Barry Brook does a nice job reviewing Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth, Plimer’s attempt to debunk contemporary climate science. Brook writes:
I’ve been critical of Ian’s views before (see here and here). In short, my view was that Ian’s assertions about man’s role in climate change were naive, reflected a poor understanding of climate science, and relied on recycled and distorted arguments that had been repeatedly refuted. Ian and I have regularly ‘debated‘ on this issue, so I’m probably more familiar than most with his lines of argument. (I actually think it’s rather silly to debate the science, because this the role of the scientific community as a whole, and in doing so they’ve reached a view that this is a serious problem — but that is what the media demands.) Anyway, after reading the 500+ page tome that is H+E, I find that nothing has fundamentally changed.
By the sounds of it, Plimer’s latest work might well be another example of the genre of scientific writing which I’ll loosely term “Moses down from the Mountain”.
Essentially, a distinguished, often elderly scientist who achieved genuine renkown in some field or other (often physics) will develop a bee in their bonnet about some topic or other away from the areas on which they made their reputation. They will then spend a few years holed up writing their masterpiece in which they explain that the leading practitioners in the field of interest have disappeared up their own fundament, and that their alternative approach is the only one supported by logic and evidence. Without the benefit of putting their ideas to peer review through the regular scientific process, they cobble them together into a popular science book, and because of their eminence get a publisher, and unleash their thoughts on the world’s popular media. Active practitioners in the field then spend a considerable period of time having to explain that the ideas presented by the distinguished elderly scientist are a) wrong, and b) often, rehashed versions of old ideas that were debated and discarded within the field many years ago, and c) just because Professor X was a great particle physicist once, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re right about aerospace engineering, neuroscience, or in this case climatology.
None of this means to suggest that scientific disciplines (or, for that matter, other academic disciplines) shouldn’t be the subject of vigorous external critiques. But if a scientist feels the need to bypass scientific fora and bring their original research contradicting the wider scientific consensus to the popular press, it indicates a need for a large dose of skepticism on the part of a non-expert reader.
Plimer, Bob Carter, Bill Kinninmonth, people like Seitz, Jastrow and Neirenberg in the US, all seem to fill the bill.
Another apposite observation is Bertrand Russell’s comment in The Scientific Outlook as follows:
I’ll never forget Plimer’s obsessive bonnet bee over the Noah’s Ark amateur archeologists maybe 10 / 15 years ago.
Sure they were a little nutty, but Plimers attack on them was so spectacularly obsessive it made them look good by default.
(Ain’t nothing like an angry atheist to make religion look appealing.)
SG, here’s another link on Plimer’s past form.
Sadly, Plimer has become very similar to the creationists that he once battled.
SEA ice around Antarctica has been increasing at a rate of 100,000sq km a decade since the 1970s, according to a landmark study to be published today. The study by the British Antarctic Survey, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, says rather than melting as a result of global warming, Antarctica continues to expand.
Horrie, you are actually quoting from Greg Roberts in today’s Opposition Organ. Assuming that Roberts has correctly and competently reported the findings of the study (and both Brian and Harry Clarke have raised doubts about his science reporting abilities), what we find as we read on is that the purported expansion of sea ice is as a result of the hole in the ozone layer, which is now repairing itself as a result of the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances.
Another waste of trees/cyber space occurs when the right wing media publishes an article by (typically) an economist who has discovered some “flaw” in the statistics supporting global warming. Lack of scientific credentials doesn’t seem to deter these arrogant individuals, at least Plimer has scientific training.
I also remember Prof. Plimer’s campaign against the “Arkists”, talk about tilting at windmills- and it was a rather expensive exercise for Plimer.
Horrie, after reading that go and read the full history, especially on the differences between WAIS and EAIS.
That article only tells part of a story.
Using your perceived scholarly eminence to become a pundit is becomong increasingly common. Think tanks realised long ago how valuable it was to publish papers written by someone with a PhD – professors are even better – regardless of the fact that the subject matter was far removed from the author’s academic specialisation. Most people who have never worked in academia don’t understand how narrow is the area of expertise of virtually all professional researchers.
When it comes to climate change it’s extraordinary that a handful of scientists who have truly made their public reputations from joining the denialist bandwagon – and spend a good part of their lives doing presumably paid appearances and publishing material to spruik the same tired stuff – have the gall to suggest that members of the IPCC and others are motivated by a crass lust for research funding or for notoriety. A classic instance of projection, I suspect.
Works both ways, Robert. For instance: Distinguished economists and media-friendly palaentologists banging on about a subject that is way out of their field of expertise, and yet expecting us to immediately agree to everything they say.
Otherwise known as Argumentum ad vericundiam, fallacious when the authority lacks qualification in the specialism being argued.
But it’s not confined to any one side of any of the multitudinous topics in the Climate Change debate. Some of the biggest of Big Noises in the climate change arena have very debatable (in some cases, almost no, or unqualified no) “qualifications” when it comes to mastery of the underlying sciences, research methodologies & techniques that is needed to make credible statements. Thus citing even some very prominent CC “gurus” in support of an argument can be argumentum ad vericundiam since they lack a rigorous scientific background. And that’s before one considers the real problem in the climate change debate.
