Actually, I would contend that it is either ‘dishonest’ or simply erroneous to over-state your case in this way. There are scientists with relevant credentials who do not subscribe to the view, or the model, that you are suggesting enjoys univeral or near-universal consensus. We may argue about the relevant percentages (believers/non-believers), or about what weight should be attached to the views on either side, but I suggest you actually devalue the strength of your own position by asserting a degree of consensus that simply isn’t accurate.
I also think you would do well to read ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds’ by Charles Mackay, and ‘Flat Earth News’ by Nick Davies, the former published in 1841 yet still relevant, the latter published just recently. The Davies book has an excellent opening chapter focusing on the Millenium Bug. Before 2000, the idea that widespread disaster was looming because of the Millenium Bug was supported to a degree at least equal to that of either Global Warming or Anthropogenic Climate Change. It turned out to be yet another case of the Emperor’s New Clothes.
In my understanding, when they say there is an X% chance of rain, that means that 30% of the region they are forecasting for will have rain. They’re talking about the probability of you being rained upon, not the probability of there being a rain cloud that day.
The thing is that it is accurate. I’m not overstating the scientific consensus. Every single science organization agrees that the current state of the science is accurately portrayed in the IPCC report, and that the science has been done well.
You can also look at what climate scientists think, here’s a survey (PDF). You want to jump down to Appendix B, and then probably want to start from item 24. The ones previous to 24 are a bit misleading because they are asking scientists how accurate they believe particular areas of study to be, giving a pretty mixed bag of answers. No scientist is going to be happy with the level of accuracy they have. Questions 24 and on ask what the scientists think has or hasn’t been confirmed by science, and given the answers on those you’ll see that they actually are quite happy with the current level of accuracy of their respective areas. For instance, look at questions 34, 36, 37, 70, and 72.
Sure, 10% of individual scientists may not believe it is happening, but 5% of individual scientists probably believe that the moon landings were faked. But like I said in post 12, this doesn’t mean that those 10% aren’t right. Every real scientist is going to say that the models might be entirely wrong and that things could be significantly different from what is predicted (for the better or worse). The point is that you’d be silly to state that there isn’t a consensus and you’d be silly to bet on any result particularly different from what is being predicted.
And if you’ve got to manufacture data that doesn’t include historic trends, that only includes data from areas which much match your preconception, to make your argument, then you really aren’t making a scientific argument.
Now, now… Coleman did have a cool way of throwing his stool* around–it would disappear! My seven year old self was amazed!
*Not feces, but a bar stool he used to sit on to tell us about Thorms and Thowers, his words for Thunderstorms and Thunder showers. Then he would get up off the stool and throw it “into” the green screen. It made for good ratings. We were a simple people.
I thought he had died long ago. I agree re Tom Skilling–now that guy knows his stuff.
You may want to revise this assertion. For one thing, even if this were true, how would you know? At the very least, you would have to have first-hand reliable feedback on this specific question from every science organisation in the world. Do you have this?
Thank you for the link to the survey. I am surprised you linked to it, since it strengthens my case and invalidates your own argument.
(1) It is not a survey of climate scientists (see Table 4 on page A4, or pages 24 and 25 of the pdf). It includes people whose primary research is in nutrient cycles, turbulence, public forecast, modeling, medicine, phonological modeling and remote sensing.
(2) The authors of the report admit there is controversy over the response rate and sampling bias (page 11 of the pdf).
(3) The survey suffers from the same logical flaw as all similar surveys: it only tells us something about the views of those who responded to the survey. If you think ACG is hogwash and you are invited to respond to a survey about it, you may well think you have better things to do. In other words, the survey is possibly no more reliable than a survey handed out in bars asking ‘Do you think beer should be cheaper?’.
(4) The sample is by no means representative of opinion around the world. If you refer to the table on page 21 of the pdf. you will see, for example, that for the 2003 survey there are 372 respondents from the USA but 1 from Russia, none from China, none from India, 1 from Brazil and a very small number from the entire African continent (I think only 4).
(5) The summary tables confirm my point for me (that there is no consensus). To take one example, Table 3 (on page 5 of the pdf) poses the question whether scientific knowledge can reasonably assess the effects of greenhouse gases. On the scale from 1-7 used, the mean score was 4.87 (1996) and 4.85 (2003). In other words, a significant number of those surveyed felt scientific knowledge could not assess this. Other tables tell the same story.
