Science, dissent, polarization and ideology

Judith Curry has followed up her post about a positive feedback between politics and science, with which I strongly disagreed, with a number of other posts trying to explain where she’s coming from.  The latest, “no ideologues, part III”, makes a lot more sense than her previous “dogma” posts, and sounds a lot less adversarial. This post is based on my comments over at her blog (here and here).

Her thesis is that climate scientists, the UNFCCC and the IPCC seem to adhere to a certain political ideology. In the case of the IPCC that seems a bit of an absurd notion, but in the case of individuals it seems almost self evident that everybody has some sort of political ideology. She writes:

It is fine for people (and scientists) have political ideologies.  The problem comes in when you use politics to defend your science, and you use science to demand policies. This whole thing seems to me to boil down to the traditional clash of values between the greens and the libertarians.

So does this make more sense?  I think a fairly large number of scientists will sign up to believing this ideology, but few will want to be regarded as ideologues.  Are we getting closer her to clarifying this?  I think so (hope so).

I am wondering to what extent her critique would be better described as the overly defensive attitude and ‘circling of the wagons’ strategy of many mainstream scientists and perhaps the community as a whole. She has described it as such before, and to a certain degree I agree.

She gives Michael Mann (who else?) as an example of voicing a political ideology that exemplifies that of the wider community/UNFCCC/IPCC. The headings she provides above citations from Mann give a certain twist to his words though, and provide more fodder to the label ‘political ideology’. Which may give the appearance of wanting to put his words in a certain light. (perhaps for ideological reasons? – just kidding)

E.g. In #2 on the list Mann talks about what can still be done, whereas in her heading Judith characterizes it as what needs to be done.  #5 has a large disconnect between her heading (action is needed) and Mann’s retelling of historical environmental threats.

She is right though that overall, Mann’s words as quoted are not purely in the realm of science, but nor are they intended to I think. It would be helpful if scientists are more clear as to when they’re talking about science and when they’re talking about something else (their personal opinion about the public debate, politics, ethics, etc). Hansen and the late Schneider are good examples of that IMO. Some may respond that those differences are very obvious already: Why spell them out. Which has (more than) a nucleus of truth as well of course.

I wrote about distinguishing these kinds of issues in a conversation I had with Tom Fuller a while ago, about what the next generation questions regarding climate change are:

Let’s distinguish the following main issues:

– To what extent is climate change occurring, and to what extent is it man-made?

– To what extent is that (going to be) a problem?

– What can or should we do about it?

The first questions are strictly scientific; the middle has a judgment value to it (besides being also based on the forever tentative answer to the first question), and the latter is primarily a political/moral judgement (and has more to do with technology and policymaking than with climate science).

We have made much more progress in addressing the first question than in addressing the last one. The limiting factor in addressing the issues relating to climate change is IMO not a lack of knowledge about the exact nature of the changes; rather, it is the unwillingness of society to deal with (the consequences of) this knowledge. Even if, within realistic boundaries of the uncertainty, climate change is less bad than currently expected, we need to dramatically step up our policy response.

Needless to say, that last sentence is a value laden statement, based on my understanding of the science combined with my value system, risk perception and risk aversion. Or perhaps that is not needless to say? (that’s not a rhetorical question btw).

Judith responded by saying that what she has a problem with is when people or institutions use their ideology “to stifle dissent and scientific debate”. Well, who wouldn’t have a problem with that?

That’s the broad brush again. The dissent from the mainstream scientific view takes a lot of different forms. E.g. there are the arguments such as voiced by Bob that AGW is bunk because of the hockeystick and surface temperature issues (my paraphrasing). I hope you’ll excuse me for not taking such criticism all that serious, where a minor detail is blown up as if it falsifies a whole theory, not unlike claiming that gravity doesn’t exist because that bird in the sky disproves it (argumentum ad absurdum; I’m aware that gravity is a better established (though also still not 100% known) topic than climate change).

These kinds of arguments are very common, whereby the conclusion (AGW is wrong) is miles and miles apart from the reasoning that supposedly led the writer to that conclusion. Which leads me to think that maybe, just maybe, they may have been really arguing in the other direction: from their desired conclusion to an narrative that fits with it. Because in the direction as the argument is stated, it doesn’t make sense.

