Science

[inked]

And a lovely scientific explanation for the coming ice age in 1974. It must be true because it was in TIME magazine and was all the rage amongst the scientists!

http://www.junkscience.com/mar06/Tim...June241974.pdf

Do enjoy!

[Mari]

Originally Posted by inked

It must be true because it was in TIME magazine and was all the rage amongst the scientists!

Do I sense a eensy weensy bit of sarcasm there?

[inked]

Possibly a galaxy load of dark matter's worth, Mari!

Here's an interesting op-ed piece on the necessity of heresy in science, which I think would have been better put as "challenging the paradigm" but given the reaction one gets to challenging the paradigm here, perhaps heresy isn't off by that much .

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contrib...9.39c488d.html

[Earniel]

Why Inked, it all depends on how you challenge what paradigm.

[inked]

Correct. Here is the current paradigm which needs to be challenged as outlined in the LA TIMES op-ed page...

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,4443965.story

After reading this hysterical piece side by side with the 1974 TIME hysterical rant, I feel balanced and harmonious and deeply, deeply exercised by that most heathful of all exercises
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.laughter.

[The Gaffer]

For those unfamiliar with Kuhn, a paradigm is a framework for a scientific discipline. A paradigm denotes the investigations, methods and theoretical assumptions that underpin the ongoing work in a science.

This doesn't mean that everyone has to agree with each other, however. What it means is that areas of uncertainty can be explored using agreed methods. As data is accumulated, these areas are usually agreed upon and new areas of uncertainty are explored. For example, we move on from the question of "is the atmospheric CO2 increasing?" to "is this increase caused by man?"; from "does increased CO2 lead to climate change?" to "will this increase in CO2 cause climate change".

This is called "normal science".

What we have from the climate change sceptics is not science, nor is it a challenge to the prevailing paradigm. They present no new evidence nor any new credible methods for investigation. They simply recycle the same old arguments which have been disproven by the data. Saying that people in the 70s thought we were going into an ice age proves nothing, even if it was true (which it isn't). They are also dishonest: the volcanoes myth is a good example of a manifestly false assertion being accepted as fact.

So, what we have is "normal science" being done by climate scientists, and propaganda being done by those with a vested interest in keeping the status quo, and their cheerleaders.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

For those unfamiliar with Kuhn, a paradigm is a framework for a scientific discipline. A paradigm denotes the investigations, methods and theoretical assumptions that underpin the ongoing work in a science.

This doesn't mean that everyone has to agree with each other, however. What it means is that areas of uncertainty can be explored using agreed methods. As data is accumulated, these areas are usually agreed upon and new areas of uncertainty are explored. For example, we move on from the question of "is the atmospheric CO2 increasing?" to "is this increase caused by man?"; from "does increased CO2 lead to climate change?" to "will this increase in CO2 cause climate change".

This is called "normal science".

What we have from the climate change sceptics is not science, nor is it a challenge to the prevailing paradigm. They present no new evidence nor any new credible methods for investigation. They simply recycle the same old arguments which have been disproven by the data. Saying that people in the 70s thought we were going into an ice age proves nothing, even if it was true (which it isn't). They are also dishonest: the volcanoes myth is a good example of a manifestly false assertion being accepted as fact.

So, what we have is "normal science" being done by climate scientists, and propaganda being done by those with a vested interest in keeping the status quo, and their cheerleaders.

A superb post

[The Gaffer]

Shucks, thanks CH.

[GrayMouser]

Originally Posted by inked

Possibly a galaxy load of dark matter's worth, Mari!

Here's an interesting op-ed piece on the necessity of heresy in science, which I think would have been better put as "challenging the paradigm" but given the reaction one gets to challenging the paradigm here, perhaps heresy isn't off by that much .

http://www.projo.com/opinion/contrib...9.39c488d.html

To which the standard reply is, they laughed at Galileo- but not every clown is Galileo.

Of course we need heresies in science. In spite of the attempts of those who would impose their anti-scientific beliefs (creationism, anti-global warming, "condoms don't stop AIDS") through political and economic power, constant examination of new evidence tends toward a closer approximation to truth- as defined pragmatically, of course.