(6) Correctness in scientific terms is not determined by surveys. I think it is reasonable to assume that if you had taken a survey in 1930 of the possibility of splitting the atom to create a bomb, many scientists would have agreed with Lord Rutherford that it was ‘moonshine’, an opinion apparently shared by Albert Einstein. See cites like these in books and online.
As noted above, the survey that you yourself cited indicates that there is a lack of consensus
Predicted by whom? By the scientists who agree with you, or the ones that do not?
Of course there is no reliable consensus from just making surveys, the consensus comes from the actual research:
However, I have to say that Sage Rat is more on the money, there is a consensus supporting the view that “there is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”
I have yet to see one go any other direction. Admittedly I wouldn’t have any idea if an Indian group is going another way unless they had an English language press release.
I fully encourage you to find a serious science organization (i.e. not a think tank, and not one individual blogging on the internet), stating that the IPCC report is not a faithful survey of the current state of the science. If you find this group–probably some Indian or Chinese science organization–then again I fully encourage you to explain to me why I should have more faith in them than:
The IPCC
The EPA
US Climate Change Science Program
Presidential Office of Science and Technology
International Arctic Science Committe
National Academy of Science
European Academy of Sciences and Arts
InterAcademy Council
International Council of Academies of Engineering and Technological Sciences
Australian National Academy
Belgian National Academy
Brazilian National Academy
Cameroon National Academy
Canadian National Academy
Caribbean National Academy
Chinese National Academy
French National Academy
Ghana National Academy
German National Academy
Indonesian National Academy
Irish National Academy
Italian National Academy
Indian National Academy
Japan National Academy
Kenyan National Academy
Madagascar National Academy
Malaysian National Academy
Mexican National Academy
Nigerian National Academy
New Zealand National Academy
Russian National Academy
Senegal National Academy
South Africa National Academy
Sudan National Academy
Swedish National Academy
Tanzanian National Academy
Ugandan National Academy
United Kingdom National Academy
Zambian National Academy
Zimbabwe National Academy
American Association for the Advancement of Science
European Science Foundation
US National Research Council
American Geophysical Union
European Federation of Geologists
European Geosciences Union
Geological Society of America
International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics
Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London
American Meteorological Society
Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences
Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
UK Royal Meteorological Society
World Meteorological Organization
American Quaternary Association
International Union for Quaternary Research
American Astronomical Society
American Institute of Physics
American Physical Society
American Statistical Association
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Why do they lie?
It’s as close a survey as I’ve seen.
And also use statistical measurement tools to check if there’s reason to think that there is more than one group, finding there to not be any.
Indeed, and science is built on hundreds of small things that combine together to lend credence to an idea. I’m not relying on this one survey and I don’t expect you to. But if you think there is a better one, then I’m happy to look at it.
Is Africa churning out scientists and science organizations?
Then explain the discrepancy between that table and the ones I pointed to. Any professional surveyor will tell you that the wording of the question can produce significant discrepancies between results. Like I said, any question asking about the quality of any one area of research or general predictive ability, they say that it is somewhere around “average” or “unreliable”, and yet when asked if they think that global warming is happening and human induced based on their knowledge of everything, they answer very positively.
I would say the discrepancy is because the questions in the start don’t provide any sort of benchmarks. Like, I might say that I was happier with my Apple II than I am with my current Dell/Vista machine, talking about reliability and ease of use and so on. The questions tell you how much the scientists are “satisfied” with the current state of things in terms of particular areas. A guy whose seen major advances in capability in other areas of research is going to be less satisfied with his area of study even though it might still be significantly more advanced than it had been five years earlier.
If you have a different hypothesis for why there is the discrepancy in the survey, I’m happy to hear it.
The survey is saying that they have faith in the IPCC report. Do you think people in and around the area of study would have a better or worse idea than you of whether the quality of research may have been compromised (i.e. via political views, bribes, etc.)?
The survey is answering whether scientists believe that the research has been carried out objectively. The result of the research is of course not a survey, it’s “research”. If you wish to see it, you’re more than welcome to do so, but I suspect that you will find that you and I are unqualified to really comment on it.
(Pssst! ianzin! John Coleman is one of (counting) SEVERAL complete morons regarding Anthropogenic Global Warming. It’s great to hit a 300:1 once in a while at the track, but the way to win in Big-S-Science is to bet with the guys WHO KNOW WHAT THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT!
Just a recommendation from one player to another.)