Am I stifling scientific dissent by saying this? I would hope you agree with me that I’m not. I’m arguing against a (to me) nonsensical critique of the science, which IMO isn’t actually a scientific critique at all (though it’s dressed up to look like it). I.e. I’m not stifling anything and the dissent I’m primarily arguing against is hardly scientific (or charitably only partly scientific).

What most mainstream scientists get so worked up about are these nonsensical critiques on the science and the amount of traction they seem to have gotten.

If you have examples of where *scientific* dissent and debate is being *stifled* (no emails please), I’d like to hear about it.

As I stated before, I agree that in this highly polarized environment scientists have sometimes gotten too defensive in their reaction to the various critiques, because of course, some of the criticism does make sense, and even if the conclusion doesn’t, perhaps the premise purportedlyleading up to the conclusion contains some grains of truth. It doesn’t hurt acknowledging that.

Postscript: Simon Donner has an excellent post on the role of the blogosphere in these kinds of climate discussions and how it relates it to the themes of introspection, de-polarization and letting down our defenses. This is the road towards bridge building.

Aikido: The way of harmony. That’s me doing the throwing (in full harmony of course).

Update:

Michael Tobis has a related post, citing an interesting lecture by Mike Mann:

“We have to make it clear that the ice sheets are not Republicans or Democrats – they don’t have a political agenda as they disappear,” said Michael Mann. MT asks: “why the politicization of the non-political parts of the question?” That would be a good question for Judith Curry to ponder.

Chris Colose, who also chimed in over at Curry’s blog, has a post on her ‘dogma’ and ‘ideology’ framing. He finishes by saying:

Finally, we’re going to be endlessly stuck at a cross-roads if discussion is stifled, (…) but a glance into the refereed literature clearly shows this is not the case. (…) We’re also going to be stuck at a cross-road if you perceive the progression toward unanimous [I would have said “broad”] agreement by the informed as a sign of dogma as opposed to robustness of the conclusion. [link added by me]

Andrew Dessler debating Richard Lindzen

Eli Rabett covers the debate between Andrew Dessler and Richard Lindzen (video embedded at the link). Purportedly the former smoked the latter, though I haven’t watched the whole thing yet so can’t vouch for that.

Quoting Eli quoting Andy:

It all fits together (…). The key thing to look at is look for coherence, look for lots of evidence supporting a point and you will clearly see why scientists are convinced that the mainstream view of climate science is right.

The real question I want to address here is this question of how much does carbon dioxide warm the climate [not whether it does at all]. (…) We are going to use a standard measure which is how much warming would occur if we doubled carbon dioxide, so we are going to go through the math and do a very simple calculation that indicates that we might be screwed.

Michael Tobis on irrational skepticism

mt over at CaS (slightly adapted):

Real skeptics do not place irrational disbelief in a different category than irrational belief, because a stubborn evidence-defying disbelief in proposition A is not different from a stubborn evidence-defying belief in proposition ~ A.

In fact, these people (“so called skeptics”) want us to bet the future of the entire world on the proposition that not only is climate sensitivity < 2, but  climate sensitivity < < 2, despite the advice to the contrary of essentially  every scientific body with any relevant expertise. Their irrational attachment to the S < < 2 proposition is something they choose to call “skepticism”, just as the fact that they are shown up in stolen emails as being held in low regard is regarded as scandalous.

Tobis is active on several good discussion threads. I just noted his excellent comment at Curry’s about the question of why scientists have not “publicly spoken out against what they might see as reprehensible behaviour.”

Initially I interpreted this reprehensible behaviour as the attacks on science from so called “skeptics” but apparently what the commenter to whom Tobis is responding, Don Aitkin, meant is the behaviour of some mainstream climate scientists. Which prompts mt to reply that it’s a “have you stopped beating your wife” kind of question. Don Aitkin gives a good and thoughtful exposition of where he’s coming from though (even though I don’t agree with him).

That’s the kind of discussion worth having.

Skeptic-gate, Wegman-gate, Copy-gate, Everything-gate-gate-gate

Late to the game as ever: John Mashey has followed up on DeepClimate’s work and reports on “strange scholarship in the Wegman report” (also see the Executive Summary).

Notably, he finds evidence of plagiarism and instances that suggest bias and undue influence by political operatives.