The accuracy of any theory in the debate is limited by the lack of extensive, rigorously collected and analysed data pre1850, and further compromised by the ubiquitous use of computer modelling, based on data (?”data”) from natural “records” in ice cores, tree trunks, silt cores, rock cores etc, atomic clock dating (and their MoEs as the time gap between origin and analysis lengthens) – computer models which, of their nature and given the lack of accurate records are based on the paradigms and assumptions (often multiple) of those creating them. As climate/ weather data vary from place to place, time to time – even of the same phenomenon – and, more importantly, can differ in different hemispheres – multiple natural “records” need to be subjected to rigorous “robust” debate before being used to construct the assumptions on which those computer programmes are based.
We do have some accurate weather (rather than climate) records (more reliable since the invention of the first thermometer), The UK has, thanks to the relative lack of massively destructive wars, a staggering amount of almanacs / diaries / other documents kept by landholders large & small, legal and church officials, recording what are now called (yuck) “weather events” – dated / measured rainfall, frosts, snow. thaws etc etc which allow the construction of reasonably accurate historical records which can be then compared to tree-ring evidence. But few (mainly Viking & Roman) survive before the Norman period and even fewer before 1AD.
If there were “one true way” of collecting & analysing data, none of the graphs LPers have published in the last week or so would differ from any other! If even the best & most rigorous scientists using rigorous research techniques disagree – and they do over almost everything in the climate change debate – then the best approach is to “make a decision for the planet” and cut back as far as possible on atmospheric, water & land pollution and degredation; stop deforestation & embrace reafforestation etc – urgently – keep an open mind, examine research methodology, question everything (inc credentials).
Another way of saying the same thing, Dee Cee, is that until I and my fellow cyclists can agree on the probability of a potentially fatal accident whilst riding from Brisbane to the State border (and even after we can agree), we’re all going to make sure we’ve got lights, bells and functioning brakes, and that we’re wearing our helmets
TimT: For what it’s worth, it’s been often noted at LP that Tim Flannery’s willingness to opine extends far beyond his actual scientific expertise.
I do so regularly on LP, but I do generally try to distinguish between when I’m speaking as an interested layperson and when I’m speaking as somebody whose professional background contributes to my comments.
Yeah, that’s a fair point. I agree that there’s a difference when somebody opines on a blog and opines in the mass media…
I went a little over the top when saying that Quiggin and Flannery ‘expecting us to immediately agree to everything they say’, though I still think it’s true that the label ’scientist’ carries with it a kind of authority that is often abused by newspaper publishers and op-ed writers/editors.
Plimer reminds me of the punch-drunk boxer who first knockout out the creationist in the red corner, shortly before falling to a self-administered TKO. After reviving in the Adelaide corner, he then started to lay into the referee.
aah yes reminds me of Vitamin C and Linus – no not the computer guy or the Peanuts guy – the Pauling guy
One point I was trying to make in the original post is that this phenomenon is not unique to climate science.
Roger Penrose’s musings on artificial intelligence might also be viewed in a similar light.
I blame all this denalist stuff on the bible and such – stuff about how humans have dominion over all things or summink
Scratch a denialist and you will find a bastard child of the enlightenment who has never gone beyond replacing God with us. So no matter what we do to the planet it will be OK. After all we have dominion. We are the big boss , the master, the centre.
The fact that the planet does not give flying continental fuck about us or our conceit totally escapes these morons. It’s not Gaia its just a big ball of rock and water that things live on and in and fly about over. If we totally make it uninhabitable and all rot is some stinking stew no-body is ever going to know or care.
Huggy
Works both ways, Robert. For instance: Distinguished economists and media-friendly palaentologists banging on about a subject that is way out of their field of expertise, and yet expecting us to immediately agree to everything they say.
There is a big difference. JQ is saying that the climate scientists are right, IP is saying that they are wrong. Hence, JQ’s expertise isn’t particular relevant, IP’s is.
I’m very interested in precisely the kind of cultural authority that TimT refers to – and it’s largely an authority that emerges when a scientist wants to speak polemically on something controversial. Sciences as practiced collective enterprises can’t produce the same kinds of cultural or political capital, only ‘Science’ (with a capital S) when it allows its readers to imagine that they are on the side of truth against power. On the face of it, I’d say it’s a devaluation of actual scientific practice in the wider community, in favour of Science as an occasionally convenient spokesperson for Nature, Truth and Clarity.
Paul Norton @ 1: Russell is good value on most topics, even when wrong. Further, I think there is a bit of projected self-criticism or self-ironisation in that passage. Russell spoke with authority, often dogmatically, on every topic under the sun, so you could substitute ‘analytic philosopher’ for ‘man of science’ etc.
“On the face of it, I’d say it’s a devaluation of actual scientific practice in the wider community, in favour of Science as an occasionally convenient spokesperson for Nature, Truth and Clarity.”
Logos.
The medical and scientific community wouldn’t believe Barry Marshall for a long time because the science was settled.
Razor @ 22.
Marshall won the argument by publishing his results, which were obtained using accepted scientific methods, in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
If he tried to win the argument by publishing polemical opinion pieces in The Australian, he would have been ignored, and rightly so.
“The medical and scientific community wouldn’t believe Barry Marshall for a long time because the science was settled.”
Unlike some, I would assume in advance that collectives are fraught and fractured by disagreement and competition, and constituted as much by what and who they exclude as include. I don’t think those sorts of stories will cease to emerge, but it doesn’t mean we should assume scientists collectively are wrong. Rather, as was the point of this post, we need to pay attention to rhetoric, position and even expertise (without always being able to assess the scientific content), and approach with greater or lesser degrees of skepticism accordingly things that scientists say or are said about and for them.
