Althouse: "Scientists believe their facts and logic convinced all the smart people to their side already, so now they need a new strategy for the dumb ones."

April 20, 2017

"Scientists believe their facts and logic convinced all the smart people to their side already, so now they need a new strategy for the dumb ones."

"A different version of reality, as seen through the Persuasion Filter, is that citizens who don’t understand history are doomed to believe whatever the experts tell them. Half the country has been persuaded to climate alarmism by fear, not an understanding of the issue. At the same time, those who know the most about both history and science realize that complex climate models are generally not credible, so they are not persuaded by fear."

Scott Adams. Obviously. Who else says "Persuasion Filter"?

94 comments:

David Begley said...: Attack from the Left on Adams: He's a cartoonist. But Streep, Clooney et alia are praised as geniuses and prudent.; 4/20/17, 12:00 PM
Bill Harshaw said...: The opening of the Northwest Passage is proof enough for me that global warming is real.; 4/20/17, 12:09 PM
mockturtle said...: Always amusing to hear "scientists believe", as though scientists, in every field, are all part of a vast monolithic entity.; 4/20/17, 12:13 PM
Graham Powell said...: I do believe that global warming is real - as Bill Harshaw says, there is considerable anecdotal data. But I work with computers every day, and I don't believe complex models are good predictors here, especially in a situation like this where you can't easily try out different scenarios (as with, say, engineering models).

To me the biggest flaw is that in the ancient past, CO2 levels were something like 30 times what they are now, and while it was indeed hot, this didn't lead to runaway warming.; 4/20/17, 12:13 PM
Matt Sablan said...: Honestly, the Left would get a lot further in reaching their climate goals if they stuck with the message I got as a kid.

Plastic bags kill sea turtles; your trash harms people who live near you and animals. A clean Earth is a happy Earth. I recycle and attempt to reduce my carbon footprint, not because of global warming, but because leaving water running or doing any number of other wasteful things is just wasteful and bad for the environment when I can do things better.; 4/20/17, 12:13 PM
mockturtle said...: I agree, Matthew, and also try to be prudent with resources.; 4/20/17, 12:16 PM
Anonymous said...: "Complicated prediction models rarely work." Yes. Some obvious points here:
(1) The bigger the claim, the better the evidence has got to be.
(2) The more complicated the model/hypothesis, the less likely it is to be right. See: Occam's razor and, hey, entropy. Simpler is generally less-inaccurate. Also easier to handle.
(3) The Climate Change story has been driven by fear. There may be some scientists who champion the story who really really do believe it, but so many of them seem to be motivated by Noble Cause Corruption. They have this golden opportunity to save the world because they are so smart and if the unwashed taxpayers just give them enough power and grant money, there is this one last special moment in which to act.
(4) The drama of (3) is inherently narcissistic and very Hollywood. No wonder we get these bad movies about saving the planet. We also have to deal with the urgency of acting now --these deals won't last, I have another customer already wanting to buy this baby-- which of course has to be extended and renewed. Because the facts aren't cooperating.
(5) A little humility in the face of Nature, and the part of nature that is perhaps most complicated --nonlinear chaotic systems that make a mockery of all our computations-- would be wise. Instead we get huge 100% certain predictions off very short baselines of data collected with an agenda very much in mind.
(6) The whole business is suspect, yet we are supposed to rush to embrace it, no questions asked, or we are heretics to be burned at the stake. What kind of confidence does that suggest?; 4/20/17, 12:16 PM
johns said...: Althouse reads Adams. I wonder if Adams reads Althouse.

Can I buy a persuasion filter through the Althouse Amazon portal? If so, I would use it on a number of my relatives and friends. But what would it filter? Since most people have absolutely no idea what the factual basis of the climate scare is (if any), there is nothing to filter.; 4/20/17, 12:17 PM
Wince said...: Should the field even be called "Climate Science" or "Climate Statistics"?

The scientific method in most people's minds entails controlled experimentation.

Climate modeling instead involves drawing inferences from correlations in imperfect historical data using statistical models with no controlled experimentation.

For example, oncologists can scientifically test the efficacy of a new cancer drug through placebo testing.

Epidemiologists use statistical inference to derive correlations that are intended to identify causes of cancer, highly susceptible to all the errors and manipulations of using statistical methods.

What a sea change there would be in public perception if they simply had to more accurately name the field "Climate Statistics".; 4/20/17, 12:18 PM
Gahrie said...: The opening of the Northwest Passage is proof enough for me that global warming is real.

