precautionary Principle and possibly of the use of CBA in the absence of quantitative (empirical) data. But those conclusions would require a rigorous argument, which would require a much more careful analysis. I plan to spend some time on it.

Re: Contrarian (Feb 7 00:41), It is a hard read. I like the use of sensitivity as a starting point. Although I think that the P of 1% is orders out, at least the author has a realistic sense of political accords or not; the world will consume fossil fuels until a better energy source(s) comes along, or the fuels are depleted. The storyline is a bit too alarmist. I like the study (at WUWT, I think) that despite the greatest temperature rise in the millennium (LOL), extinction by climate change has not occurred for even one specie yet.

steven mosher (Comment#32440)
thank you so much for your reply and taking the time to talk with me. I wish I could express myself better. What I meant by “looking at the temp reconstruction in detail” was like answering my question above : When did varves become proxy for temperature down to tenths of one degree? I meant like how the NAS with SteveMac’s help finally looked at bristle cone pines – and look how that turned out. I meant like those big gray error margins in Jean S’ throbbing Mann chart! (lol) and how Paul Dennis is still busy in his work.

All these people publishing and citing AGW papers are my husband’s peers. He completed his Masters in Environmental Geology about 10 yrs ago at a very liberal school in California with big time environmental/earth science programs. He had to complete a climatology course for his degree and one of the first IPCC reports was barely discussed in class “because it was so flawed” His thesis advisor is a sediments expert. My husband even had to rule out a major climate shift on earth (6 million yrs ago) for the conclusion for his paper (which has been published twice)…on and on… In other words he and his classmates were not taught these things in school (like for instance the power C02 concentrations are given these days over the planet’s climate; even described as “well understood” was not in his text books as well understood if at all.) Now we’ve been discussing GW for almost 5 yrs asking the same questions and having the same concerns. Do you see what I am trying to say?

“The more subtle error in Mann et al’s reconstruction was that with the varve proxies actually included, and (spuriously/inversely) correlated with the instrument record, the uncorrupted early part of the varve record (which according to Tiljander, really does correlate with temperature!) would be expected to reduce the reconstructed temperature when the true varve contribution should have been positive, and increase the reconstructed temperature when the true varve contribution should have been negative.”

The big question is IF the relationship is as Tiljander claims. But IF it is, there’s no way to calibrate it as a proxy anyway since the period during the instrumental record is purportedly contaminated by human activity.

I have no idea if Tiljander is right (and I find it odd that skeptics all of a sudden accept unquestioningly the opinion of an expert on a particular proxy without thirty blog posts examining the paper ) The argument should be that the later period of the record is contaminated and that this contamination just happened to fit well with the instrumental record, giving a spurious result.

Boris,

“The argument should be that the later period of the record is contaminated and that this contamination just happened to fit well with the instrumental record, giving a spurious result.”
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No doubt about it, that is the basic argument. But IF, based on that argument, you exclude the varve proxies from Mann’s reconstruction, then the corrected reconstruction will result in a slightly warmer MWP relative to slightly cooler surrounding LIA and dark ages (AKA removing the “upside down” application of the varve proxies). Perhaps Tiljander doesn’t know what she is talking about, but Kaufmann et al clearly think she does. The whole issue is not the error, it is that Mann et al have steadfastly refused to remove the varve proxies from their reconstruction…. even though these proxies make the results demonstrably incorrect. This isn’t very complicated; Mann et al should just fix the damn paper and move on!
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As a AGW supporter Boris, you ought to be the very first to insist that Mann et al fix the paper; the bad publicity of Mann et al’s refusal is much worse for your cause than just issuing a correction of an honest mistake.

Re: Boris (Feb 7 10:30),

The big question is IF the relationship [between varve record characteristics and climate] is as Tiljander claims. But IF it is, there’s no way to calibrate it as a proxy anyway since the period during the instrumental record is purportedly contaminated by human activity.

That’s a very reasonable interpretation of the Upside-Down Proxies situation, Boris. I’m not in complete accord, but you highlight facts we can agree on, a solid basis for exploring differences.

As SteveF points out (Comment#32506) Kaufman followed in Mann’s footsteps for his 2009 reconstrution published in Science. After McIntyre alerted him to the Lake Korttajarvi proxy problems, Kaufman corrected his submitted draft by flipping the X-Ray Diffraction record from how Mann used it, so that it was in accord with Tiljander’s 2003 interpretation (i.e. right-side-up). (Also see Climate Audit, 2/6/10)

One of the Climategate emails addresses this point. On 9/5/09 8:44 AM, Darrell Kaufman wrote

I’m also thinking that I should write to Ojala and Tiljander directly to apologize for inadvertently reversing their data.

The lead AGW Consensus defender of Mann et al (2008), William Connolley, memorably accounted for the discrepancy between Kaufman (2009) and Mann (2008) with the statement

He [Kaufman] is right and Mann is right [on the use of the Tiljander proxies].

“Interpret the proxy however you fancy, if you are a Consensus supporter” is not the basis for constructive dialog.

Boris continues,

I have no idea if Tiljander is right (and I find it odd that skeptics all of a sudden accept unquestioningly the opinion of an expert on a particular proxy without thirty blog posts examining the paper )

The interpretation in Tiljander et al (2003) sounds reasonable, and is consistent with interpretations of varve records in some other northern European lakes (Hank Roberts led me to one such citation). But, yeah, she could be wrong: Mann should make that argument. I wrote to Tiljander a while back asking what she thought. She didn’t reply, but then, she doesn’t owe some internet blog commenter even the time of day.

The argument should be that the later period of the record is contaminated and that this contamination just happened to fit well with the instrumental record, giving a spurious result.

Well, now you’re brushing against one of the subtler and more serious defects in Mann et al’s approach to these reconstructions. By saying, “we’re only going to use proxies that agree with our version of the regional temperature rise 1850-1995,” you invite one set of problems (underestimating pre-1850 temperatures) while preventing a related set (overestimating pre-1850 temperatures). Especially when dealing with noisy records, that represents a strong bias towards assuming one’s pro-global-warming hypothesis. In that light, it was perhaps a stroke of good fortune for all of us that Mann et al were so careless in implementing their methods.

By the way, Tiljander et al (2003) include the instrumental temperature record of the nearest weather station, 1881-1993, as their Figure 2.

There is no discernable rise in temperature at Lake Korttajarvi over that time.

Boris –

The great DC/Baltimore Snowstorm of 2010 knocked out our power all weekend, on returning online I wrote Comment#32540, above. Turns out that Firefox with the GreaseMonkey add-on masked your Comment#32400 (February 6th, 2010 at 8:40 am), beginning with you quoting me, “Boris and sod ignore the issue.”

So I didn’t address any of those points. But they seem to have been superseded by what you said in Comment#32498 (February 7th, 2010 at 10:30 am).