Now, let me first say that this is not really my cup of tea. I am perennially uninterested in the hockeystick debate, as I think that A) its significance is blown way out of proportion to its actual policy relevance; B) the skeptical outcry over the hockeystick reeks like an excuse for really talking politics (“I don’t want higher taxes, therefore the hockeystick must be broken”); and C) it’s a classic case of playing the man(n) rather than the ball.

This is not to say that there are no methodological issues with the original hockeystick papers (MBH 98/99). But what matters is: How much do they matter? (see e.g. Mashey’s comment at CaS on that issue)

As an aside: The clearest (and shortest) explanation yet of the beef that skeptics have with the hockeystick was kindly provided by Jeff Id in a comment on my recent open thread. I asked some follow-up questions to which Jeff replied. I wasn’t very active in that thread from then on due to time constraints, but I do plan to follow up on it, because I felt these short exchanges at least gave me a glimpse of what all the fuss about hockeysticks is about. And perhaps I’ll just have to face that fact that these hockeystick arguments are here to stay, so I may as well familiarize myself at least with the basic thrust of the argument on both sides of the fence.

Anyway. Back to Wegman. Plagiarism issues are serious. But they don’t necessarily detract from the argument that someone is making (though of course they detract from the credibility of the persons making the argument). Primarily, this seems to be targeting Wegman’s credibility. There is a risk that this degenerates into a food fight on the skeptics’ turf. Hordes of “skeptics” are being rallied up to go with a fine toothed comb through high profile AGW literature and file charges. This is their kind of game.

It’s a bit like attacking them with their own weapons. I’m just not convinced that this is where we can win the war (which would be a terrible metaphor anyway).

As Ray Ladbury commented at RC:

Wegman’s effort smells. Deep Climate and John Mashey have identified many troubling aspects to the report. (…) It bothers me that science is even having to play such silly games to defend itself.

There clearly are methodological issues with the Wegman report. The question is: How much do they matter for the overall argument? Could someone shed some light on the significance of this? I find the accusations of bias the most troublesome, yet they are also the most difficult to ‘prove’. The sloppy social network analysis definitely raises an eyebrow in that respect.

Fred Moolten perceives

the plagiarism charges to be relatively inconsequential, reflecting shoddy scholarship rather than deliberate dishonesty.

That’s an important distinction. The latter would be much more serious than the former IMO. Eric Steig responded later on:

Plagiarism is one thing. Changing the meaning of the plagiarised material so that it still sounds authoritative (…) but supports an opposite (false) point of view is another level.

It sure is.

Willard, the marvelous never ending auditor, found this gem:

Vintage 2006, Dr. Thomas J. Crowley, had many criticisms of the Wegman report.  An interesting bit:

“In my view the debate over the Mann et al paper is a tempest in a teapot. It is legitimate material for scientific discussion but the implications with respect to the operations of the IPCC are unproven and seemingly based, in my opinion, much more on repetition of innuendo than on any real facts. Although there is always a need for enhanced interaction with the statistics community, the lack of communication is seriously misrepresented in the Wegman Report. I believe that this report should not be used as either a legitimate assessment of the science or as a guide to policy modification. Finally, I believe it is time to stop using Michael Mann as a whipping post and to start directing attention to the more important matters of whether anything should be done about global warming, and if so, what?” (Source)

Amen, brother.

When will we stop taking Christopher Monckton seriously?

It is mind boggling that some people without any expertise in climate are given megaphones to spout their strong but wrong beliefs about climate change.

Internationally, Christopher Monckton is a prime example (even giving congressional testimony in the US), while in Holland Hans Labohm immediately comes to mind (frequently seen in news media and invited by the Dutch ministry of environment).

Scientists are starting to turn the tide on this kind of sophistry.

From the press release, via Barry Bickmore:

A group of five scientists solicited responses from more than twenty world-class climate scientists to the May 6^th testimony by Christopher Monckton to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.  These climate scientists “…have thoroughly refuted all of Mr. Monckton’s major assertions, clearly demonstrating a number of obvious and elementary errors,” the report says. “We encourage the U.S. Congress to give careful consideration to the implications this document has for the care that should be exercised in choosing expert witnesses to inform the legislative process.”

The rest of the press release is available at the same link.

John Abraham, who thoroughly debunked Monckton’s claims, and was treated with venomous language and threat of legal action by the ‘potty peer’ as a result, put a lot of work in this as well.