Global warming is real, no one denies and civilization depends on it. (We are in the middle of an ice age you know)

What we reject is the idea that the warming is necessarily bad or is caused by man, or that the way to fix it is to cripple Western economies.; 4/20/17, 12:21 PM
MikeR said...: Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle. There is a fair amount of scientific evidence on the side of AGW. There is also some bad science on that side. This is probably common to most science. What makes this different is the vast political forces involved, pulling hard in either direction.
The result is that the average American, left or right, not a physicist or a climate modeler, who has a strong opinion on the subject without actually knowing anything much about it. That makes them deluded whether they are on the right side or the wrong side, whichever they are.
Even the ones closer to the general scientific consensus (in this case, the left), tend to end up in ridiculous places because of the political forces. They end up believing all kinds of stuff to be fact which are not part of the true consensus at all. The previous President of the United States could without hesitation say that we are currently suffering from extreme weather because of AGW - a statement flatly denied by the IPCC report on extreme weather (SREX).; 4/20/17, 12:25 PM
Anonymous said...: EDH: what you said. Of course the problem with calling this stuff by a more-accurate name is, it reveals the one-sidedness of the work. What is the null hypothesis and how do you run a two-sided experiment?

The best we can do is take the alarmunists at their word and ask, why did CO2 go up significantly 1998-2017 but global average temperature* did not?

Also, why has sea level rise gotten stuck (for hundreds of years) at about 2 mm/year? Aren't we supposed to see runaway rise?

Oh, that's right. It's going to happen SOON. Trust them.

(*temperature is an intensive property and entirely local. A global average temperature is physically meaningless. But, hey, let's use their parameter, however badly-conceived it is. It still doesn't work.); 4/20/17, 12:26 PM
eddie willers said...: Climate modeling instead involves drawing inferences from correlations in imperfect historical data using statistical models with no controlled experimentation.

Excellent.

Richard Feynman is rolling in his grave over these climate ""scientists".; 4/20/17, 12:26 PM
David said...: "All predictive models are wrong, but some are useful."

The climate science predictions are undoubtedly useful, but to whom and for what purposes?; 4/20/17, 12:26 PM
Unknown said...: "Honestly, the Left would get a lot further in reaching their climate goals if they stuck with the message I got as a kid."

Matthew, very true, but the environmental issue is a side issue as far as the global warming left is concerned. It has to be true because the *solution* to the problem is what they want for society, not the Earth.; 4/20/17, 12:26 PM
Paddy O said...: I got a persuasion filter from Amazon a while back. I put it on backwards, though, so I was very easily convinced by fairly lame arguments.; 4/20/17, 12:27 PM
David said...: johns said...
Althouse reads Adams. I wonder if Adams reads Althouse.

Less likely. Why does it matter?; 4/20/17, 12:28 PM
JackWayne said...: The problem the alarmists have is fairly simple: They are constantly fiddling with the data that they say is indicative of man-made global warming. To me, this constant fiddling indicates a lack of faith in their own data. And what is the data? Ice cores, tree rings, other referential anecdotes and temperature readings. The temperature readings go back just 200 years and there is a lot of uncertainty about the conditions and protocols used in collecting this data which results in current day fiddling. The satellite records are about 40 years old and guess what, the scientists are fiddling with that data also. So, my position is that I don't know if we have man-made warming or not. The data is simply not reliable much less the models used. When the scientists stop fiddling with the data, when they agree on the correct conditions and protocols to measure temperature and we have a long-term record of reliable data, maybe I will believe what the alarmist have to say. Until then, we are neither warming nor cooling nor staying the same.; 4/20/17, 12:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Paddy O: "...persusasion filter...backwards." LOL.

I have ordered mine. XXX, in a charming magenta sheer nylon.; 4/20/17, 12:33 PM
Anthony said...: "Climate change is real" has got to be one of the stupidest phrases in use throughout history. It's equivalent to saying "Gravity is real".

Climate changes. It always has. It always will.

Which is, of course, precisely why they changed the term to "climate change" from "global warming".; 4/20/17, 12:36 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Maybe the "sellers" need a better "product" than Global Catastrophic It's-Your-Fault Weather.

Maybe if the "spokesmen" didn't foam at the mouth and salivate about "jailing deniers" and declare the "end of debate" at every turn more would listen to their "concerns."

Maybe Chicken Little is right.; 4/20/17, 12:38 PM
Brent said...: I never lose an argument regarding climate science because I ask questions that always expose the overwhelming ignorance of the climate change hysterics believer. Then I always point out the faith - and therefore religious faith - that the now exposed ignorant climate change adherent has left.

Among the first questions: Have you read any of the actual.papers of "Climate Change scientists"? Do you know anyone personally who has? Well you do now. Me. I have read numerous. I have even corresponded with a few of the scientists involved,who have been kind enough to attempt to answer my questions. I'm not seeing climate change as the panic problem that people on the left say it is.

Same old leftist/progressive solutions as the last leftist/progressive issues. Just name one. All the same. Politics made out of science. Demonoze and damn the ones who disagree.

And yes, my son who is in Law School and has a psychology degree says "persuasion filter".; 4/20/17, 12:39 PM
Anonymous said...: Jack Wayne: "...And what is the data? Ice cores, tree rings, other referential anecdotes and temperature readings." Don't get me started. The dendrochronology is IMHO very shaky. There are apparently only a handful of hand-picked yew trees from the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia that in any way support some of the big assertions about CO2 and temperature in the past. As with the bristlecones in the Rockies, people with an agenda went looking for evidence that would support their ideas. Sorry, that's not science.