[Insidious Rex]

U.S. Experts Bemoan Nation's Loss of Stature in the World of Science

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post

NEW YORK, May 28 -- Some of the nation's leading scientists, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's top science adviser, today sharply criticized the diminished role of science in the United States and the shortage of federal funding for research, even as science becomes increasingly important to combating problems such as climate change and the global food shortage.

Speaking at a science summit that opens this week's first World Science Festival, the expert panel of scientists, and audience members, agreed that the United States is losing stature because of a perceived high-level disdain for science. They cited U.S. officials and others questioning scientific evidence of climate change, the reluctance to federally fund stem cell research, and some U.S. officials casting doubt on evolution as examples that have damaged America's international standing.

"I think there's a loss of American power and prestige that came about as a result of our anti-science policies," said David Baltimore, a biologist and Nobel laureate and board chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Raising questions about the science of evolution, he said, "leads to a certain disdain for American intelligence." He added, "What we need is leadership that respects science."

The panelists also expressed concern that science funding has not been a major issue for any of the presidential candidates. "The campaign so far has given too little attention to what science means for our own economy and our status in the world," said Harold Varmus, a Nobel laureate and president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Nina Fedoroff, a plant molecular biologist who is Rice's science and technology adviser, said science in the United States "has really kind of died over a quarter of a century, even as the importance of science has grown."

Although the United States has long been the recognized global leader in science, Fedoroff said, that position is now being challenged by others, specifically China, which is raising its global profile. "They're educating 10 times as many students as we are," she said. "The next generation of scientists in other countries might not speak English."

Speaking about the global food crisis that has sparked unrest in some countries, Fedoroff said that genetically modified crops are one answer to shortages. But she said that "persistent misperceptions," particularly in Europe, about genetically modified foods has led to their underuse and even their prohibition as food aid in needy countries.

She and the other panelists said one impediment to wider use of genetically modified crops is suspicion of American motives. "We're in a delicate position," she said. "If we push biotech too much, it looks like . . . we're trying to protect our own economic interests."

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg opened today's science summit echoing many of the same themes. Bloomberg bemoaned a tendency toward "political science," which he called "the willingness to disregard or suppress scientific findings when they don't confirm to a predetermined political agenda."

Yet another sad fall out from 8 years of Bush at the helm. Will we ever be held with the same respect in scientific fields anymore? Or has the world moved on, flabbergasted by senior administration officials who outright pan global warming, refuse to consider stem cell research, insist on abstinence only sex education and who even seriously raise doubts regarding evolution…

[inked]

You have a bad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. The reason for bad science in the USA is the dumbing down of education to appease the masses appeal to fairness. And this specific complaint has been going on since the Sputnik bit, which means for 50 + years. In fact, I've heard this little violin solo so many times I can play it with two fingers.

On the other hand, Al Gore has got rhythm and a Nobel Prize, so I guess only Democrats "get" science, eh? By the by, the list of Democratic Presidents responsible for this outcome in my living memory would be Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Clinton I and II. Please note that the Democrats have controlled educational finances and "fairness" for more of the 20th Century than the Republicans, ergo, they are most responsible for this claim, aren't they? Or is it just a global warming side-effect to blame all the evil in the world on the Great Satan, George?

Wait, I heard that on Iranian peace broadcasts, didn't I? or was it the BBC?

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

I agree with you, Inked, that the damage to science education has been a long time coming, and under all kinds of administrations.

But the Bush administration has been almost without peer in their willingness to let political imperatives control science policy as well as education policy. The whole business around the Schiavo case is really typical.

Those folk are mean and petty.

[Insidious Rex]

Absolutely. Its not so much about the funding of science in primary education (an almost separate topic in my opinion) as it is the overt almost anti-science approach the Bush administration has taken across the board. Has science truly become the “enemy” of conservatives? Correct my memory but I don’t recall Bush Sr. and even Reagan’s administration being so pugnacious and directly anti-science. And frankly I think it’s a big mistake, not just for the country and the scientific community at large, but for conservatives in specific. I don’t think being known as the party of science bashers is a useful thing in the long run. It may help in a school board election in Kansas but on a national scale Im thinking most people don’t want the government rejecting all aspects of science based solely on political agenda considerations.