The complete report: “Climate scientists respond”.

Coverage by the Guardian.

Apparently, Monckton responded in his typical fashion, calling the scientist’s response “prolix, turgid, repetitive, erroneous and inadequate”.

Well, being repetitive is hard to avoid when responding to Monckton’s long debunked talking points. This guy is a real piece of work. I hope the day is near that the public, politicians and the media (as the providers of the megaphone) stop paying attention to the likes of him. Then scientists can turn their energy to more productive things again rather than slamming down zombie arguments.

On a somewhat related note, George Monbiot has a nice column (h/t Stoat) in which he cites how some of these characters (Christopher Booker in this case) view science:

“I spent a fascinating few days in a villa opposite Cap Ferrat, taking part in a seminar with a dozen very bright scientists, some world authorities in their field. Although most had never met before, they had two things in common. Each had come to question one of the most universally accepted scientific orthodoxies of our age: the Darwinian belief that life on earth evolved simply through the changes brought about by an infinite series of minute variations. The other was that, on arriving at these conclusions, they had come up against a wall of hostility from the scientific establishment.” (…)

“We have seen a remarkably similar response from the scientific establishment to anyone dissenting from that other dominating theory of our time, that rising CO2 levels caused by human activity are leading to runaway global warming.”

Monbiot concludes:

To dismiss an entire canon of science on the basis of either no evidence or evidence that has already been debunked is to evince an astonishing level of self-belief. It suggests that, by instinct or by birth, you know more about this subject (even if you show no sign of ever having studied it) than the thousands of intelligent people who have spent their lives working on it. Once you have taken that leap of self-belief, once you have arrogated to yourself the authority otherwise vested in science, any faith is then possible. Your own views (and those of the small coterie who share them) become your sole reference points, and are therefore unchallengeable and immutable. You must believe yourself capable of anything. And, in a sense, you probably are.

Robert Grumbine explains how people’s (mis-)perception of science can feed these kinds of strange beliefs:

I think a crucial part of that error is a failure to understand how science works.  While you and I (and others) look at it and see masses of scientists from different areas and reach a conclusion, others don’t.  The extra piece of knowledge we have is that science has to hang together as a coherent picture.  If climate people were seriously wrong about the radiative properties of CO2, then CO2 lasers would not work.  And so on through a very, very long list.  Conversely, if climate types were seriously wrong about CO2’s radiative properties, laser specialists would look at the climate work and point to the errors and that’d be the end of the wrong climate CO2 work.

Instead, they take the view that science is story-telling.  Laser physicists go along with the climate people because the climate folks are telling a story that the laser folks like, not because there’s any particular evidence in favor of it.  The “It’s a liberal conspiracy”, or “They only say this because they want to impose one world government” responses are part of this.  The he said — she said journlistic line is exactly this, as the science is presented as two stories the reader is chosing between.  They think the scientists are doing the same thing.  (How would they know differently?)

So much for free speech: Monckton’s attempted censorship of John Abraham

A new low in the intimidation of climate scientists that seems to have become fashionable since this year.

Lord ‘Potty Peer’ Monckton threatens a critic of his, Professor John Abraham, and tries to get a disciplinary inquiry into the Professor’s unprofessional conduct. Apparently a fact-based criticism of his viewpoints is suddenly deemed unprofessional, while Monckton uses language such as overcooked prawn and Hitler Jugend to describe people he disagrees with. He is not only spectacularly wrong in his views on climate change, he is also despicable in his tactics: Not only wrong, also evil.

As an example of his double standard, consider this quote:

so venomously ad hominem are Abraham’s artful puerilities, delivered in a nasal and irritatingly matey tone (at least we are spared his face ? he looks like an overcooked prawn)

WTF?

The story is retold nicely over at Skeptical Science (as well as many other places):

A few months ago, John Abraham from St Thomas University produced an excellent rebuttal of Christopher Monckton’s arguments. Monckton’s initial response was extraordinary – as well as likening John’s presentation to Nazi propaganda, he accused Abraham of ad hominem attacks while mocking his accent and personal appearance (comparing him to an overcooked prawn). Abraham’s response to this personal attack was professional and commendably stuck to the science. Now Monckton is trying to censor Abraham – urging Watts Up With That readers to pressure St. Thomas University to take down Abraham’s presentation.

