It’s Not Science. It’s A Cult

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42 comments

    • Thank you Brad. I’ve posted the video on the front page. This is a terrific series. I’m really interested in the broader question of how power is accumulated and exercised in a variety of fields to control and silence dissent. Stella Morabito is working on this question too.

    • Glad I could be of some assistance, they usually have good content and guests I especially enjoy Thomas Sowell and David Berlinski(who has also done some work on intelligent design). Also, thanks for pointing me to Stella Morabito it looks like she has some good stuff.

  1. It seems to me that there are three quite distinct questions here that are often unhelpfully confused.

    1) are global temperatures rising?
    This is an objective scientific question that is fairly simple to answer. The data is quite clear and compelling (though I find many of my students are unfamiliar with it) and the answer is “yes”

    2) Is this temperature rise caused by human activity?
    This also is a scientific question, but it is much more complex. It is doubtful that we have all of the data that we would need to answer it definitively. It seems quite plausible that human activity is a contributory factor, but the key question is “How much?” It is doubtful that science could ever do more than demonstrate correlation, given the vast complexity of the system being observed. Of course, even though correlation doesn’t prove causation, it doesn’t disprove it either.

    3) What should we do about global warming?
    This is not a scientific question but a political question. Even assuming that a) there is something that we can do about it (e.g. reduce carbon emissions) and b) this does not have greater negative effects on human flourishing than global warming (a very complex piece of political calculus), you have the problem of who is going to enforce this on a global scale. Inevitably, some countries would be “winners” and others “losers”, whatever solutions were adopted. Even on a national scale, governments don’t have a great track record on these kinds of issues, so what makes us think that transnational agreements are likely to produce the kind of radical change that would apparently be necessary?

    Unfortunately, the debate about “Global warming conspiracies” tends to focus attention on questions 1 and 2, as if the real problem were in the analysis of the scientific data. In reality, if 1) is accepted as true (which seems indisputable), then 2) may not be as all-important as it is often presented. If global temperatures are rising and it is plausible (though not provable) that human activity contributes to it in a significant way, it seems reasonable to have the kinds of wise political conversations that 3) is all about, discussing the pros and cons of certain kinds of actions. Unfortunately, wise, nuanced political discussions on these kinds of topics are few and far between as vested interests seem to exert much more power than they should, even in our own country, let alone on the global stage. The result is likely to be continued paralysis that rules out any concerted action at all.

    Maybe that’s not the worst outcome (unless you happen to live on a low lying island), since concerted government action doesn’t always yield the desired results either. But I think that it would be better to recognize that this is really more of a political question than a scientific one.

    • 1) are global temperatures rising?
      This is an objective scientific question that is fairly simple to answer. The data is quite clear and compelling (though I find many of my students are unfamiliar with it) and the answer is “yes”

      Actually the answer is no or maybe depending on the data set, if you base it on the last 20 years, so I am glad you put your answer in quotes. The problem is that temperatures are almost never reported publicly in raw numbers, they are always adjusted. Urban growth, reflected temperatures (Albedo effects of ground cover, thermal sinks such as concrete etc) all affect our more recent numbers. Historical numbers are based on similarly poor information especially when dealing with .1 degree increments.

      The rest of your argument falls apart without a valid response on #1

  2. Shouldn’t the very first question that gets asked be “What is the ‘ideal’ temperature for the planet?”

    Let’s suppose that there were definitive policies that would lower global warming — eg, outlaw all cars and find a way for cows to not pass gas, and whatever else is allegedly contributing to it.

    What is the goal? Lower global temps by 1 degree? 2 degrees? 10 degrees? Is lower always ‘better’? How do we know that the ‘ideal’ global temp isn’t 2-degrees warmer than what we currently have?

    As far as I know, no scientist is proposing what the ‘ideal’ temp should be, and absent knowing that, the entire global warming debate seems a bit odd.

    • That’s kind of an important question, but no not the first one to ask. The idea of an “ideal temperature” is not even a scientific question but rather a political one. An increase in the average global temperature would certainly be good for farmers in Canada or Russia. For example, the ideal climate for maple syrup production has already shifted from Vermont to Quebec. But it would not be so good for people living in, say, Bangladesh. And by “not so good” I mean catastrophic.

      iain duguid’s post above, from March 1, delineates the differences in the scientific and political questions very well I think.