Science is where you construct a hypothesis, generate a prediction, and then blindly collect data using an objective frame. "We propose that this compound will not lower resting blood pressure by 10 mm Hg in the population under study, compared with those given placebo." If in fact the compound DOES so lower BP, you have something to talk about. Otherwise, not.

Here, we have Just So stories. How many variables affect tree-ring size? Temperature, humidity, rainfall, soil conditions, nutrients, pests, herbivores grazing on the plant, competition for sunlight,... The list goes on. But somebody with an axe to grind says, it's all about the temperature. Without ever validating that assumption. Trust us.

Yes, I am a little disgusted.; 4/20/17, 12:41 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: I doubt more than 5% of the population has been persuaded to climate alarmism, not the 50% Scott claims. So he's at least 90% full of shit.; 4/20/17, 12:41 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: Adams not only reads Althouse, he has posted comments here. Duh!; 4/20/17, 12:42 PM
mockturtle said...: EDH opines: What a sea change there would be in public perception if they simply had to more accurately name the field "Climate Statistics".

I'm not sure there would be much difference in perception. Logic and evidence have never stood in the way of the Progressive agenda.; 4/20/17, 12:43 PM
Achilles said...: Warmist scientists are not real scientists. Scientists don't "believe." Scientists are skeptics. The scientific method is predicated on skepticism. You have to prove correlation. You have to prove a reasonable confidence interval. The point of a confidence interval is to make sure everyone understands there is always doubt.

A real scientist is told to question and doubt everything about every theory. There are so many questions and there is so much doubt about warmism. Belief in the idea that a 50 ppm increase in CO2 is catastrophic and the only way we can save ourselves is to give power over the lifeblood of our economy to un-elected bureaucrats is absurd.

In order for the warmists to continue their religious crusade they are purposely killing the scientific method.; 4/20/17, 12:44 PM
Achilles said...: Left Bank of the Charles said...
I doubt more than 5% of the population has been persuaded to climate alarmism, not the 50% Scott claims. So he's at least 90% full of shit.

What is your 95% confidence interval for that? +/- 40%?; 4/20/17, 12:45 PM
CL said...: The "consensus" embraces everything from a degree or two of warming and 8 inches of sea level rise to claims of 30 feet of sea level rise and 8 deg C warming. When a leading advocate (James Hansen) stated that we should immediately shut down all coal plants, it was clear that many advocates lack a reality base. Shut them down and then what? And much of the successful advocacy has fallen on the 3rd world--preventing them from developing by denying loans for power plants.; 4/20/17, 12:46 PM
n.n said...: First, scientists need to acknowledge that the system (e.g. climate, human life) is incompletely characterized and unwieldy, with non-linear functions (i.e. chaotic), which precludes prophecies of the past and future outside of a limited frame of reference (i.e. scientific domain).

Second, scientists need to acknowledge that anthropogenic effects, including thermodynamic variability, carbon dioxide emissions, may have positive effects.

Third, scientists need to acknowledge that a global statistic is meaningless in the real world, unless there is a driver, or cumulative mechanism or process, that overwhelms natural causes and variability.

Finally, scientists need to acknowledge that models are hypotheses, that cannot be used as evidence for other hypotheses, including Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming.

That said, in light of a large contingent of scientists, largely overlapping with proponents of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, who deny evolution of human life from conception, it seems prudent to consider their opinion with extreme skepticism.; 4/20/17, 12:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Achilles: "...the only way we can save ourselves is to give power over the lifeblood of our economy to un-elected bureaucrats..."

Word. This is the perverse part of it all. Science is about beating the data to death, trying (as my hero Richard Feynman put it) to NOT fool yourself. But here we are asked to abandon exactly that, and just go on some blind faith. WTF?

Why do "scientists," of all people, go along with this? It shows how "cultural" the intellectual pursuit turns out to be. We think of ourselves as logical, data-driven; and maybe on occasion we are. Maybe at our best we are. But it is so damned easy to jump on the bus --particularly when there are some sweet grants and promotions on board-- and just go along.

Quite apart from the actual collaborators, of course, there are many who just don't get heard, who don't want to make trouble, who didn't read the memo. And into that vacuum the promoters pour their BS.

If this stuff were not so important, I would applaud it as a learning opportunity in how NOT to do science.; 4/20/17, 12:51 PM
Hagar said...: So, how do the presently recorded raw data differ from what might be expected according to the Milankovitch cycles?; 4/20/17, 12:52 PM
tcrosse said...: And so to invoke Reynolds' Law: I'll believe there's a crisis when the people who say there's a crisis act like there's a crisis.; 4/20/17, 12:52 PM
n.n said...: models are hypotheses, that cannot be used as evidence for other hypotheses, including Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming

Especially when they demonstrate a lack of skill to predict near and long-term past and future states and evolution of the systems and processes they purport to represent.; 4/20/17, 12:53 PM
Achilles said...: Owen said...

Why do "scientists," of all people, go along with this?

The NIH and massive grant funding from the government. Total shocker that the government funds research that shows we need more government.