John Abraham’s presentation is vital and important as it explains in clear and accessible language the many falsehoods and misrepresentations in Monkton’s arguments. St. Thomas University needs to understand the importance of Abraham’s work. Hopefully they already do but if there is a flood of WUWT readers sending them angry emails, a reminder wouldn’t hurt. Rather than flood the University with even more emails, the New Zealand website Hot Topic has created a Support John Abraham page.

If you haven’t yet done so, please consider adding your name over there in support of John Abraham’s efforts.

Update: Brian Angliss has a good takedown of Monckton’s wild phantasy over at Scholars and Rogues:

Christopher Monckton, Viscount of Brenchley, is a climate disruption denier in multiple ways. He’s denied that climate change is happening. He’s denied that human beings are causing the (unchanging) climate to change by pinning the cause on the Sun. He’s denied that global polar ice extent is declining. He’s repeatedly misrepresented published papers and hasn’t retracted his statements even after some authors pointed out that he was misusing their work.

Update 2: Eli brings word of the University’s response, through the law firm representing them. The university fully backs Professor Abraham; they see no reason to comply with Monckton’s silly requests; and they demand Monckton stops the bullying. Good for them standing up for their personel.

Just the facts, madam, just the facts won’t do

Climate science is hardly the only issue on which the public has a vastly different view than the relevant experts. Chris Mooney writes:

Surveys that measure the public’s views on evolution, climate change, the big bang and even the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun yield a huge gap between what science tells us and what the public believes.

But contrary to what many scientists think, more information doesn’t necessarily lead to the public accepting the scientific view:

Take climate change. The battle over global warming has raged for more than a decade, with experts still stunned by the willingness of their political opponents to distort scientific conclusions. They conclude, not illogically, that they’re dealing with a problem of misinformation or downright ignorance — one that can be fixed only by setting the record straight.

Yet a closer look complicates that picture. For one thing, it’s political outlook — not education — that seems to motivate one’s belief on this subject. According to polling performed by the Pew Research Center, Republicans who are college graduates are considerably less likely to accept the scientific consensus on climate change than those who have less education. These better-educated Republicans probably aren’t ignorant; a more likely explanation is that they are politically driven consumers of climate science information. Among Democrats and independents, the relationship between education and beliefs about global warming is precisely the opposite — more education leads to greater acceptance of the consensus climate science.”

This point was also made in a study by Nyhan and Reifler: “When Corrections Fail: The persistence of political misperceptions”. From the abstract:

Corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group. We also document several instances of a “backfire” effect in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.

I.e. as this Boston Globe commentary sais:

Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.

The general idea is that it’s absolutely threatening to admit you’re wrong,” says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon — known as “backfire” — is “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.

To avoid this from happening, Michael Tobis suggests (though arguing from a slightly different perspective, informational conformity,) that

Each of us should go digging in our souls for our inner conservative. (…)We should be especially kind to people who are conservative but sane, who understand and appreciate the science. (…) What is crucial is to get people to understand that this is real, that it is interesting, that it raises difficult questions. Even convincing them that it is a big deal is secondary. We have to make it permissible to be conservative and to respect the climate sciences.

The Boston Globe continues:

Most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely to listen to any new information.

Of course, both sides of a debate usually think that they are right and only the other side is driven by their preconceived notions. In reality, these kinds of mechanisms are all too human and affect everyone (though not everyone to the same extent, let me hasten to add).

Luckily, the process of science is self correcting in the sense that over time, wrong propositions will be discarded if the evidence keeps pointing in another direction. So far, the body of evidence has painted an increasingly strong picture of the direction and causes of the changes in our climate. The chances for this broad and consistent picture to be radically wrong are very small indeed. Let’s not forget either that in science, you’re rewarded for showing the consensus wrong; not for merely repeating what everybody else sais.

I remember a talk I attended about cloud formation. I asked the speaker if they had found any relationship between cloud formation and cosmic rays. The speaker replied: “No, unfortunately not”. I was slightly bemused by that reply. Why would he have wanted to have found such a correlation? I think the most likely answer is that it would have meant a good chance for a high impact article, since it would have strengthened a hitherto weakly supported theory.

