And another thing…
Posted by Jeffrey EllisDec 7
I promise this will be my last post on global warming or Climategate for a while. (But it’s my blog, and I get to define what a “while” is.)
On his Neurologica Blog, Steven Novella posted one of the best editorials on the Climategate fiasco that I’ve read yet. I just had to share:
If early indications are representative, then it seems that the scientists are guilty of some poor judgment, poorly chosen words, and not dealing well with the pressures of being at the center of a scientific controversy. But even this moderate conclusion is tentative, and must wait for the results of a thorough investigation.
For global warming dissidents I recommend that you put your rhetoric in check. The witch-hunt frenzy so far in evidence cannot possibly serve you well. If it turns out there was real fraud at the CRU, you will still be criticized for being prematurely shrill and you will lose credibility. Also, the more extravagant your condemnations, the more likely it is that the reality will not be as bad as you are stating – and therefore even if some indiscretions come to light, you will have actually softened the blow because they will not be as bad as the worst hysterical claims. And of course, if it comes to light that no real fraud occurred, the credibility of AGW dissidents will have been dealt a severe blow.
If, on the other hand, you take a cautious and, dare I say, skeptical approach – say that the e-mails are evidence of a troubling attitude at the CRU and deserve full independent investigation, but show restraint in making premature accusations, then you can only win. If the CRU is cleared, you will be praised for your restraint and objectivity. And if any degree of malfeasance comes to light, you can portion your condemnation to the evidence, and will have gained a serious upper hand in the AGW debate. You will be taken seriously the next time you call AGW predictions into question.
I give props to Dr. Novella for using the word “dissidents” rather than the perjorative “deniers” (although global warming “skeptics” would have been best). I also recognize the wisdom in what Dr. N is suggesting — that the global warming skeptics not be too quick in claiming the released emails and files constitute a “smoking gun” of some kind.
In my first post on Climategate, I left open the possibility that innocent explanations could surface for many of the troubling issues raised by the leaked emails and files. I would like to reiterate that possibility again, lest anyone think I’ve been coming down too far on the hard-core skeptic end of the spectrum. It does appear that the email mentioning the “nature trick” to “hide the decline” may be more innocuous than originally thought, although some fair scientific criticisms have been raised (see, e.g., here).
But I would also like to apply Dr. Novella’s cautions to the other side of the debate. Just as there have been many global warming skeptics too quick to shout “nail in the coffin of AGW!”, so have there been many climate science defenders too quick to claim “nothing to see here, move along.” I suspect that in the final analysis we will see the truth lying somewhere between the two extreme ends of this issue, and there will be folks on both sides of the debate wishing they had held their rhetoric in check, as Dr. N suggests they do.
One comment
Comment by Jim on December 13, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Mr. Novella is partly correct and mostly way off base. He is correct in that mass objections tend to be alarmist and a little off center in hitting the nail on the head. It’s a law of large numbers. The French Revolution undoubtedly ended up cutting off innocent heads.
That does not mean that AGW and its demonstrated corruption of science, whether AGW is proven essentially correct or not, is not the story of the 21st century. That ‘rational’ people, especially in the media, do not acknowledge that, is absurd. The reason is simple; it proposes to change the way we live, and the way we think of ourselves within society. That’s a big thing.
But the approach has always neglected the scientific method. The data is never made public. The questions by skeptics: temperature location bias, city bias, causality, temperature readings, Middle Age warming period, physics definition of greenhouse effect, the inherent inability of regressions or any model, to describe a complex system, etc. HAVE NEVER BEEN PUBLICALLY ANSWERED. On the contrary, when data does leak, as in the latest hack of the IPCC, skeptics see obfuscation or downright meddling (Brifa has 12 trees).
Then, contrary to all scientific method, not one AGW model has met the bar of random chance in predicting climate. In fact, as governments lay in more sophisticated measurement devices, like the ocean temperature system, they tend to confirm skeptic thought.
So yes, the email hack is a huge deal. Because it is a tip of the iceberg thing (no pun intended). It is finally time for AGW to come completely clean with data and models, and allow statisticians and scientists to have a go at them. Before we do anything to our economies (which is already too late, since we are diverting corn from hungry mouths to destroy our engines).
No one believed Einstein’s theories until he convinced the operator of a small telescope to capture an eclipse. Even then, the community didn’t applaud it until they had replicated the experiments. We have had none of that in AGW. NONE. We can’t even get access to the models. It is the scientific equivalent of having Einstein tell us, “By the way, Energy bends space time. Trust me. I can’t tell you how I know, but I do.” And every time we glimpse his work, he’s screwing with the data.