Some of the biggest of Big Noises in the climate change arena have very debatable (in some cases, almost no, or unqualified no) “qualifications”
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Tat’s a downright lie. None of the Big Noises have any idea whatsoever.
Klaus – Sciences as practiced collective enterprises can’t produce the same kinds of cultural or political capital, only ‘Science’ (with a capital S) when it allows its readers to imagine that they are on the side of truth against power.
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You’re using a capitalization to distinguish the practice of science from a, say, political rhetoric using the authority of science as an acquisitor of reliable knowledge to reinforce some polemic as unchallengeable. The courts are full of such unassailable ‘evidence’.
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Why is science a practiced collective enterprise? I guess everything is collective in the sense that it’s generated by many of us. Someone who grew up alone in the forest will not be able to do something as quintessentially individual as write poetry. In that sense poetry is collective. But poetry is almost never written by more than one person. Science can be done individually or collectively. The really Big Ideas came to one person first.
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That said science, or rather its product – reliable knowledge – does have a special authority. The authority of nature’s facts. The trouble is most of understand only so far, and that’s not very far. So it’s easy for shameless sophists like Ann Coulter (a lawyer of course) to possess the chutzpah to claim that the theory of evolution is a religious cult whereas scripture gives the objective truth about the origins of life!!!!
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On the face of it, I’d say it’s a devaluation of actual scientific practice in the wider community
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Indeed. And part of that’s because we no longer, if ever we really did, make skepticism a central part of education. Well yes a bit but not really.
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Hence:
Hammerstein
“Is a puzzlement”
The King And I
Now we know about the Moses Down From the Mountain riff. But what do you call the ploy that begins “Essentially, a distinguished, often elderly scientist who achieved genuine renown “?
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It seems others can play as well:
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Huggy – you’re totally on the money. It’s not an accident that Professor Plimer’s real animus is aimed more against the greens and the environmental movement than climate science per se, even though he attacks the science.
Climate Change specifically, and environmentalism more generally, are threats to his beliefs about the benevolence of progress.
There was a great paper a couple of years ago by the anthropologist Myanna Lahsen on the motivations behind the distinguished American physicists who established the anti-environmental thinktank the George C Marshall Institute.
She pretty convincingly showed that their anti-environmental views were derived from the fact that environmentalism threatened their core beliefs about the benevolence of science and technology, particularly nuclear and defence technology, on which they had built their careers and established their reputations. Essentially, they took it personally.
There’s a link to the article here.
“Why is science a practiced collective enterprise? I guess everything is collective in the sense that it’s generated by many of us.”
All sciences are more recognisably collective practices, and they self-identify more readily as collective, then in the past, even say 30 years ago. Many of the great pre-20th century scientists could work virtually in a vacuum, or in dialogue with a broader intellectual milieu, but sciences have generally arrived at a point where this is no longer desirable or especially useful. Occasional exceptions still, but rarer. This is a good thing in many ways, especially if you happen to be a woman who works day in and day out in the lab and hope to be recognised for what you discover.
What is it about physicists, in particular, that leads them to believe they are automatically expert in other fields? In a field I know about – economics – there always seem to be a huge number of old physicists presenting “new” ideas (eg “its all non-linear dynamics, you know”); ideas which were long ago investigated and either discarded or assimilated by those in the field. In the case of the social sciences they also bring an extraordinary methodological naivety to it – methodology in physics not usually being a big issue.
DD, the Lahsen paper I linked to a minute or so ago has an interesting discussion of the social psychology of physicists.
What is it about physicists, in particular, that leads them to believe they are automatically expert in other fields?
Perhaps they’re trying to take over from metaphysics now that we’ve given that the flick.
Has anybody here actually read the book you are all so keen to criticise? (I didn’t think so, because the first orders aren’t being dispatched until tomorrow.) Most of the comments on this thread are based on nothing more than Barry Brook’s opinion of Plimer’s arguments – or Robert’s opinion of Brook’s opinion – or are ad hominem.
Tim@28 Thanks for that very interesting link, It must be very hard for some-one who has worked most of his life at one or other of the pinnacles of science to realise that his intellect and insights may have no impact at all on the way the natural world works. He will get all petulant and hoity when some rough arsed climate scientist demonstrates his impotence.
Likewise the leaders of men are unable to recognise that their leadership is impotent in the face of serious change or if they do manage to get this far they find themselves frozen to the spot the way Malcolm and Kevin are-and poor Penny Wong. They really cannot believe that the world will “turn on them”.
Get over it you wankers, I say.
Huggy
Or geologists. Or paleantologists. My guess is that the famed South Australian geologist resented the famed South Australian paleantologist writing a concise appraisal of AGW and decided to ‘top’ him.
I’ve read Plimer’s book and agree with Brook’s assessment of it. Plimer repeats errors that even “The Great Global Warming Swindle” was forced to correct. E.g. he claims that volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities produce.
Well, Tim, you must have been honoured with an advance copy, because most of us paying customers are still waiting for them to be sent.
http://www.connorcourt.com/catalog1/
Nope, bought it in a book store last Saturday.
If I was publishing a book like Plimer’s, Tim Lambert would be one of the first to receive an advance copy. If he panned it, it’d mean all the Tim Lambert haters would be more inclined to buy it.