And how we are viewed in the world (among scientists in other countries) has greatly changed since 2000. Not to mention the attraction of high level international science students and workers to American schools and companies has dropped significantly (although granted some of that is due to the fall out after 9/11).

[MrBishop]

Originally Posted by The Gaffer

For those unfamiliar with Kuhn, a paradigm is a framework for a scientific discipline. A paradigm denotes the investigations, methods and theoretical assumptions that underpin the ongoing work in a science.

This doesn't mean that everyone has to agree with each other, however. What it means is that areas of uncertainty can be explored using agreed methods. As data is accumulated, these areas are usually agreed upon and new areas of uncertainty are explored. For example, we move on from the question of "is the atmospheric CO2 increasing?" to "is this increase caused by man?"; from "does increased CO2 lead to climate change?" to "will this increase in CO2 cause climate change".

This is called "normal science".

What we have from the climate change sceptics is not science, nor is it a challenge to the prevailing paradigm. They present no new evidence nor any new credible methods for investigation. They simply recycle the same old arguments which have been disproven by the data. Saying that people in the 70s thought we were going into an ice age proves nothing, even if it was true (which it isn't). They are also dishonest: the volcanoes myth is a good example of a manifestly false assertion being accepted as fact.

So, what we have is "normal science" being done by climate scientists, and propaganda being done by those with a vested interest in keeping the status quo, and their cheerleaders.

Funny... those who are sceptical of the 'science' of Climate-change pundits are being silenced, degraded, denounced and derided...while those on the climate-change bandwagon are having honours AND money thrown at them.

How odd.

Most scientists who are labelled as "deniers" for their views on global warming don't embrace this role. They cringe at the thought of disagreeing with colleagues who think that the science is settled, they do their best to avoid making waves, and they fear being marginalized as cranks who disagree with the scientific consensus. Dr. Richard Lindzen is an exception.

Dr. Lindzen is one of the original deniers -- among the first to criticize the scientific bureaucracy, and scientists themselves, for claims about global warming that he views as unfounded and alarmist. While he does not welcome the role he's acquired, he also does not shrink from it. Dr. Lindzen takes his protests about the abuse of science to the public, to the press, and to government.


His detractors can't dismiss him as a crank from the fringe, however, much as they might wish. Dr. Lindzen is a critic from within, one of the most distinguished climate scientists in the world: a past professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a lead author in a landmark report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the very organization that established global warming as an issue of paramount importance.

Dr. Lindzen is proud of his contribution, and that of his colleagues, to the IPCC chapter they worked on. His pride in this work matches his dismay at seeing it misrepresented. "[Almost all reading and coverage of the IPCC is restricted to the highly publicized Summaries for Policymakers which are written by representatives from governments, NGOs and business; the full reports, written by participating scientists, are largely ignored," he told the United States Senate committee on environment and public works in 2001. These unscientific summaries, often written to further political or business agendas, then become the basis of public understanding.

As an example, Dr. Lindzen provided the committee with the summary that was created for Chapter 7, which he worked on. "Understanding of climate processes and their incorporation in climate models have improved, including water vapour, sea-ice dynamics, and ocean heat transport," the summary stated, creating the impression that the climate models were reliable. The actual report by the scientists indicated just the opposite. Dr. Lindzen testified that the scientists had "found numerous problems with model treatments -- including those of clouds and water vapor."

When the IPCC was stung by criticism that the summaries were being written with little or no input by the scientists themselves, the IPCC had a subset of the scientists review a subsequent draft summary -- an improvement in the process. Except that the final version, when later released at a Shanghai press conference, had surprising changes to the draft that scientists had seen.

The version that emerged from Shanghai concludes, "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations." Yet the draft was rife with qualifiers making it clear the science was very much in doubt because "the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties in estimates of internal variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing."