There are numerous articles on what happens to your future grant proposals if your research doesn't come up with the right answer.; 4/20/17, 12:59 PM
Anonymous said...: Achilles: let me buy you a beer someday. We agree too much here.

The old joke is: "You won't get a dime of funding for your proposed study of bumblebee pollination in the Ozarks. But you will get all the money you want to study the effects of climate change on bumblebee pollination in the Ozarks."; 4/20/17, 1:02 PM
rhhardin said...: You can always predict past data. Perfectly, in fact.

The better you match the past, unless you have the right physics everywhere, the worse you predict the future.; 4/20/17, 1:05 PM
Bob Boyd said...: "Half the country has been persuaded to climate alarmism by fear"

IMO fear is not the reason most believers say they believe in Climate Change.
It has more to do with how they want to be seen by others and how they want to see themselves.

If their perception is that all the smart people have been convinced, they will want to see themselves, and be seen by others, as part of that group. The same holds if they think Climate Change belief reflects some moral virtue.; 4/20/17, 1:06 PM
Sal said...: I believe the Earth is warming but the smart people are skeptical about all of the things there are to be skeptical about.

Here is NOAA's website
on hurricanes and global warming. Note they haven't updated their plot of Atlantic hurricane counts since 2006 (Figure 3). Why not? It would take 20 minutes on Google to get the data. Do they not bother because the apparent uptrend would disappear?

These the scientists we're supposed to trust.; 4/20/17, 1:13 PM
Anonymous said...: Bob Boyd: "...It has more to do with how they want to be seen by others and how they want to see themselves."

That may well be true. And the reason is, these people have not had to pay the full cost of their belief. Virtue-signaling is SUCH fun.

I would argue further that those engaged in virtue-signaling, which is much easier to do in a society with such enormous reserves of social and other capital, become used to the practice. And assume that every new topic or issue should be handled on the same lazy, low-cost basis. And it goes on. Until of course it can't, and a crash ensues.

The crash may be limited to the individual or a small group, or an issue that gets discredited. Or it may be more general and drastic.

The longer and more widespread the anti-scientific attitude, the more expensive the ultimate crash will tend to be.

IMHO.; 4/20/17, 1:17 PM
sysadmn said...: Who else says "Persuasion Filter"?

It will be interesting to track the phrase in Google Trends. If it becomes more and more popular, it would bolster his claim of expertise in persuasion, right?; 4/20/17, 1:17 PM
Luke Lea said...: And yet there are literally tons of very smart scientists who are not in the field of climatology who, to judge by their casual remarks, take catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) almost for granted. Leonard Susskind and Steven Pinker are a couple who come to mind. I think it's peer pressure -- wanting to be thought well of by one's friends and colleagues. You can wonder how such a crazy meme got established, but then you could say the same thing about Freud and Marx. Or the orthodox dogmas of the Catholic Church. I think there is also an aspect of academic (or church, or journalistic) politics involved: the competition to be promoted in a bureaucratic hierarchy by, among other things, not challenging the accepted party line. But I'm just guessing.; 4/20/17, 1:25 PM
320Busdriver said...: Climate change is helping me to resist the temptation to move out of WI to a warmer more tax friendly state like FL or TX...damn it!; 4/20/17, 1:30 PM
Anonymous said...: Luke Lea: "And yet there are literally tons of very smart scientists who are not in the field of climatology who, to judge by their casual remarks, take catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) almost for granted." Maybe so. My guess is, Anthropology 101. They don't know the area in detail, they are very busy, they don't see a need to invest in learning any detail. So there they are, asked for an opinion; and they do what we all would do, which is punt. Defer to the experts, to whatever is leading the news. Maybe (in 1 in 100 cases) they will be asked in the faculty lounge to dig a little deeper. And then of course their first instinct is to blow it off, defend whatever vague vote they had originally offered. Are they going to suddenly get down into the data in a field that isn't theirs, to challenge the findings of Big Names who have published Big Papers, for exactly no gain and a whole lot of stink-eye or worse from their community?

Nah.; 4/20/17, 1:31 PM
eddie willers said...: I think it's peer pressure

Or you can be old enough to no longer give a shit. Like Freeman Dyson.; 4/20/17, 1:33 PM
320Busdriver said...: WUWT. Always an interesting take on climate change/global warming. Todays article for the inquiring mind:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/19/proof-the-new-york-times-stealthily-revises-its-articles-after-publication/; 4/20/17, 1:36 PM
Michael McNeil said...: The scientific method in most people's minds entails controlled experimentation.

“Most people” have a lousy understanding of science. Pace popular myth, as enunciated above, “controlled experimentation” is not critical in science. What is absolutely necessary for real science is observation. All a laboratory experiment really is is a convenient testbed for obtaining observations.

Furthermore, a number of (full-fledged, indisputable) sciences are (largely or completely) incompatible with laboratory experiments per se. Astronomers, for instance, generally cannot trap whole planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, supermassive black holes, etc., et al., within earthly labs for those bodies to be experimented upon.