Tim,
I know you’ve got a lot of time and energy invested in the pro climate-change school, but what, if anything, would allow you to alter your intellectual position?
Tony- I am not sure that link actually implies that no-one has their copy yet. In fact the phrase used is “…new orders…” have not been shipped, which I infer means there were old orders shipped already. The site also states that orders will be completed by tomorrow, not commenced. They probably had too small a run and didn’t have a copy left for you.
Careful with the direct accusation of falsehood.
I’ll take Flannery any day since he has made contributions of international significance, not only to the fields of palaeontology but also mammalogy and conservation and is trained in organismic and evolutionary biology. These are relevant areas to the issue of climate change.
Poor old Plimer’s a rock doctor – a mining geologist, recently turned “climate” scientist. Would he know a VOC from a sock when his bio advises that his interests lay in an ore-body in Broken Hill?!
And that is so true that the sea ice in Anarctica has been increasing for decades, in the east that is, which has never been disputed. However, many denialists, not knowing east from west, are now using the recent report as ammunition, seemingly unaware that the fragile Wilkins shelf is in West Anarctica.
Dont worry Dr S,
If you read carefully, you’ll notice I’ve left room for the possibility that some orders may have been shipped, and made no “direct accusations of falsehood”.
The level of ad hom needs to be turned up to 11. Prof, Plimer’s book is already in it’s third print run.
Tony – You are right. Direct is unfair. However…
“Has anybody here actually read the book you are all so keen to criticise? (I didn’t think so, because the first orders aren’t being dispatched until tomorrow.)”
Combined with the tone of the second comment this is pretty close. In fact you only left room for the possibility of a review (“advance”) copy rather than a normally shipped copy.
I also just wanted to mention both Crick and Edelman as Nobel winners in one field (genetics and immunology) who ended up as writers in the popular sphere in another (neuroscience) with valuable contributions. Both actually switched their professional allegiances, although in Crick’s case only partially.
Oh, and Razor, if they publish my work in The Lancet within twelve months of my performing it my colleagues can believe me to be a pink banana for all I will care.
It’s because physics is the most fundamental of the sciences, and so in theory everything else could be derived from it. As Lord Rutherford (the Kiwi physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus) is supposed to have said, “All science is either physics or stamp collecting”. Which is rubbish, and was even when he said it, but some physicists do buy into it (as did I back when I was one).
Dr S,
You’re right. It was borderline, but I think “the first orders,” gets me over the line (as opposed to the first issues).
for me this is the most wasted breath
“and distorted arguments that had been repeatedly refuted. ”
both sides run this line. What are we suppose to say “oh well then if you say you’ve refuted all their arguments who are we to argue”
I guess you sort of have to say it but it still irritates me whenever it is said.
Back when I was starting to be concerned about global warming but hadn’t read much about it I heard an extended interview with him by Margaret Throsby, along with his choice of classical music. His views were quite seductive, but were cured when I spent a weekend on the web reading on the topic.
My favourite, which doesn’t fit Robert’s concept in that he didn’t come down from the mountain, rather he built one is Erich von Däniken or better still this site.
When he wrote Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past in 1968 real scientists couldn’t be bothered commenting. “Why would I come down from my telescope and explain that moon isn’t made of cheese?” said one.
He created an industry, but ultimately he’s harmless compared with the damage to public policy formation that the likes of Plimer wreak.
It is of course amusing that he received his Nobel Prize not for Physics but for Chemistry (which of course physics-elitists view as outer-suburban physics).
Brett@46: “It’s because physics is the most fundamental of the sciences, and so in theory everything else could be derived from it. As Lord Rutherford (the Kiwi physicist who discovered the atomic nucleus) is supposed to have said, “All science is either physics or stamp collecting”. Which is rubbish, “
Indeed. Arrogant, reductionist rubbish that fails to acknowledge that complex systems have emergent properties which can only usefully be discussed at a higher level of abstraction.
Sure, a physicist could solve the Schrödinger Equation for an ensemble of subatomic particles, but the solution does not exactly have leaping out of it the particular chemical bonds that are made or broken. Likewise, a chemist could describe exactly what happens to the chemical bonds as a volatile molecule docks against a cell membrane in your nose, but this would miss the point that the rose smells nice.
Similarly, a detailed description of how the ink wraps around each fibre of the paper does not really help to spell out the letters of the text. And the sequence of letters does not immediately convey the nuances of meaning in the sentence.
All these different levels of looking at things have their uses, but all have their limits, and it is best to appreciate them all while knowing when to move from one to another.
Martin@50. Poetic justice. [chortle]
Not to flog a dead horse too hard, but this bookseller was offering Plimer’s book for sale to the general public on 13th April.
Brian, there clearly plenty of other forms of rubbish floating around masquerading as science. It’s just one form I’ve seen a fair bit of involves physicists going off the reservation relatively late in life. Another example discussed recently on Climate Progress was Freeman Dyson (though he hasn’t written a book on climate change – yet), another case closer to my own field of expertise was arguably Roger Penrose, who tried to prove mathematically that human intelligence relied on non-computable quantum properties of the brain (the idea is worth consideration, the “proof” is generally regarded as incorrect).
Brian #49, von Daniken is a pissant compared to Immanuel Velikovsky.
Robert, subjectively I’ve found that AGW critics, to avoid the usual more pejorative appellations, are frequently found amongst geologists, who are aware of the paleo history of the earth and the huge changes it has undergone before humans came on the scene.