  3. “It’s 1991, I am flying home from Germany, sitting next to a man who is almost in tears, he is so upset. He’s a physician involved in an FDA study of a new drug. It’s a double-blind study involving four separate teamsone plans the study, another administers the drug to patients, a third assesses the effect on patients, and a fourth analyzes results. The teams do not know each other, and are prohibited from personal contact of any sort, on peril of contaminating the results. This man had been sitting in the Frankfurt airport, innocently chatting with another man, when they discovered to their mutual horror they are on two different teams studying the same drug. They were required to report their encounter to the FDA. And my companion was now waiting to see if the FDA would declare their multi-year, multi-million dollar study invalid because of this chance contact.

    [T]he protocols of climate science appear considerably more relaxed. In climate science, it’s permissible for raw data to be “touched,” or modified, by many hands. Gaps in temperature and proxy records are filled in. Suspect values are deleted because a scientist deems them erroneous. A researcher may elect to use parts of existing records, ignoring other parts. But the fact that the data has been modified in so many ways inevitably raises the question of whether the results of a given study are wholly or partially caused by the modifications themselves…

    …[A]ny study where a single team plans the research, carries it out, supervises the analysis, and writes their own final report, carries a very high risk of undetected bias. That risk, for example, would automatically preclude the validity of the results of a similarly structured study that tested the efficacy of a drug.”

    —Michael Crichton in his testimonry to the Senate:

    • His issues with the English department led Crichton to switch his concentration to biological anthropology as an undergraduate, obtaining his bachelor’s summa cum laude in 1964.[11] He was also initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa Society.[11] He received a Henry Russell Shaw Traveling Fellowship from 1964 to 1965 and was a Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 1965.

      Crichton later enrolled at Harvard Medical School… During his clinical rotations at the Boston City Hospital, Crichton grew disenchanted with the culture there, which appeared to emphasize the interests and reputations of doctors over the interests of patients.[12] Crichton graduated from Harvard, obtaining an M.D. in 1969,[17] and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, from 1969 to 1970.[citation needed] He never obtained a license to practice medicine, devoting himself to his writing career instead.

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

    • One hardly needs to be a climatology expert in order to comment accurately on scientific method. And clearly, Crichton is qualified to comment.

    • So you’re saying he has no training in climatology?

      Less snarkily, what Crichton is describing is all well and good for medicine. How shall a similar climate experiment be performed? Shall we set up 500 earths where the inhabitants produce too much CO2, 500 earths where the inhabitants produce too much methane, and 500 earths with normal amounts of both gases? The scientists observing the planets will not, of course, know which is which. I suppose it’s clear at this point that this isn’t possible, and it may be easy to think of other situations where scientists have to take the data that is given to them, where trials under carefully controlled conditions cannot be run and re-run.

      So Crichton’s comparison with pharmaceutical trials is really just irrelevant.

    • Let’s look farther down on his wikipedia entry and see if he’s qualified to comment on the scientific method:

      He experimented with astral projection, aura viewing, and clairvoyance, coming to believe that these included real phenomena that scientists had too eagerly dismissed as paranormal.[12]

    • Everyone should read Michael Crichton’s State of Fear. While it is a novel, it is actually very well documented and footnoted on this subject.

  4. The issue isn’t Crichton and his sidelines into the paranormal. It’s the questionable models developed, data used, and conclusions drawn under the hand of one team or individual. Can you say “hockey stick?” Again, one need not be a climatologist to identify problems in methodology.

    • If you’re making Crichton your expert on the scientific method, then yes, his belief in paranormal phenomena is an issue.

      Beyond that, I have no idea what you are talking about. What is this “one team or individual”? That is not how science works.

  5. I originally read that quote in a book on statistics then found the original speech to congress. The author, a statistician, was using it as an example of how science can reach incorrect conclusions based on methodologies and statistics.

    The scientists observing the planets will not, of course, know which is which. I suppose it’s clear at this point that this isn’t possible, and it may be easy to think of other situations where scientists have to take the data that is given to them, where trials under carefully controlled conditions cannot be run and re-run.

    Right, but you can let other teams look at your data and validate your conclusions.

    Don, are you a scientist?

    • Yes. But not a climatologist.