But all astronomers need do is unlimber their telescopes and look out across the cosmos in order to see far into the deep — thousands, millions, or even billions of years into the — past of this universe of ours. Beyond that, to verify astronomical and astrophysical theories (for which new information is always required), all one need do is gather more observations out of your telescope(s) looking out across deep space.

Somewhat similarly, geologists and paleontologists — not to speak of “ancient climate” scientists — cannot put the whole earth along with its atmosphere into a lab and let it “cook” for a few thousands, millions, or billions of years to see what happens. But all a geologist or paleontologist needs do to observe the past of this planet and verify scientific theories about it is to dig up more rocks and fossils — any of which is a signal newly arrived into our senses and instruments out of the earth's deep past.; 4/20/17, 1:37 PM
Fernandinande said...: My computer model told me that it is very unlikely for a Scott Adams to occur in any 100 year period.; 4/20/17, 1:38 PM
Jim said...: Seventeen year old Jim read The Population Bomb. It scared him so much that he sent a letter to his Congressman. Millions of people would starve if we didn't act now. We didn't act and they didn't starve. Ehrlich is a discredited fool. Sixty year old Jim won't get fooled again.; 4/20/17, 1:42 PM
Rick Lee said...: If you know more about science, it allows you to more easily see the news media hyping alarmism. For instance, if you read an article about rising sea levels threatening coastal cities, you just read down a little further and find out that the real problem is land subsidence caused by pumping too much water out of the aquifers. The writer couldn't help himself from implying in the first few paragraphs that it's all about global warming and rising sea levels. A person with more scientific knowledge will take note of the dishonesty.; 4/20/17, 1:45 PM
TestTube said...: Anthropogenic climate change seems like a reasonable model. It may even be a model that reflects reality. But it isn't really a useful model.

It doesn't provide me with insights that make me more successful. As an example, it doesn't give me useful information about where to invest money, or where to buy property, or how to prepare myself for the future, or help my children prepare for their future.

Accepting anthropogenic climate change as a model of reality is actually counter-productive. It pushes me to reduce my carbon footprint, which puts me at a disadvantage with my peers. Carbon generating activities are generally profitable and bring happiness and a more comfortable, fully realized life.

So while I generally think anthropogenic climate change has something to it, I consciously try not to allow it to influence my life.; 4/20/17, 1:54 PM
TestTube said...: True models and useful models are not the same thing. As an example, Anthropogenic climate change may be true (I think it is, to some degree), but I find it stunningly useless, even counterproductive.

Astrology, on the other hand, I think is pure nonsense. But you are probably better off heeding your horoscope in the daily paper -- The advice is generally positive and useful -- than heeding the cautions of Anthropogenic climate change.; 4/20/17, 1:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Michael McNeil: beautifully put. And your point is? Do you think the Warmunists are doing a responsible job with the available evidence here? Or are they overstating their case?

As you might gather, I think they are overstating it. But, as you say, let's listen to what the universe has to say.; 4/20/17, 2:03 PM
Todd said...: Owen said...
Paddy O: "...persusasion filter...backwards." LOL.

I have ordered mine. XXX, in a charming magenta sheer nylon.

4/20/17, 12:33 PM

Mail order Russia or mail order Asia?; 4/20/17, 2:07 PM
steve uhr said...: I'm Confused. I thought those who know the most about the relevant science (i.e., scientists) believe in man-induced climate change by a margin of about 30 to 1.

Laypersons who think they know a lot about the science are laypersons. Get a PhD and then maybe people should listen to you.; 4/20/17, 2:07 PM
JackWayne said...: Steve, the problem is that the believers want us to go back to the Stone Age on their say so. That means this layperson gets to choose.; 4/20/17, 2:14 PM
Jaq said...: The opening of the Northwest Passage is proof enough for me that global warming is real.

It's true the world warms and cools. That Hannibal managed to get elephants across the Alps during the Roman Warm Period convinced me that the globe sometimes warms. The Medieval Warm Period is another one. The Little Ice Age, from which we are recently recovered, convinced me to believe that global cooling is real.

But a comment that is pig ignorant of statistical analysis, but that still will brook no argument, is enough to convince me that most Global Warming believers are little more scientifically sophisticated than the Bible thumpers portrayed in Inherit the Wind.; 4/20/17, 2:23 PM
Jaq said...: Even the ones closer to the general scientific consensus (in this case, the left),

Umm no. I am a luke warmer. I fit very neatly within the "scientific consensus" as defined by Oreskes, as does every working climate scientist of any note. What Oreskes won't tell you is that her definition of "consensus" is extremely broad, and that it includes plenty of people who don't think that a modest warming is a problem, and who believe that modest warming is what we have experienced and what we can expect.