Economists also, though I can’t generalise why at the moment.
This morning there stoush between Plimer and Charlie Veron a reef specialist and not a climate scientist. I cringed at the thought, but Veron did well although he’d only had an hour with Plimer’s book. He looked for Plimer’s own scientific method and found none. He looked for scientific support and found Geoffrey Blainey and the current President of the EU Vaclav Klaus.
Then he looked up coral reefs and ocean acidity (not indexed under the usual term) and found Plimer’s views unsupported and wildly in error. At the end Plimer said Veron should get out more and talk to some earth scientists. Veron said he does, hundreds of them, and attends conferences on the earth sciences.
Plimer came across as aggressive and dogmatic, which doesn’t of course mean that he’s wrong thereby, but perhaps not the best style to push his case.
Plimer was interviewed yesterday afternoon on ABC News Radio (unfortunately I can’t find a link) and said something along the lines that emissions of methane from agriculture are delining despite the fact that the number of animals being grazed is increasing, and that therefore this shows that methane isn’t causing global warming – a complete and glaring non sequitur which the ABC interviewer unfortunately lacked either the wit or the ticker to pick up on.
Paul @ 54, maybe so, but is he making as much money?
AH! Just when we thought we were arguing on safe ground, along comes The sun’s cooling down – so what does that mean for us? Not from some Besser Bloc or “pay $10,000 Uni & we’ll give you a D Sc, but Cambridge, comes:
“Fevered debate”? Magic. Like losing 4+ decades in one bash!
Hang in there for Bolt & Co’s take!
Cor, ya wouldn’t be dead for … (trying to think of a currency worth having!)
Brian #57, probably not, especially considering that he’s shuffled off this mortal coil.
Dee Cee #58, I wonder when some denialist or other is going to read something by Arthur C. Clarke and/or Stephen Baxter or David Brin and be thus inspired to come up with a theory that global warming is being caused by extraterrestrials playing silly buggers with the Sun’s innards?
PS: There’s a “leave a comment” blog on this article <a href=”http://blog.luciolepress.com/2009/04/22/nasa-recorded-no-sunspots-on-266-days-in-2008–a-level-of-inactivity-not-seen-since-1913.aspx” It’s just made Google search for Sunspot activity 2008 Nigel Weiss of the University of Cambridge.
Brian & Robert, I’ve often thought that geologists experience a sort of cognitive disorientation when it comes to climate change. Because they’re so used to thinking in “deep time”, contemplating vast planetary changes and regarding these as natural and normal, they have difficulty moving back into a human time frame where the changes have real implications for human beings.
Saying “climate has always changed” isn’t much comfort when the likely changes have the potential to threaten the food and water security of the present generation. But when geologists say it, they’re still thinking in deep time.
There is not much anyone can contribute to the global warming debate without an intermediate training in physics and statistics.
Tim @62, I have to admit that when people bring up the constantly changing climate I am often reminded that “in the long term we are all dead”. Somehow it seems appropriate.
Same with the “living things adapt”. Actually they don’t, the survivors have descendants that are better adapted. The rest die, as happened to so many early settlers in Australia. The question is not so much “can humans survive a 5 degree rise in global temperature” but “can a high tech civilisation survive” and more specifically “can I survive”. The answer is probably yes in the short term (less than, say, 50 years), but the civilisation surviving requires more than just moving the Vietnamese lifestyle to Australia, it requires some way to survive the intervening turmoil as the other 4 billion humans die off.
I’d rather not go through that, and I think it’s worth trying to prevent it.
My review of Plimer’s book.
Tim #62, great minds think alike! I’ve mentioned this before both here and at other blogs, but I remember a Plimer op-ed in the Age in which he seriously argued that the IPCC’s modelling of the climate between now and 2100 was falwed because it didn’t take account of the effects of continental drift and mountain-building. This shows up precisely the problem you’ve identified.
Moz #64, and related to the previous point, the rate at which changes occur is at least as important as the scale of the changes in terms of whether or not people and ecosystems can adapt. A snail encountering a brick wall at whatever a snail’s pace is will come out of the encounter in better shape than a human in a motor vehicle encountering the wall at 100 metres per second.
Paul @ 60. As Nigel Weiss is a former president & Gold medalist of the Royal Astronomical Society & an Isaac Newton Society President & Trustee, and Emeritus Professor of Mathematical Astrophysics, University of Cambridge; still has the following on his home page:
has greater international standing as a scientist (that’s “science” as in Mathematical Astrophysics, not “social science”) than most if not all who postulate CC theories, and bases his theories on actual observations (ie “NASA recorded no sunspots on 266 days in 2008″), I have to assume you’re funning, or stirring the argumentative pot – or referring to Bolt & Co. Otherwise, it would mean you wouldn’t have checked your references before posting; or were merely being half-smart!
BTW, I can think of a long list of scientific theories & inventions which were published in SciFi before being taken seriously (or even considered) by scientific/ technological communities: eg those in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Huxley’s Brave New World; the sort of post-convergence AV communication we’re only now beginning to experience in Azimov’s The Naked Sun … So much so that the term “discontinuous invention/ innovation” refers to those which have not previously been conceptualised or created.
You don’t have to assume that, but you would be correct in so doing.