To assert that you personally have never seen a contrary survey is not the same as asserting or demonstrating that no such survey exists. (I personally have never seen your big toes, but I am willing to allow that they may exist.) Your original position was that every scientific organization agrees. I asked how would you know, which is an epistemological point. You referred me to a survey. I have shown that the survey doesn’t say what you said it did. You have now moved your position to, ‘I haven’t seen any dissenting survey’. This is shifting the goal posts.
Thank you for your encouragement. But I am not the one making assertions that I cannot back up. You are. And while we are warmly exchanging encouragement, I encourage you to read the two books I referred to previously.
So your first position was that all sci orgs agree. Your second position, having failed to back up this assertion of universal consensus or to address my question as to how you woukd even know, is to put the onus on me to find an exception. And you have admitted that even if I were able to find such an exception, you would not accept that your original assertion of universal consensus was flawed, but shift the focus to a debate about the respective merits of their case. This is moving the goalposts again.
You have presented a nice long list of 61 sci orgs. So what?
I have not asserted anything about anyone lying.
You began by asserting there is universal consensus. I said this isn’t the case. You said ‘have a look what the climate scientists’ say and referred me to the survey. I pointed out that even according to the survey’s own data, it is not a survey of climate scientists. You now say ‘It’s as close a survey as I’ve seen’. This is shifting the goal posts again. To assert that something is the closest thing to a pink elephant that you personally have ever seen does not make it a pink elephant.
I concede this point. At the same time, it is worth noting in passing that this amounts to the authors of the report saying that in their judgment the statistical analysis clears them of errors arising from response rate and sampling bias. This may be the case, but they are not disinterested parties, are they? Astrologers who assess their own reliability generally conclude that their track record has been pretty good. Self-assessment is problematic.
And so it goes on…
You began by saying there is consensus among all sci orgs. I said this is not so, to the extent that there are people with relevant scientific expertise who dissent. I also raised the epistemological question of how you would know that there is universal consensus, even if it were true. You referred me to a survey, saying that by doing do I could see what climate scientists believe. I raised several objections, and also pointed out that the survey necessarily tells us nothing about the views of those who elected not to respond (possibly because they thought it was equivalent to a survey about angels dancing on pins). You now say ‘Indeed’ (while going on to make a perfectly fair point about how consensus emerges in the scientific community). So we have come full circle. You have conceded (‘Indeed’) that the evidence you offered to counter my original point does not, in fact, counter it. And my epistemological question remains unaddressed.
Who is to decide what constitutes ‘better’? You?
I haven’t the faintest idea whether other surveys exist. I don’t know the first thing about climate change. I have no relevant knowledge or expertise, and I expect it’s quite a technical field. I also don’t know anything about surveys about climate change scientists, and I expect that even if I made it my business to study such surveys, I lack the necessary training or expertise to understand them in anything but the most superficial way.
What I do know quite a lot about is how people can come to believe in things that are either not true or at least not yet supported by good evidence or good reasoning. I also know quite a lot about a related issue, which is how people can come to think that things have been proved when they have not been proved at all. This is why I referred to the excellent book, ‘Extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds’. There are many other books that have been written in similar vein. However, it seems that few people want to learn the lesson of the Emperor’s New Clothes.
I think it is fair to say that among some scientists, who have the relevant expertise and who may be said to know what they are talking about, there is an ongoing debate about ACG, and at the moment the balance of opinion leans towards the view that ACG is real, and it’s a problem, and it’s one we should try to tackle while we can. This is not even close to universal consensus.
I also think it is fair to say that a great many people with no relevant expertise whatsoever are taking their ‘knowledge’ from the media, from second-hand sources, from hearsay and from received opinion, and forming an opinion that is just that: an opinion about something they don’t really know anything about. Some of these people tend to present their opinion as if it’s a fact, and to defend it with religious fervour, even when they can neither present supporting evidence that they actually understand nor present a good logical argument to support their assertions.
I agree. This is yet one more reason why the survey to which you referred me is open to doubt.
You persist in mis-representing this survey, even when the survey itself contradicts you. The survey says that some scientists who responded to the survey expressed some faith in the IPCC report, and some others did not. This does not support your original contention that (paraphrasing) ‘there is universal consensus and to suggest otherwise is silly’.
And you have still not addressed the epistemological objection I raised regarding your original assertion about universal consensus: even if it were true, how would you know?
Dropzone I have nothing to say about Mr Coleman. I don’t know anything about him, and for all I know or care he could be a gibbering buffoon. This has nothing to do with the objections I raised to some of Sage Rat’s assertions.
Of those who answered, 73% agreed that the IPCC report was an accurate review of current state of the science, 19% disagreed. A nearly 4 to 1 ratio is not “a few on either side.”
