Of course I wasn’t serious! Andrew Wakefield is a disgraced and dangerous clown. My cousin’s daughter is an anti-vax loon.
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btw folks, in the case of so-called “climategate,” the stolen emails were taken out of context. It’s similar to the way that creationists take scientific articles out of context.
Hi Eddie -
Welcome to the club, Eddie. We have a lot of fun making up fictions from our imaginations. However, we need a little more zest and a little less rancor in our meetings. Would you like to run for president of the “Zero Qualifications in Climate Science Club”? We have an opening.
This is rich, Eddie. You say you have spent enormous amounts of time researching the opinions and situations of climate science skeptics like Curry. But you have neither the time nor the inclination to look at the other side’s perspective.
Secondly, you have implicitly conceded that you have no basis for disputing my point: those who disagree with the consensus judgment in their field often complain, without merit, of “stifling orthodoxy.” I will bear that in mind.
Finally, you continue to ignore the testimony of Andreas Muenchow, who dissented from the consensus in 2010 yet managed to retain his academic appointment, to continue publishing, and to secure more funding for research. You want me to be convinced by your anecdotes, but you dismiss my anecdotes. Fair enough…
Of course that’s true. Your reliance on the testimony of a tiny minority of participants doesn’t sound like an improvement, though.
Here’s my bottom line:
(1) I agree with Curry that the climate science community needs to do a better job of acknowledging modeling uncertainties.
(2) At the same time, there are no walls around the data on which the consensus models are built. They are freely available to the general public. If you wished, Eddie, you yourself could build your own mathematical model, run it on a computing cluster, and report your results. As long as this is true, there is room for dissenting climate scientists like Muenchow (or Curry, if she wishes) to do the scientific work necessary to challenging the consensus. That’s how the scientific process is supposed to work. And that’s where I hang my hat.
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Hi Eddie -
I would be very impressed if your friend were to use his knowledge to take the freely available data, build a better model, and report the results.
Godspeed,
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This has been done, Eddie – or at least done to the extent that can be reasonably expected in a world where there is no such thing as complete certainty. You seem to be charging the consensus-accepters as having first declared “We won’t trust them because of their suspect bias” before then going out to do the science or see what the science says. But in fact it strongly appears that they first went and saw what the science says, and only then set about wondering why some people insist on denying what the science says … (enter the plausible speculations about corporate self-interest).
My source (whose name I couldn’t remember) was one of the speakers in the excellent Edx course, “Making Sense of Climate Science Denial” here from the University of Queensland. I call such a course (free by the way) excellent, not because it tries to show some misplaced sense of balance. It just presents the science and all the good, sound scientific reasons why the overwhelming majority of scientists accept our role in climate change as being so-well established. It is very one-sided; (the truth often is). Now … if the deniers had a similar regimen of courses that would systematically debunk most (or even just part!) of that science and explain why none of us should be thinking that way --I’ll sign up with great interest! But instead what I get from the other side is just the very things that you’ve accused the accepters of. We hear of alleged conspiracy, suppression, suspect motivations, gravy-trains etc. We don’t get reasoned arguments for why we should reject the consensus, except for some sniping at any perceived weakness in some specific study that supports the consensus. Such criticism is indeed needed, and is an indispensable part of science. But unless it stands unanswered and grows its support for a good counter-theory, it will not suffice to topple a very well-established approach. So far the accepters have quite a body of supporting knowledge on offer, while the detractors seem to have … emails to attempt to discredit supporters, and all manner of doubt-seeding.
So I still maintain my comparison is not so unfair as you suggest. “There is absolutely no demonstrated [cough, cough, wheeeze] connection between my company’s tobacco product and [cough, cough, hack … wheeze] lung cancer.”