I’d agree with the various characterisations of both Roger Penrose as someone who stepped into another field, and did poorly (I went to conferences were his work became almost a collective running in-joke, so laughably was it thought of by those in the field), and Gerard Edelman and Crick as people who switched fields and whose work was taken seriously and who made a real contribution — and while both wrote Penrose and Edelman wrote quite opinionated popular science books on the subject, one difference is that Edelman also had a lot of peer-reviewed published work on the subject. It is not unknown for eminent scientists to switch fields and do so with great success — it is the leaping straight into the popular science pulpit without engaging with the other fields through the normal mechanisms of science that seems to be the flaw.
I think Plimer is an unusual case, and so persistent, because he got away with it (and won quite a few fans, as well as a fair few critics) the first time. In his mind, he is playing the anti-Creationist script again, despite being in the scientific minority.
klaus wrote: “Many of the great pre-20th century scientists could work virtually in a vacuum,…”
Do I Not Breathe the Same Air as you?
Dude, get outta my face.
Klaus – This is a good thing in many ways, especially if you happen to be a woman who works day in and day out in the lab and hope to be recognised for what you discover.
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I’m not sure I could endorse this conflation of ‘women’ and collectivity Klaus. If you work in a collective I’d wager it could be harder to gain recognition. Someone could steal the credit. That said it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. And we never really work entirely in a vacuum. My objection is to the (I s’pose, unintentional) inference that women need work collectively. they don’t. Yes I know about Pierre but you know what I mean
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…sciences have generally arrived at a point where this is no longer desirable or especially useful.
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If it’s useful it’s desirable. And its utility, I argue, is entirely to be judged by its success in explaining the natural phenomena. I’m not ideologically opposed to collectives. But I have some experience of them and they ain’t all shangri-lah. We’re still the same monkeys where ever we go. The argument you make would be useful to those who want to embed science entirely in the marketplace. You’re not saying that I know. But someone could.
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Occasional exceptions still, but rarer.
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Indeed. I agree. And for that reason. For the rare James Clerk Maxwell or Albert Einstein we need to be careful not to define science as collective. Remember the original space shuttle crash? It was Sagan who came up with it. He was in some committee/panel type situation (a press conference I think). But he wasn’t paying attention. Instead he was dipping one of those rubber rings they used on the shuttle in some ice water. Absent minded professor stuff.
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The ring was shrinking. It shrunk in the cold, the fuel leaked and the shuttle blew up. It was Sagan’s ability to ignore the collective that led him to his conclusions. And then they tried to stop him spitting it out. The left-wing love of collectives isn’t entirely without merit but it helps to remember – l’enfer, c’est les autres.
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The lesson I took from Foucault is that knowledge is structured and institutionalized. This is inevitable. The task them become to preserve, as much as one can, openness.
Can anyone think of a single example where an eminent scientists, or indeed a non-eminent one, has actually been proven right after taking the MSM route, rather than attempting to publish peer reviewed articles taking on the consensus view?
Presumably not, or we wouldn’t be seeing references to Barry Marshall, who is in fact a text book case of how good science will eventually win out, without needing to play to the gallery.
Nope
Feynmann, not Sagan. And he didn’t discover it. He was tipped off by NASA engineers. He planned the O ring in ice water demonstration to expose the problem.
I stand corrected. I’m always confusing the two for some reason. The story was obviously half-remembered I should’ve checked. And then I could’ve found this .
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Title says it.
Ah, Zarquon: you have me there.
I intended ‘air of the same constituents’. Pass the phlogiston, Beulah.
Re: Barry marshall.
Soon after he and Robin Warren won the Nobel Prize the Australian published an opinion piece which said that Marshall and Warren were wrong about bacteriacuading ulcers and should not got have got the Nobel Prize.
They can’t help themselves at the Australian. It can only be a matter of time before the Oz starts a campaign that 2+2 does not equal four, and scientists who say that it does are really jusr self interested grant seekers, etc.
In in the meantime, in today’s News Ltd site you can see the headline
“Conservatives win power in Iceland”
when the story is that the conservatives have been just been routed in the Icelandic election, with a record low 22.5% of the vote.
Sam. Do you have a link? That’s hilarious.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25388163-23109,00.html
Oh For. Fuck’s. Sake!!!!!!
First para: ICELAND’S conservative Independence Party, in power for 18 years before resigning in January amid angry protests over the country’s economic collapse, admitted defeat in Saturday’s general election.
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As in they didn’t just lose they’re in total disgrace!
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And the headline: Conservatives win power in Iceland.
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Now either someone made a really stupid mistake or the folks at Rupert I’s imperial house of agit-prop are testing the water to see just how stupid people are.
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But you have to admit Fox New is excellent. Look at this.
Ah, but the second paragraph is: ‘ “We lost this time but we will win again later,” party leader Bjarni Benediktsson said.’
Clearly the sub-editors are just time-shifting.
Adrien @ 80, the link doesn’t work.
When I found that headline in The Australian I tried to save a copy of the page (which didn’t really work – the formatting came out so wrong it was barely readable) because I figured they’d notice and correct it. When it started getting discussed on pollbludger I thought it couldn’t be long.
A day later its still there. Clearly they’re further gone than I thought. They just don’t care about truth at all.
I like this piece from Martin Flanagan in the Age. He strongly points a view I support: this debate cant be left to the experts alone, as we are all responsible (and you’l always find some ‘expert’ prepared to doubt-monger for money).
He also notes something that I am ASTOUNDED hasnt been front and centre in our news the last two months.