By asking neutral scientific bodies to research it and tell me what they thought and what probabilities and margins of error they expected in their results. If I felt particularly worried that the results may have been tampered with, I’d then probably poll the individual scientists anonymously as to whether such a thing had happened. I’d also review whether groups which would have been the most likely to have had pressure on them (for instance the traditionally Republican EPA under Bush’s appointed heads) and see if they came out the opposite direction from what you would expect given the plausibility of that pressure.
So far I’ve seen no honest scientific body, irrespective of who their boss is, come out with a press release saying anything other than endorsing the IPCC report. And 4 out 5 climate scientists agrees that the IPCC report accurately presents the current level of scientific knowledge.
Those 4 out 5 scientists would also say that the state of the knowledge may be entirely wrong, as would I. But saying anything other than that the IPCC report is being supported by more than a supermajority of scientists is stupid and fraudulent. It is supported by a supermajority of scientists and every single major scientific organization that I’m aware of.
Saying anything other than what is factual is stupid. If you disagree with the science, that’s fine. But pretending that there isn’t a majority side or obscuring that fact by pointing out that out of 558 repondents, 1 of them was a nutritionist, things like this are intellectually dishonest and stupid. If you’re in the minority position, present yourself as such, honestly. It’s just not that hard.
Straw man. I have never asserted that it amounts to ‘a few on either side’. You said there was universal consensus. I said ‘not so’. Now you have agreed with me that there is not. I am happy that we are in agreement.
Have you actually done this?
We’re going round in circles, as this point has already been addressed. What you personally happen to be aware of is not the accepted litmus test for either scientific truth or scientific consensus. You can either assert a universal absolute, which you did, or you can assert a solipsistic opinion arising from your personal reading habits, but one is not equivalent to the other.
If you are asserting that scientific truth and consensus can be ascertained from press releases, I think you are damaging your own case. It cannot. Press releases and scientific knowledge have no necessary relationship. Incidentally, the Nick Davies book to which I referred earlier contains lots of excellent information about press releases and the way that even ‘quality’ newspapers and press agencies rely on them to an unhealthy degree.
We agree once more. There is not a universal consensus, which is what you originally and erroneously asserted.
It is a matter of written record that I did not do this. Resorting to a straw man argument only weakens your own case.
As long as we’re nitpicking, you are incorrect in stating that Sage Rat asserted that there was a universal consensus.
He never said that every scientist supported the consensus view, which is what “universal consensus” would imply. In fact, he was quite careful to note that a minority of individual scientists oppose it.
He did originally say that every scientific organization supported it, which may possibly have been an overstatement. There are a lot of organizations out there, and there may be some that can fairly be described as “scientific organizations” that oppose the consensus view on global warming. But if nobody can actually come up with an example of any such organization, then that’s not a very significant caveat. The existence of a small minority of unimportant institutions that officially disagree with consensus views doesn’t mean that the consensus doesn’t exist.
The point that Sage Rat was making is that the vast majority of peer-reviewed scientific research on climate science is consistent with the IPCC conclusions, and that the vast majority (at the very least) of official scientific bodies endorse those conclusions. This is a well-documented fact, and I don’t really see what your goal is in treating it as a suspect or doubtful claim.
ISTM that you are the one weakening your own case here, by nitpicking a minor point (Is it demonstrably true that absolutely every scientific organization on the planet supports the consensus climate view?) while ignoring a major point (There certainly is a consensus climate view which is supported by a supermajority of individual researchers and by all the organizations generally recognized as major scientific bodies).
I think you may be somewhat confused about the difference between popular alarmism and scientific theories. Sure, there are a lot of laypeople and journalists who are angsting about climate change just now who have no more understanding of the scientific issues involved than they did of the issues underlying the Y2K bug scare. But it’s fallacious to lump scientific research into the same category with popular alarmism, or to assume that popular alarmism necessarily implies false alarms.
Just because a lot of ill-informed people are scared of an alleged danger that they don’t really know anything about doesn’t automatically mean that the danger doesn’t exist.
You are right. I did make a mistake. Thank you for your correction.
I don’t have a ‘goal’ as such, but I make my contribution to the SDMB just as you do yours. I felt that SageRate over-stated his case when he said, and I paraphrase loosely, ‘everyone agrees and if you think otherwise you’re stupid’.
I don’t think it is stupid to raise questions, explore the room for doubt, and to point out some lessons from the past - particularly lessons about the way beliefs can sometimes overtake good evidence or good reasoning. I apologise to you, and to SageRat, if I seem to be intent on nit-picking, and I can see that this may comes across as tiresome.