      “Right, but you can let other teams look at your data and validate your conclusions. ”

      Where did you get the idea that this doesn’t happen? This is all peer-reviewed*. If you complain that the peer reviewers are also all climatologists, there is some theoretical problem of collusion, but you’re left with the real problem of needing a well-trained expert to review very complicated science (this isn’t unique to climatology).

      *unlike the computer-generated papers written for junk conference proceedings used by unethical and/or desperate scientists to boost their publication record for the benefit of tenure or promotion committees who aren’t paying attention. As best I can tell. (Which Dr. Clark linked to above.)

    • Don, I’m glad as a scientist you talk among us here. My wife stays home now, but she practiced geology for years before children, and there are many scientists in her family, and some in mine.

      Your name strikes me as familiar from GreenBaggins summer 2012.

      Grace and peace.

      This guy also seems interesting..

      http://geochristian.com

      For the record, I liked Dr. Duguid’s post here. Ive nothing to add re:climate science.

    • http://www-ce.stanford.edu/faculty/mccarty/

      For example, in my familky, this man is my great uncle. I see him at thanksgiving. My dad likes Rush Limbaugh. I told my dad to stop arguing with professor McCarty at txgiving. You can all imagine the scene.

      My wife has an aunt at Lawrence Livermore labs.

      (All) about me. Just FYI. I could ask Uncle McCarty about these things, or you can Google him and find his YouTube lectures.

  6. . In climate science, it’s permissible for raw data to be “touched,” or modified, by many hands. Gaps in temperature and proxy records are filled in. Suspect values are deleted because a scientist deems them erroneous. A researcher may elect to use parts of existing records, ignoring other parts. But the fact that the data has been modified in so many ways inevitably raises the question of whether the results of a given study are wholly or partially caused by the modifications themselves…

    Don, do you really not see the problem with this?

    • No, I can’t see any problems, or lack of problems, without context. The generalities in this quote are rather difficult to assess. Such things can happen–and have happened, even for Nobel prize-winning experiments–but this is far from actual evidence that researcher bias has led to faulty conclusions.

      Unfortunately the “raw data” does not consist of lists of temperature readings from well-calibrated thermometers at standardized locations around the globe for the past few thousand years. The raw data comes from sources such as tree rings or coral layers. Different “hands” are of course needed to derive historical temperature records from such raw data; other hands may be needed to reconcile such diverse records. If a given decade was known to have, say, abnormally high volcanic activity, then it might make sense to ignore data affected by such external (non-climate based) factors. Then other “hands” might be needed to sort out short-term weather cycles (e.g., El Nino/La Nina) from long-term climate change.

      So regarding the quote, one could ask how Crichton knows that all this “touching” of the raw data is going on. If that information comes from the scientists writing the various reports if they are clear on their methodology, including why some data might be problematic or need to be excluded, then that’s fair, that’s honest (even if the details are buried in something that nowadays is called the Supplemental Materials, usually only published online at the journal publisher’s website); another scientist could come along and examine whether those exclusions are justified. So if the methodologies are clear enough–clearly, this is a big if–then no, there’s no problem with that.

      • Don,

        In light of the disclosures of recent years about the hiding of evidence, the collusion, the changing of graphs, the openly selective use of evidence, Crichton’s methodological critique is dead on.

        This fellow, among many others, has lots of documentation of this sort of thing including jpegs of emails and the like.

        http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com

        As to Crichton’s other views, so what? How is that not ad hominem or ad verecundium and while I’m ad it (not that you claimed this) but the appeal to an alleged scientific consensus is ad baculum.

    • Dr. Clark,
      If Crichton is being presented as an expert in the scientific method, then his view that paranormal activities “include real phenomena” are indeed important.
      As an analogy in your field, if you were involved in a discussion about, say, exclusive psalmnody, would you give much weight to the arguments of someone who was LDS? Or would that person’s defective Christology (for starters!) cause any theological statements they make to be suspect?

      But regarding his methodological critique, “[A]ny study where a single team plans the research, carries it out, supervises the analysis, and writes their own final report, carries a very high risk of undetected bias.” It’s not clear to me from this quote whether Crichton understands that essentially all science works this way. Pharmaceuticals is different because of the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, and thus also available to set up and perform clinical trials in such a strict manner (not to mention the lives at stake). There is no, say, astrophysicist or inorganic chemist who inherits raw data and then hands analyzed data off to some other random research group to write up the report, as Crichton seems to advocate. Nevertheless there is always some risk of undetected bias. That in no way proves that a given work from a single research group is probably flawed; it merely underscores the importance of peer review and of reproducible experiments.