In a recent discussion, I asked Jeff Id what he considered ‘socialist’ about climate science. His reply:

– Just the preferred and demanded solutions and the continued support of organizations with socialist tendencies, IPCC,UN, Copenhagen etc.

Well, that clarifies where he’s coming from. He’s afraid of

our march toward world-wide socialist governance.

and therefore the science must be bunk.

Mooney writes:

It’s critical that experts and policy makers better understand what motivates public concern in the first place; and in this, they mustn’t be deceived by the fact that people often appear, on the surface, to be arguing about scientific facts. Frequently, their underlying rationale is very different.

Thus, for instance, resistance to climate science in the United States seems to be linked to a libertarian economic outlook: People who resist what experts tell them about global warming often appear, at heart, to be most worried about the consequences of increased government regulation of carbon emissions.

Climate skepticism comes in many shades of grey

It has long puzzled me why so many people don’t accept the science. There is a tremendous difference in opinion about climate change amongst the lay public as compared to in the scientific community. I’m hardly alone in pondering the question of why (see e.g. this insightful post). It’s clearly an important issue if we are to increase the public’s understanding of climate change. Of course it is only to be expected that some people are skeptical: Naturally there is a spectrum of opinions. But that does not explain why that spectrum is so dramatically different between different groups of people (the lay public and the professional scientists in this case). To name a few plausible reasons:

• Ideology can be a strong driver of how people view the science: Mitigation of climate change is seen as threatening by many libertarians, because they associate mitigation with government intervention, which they oppose.
• Psychology can also be very powerful: To some it feels good to be the underdog and get celebrated by anonymous fans on the internet and phoned up routinely by newspapers, TV and other media (that counts for the ‘spokespeople’ only). Many people have a psychological predisposition to side with the underdog (that counts for their fans). The mitigation challenge is very great indeed, which means that it is psychologically favorable to downplay the problem (so as not to get depressed or feeling guilty about everything you do and don’t do). Recently I hear more often that people side with skeptics because they are ‘nicer’. A little odd, but if that plays a major role with presidential elections, than it’s only to be expected that it also plays a role in trusting scientists (or not).
• Still others suffer from what I call professional deformation: Some well educated people from other disciplines view the science through the lenses of their own specialty, which, if they’re unable to take a bit of a helicopter-view of the situation, could skew their vision.
• And of course some are just confused. With not a little help from the media, who, in an effort to provide ‘balance’, bias the coverage towards the “skeptical” compared to the mainstream view.
• Then there are organized efforts at muddying the waters, which bear a resemblance to tactics used by e.g. the tobacco lobby. It is based on manufacturing doubt amongst the public regarding science that produces “inconvenient” results. This mainly applies to certain thinktanks and a few handfuls of individuals, but they exert a disproportionate influence on the media and public perception of the issues. The ‘tactics’ used are in more widespread use, whether consciously or not.

“Old skepticism”

This last category, organized denial and anti-science, could perhaps be seen as the “old skepticism”. It has its roots in history, notably the tobacco wars. It then spilled over to denying environmental issues, such as problems associated with DDT, asbestos, CFC’s, and now CO2. Fred Singer is one of the godfathers of this movement. Recognizing this historical context is important in understanding the nature and tactics of the resistance against science. But it also bears a risk.

Too often, anyone who disagrees with the scientific consensus is called an oil shill, or compared with the tobacco apologists. In most cases, these comparisons are totally off base (at least on the individual level) and counterproductive. Even though it is an important context, overusing this categorization for individuals can easily be dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Not everyone who is skeptical of AGW is in the pay of big oil or is consciously mimicking the tobacco strategies. If someone says that I’ve overused it in the past as well: Guilty as charged.

“New skepticism”

In the previous post I discussed a potential new form of skepticism, which according to some resemble “citizen scientists”. They are usually well educated and skilled people, who investigate specific issues of climate science (hockeysticks, anyone?) in more detail, and find them wanting. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it’s getting problematic if they conflate these details with what is known about the bigger picture, or if they started out with a deep suspicion that the science as a whole is faulty (e.g. for reasons such as stated above).

The more contempt they show for science, the more they argue the big picture of what’s known, the more they rage against emission reductions and talk about ‘world communist governments’ and other paranoid ideas like that, the less serious I take their criticism. Because to me, these are not characteristics of sincere skepticism; to the contrary.

Citizen science as the new skepticism?