So many on the right fit quite neatly into that consensus, and many on the left, who are expecting Greenland to melt and flood NYC, are outside of it.; 4/20/17, 2:31 PM
Jaq said...: Steve Uhr, maybe you should read carefully a statement of what the "30 to 1" scientists believe. I think you will find the actual text of any consensus bears little resemblance to the hype the media trolls us with. Or would you not do that unless you had a PHD either?; 4/20/17, 2:40 PM
JaimeRoberto said...: I have no doubt the earth has warmed. After all, a lot of ice used to sit on top of the spot where Madison is, and a glacier filled what is now Yosemite Valley. Or for more recent data you can look at the map of Glacier Bay in Alaska to see how the glaciers have retreated since 1750. Interestingly, they retreated a whole lot before 1850. https://www.nps.gov/glba/planyourvisit/maps.htm

But I've been around long enough to see lots of sky is falling hysteria (the Ice Age is coming, Y2K, nuclear winter) to be skeptical of today's hysteria.; 4/20/17, 2:58 PM
traditionalguy said...: So why does Antarctica keep getting colder and colder?

Apparently another name for the Mother of all Fake Science is "Warming Causes Cooling."

You see, cooling is bad for humans, and warming harms humans because that is what causes cooling.

Now, go live in poverty and die.; 4/20/17, 3:06 PM
Achilles said...: steve uhr said...
I'm Confused. I thought those who know the most about the relevant science (i.e., scientists) believe in man-induced climate change by a margin of about 30 to 1.

Laypersons who think they know a lot about the science are laypersons. Get a PhD and then maybe people should listen to you.

This is not a parody people. He isn't joking. It just looks like he is.; 4/20/17, 3:17 PM
Big Mike said...: I'm Confused.

Yes, steve, we get that.

I thought those who know the most about the relevant science (i.e., scientists) believe in man-induced climate change by a margin of about 30 to 1.

Unfortunately the scientists don't seem to know much about mathematics. I don't know any mathematicians who think that the climate models are any good.

Laypersons who think they know a lot about the science are laypersons. Get a PhD and then maybe people should listen to you.

Better yet, we should insist that climate scientists get a Ph.D. in mathematics before they try building models that consistently overestimate the degree of warming that is occurring.; 4/20/17, 3:18 PM
Scott M said...: (We are in the middle of an ice age you know)

We're in between two ice ages, aren't we?; 4/20/17, 3:21 PM
buwaya said...: "Can I buy a persuasion filter through the Althouse Amazon portal?"

Sure you can.

"How to win friends and influence people" Dale Carnegie
Amazon has it on Kindle for $1.19; 4/20/17, 3:37 PM
Static Ping said...: I do wonder how Tim Requarth defined "scientific literacy." This could mean "good understanding of science" and/or it could mean "knows what scientists believe." Those are very different things. There was a follow-up question asking about what the scientific consensus is which seems to indicate Tim knows the difference, but still.; 4/20/17, 3:38 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Scott M,

My understanding of the terminology is we are in the midst of a long term ige age, but during a retreat of the ice called an interglacial. Put another way, we are between glaciations.; 4/20/17, 3:50 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: What matters is whether or not you think the cost to stop warming is worth it. Not a chance.; 4/20/17, 3:53 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Especially when it's the ice ages that will really kill you.; 4/20/17, 3:54 PM
Yancey Ward said...: I spent my career as a scientist- a chemist specifically. The hardest part is not being fooled in seeing what you want to see as being stone-cold fact.

You should be skeptical of every piece of data collect- every piece. You should be skeptical of every theory about data you read or create yourself. Not easy to do.; 4/20/17, 3:55 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Will alligators one day be in the northern states if we are warming? That would be indisputable evidence to me.; 4/20/17, 3:55 PM
Gahrie said...: My understanding of the terminology is we are in the midst of a long term ige age,

It's called the Quaternary.

but during a retreat of the ice called an interglacial.

Called the Holocene.; 4/20/17, 4:14 PM
buwaya said...: Richard Feynman on Scientific Integrity, etc.
Cargo Cult Science
Given at Cal Tech's 1974 commencement

http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm

"It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty—a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid—not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
....
"I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to do when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen."; 4/20/17, 4:23 PM
n.n said...: Arguments from authority, social consensus (e.g. political), claims about the distant future and past, assertions of progress (i.e. monotonic change), singular qualifications (e.g. catastrophic), unskilled low resolution models, and orientations and behaviors uncorrelated with pronouncements.

Once you go Pro-Choice, your credibility suffers at the twilight's fringe.; 4/20/17, 4:46 PM
wildswan said...: "Gahrie said...
My understanding of the terminology is we are in the midst of a long term ige age,

It's called the Quaternary.

but during a retreat of the ice called an interglacial.

Called the Holocene."

And those are facts. But if you ask people how they distinguish between this interglacial which began 13,000 years ago and and "anthropogenic climate change" which began in ?1870, ?1950, ?1970, they'll just call you a denialist and say you are unscientific because YOU DON"T BELIEVE "98%" of "scientists."

On Amazon you can get Persuasion by Jane Austen - The shocking story of an 18C persuasion filter set amid England's lush countryside. A follow-up to Pride and Prejudice - the brutally realistic story of two persuasion filters unable to withstand love.; 4/20/17, 4:54 PM
urbane legend said...: tim in vermont said...
Umm no. I am a luke warmer.