HELLO AUSTRALIA: WHILE VICTORIA BURNED, QLD WAS UNDER WATER! This is NOT NORMAL.
We have already entererd the age of dagerous climate change. Business as usual is not an option.
Sam @ 79: have you sent that off to Media Watch yet?
Lefty E: too right. And don’t forget the heat wave the week before in Vic, which killed twice as many people as the fires. I haven’t seen any Adelaide figures yet, but they will be bad.
Adrien @ 80, the link doesn’t work.
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Sorry. Here it is. What an outstanding contribution. JS Mill would be proud:
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JS MIll.
Lefty E – HELLO AUSTRALIA: WHILE VICTORIA BURNED, QLD WAS UNDER WATER! This is NOT NORMAL.
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This is a common error and it feeds denialism. It is impossible to attribute any one single event to climate change. And flooding has gone hand in hand with fire and drought on this continent for quite a while. Just sayin’.
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If the frequency of these phenomena greatly increases as a pattern of a unit of 5 years or so then it’s indicative of climate change.
Like, say, major bushfires *every* summer in Victoria for several years, including record temperatures, and repeated flooding across QLD/ NSW?
If that feeds denialism – its a fairly indiscriminate eater.
In any case, the long terms trends are now well established. Though it must be said not being aware of the existing Australia climate data is a common error – given media slowness on the issue:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUKTRE5180MF20090209?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
If that feeds denialism – its a fairly indiscriminate eater.
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No. What feeds denialism is playing the climate change drum every time there’s a natural disaster. The impossibility I spoke of obtains. Political discourse always declares that things are simply (unless the discourse is in aid of evasion tactics). Science studies nature which is not simple. It’s impossible to place the appropriate nuance every time you enter into one of these AGW dialogues of the deaf. But don’t make it so easy for ‘em.
And passing comment on unprecedented levels of unusual climate events, occurring locally, would make it harder on them?
Not sure I follow your logic.
Not sure I follow your logic.
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The thing is it’s probably not unprecedented. Far back as I can remember fire and flood have gone together here. To be clear I’m not a denialist; I believe sustainability is the most important issue of the 21st century.
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I also think the enormous lengths that people like Bolt go to stick there heads in the sand are absurd. But when I see, say, Bob Brown clamouring climate change every time there’s a fire even tho’ according to the science it is impossible to attribute a single event to AGW, I can’t help but think it gives Bolt an opportunity to acquire some credence by restating that fact.
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It’s not that he’s wrong to point out that fires will become worse and more frequent because of AGW, that’s very likely, but any single event cannot be attributed to AGW. It doesn’t work on that scale. If I was Senator Brown I’d be concerned to be a model of rigorous sobriety it tends to render nil the accusations of eschatological hysteria that get lobbed at the Greens and those, like me, who agree with them on problems altho’ disagree somewhat on solutions. (Carbon tax, carbon tax, carbon tax…)
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One of the opportunities afforded by AGW is the potential for society to acquire a more rigorous empirical foundation in its political discourse. Thus far as I’ve seen it we’re wasting it. Both sides.
I suppose I take the general point Adrien – though I think the unusual concatenation of climate madness earlier this year wouldnt fall under any “careful as she goes” rubric. Two points:
a. It should be remembered the Vic fires took place in the context of the highest temperatures ever recorded here – ever. Thats ever. Since they started writing down mercury levels. Im told (but haven’t seen it verified) that more people died in the surrounding heatwave than in in the fires themself.
and importantly:
b. Bolt can go bugger himself! I wouldnt recommend anyone factor in his demented responses to their political strategy.
Bolt can go bugger himself!
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No you are lying. His willy is too small. That’s why he’s always so cranky.
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I wouldnt recommend anyone factor in his demented responses to their political strategy.
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Thing is people do. All I’m saying is that it’s important not give people like Bolt any ammo if possible. It’s better for the health of the discussion and it’s better for Bolt. He actually wants to be a fiction writer and this gives him more of a an opportunity.
This morning another example of a brilliant cobbler who couldn’t stick to his last came to mind. The late Fred Hollows, great opthalmologist and humanitarian whose work and legacy saved the sight and continues to save the sight of thousands, nonetheless fell both into error and into disreputable company (i.e. the known homophobe and all-round reactionary Bruce Shepherd) on the issue of HIV/AIDS.
That said, the embrace of Plimer by the denialists in the Coalition and the commentariat most strikingly reminds me of the embrace of Milan Brych’s cancer quackery by Joh Bjelke-Petersen.
Lefty E and adrien, the denialists often (mostly?) admit climate change and some of them indeed admit global warming. Some say CO2 has nothing to do with such changes, some say it does but the effect is swamped by more important influences, some admit CO2 but say that it comes from other than human sources.
So there is no unified stance.
The usual distinction between weather and climate is 25 years, but even then you can point to regional anomalies that persisted for centuries in the past, pre-industrial times.
I guess it’s how the whole pattern stacks up over long as well as short periods of time and how that fits with the models of predicted futures. The relationship between Co2 and temperature over the last 600,000 years is striking and requires an explanation that denialists simply can’t give. But Plimer dodges that one by saying that the causes are mutitudinous and virtually unknowable in present circumstances, so CO2 and temp are both being driven by other factors.
Anyway Plimer was pushing the multi-factorial line on Counterpoint the other day (from memory, I haven’t checked the transcript).