      So if you’re asking whether I’m saying that treating Crichton as a science expert is an ad verecrundium fallacy, an appeal to an irrelevant authority, then yeah, I suppose so.

  7. It is one thing to conclude from evidence that the paranormal exists (You only need to read a book like Peterson’s “Roaring Lion” to realize that). It is another to believe the explanations given by those enslaved by it (as Conan Doyle did), rather than those derivable from Scripture. Is Crichton like Conan Doyle, or is he a complete sceptic when it comes to explanations?

  8. Don, several times you stress the fact that Crichton isn’t a climatologist. My point isn’t about him. My point has been that you don’t have to be a climatologist (you’re an example) in order to comment intellegentally on the issues of methodology of global warming science. There are a large number of scientists of one discipline or another that question the validity of the methodology used to determine AGW data inclusion and the subsequent conclusions. It becomes evident as time goes on that the verdict is hardly in despite so-called consensus.

    • In the “one discipline or another” category, the skeptics are almost all “another.” A report from last year found that 97% of researchers active in climate studies agreed with the consensus on anthropogenic global warming (John Cook et al 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 024024). It has been said that there are no major scientific institutions or associations which reject anthropogenic global warming; I haven’t verified this but I know of no counterexamples. Scientist skeptics exist of course, but they are rather deeply in the minority. The reason it’s a so-called consensus is because it is a consensus.

      Now, I am not saying that methodologies cannot or should not be challenged. But I will say that the farther one is from being an expert in the field, the more difficult it is to productively criticize. That is, it’s one thing to be unhappy about the general issue of the amount of “data touching or modifying” that goes on. But to be specific, I could ask a question such as: Do you think the current practices for dealing with urban heat islands are appropriate? Or is their effect overstated? Now, is that a question that anyone can answer, or should it be primarily for the experts?

  9. The raw data comes from sources such as tree rings or coral layers. Different “hands” are of course needed to derive historical temperature records from such raw data; other hands may be needed to reconcile such diverse records. If a given decade was known to have, say, abnormally high volcanic activity, then it might make sense to ignore data affected by such external (non-climate based) factors. Then other “hands” might be needed to sort out short-term weather cycles (e.g., El Nino/La Nina) from long-term climate change

    Don,

    I’ve done modeling before. There’s no way modeling based on this sort of data is credible or predictive. The data itself isn’t even ‘raw’ as you put it, it’s derived or backed out from other phenomena that aren’t completely understood (coral growth, volcanic activity). As you mention, the lack of a data set based on calibrated, traceable measurements is hugely problematic. Perhaps in a 1000 years with such data in hand we can revisit the topic of long-term climate modeling.

  10. Interesting article at NRO today on so-called “settled science.”

    “There is a long tradition dating back to Galileo — and beyond, to Democritus — of scientific heresy suddenly becoming orthodoxy, as “settled” doctrines cannot stand the light of free discussion, critique, and investigation.

    “Despite the Western inductive method and freedom of expression, however, human nature remains tribal. Scientists, like everyone else, find comfort in what is familiar, orthodox, and shared by their peers. Often they have invested lives and careers in ensuring that status-quo theories become unquestioned. They can be deeply suspicious of what is not institutionalized, and on occasion wildly intolerant of the nonconventional…

    “I do not know whether there is such a thing as deleterious man-made global warming, but I do know that it has become the new orthodoxy to such a degree that its adherents are now trying to silence their critics and would make the grand inquisitors of the past proud. Recent examples include a campaign to censor a Washington Post column by Dr. Charles Krauthammer, a Los Angeles Times protocol of not publishing letters skeptical of global warming, and a lawsuit to discredit the brilliant satirist Mark Steyn, who, as humorists are wont to do, mocked a pompous proponent of global warming.”

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/372447/obamas-pseudo-scientism-victor-davis-hanson

  11. Now, I am not saying that methodologies cannot or should not be challenged. But I will say that the farther one is from being an expert in the field, the more difficult it is to productively criticize. That is, it’s one thing to be unhappy about the general issue of the amount of “data touching or modifying” that goes on. But to be specific, I could ask a question such as: Do you think the current practices for dealing with urban heat islands are appropriate? Or is their effect overstated? Now, is that a question that anyone can answer, or should it be primarily for the experts?