Went to high school with Luke Warmer, and his sister, who was not lukewarm at all.; 4/20/17, 5:13 PM
The Godfather said...: Years ago, when I first started reading about "global warming", but before I'd taken the time to read anything substantive about it, my reaction was: I hope it's not true, because there's no way we're going to do what's required to stop it.

Now I've read enough about the subject to be reasonably comfortable that "global warming" doesn't represent a world-ending threat.

No matter what people may say when pollsters ask them if they believe in "global warming", few people actually believe that the world faces disaster unless we do away with modern technology. But a significant number of people in the developed world do seem to think that we can replace coal, oil, and natural gas as sources of energy with wind and solar power. We are wasting an awful lot of money on chasing that chimera. That's where the magical thinking is distorting public policy.; 4/20/17, 5:20 PM
Rusty said...: Blogger steve uhr said...
'I'm Confused. I thought those who know the most about the relevant science (i.e., scientists) believe in man-induced climate change by a margin of about 30 to 1."

They believe what they're paid to believe and the psuedo science of man induced global warming pays very well indeed.; 4/20/17, 5:22 PM
hombre said...: Slightly outdated, but nothing has changed:

"So far, no one has been able to provide a compelling answer to why climate change seems to be taking a break. We're facing a puzzle. Recent CO2 emissions have actually risen even more steeply than we feared. As a result, according to most climate models, we should have seen temperatures rise by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 10 years. That hasn't happened. In fact, the increase over the last 15 years was just 0.06 degrees Celsius (0.11 degrees Fahrenheit) -- a value very close to zero. This is a serious scientific problem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will have to confront when it presents its next Assessment Report late next year.... If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models. A 20-year pause in global warming does not occur in a single modeled scenario. But even today, we are finding it very difficult to reconcile actual temperature trends with our expectations."

Hans Von Storch, Climate Scientist, U. Of Hamburg (mainstream warmist), Editor, "Climate Research", interviewed in "Der Spiegel," 6/2013; 4/20/17, 6:10 PM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the UN's IPCC from 2003 to 2015, has PhD's in economics and engineering.
Get his f'ing signature off the IPCC reports. He is not a scientist.; 4/20/17, 7:22 PM
Michael K said...: "It's called the Quaternary.

but during a retreat of the ice called an interglacial.

Called the Holocene."

What we had in the past 500 years is called "The Little Ice Age" which ran from about 1300 to 1850.

It was probably due to "The Maunder Minimum," which ran from 1600 to 1700.

We seem to be in another one.; 4/20/17, 7:28 PM
Randolf said...: I have a bumper sticker on my pickup: "I (heart) global warming". Whenever anyone asks about that I say it it for those who have never read Eric Hoffer. The true believers just look puzzled. . .; 4/20/17, 7:34 PM
Paddy O said...: "so now they need a new strategy for the dumb ones."

I don't think they need a new strategy. Just use the same one they used with the smart people.

Give grants and other funding to the dumb ones too. Some can get money for "studies" others can get money to start green energy companies. Before too long, everyone will be a true believer.; 4/20/17, 9:18 PM
Paddy O said...: Do you know the difference between the dumb ones and the smart ones?

The smart ones have learned how to get the dumb ones to give them money.; 4/20/17, 9:19 PM
Paddy O said...: And since I have a PhD I'm an authority!; 4/20/17, 9:20 PM
Kep Hartman said...: Those who DO understand history are doomed to repeat it.

Because MOST people do NOT understand history.; 4/20/17, 10:19 PM
Unknown said...: > The opening of the Northwest Passage is proof enough for me that global warming is real.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/correlation-vs-causation/

The official name for this type of logical fallacy is “Cum hoc ergo propter hoc,” or “with this, therefore because of this.” My 5-year-old had fallen prey to a classic statistical fallacy: correlation is not causation.; 4/20/17, 10:30 PM
LA_Bob said...: steve uhr,

This post by Judith Curry (an honest-to-gosh climate scientist who testifies before Congress) is proof you can be one of the 97% consensus folks yet not be convinced the world is coming to an end.

Global warming real? Almost certainly. Mostly caused by humans? The debate isn't over.

https://judithcurry.com/2017/04/15/discussion-thread-reactions-to-house-hearing/

Read the comments, too.; 4/20/17, 11:54 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: The terrible, illogical thing:

Global warming is happening, therefore we must stop it.

No. Whether or not anything should be done about it is another question. How about...

Global warming is happening; let it ride.; 4/21/17, 12:16 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: "Get his f'ing signature off the IPCC reports. He is not a scientist."

The IPCC is not really a scientific group, but rather, being part of the UN, is more a political one, and (again) being part of the UN, is essentially part of a scheme to transfer wealth from the First World to the Third World, using the same lopsided democratic numbers that make the General Assembly the tyranny that it is. Besides, the "climate scientists" involved in ClimateGate showed us how the IPCC reports can be, and have been, gamed by the true believers.