My only way of attacking Plimer is to point to his incompetence in dealing with data (as per Tim Lambert’s review – link @ 65). With such blatant errors, how can you trust him as a source?
That’s because I’m not a Distinguished Professor of Geophysics like Kurt Lambeck who is far from impressed.
I think it’s OK for scientists and even informed lay people to point out how single events fit in with the pattern of AGW-caused climate change. Especially how it confirms predictions made in the dreaded models. While acknowledging in full that there have been exceptions and anomalies in the past.
BTW the technical support document recently produced by the US EPA download from here is a mine of information. It addresses the increase in wildfires (quite marked in the US) and drought on pp 90-91.
Sorry for such a long spiel. I’ll disappear for a while now.
Sorry, me again, I shouldn’t be here.
Hansen delineates three kinds of knowledge on climate change:
1. The paleo/historical pre-instrumentation record
2. Observations in more recent times using scientific instruments
3. Models.
The latter are not just used to predict the future, but to elucidate the past, as when Caldeira and Wieck looked at patterns of ocean acidification over the last 300 million years.
The coherence between these types of knowledge (sure there are gaps, uncertainties and dissonance here and there also) across fields of study and topics is simply overwhelming. Denialists/delusionists invariably have to find different ground upon which to stand if they are not just random nit-pickers and cherry-picking data selectors, which many of them are. None of them choose positions that stand up to the kind of scrutiny that the mainstream has been subjected to, in fact their chosen ground is usually ludicrously flawed and inadequate.
Although, as I think Brian would agree, insofar as there is a political strategy underpinning denialism or being served by it, there doesn’t need to be a unified stance and quite possibly the lack of a unified stance is more strategically useful. The strategic political purpose of denialism is not to establish the validity of a particular position at odds with mainstream climate science, but to muddy the waters so that policy-makers and voters become sufficiently confused and mired in arguments about details that they are unable to see the bigger picture of what is necessary to get to a safe climate scenario.
The denialists are basically not engaged in science but in propagandist thuggery and will seize any weapon at hand.
Brian – the denialists often (mostly?) admit climate change and some of them indeed admit global warming. Some say CO2 has nothing to do with such changes, some say it does but the effect is swamped by more important influences, some admit CO2 but say that it comes from other than human sources.
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My reading of the history was that the first thing they did was to deny there was any global warming. The phrase ‘climate change’ was a bit of PR Newspeak that took advantage of the complexity of the climate, ie the Science, to use accuracy to draw attention from the fact that the climate was changing.
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Trouble with the damn climate, bud, izzat you can’t make a deal with it. Doesn’t matter a good goddam how damn good the damn shows on TV get! People notice when the damn climate changes. Goddamit! I tells ya the climate izza commie. Pass me another Bud wouldja bud.
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They then had to admit it and now, where they’re serious, they simply cherry pick data to try and create a plausible alternative to human economy to explain the warming. (Can you imagine a world without lawyers?) My guess is that the far-seeing, ice-hearted geopolitical shadow-powers that be foresee climate change as an opportunity both to enlarge the technocratic security apparatus and cleanse the world of a few incovenient billions.
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I’m serious.
Paul and Brian – Pauls’ quite right viz the strategic usefulness of a lack of coherence. (They learned it from the Pomo Crew – n’uk) Sorry
I won’t be snarky any more.
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I’m not one of those people who believes that Andrew Bolt or Ann Coulter et al receive a brief from Rupert Murdoch viz The Line except on matters of vital importance to the body corporate: like supporting the
Get Some OilWar on Terror. I’m certain that the majority of people working to play interference for the forces of denialism are simply insisting, as Conservatives typically do, on the virtues of the established way of doing things..
Thing is, of course, the Left likewise can have trouble accepting data if it challenges cherished beliefs. So it’s probably more compassionate to regard those denialists who are genuinely well-meaning with a certain understanding. (Bolt and Coulter, however, have a-list resevations for Malebolge.)
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However there are agents that orchestrate a strategy – a basic approach toward a defined end – and various riffs and bytes are released and circulated. The first such was: “Climate Change? Yes the climate is always changing”. The current tactic is to resort to demonization of anyone concerned about sustainability as irrational adherents to a secular and nihilistic anti-theology which seeks to destroy modern civilization and return us to some Hieronymus Bosch scenario.
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The thing is there is an aspect of the larger green movement to which this stereotype applies.
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For example, various riffs of eschatological hysteria obtain: I was at a party in West End, Brizvegas, when the news came down that the GATT had created the WTO. Like parrots squawking lines drummed into ‘em, everyone went around calling it The End of the World. Later, an activist leader – a respected leader -, who’d recently lost a fight to preserve some rainforest, was seriously suggesting burning the lot down! Why? Because we’d ’show everyone that we loved it so much we were willing to kill it rather than let it be woodchipped’.
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Now this is very Romantic but the reaction of everyone would be: What a fuckin’ Nutjob! (And they’d be right).
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This of course does not typify the average member of the Greens who from my limited perspective is usually a well-educated and successful professional somewhere between 25-50 who unfortunately persists with the delusion that the solution to all problems is a Big Book of Rules. But that doesn’t matter. As Paul says the denialists are muddying the water. They’re also watering the mud so that they can throw it at us.
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The way to combat that is not to give them any ammo and to make their portrayal as absurd as possible. So be a bit of a scientists. Before saying something ask yourself “do I know that? For certain?”.