    Can’t anyone calculate the mean incident sunlight on a city and the amount of heat created due to rooftop absorbption? I wouldn’t think a climatologist would be qualified to answer questions about thermal properties of rooftop materials. This is the domain expertise of materials scientists and mechanical engineers (or roofers).

    Any engineer could come up with a plausible back-of-the-envelope model of urban heat sinking and a reasonable plan for what to do with it. Many scientists make discoveries in adjacent fields because they bring a fresh perspective to the current problems.

    By your own criteria though, neither you nor I are qualified to comment on climatology one-way or the other. I will take the action to write the author of my stats textbook and notify him of the uselessness of his criticism.

    • OK, so I didn’t give much context for my reference to heat islands, but my point is not whether they exist or if the base temperature rise can be calculated. The question is, what do you do if you have a weather station out in a relatively rural area, and then urban sprawl creeps toward it and over time it ends up influenced by a heat island? Should you take the measured temperatures at face value, which could artificially inflate the temperature readings at this station? Or should you simply abandon use of the data at that station, and lose the continuity of your measurements, making it impossible to find long-term trends? Or should you try to determine a way to make your data comparable across time, to account for the variations in the local environment? You seem to have already rejected the third option as Touching And Modifying The Data, without any detailed understanding of what the issues are or why the data might need touching or modifying.

      You are correct, neither you nor I are qualified to peer-review climatology research. For less formal venues, if your modeling experience made use of supercomputers or if you have examined a few papers on climate modeling that have been published in the scientific literature, then your comments could be helpful. But if you commentary is at the level of “Modeling is hard and climate is complex, so modeling the climate must be impossible for the next thousand years,” then perhaps your comments may deserve less weight.
      Without knowing how the textbook evaluates the Crichton quote, I wouldn’t know whether to recommend writing the author.

  12. Here’s some more food for thought on the current state of scientific research. I leave the implications on scientific consensus as an exercise for the reader.

  13. You seem to have already rejected the third option as Touching And Modifying The Data, without any detailed understanding of what the issues are or why the data might need touching or modifying

    You don’t “touch or modify” data at all. Data is data. When you start adjusting it based on local urban sprawl, it’s no longer data but a model of temperature adjustment due to local urban sprawl with x, y, and z parameters and some uncertainty. If output of this model is used as an input to a larger model of global temperature change, the input is not “data” but “an intermediate calculation of the model.” You can fit and elephant and make him wiggle his trunk in such a model.

    Again, temperature ‘data’ based on coral growth observations is not ‘data’ at all, but an output of a model that derives temperature from coral growth and other input data.

    Data is what you get from a calibrated instrument like a thermometer. Hopefully, these measurement stations are all calibrated and traceable.

    • Your minimalist definition of “data” does not really conform to scientific practice. It may work as a definition of “raw data.” But there is nothing intrinsically better about raw data. All data is interpreted. Regardless of whether the input to a model is raw data or processed data, you still need to understand how to use that data in the analysis.

      Do you have any specific issues with the methodologies in using coral observations to derive historical temperature records?

  14. “James Q. Wilson used to like to tell social scientists, “Stop trying to predict the future; you can’t even predict the past!”…”

    “But The Economist notes this week (“Who Pressed the Pause Button?”) that the frantic attempts to explain the current 15 year “pause” in global warming climate change look to have overexplained it. And if you’ve overexplained something, your grasp of the matter is probably defective.”

    [A]ttempts to explain away that stable average have not been convincing, partly because of the conflict between flat temperatures and rising CO2 emissions, and partly because observed temperatures are now falling outside the range climate models predict. The models embody the state of climate knowledge. If they are wrong, the knowledge is probably faulty, too. Hence attempts to explain the pause. . .

    Analysis snippet by Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger of Cato Institute:

    [C]limate models have consistently overestimated the amount of warming that has taken place. In fact, they are so bad, that over the course of the past 25 years (and even at some lengths as long as 35 years) the observed trend falls outside of the range which includes 95 percent of all model runs. In statistical parlance, this situation means that the observed trend cannot be reliably considered to be part of the collection of modeled trends. In other words, the real world is not accurately captured by the climate models—the models predict that the world should warm up much faster than it actually does.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/03/latest-news-on-the-climate-change-collapse.php

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