I actually don't fault someone involved in the climate debate with degrees in economics and engineering. Know someone well who is finishing their PhD in mechanical engineering, and their training is far more relevant to the debates on the modeling and the actual cause, if any, of CAGW, than the paleoclimitologists who were some of those involved in ClimateGate. As that person said to me, they have taken an Atmosperic Chemistry class, and I haven't. Plus, their research involves modeling to empirically solve Navier–Stokes equations for CO2 and H2O. One of the faults all along with the "climate scientists" is that a lot of them are too specialized to really understand the relevant issues. Thus, you have tree ring counters opining about the effects of increased CO2 densities on worldwide temperature and climate. Which they don't have the training to understand. And ignoring the variations we have seen in solar radiation because they don't have the physics, etc. Indeed, one of the faults with the 97% of climate scientists agree study was that the definition of Climate Scientist was narrow enough to eliminate many, if not most, of those who really understand the underlying bases of the models that are supposed to be predicting CAGW (such as physicists and mechanical engineers), as well as the pseudo certainty being claimed (statisticians). My theory is that the "climate scientists" leading the charge for CAGW don't really understand that much of the underlying physics and engineering, but are trusting the work of others, because it is well funded and peer reviewed (despite being involved in gaming the peer review process).; 4/21/17, 4:11 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I don't think that a lot of us would be such "deniers" if the CAGW debate were a merely scientific debate, such as they have in physics about dark energy and string theory. But it isn't. It is a political and economic debate arguing for massive wealth transfers to the AlGores in this world, and increased govt control, intervention, and power, using "science" funded by those very same governments that would benefit from it to justify it. I think that the science involved is a lot weaker than most of the proponents claim or believe it to be. But, that, in itself, isn't a bad thing. I read a lot of science fiction, and one of the staples has been the assumption that we will have gained control over the weather at some point in the future. And the climate. If we don't blow ourselves up (burn ourselves, drown ourselves, etc), we should, ultimately, get a handle on the climate and be able to safely control the weather. Eventually.

My problem though is that this "science" is being used to impoverish, and, thus to some extent, kill people, around the world, for what I consider to be selfish ends. Very selfish. It is no longer pure science, like the debates in dark energy In physics. And the justifications for massive action are far weaker than the 'science" being used to justify it. Increased global temperatures are liable to open up vastly more arable farmland across Siberia and Canada than lost through flooding in Bangladesh, The normal cycle of economic obsolescence makes flooding caused by any (currently almost de minimis) increase in sea levels trivial in economic costs. Mankind thrives in warmer times, and dies more of starvation and disease in colder times. Plants grow better (and feed more people) both in warmer climates and when subject to more CO2. And it is looking more and more likely that the earth may be beginning a slide into another ice age. Which is to say that our optimal response to man caused global warming through increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, if that is indeed the case, should probably be to say "bring it on", eliminate solar panels, wind mills, etc, and maybe even nuclear energy, and, burn as much fossil fuel as we can. (Only joking, of course, to make a point).; 4/21/17, 5:00 AM
Jaq said...: As that person said to me, they have taken an Atmosperic Chemistry class, and I haven't. Plus, their research involves modeling to empirically solve Navier–Stokes equations for CO2 and H2O.

I would love to hear him explain how he factors in, for example, convection from thunderstorms, which are too small to replicate in climate models yet carry significant heat to the stratosphere. I would love to hear him explain why one of the main predictions, that the stratosphere would cool as the troposphere warmed, did not come to pass.

They steadfastly refuse to answer these simple questions. That's enough for me to conclude that either they are locked in GroupThink, or are lying.; 4/21/17, 6:09 AM
MadisonMan said...: At the same time, those who know the most about both history and science realize that complex climate models are generally not credible,

He lost me at the word credible because I can use many tools -- and that's what a climate model is, a tool -- to understand a phenomenon even if those tools are not credible, if I understand the tool's shortcomings and seek out other sources of information to fill in the gaps.

That said, I'm having a hard time thinking up an alternative word to credible. Perfect is wrong -- because no scientific tool is perfect.; 4/21/17, 6:59 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: @Tim - the answer there is that they don't even attempt to do so. Which is part of the basic problem with the modeling. CO2 is a fairly weak greenhouse gas. H2O is much stronger (I believe because of all of its additional vibrational states, thanks to its physical structure/shape - CO2 is linear, while H2O is more "V" shaped, which means that it can flex in an additional dimension/direction). And there is a lot more of it in the atmosphere, but not distributed anywhere close to evenly in the atmosphere. By itself, the greenhouse warming of CO2 is small. By itself, we wouldn't worry all that much by it. But it interacts with H2O, which is where we get into feedback. Is the feedback positive or negative? We don't really know for sure, because it is far too complex to model at this point, and that is because water is far too complex to model at the required level. It doesn't help matters that the bulk of the surface of the planet is comprised of liquid state water, and there is even some solid state water lying around. Or, that water vapor creates/forms clouds, and the height and density of clouds affects the albedo of the planet (as does the ice cover - but that is more stable) thereby affecting the amount of solar radiation that is received by the planet. Or that the quantity of H2O in the atmosphere varies 100x around the globe. Far, far too complex to actually model except at the grossest level, which requires numerous simplifying assumptions. Which really gets us back to Adams and curve fitting.; 4/21/17, 10:04 AM