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There is much to agree with here. First – at your insistence I read your links to J.Curry’s resignation letter and the article about her (thanks – I had never known of her before). Just from this short exposure to her, I see much to admire in terms of her wish for a less screedal atmosphere in academia or that science should be seen more as a process than a collection of truths. To the extent that I’m in a position to evaluate somebody much higher (at least formerly) up academic towers than I have been, I see much to respect about her apparent attitudes. Something she did say that challenges me (since it flies in the face of my earlier expression about corporate insanity) is as follows:
Curry wrote:
At this point, the private sector seems like a more ‘honest’ place for a scientist working in a politicized field than universities or government labs — at least when you are your own boss.
I think I would still maintain almost 180 degree disagreement with her here were it not for her (almost after-thought) qualification at the end. But again, since she has had her feet more deeply into both of those worlds than I have, it gives me occasion for good reflection. My response would be that of course there is no such thing as “the perfect” environment for detached pursuit of truth. And politicization must necessarily intrude into scientific pursuit of such an important topic no matter what arena it is pursued in – especially arenas that involve the production or consumption of substantial funding. And in deciding who or which side is generally more corruptible, I would say it will be the one that has the deeper financial stake in the matter. And as deep as that funding stake runs in academia (about which Curry seems to have her good reasons for sounding the alarm), I still think that stake runs deeper yet in the private sector (especially the large fossil fuel interests). If academic consensus proves to be wrong on this, it is egg on a lot of faces, maybe a few careers ruined or derailed, but academia goes on learning and studying other things. But coal or oil companies are fighting for their very existence (at least in their present form – they are wise to the extent that they diversify themselves into promoting solar, wind, or other cleaner energy alternatives). So who is going to fight harder to suppress an inconvenient truth? With respect to Dr. Curry, I still think the private sector is the most likely to promote falsehood and propagandized doubt. The scientist has human pride and career self-interest on the line, to be sure, but so does the corporate CEO. But the CEO also has a legal responsibility to prioritize stockholder interest above all other interests. If an Exec benevolently places vague future generations or environmental interest above immediate revenue concerns, she or he will soon be looking for another job (or more likely retiring underneath their golden parachute). Whereas the academic at least has much loftier codes of conduct to which to aspire to help counter personal vendettas. Both sides will suffer and fail in these moral contests, but the private side has more motivational pressure stacked against it.
All that said, it is good to hear much-needed criticism of ivory-tower academic practice to help push back against non-professional, and non-scientific practices that happen there too. Thanks for sharing some of her story.
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She disputes the consensus on anthropogenic global warming, and repeatedly claims that the science is uncertain and not settled. But the science is certain and has been settled for a very long time. As Chris pointed out, she is simply voicing the same cry as other proponents of fringe science or pseudoscience.
Why should we accept Curry’s personal claim that climate science is a scientific discipline which is being throttled by dogmatic adherence to orthodoxy as opposed to commitment to actual scientific facts? Where is the evidence for this claim? As Chris has pointed out, this is the same claim made by people who make fringe claims about vaccination (such as Andrew Wakefield), and people who make fringe claims about the speed of light (like Jason Lisle), or who claim the sun orbits the earth (like Gerardus Bouw and Robert Sungenis).
Why should we accept Curry’s claims about climate science? On what basis should we accept them? Where is the actual evidence, and where is the science?
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I know all about your nutty Suzan Mazur. The fact that your are furious that I haven’t read her book is extremely disturbing.
I have read “Nonsense on Stilts: How to tell Science from Bunk” by Massimo Pigliucci, professor of philosophy at CUNY. He had the misfortune to agree to meet with Mazur so she could write a science article. She ignored almost everything he said over an hour-long conversation and concentrated on the last 5 minutes of it. He mentioned his upcoming conference in Altenberg and she blew it up out of proportion. She described it as the “Woodstock of Evolution.” Where did she get that idea? “From the fertile imagination of Mazur,” Pigliucci explains. When he confronted her about this, her behavior and writing became more bizarre and she started attacking him. He describes her long article as a “hopelessly confused hodgepodge of actual science, badly misunderstood science, philosophy (good and bad) and crackpotism.” You’ll have to read “Nonsense on Stilts” to get the full picture, as I don’t have time to explain even half of it. (In the book, Pigliucci also covers other science/pseudo-science topics.)