The summaries' distortion of the IPCC chapters compounds another distortion that occurred in the very writing of the scientific chapters themselves. Dr. Lindzen's description of the conditions under which the climate scientists worked conjures up a scene worthy of a totalitarian state: "throughout the drafting sessions, IPCC 'coordinators' would go around insisting that criticism of models be toned down, and that 'motherhood' statements be inserted to the effect that models might still be correct despite the cited faults. Refusals were occasionally met with ad hominem attacks. I personally witnessed coauthors forced to assert their 'green' credentials in defense of their statements."

To better understand the issue of climate change, including the controversies over the IPCC summary documents, the White House asked the National Academy of Sciences, the country's premier scientific organization, to assemble a panel on climate change. The 11 members of the panel, which included Richard Lindzen, concluded that the science is far from settled: "Because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward)."

The press's spin on the NAS report? CNN, in language typical of other reportage, stated that it represented "a unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and is due to man. There is no wiggle room."

Despite such obtuseness Lindzen fights on, defending the science at what is undoubtedly a very considerable personal cost. Those who toe the party line are publicly praised and have grants ladled out to them from a funding pot that overflows with US$1.7-billion per year in the U.S. alone. As Lindzen wrote earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal, "there is a more sinister side to this feeding frenzy. Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or worse. Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science that supposedly is their basis."

http://www.nationalpost.com/story.ht...de085af353&k=0

[Earniel]

I wonder, being non-American, if the closing of the Office of Technology Assessment (now a good decade ago) has attributed to the current 'anti-science' climate? I believe they were instrumental in providing scientific advice in such matters to Congress.

[The Gaffer]

Bish, I'm going to pull out just the quotes from this Lindzen person from that article you posted that are about the science:

"Understanding of climate processes and their incorporation in climate models have improved, including water vapour, sea-ice dynamics, and ocean heat transport," the summary stated, creating the impression that the climate models were reliable. The actual report by the scientists indicated just the opposite. Dr. Lindzen testified that the scientists had "found numerous problems with model treatments -- including those of clouds and water vapor."

Improved is not the opposite of imperfect. Both of those statements are probably true. As you know, models are just models and therefore highly imperfect. I have never seen anyone argue otherwise.

the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties in estimates of internal variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing.

Of course, this kind of science is inherently uncertain. It's hardly surprising that the PR department wanted to reduce the use of qualifiers, given how rabidly the vast denial industry has pounced on them. "Oh, you're 90% certain? So you're not sure?? HEY EVERYBODY, THEY'RE NOT SURE. etc"

current estimates of the magnitude of future warming should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward)

Yes.... this is precisely what has been happening... and...?

Seriously, there is nothing new here, they've just spun it together with a load of anti climate change statements of their own. Does Lindzen deny climate change? Does he think that we are not affecting it?

And while we're on the funding issue, if people are getting money to do research on climate change, then that's a good thing. Public money is open to public scrutiny, which is more than can be said for the corporate moolah that lubricates these denial lobbyists.

[The Gaffer]

Evidence of political interference in NASA to water down the climate change message:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...fclimatechange

[Insidious Rex]

Classic. What a bunch of scum bags.

[inked]

OOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh, don't forget the evil New Zealander scientists:

http://nzclimatescience.net/images/P...ndscience3.pdf

or

http://nzclimatescience.net/index.ph...d=56&Itemid=35

or

http://nzclimatescience.net/.

Why anyone could forget that the first major proponent of the warming hypothesis advocated shall we say "variable reliability" in spreading the word:

“We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
--Stephen Schneider Discover magazine, Oct 1989


To which, I should reply -scientifically, of course-
"Classic. What a bunch of scumbags." But I would mean the hypologists for global warming as a means of social engineering on international scales and would therefore be wrong, right?

[The Gaffer]

Lest we forget, Bush and his oil industry cronies had the head of the IPCC sacked and replaced with their man:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002....climatechange

Perhaps not surprisingly, it seems that the IPCC has subsequently been overly conservative in its estimates of the impact of climate change:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6179409.stm

Here we have evidence of interference, and evidence of a watered down message. Criminally negligent at best.