If I can offer any plea in mitigation, it’s that I have spent a large part of my life dealing with thinking errors and their consequences, in many guises. I’ve seen the tremendous harm that can result from what were, to begin with, simple errors of thinking or process. I could give so many examples it would swamp this thread - but you are probably aware of many yourself.
There are still many people who hold passionate views and who seem unaware of relevant issues such as confirmation bias or Simpson’s Paradox. Sometimes, it doesn’t really matter, and other times it may have serious and even tragic consequences.
Let me just mention one example in passing. Homeopaths are very good at listing results or case histories that are consistent with the homepathic hypothesis. I often point out that seeking only the confirming instances doesn’t tell anyone anything (if you are selective enough then a chess board has only white squares). I ask them what efforts they have made to break their hypothesis, and to find instances that do not conform to their hypothesis. It is perhaps needless to add that this kind of question tends to be met with a snort of contempt and an assertion that I don’t understand, and ‘it’s been proved’.
I believe I sometimes detect a similar trend among some people who hold passionate views about ACG. They feel that if they can collect enough supporting evidence, this proves their point. I ask them if they have made an equal effort to find evidence that would break the hypothesis or at least lead to some thoughtful re-formulation. This can result in a response similar to the homeopaths. (I am not saying that SageRat is guilty of this error; he seems to me to have made a greater effort than most to explore the whole chessboard.)
Quite possibly so, and your point is well-taken. Mind you, there are times when ‘nit-picking’ about a ‘minor’ point is worth it. For an excellent example, read Diana Vaughn’s terrific book, ‘The Challenger Launch Decision’.
I don’t think I am, actually. This is a field to which I’ve devoted a large part of my life, and I even get invited to nice places to lecture on it (e.g. California Institute of Technology, Oxford University Scientific Society, Cambridge University, Times Literary Festival and so on.) This doesn’t mean I’m right about everything. It doesn’t even mean I’m right about anything. However, I don’t think I suffer from the kind of confusion you refer to. If anything, I’m rather too aware of how often one overlaps with the other.
I agree with you.
I agree again, and I don’t make this assumption.
I agree. It is equally the case that if ten million people believe something, this does not necessarily make it true. I know you know this.
I’m not sure how one would go about comparing the degree of support for the Millennium Bug and that of global warming, or what that even means. Perhaps you could expand on this?
Early on in this thread, I recommended two books. One was ‘Flat Earth News’ and the other was ‘Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness Of Crowds’. Both of these books do an excellent job of showing how it is possible for an idea to take hold and gain widespread belief even when it is not supported by good evidence or good reasoning. I cannot present the case that these authors present any better than they do it themselves, so I suggest you take a look at one or both. The fact that they were written over a century apart provides an interesting perspective.
My point was not that ACG is not a proven fact. My point was that the widespread popular belief that it is, and that it has been proven, does not make it so. My ancillary point is that if you want to test a hypothesis, a very good approach is to try to break it. Just counting up corroborative instances doesn’t prove one’s case, any more than counting the white squares on a chessboard proves that all the squares are white.
I think this is an interesting analogy. Particularly because we avoided the Millenium Bug by addressing the problem.
Yeah, there were some people who were really freaking out (e.g., “Planes are going to fall out of the sky!”), but if you looked at the people who were actually involved in identifying and fixing the issue (e.g., computer scientists and engineers) they knew exactly what had to be done to avoid major problems.
Rest assured, if we hadn’t properly addressed the Millenium Bug, there would have been major problems.
This is incorrect. There was no problem to fix, and the ‘Milleniumn bug’ was a myth. This is one of the few things in life that I know a lot about, not (just) because I’ve read a few relevant books but because I worked in the software industry at the time. I saw how the myth evolved, and I was in daily contact with some key players in the saga, such as programmers, consultants, technical journalists, clients, end users, agencies and so on.
Countless users had come across the need to store ‘2xxx’ dates before we got anywhere near the Millenium, including, for example, insurance companies and other organisations dealing with long-term future-dated records. It had never given rise to any problem.
Well, I won’t ‘rest assured’ because there is no factual basis for what you are asserting. We don’t need to speculate about this or argue about it in the abstract, because the experiment was conducted in real-life. There were many countries around the world where the ‘bug’ myth did not take hold, and as a result this so-called ‘problem’ was never raised or addressed. There were no significant or unfortunate consequences.