So why should we care about what Massimo Pigliucci thinks? Well, he’s the one who organized Eddie’s Altenberg conference, which Eddie has preached until the cows come home!
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I found on YouTube a partial, kind of blurry version of the documentary film Merchants of Doubt. I hope it will encourage you to buy or borrow the actual film.
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What bunk. I’ve pointed out that I’ve seen the funny guys Behe and Dembski in a debate at the American Museum of Natural History and have read the entire Kitzmiller trial transcript. I assume Behe was explaining what he actually believes since he was under oath.
I’ve also read the book that Phillip Johnson and Denis Lamoureux wrote together.
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Those are good questions, Jonathan – and that is why I would love to see any such answers brought into the lay (but educated) public awareness with the same careful thoughtfulness and science and not just a message of “we should doubt these people’s expertise or results because of this or that foul play.” Not having seen that yet, I’m solidly with consensus and don’t see that changing any time soon. And Eddie has repeatedly said he isn’t disputing all that either. What I read of Curry indicates she isn’t a denier, but (as Eddie stated) more wanting to challenge things that aren’t beyond dispute, which would be the exact extent or timetables of climate change, how big a portion of it is anthropogenic, and of course (most fuzzy yet) – what kinds of policies we can or should apply to mitigate impact. Those who capitalize on the very real fuzziness of those frontier edges to advocate for a B.A.U. approach are irresponsible – (the “Merchants of Doubt”). Their agenda should be rejected, and to the extent that Eddie’s (or Curry’s) views participate in that – I don’t share in it and oppose it. But those who want to bring more clarity and study to sharpen up those fuzzy edges --who really want truth – they should be free from bullying either way. That spirit I (and I suppose all of us here) support. It seems to me that everything Eddie has said anything here is in support of that latter spirit and not the former (though so easily mistaken for the former). Purveyors of unreasonable doubt will sometimes imagine they have a temporary alliance with honest inquirers who are just giving realistic assessments of existing uncertainties (not uncertainty about whether it is happening, mind you, but very real uncertainty as to quantified extent and such). It is unfortunate that the real inquirers then get lumped in with the propagandists. I’m with Eddie that the propagandists (from both sides) just need to be ushered out of the room while the real scientists do real work, regardless of which side happens to be pleased with any current results. To think otherwise only backfires on well-meaning anti-propagandists (like so many of us here) by adding fuel to the fires of conspiracy theorists.
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She is actually trying to challenge things which are beyond dispute. For example, as I have demonstrated repeatedly, the scientific consensus (we’re talking about 97% agreement), is that human activity is the dominant cause of recent climate change. Curry challenges this. Here are her words.
“Recent data and research supports the importance of natural climate variability and calls into question the conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change:
- The hiatus in global warming since 1998
- Reduced estimates of the sensitivity of climate to carbon dioxide
- Climate models predict much more warming than has been observed in the early 21st century”)
Source. Note that she talks about a “hiatus in global warming since 1988”, when in fact there was no such hiatus. She claims the IPCC consensus on climate change is “manufactured”.
The manufactured consensus of the IPCC has had the unintended consequences of distorting the science, elevating the voices of scientists that dispute the consensus, and motivating actions by the consensus scientists and their supporters that have diminished the public’s trust in the IPCC.
Source. She says the UNFCCCs definition of climate change arguably qualifies as a hoax.
The UNFCCC definition of ‘climate change’ arguably qualifies as a hoax.
Source. She repeatedly and consistently attempts to cast doubt on AGW. Her views are fringe because they are bad science. She rants against “orthodoxy” and “dogmatism” because the overwhelming majority of qualified professionals in the relevant fields do not agree with her. She also acknowledges that some of her income comes from the fossil fuels industry, but claims this does not influence her views on climate change.
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Hey pal, I’m not a graduate student doing a dissertation on ID and you aren’t my supervisor. (Thank God for both of these facts.) Who would do a dissertation on ID, anyway? I’d be happy to read any research on positive evidence for ID published in peer-reviewed journal. Oh, I see.
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