Over at Keith’s, I got engaged in a discussion with Judith Curry and others about the well educated skeptics who self identify as ”auditors” of climate science. She claims that

this group is definitely interested in moving the science forward.

The existence and flourishing of technical climate blogs that take a critical stance towards the mainstream scientific view shows that the dualistic view of professional scientists on the one hand and the amateur public on the other hand is too simplistic (especially if the public is deemed ‘ignorant’ of the science). It is clear that there is a continuum of interest, knowledge, skepticism, sincerity, etc amongst the public.

I agree that it’s not constructive to dismiss the expertise and energy of the more scientifically minded critics (“citizen scientists”). But then I would suggest that those sincerely interested clearly distance themselves from the contempt and suspicions raising crowd, since that are the public face of the critics, and it’s severely hampering communication with mainstream scientists and their supporters. Problem is, McIntyre himself has had a major influence in instilling contempt and suspicions into his very wide following. It doesn’t just raise my ire; it’s entirely un-constructive to moving the internet discussion with critics forward (regardless of how it all started). I suggest that those critics who are sincerely interested in moving the science forward engage more with scientists (rather than raging against them).

Citizen science

Judith Curry compares the technically savvy critics with citizen scientists in other disciplines, e.g. biology and astronomy. I think that comparison is only superficially true. In none of those other fields are the citizen scientists contemptuous towards the professional scientists (and vice versa). The ‘normal’ way for citizens to contribute to science is by providing observations; not so much in the interpretation. In none of the other cases I know of are the citizen scientists strongly critical and suspicious of the mainstream science.

Even in cases where the ‘auditors’ have superior technical skills, scientific intuition and broad background knowledge of the field is very important in placing results in context and in making a coherent scientific argument. These (especially the context) are what’s missing in many (not all) of the citizen scientists efforts regarding climate change, and yet, the conclusions are often uncritically taken to be of paramount importance for the field as a whole (e.g. talk of paradgim shift, Galileo and stuff like that).

Oftentimes, the specific details that the citizen scientists focus on and criticize are presented as needing to be resolved before the rest of the science can be discussed, and long before we may discuss policy options. That’s exactly what concerned scientists and citizens fear: That it’s used as an option to delay action (whether intentionally or not).

A constructive discussion about the best public actions to address global warming does notdepend on these technical details at all. That’s the crux of the matter. They make people not see the forest for the trees, in a very effective way. If that’s not McIntyre’s purpose, he should really rethink what he’s doing.

Michael Tobis made the observation that he agrees with the “citizen scientists” on many of their main points, but not on the policy direction. If they would be primarily interested in what they proclaim their key points are, and not in (obstructing) mitigation politics, the rational response would be to welcome Michael as an ally. However, he is “cast as an opponent, even as an extremist”. This is a very important point, and indeed, it suggests that their “real priorities have nothing to do with scientific process”.

In response Judith said that Michael’s stance on mitigation and uncertainties is what the self proclaimed “auditors” respond negatively to. The first point (on mitigation) is exactly what leads to Michael’s conclusion: Their primary interest is politics (disagreeing on the need for mitigation). The second point is untrue and unfair to Michael. He is most definitely not “in denial of uncertainty” as Judith later claimed.

Rather, he often makes the following pertinent points that I wholeheartedly agree with:

• Some things are known more accurately than others.
• The big picture of where we’re heading is clear, and this is what’s relevant for policy making.
• Uncertainty cuts both ways. Combined with the knowledge about the big picture direction and the inertia in the system, uncertainty makes the case for action stronger rather than weaker.

I see a lot of self proclaimed “skeptics” mix up uncertainty with knowing nothing, and use that as an excuse for delaying action on mitigation. That is probably the number 1 argument to delay action. It is a policy statement, masquerading as a concern for science.

Genuine and pseudo skeptics

Undoubtedly climate skepticism comes in many shades of grey (as does climate concern). How can we distinguish between genuine skeptics and pseudo-skeptics? Undoubtedly, all self styles skeptics see themselves as genuine. I don’t really have an answer to that question. But the comparison with other areas of citizen science begs the question of why those in the climate change arena are predominantly critical, contemptuous even, about the mainstream scientific view? If their primary interest was in data analysis or observation quality, such an attitude wouldn’t make a lot of sense. I’d expect a group of citizen scientists to also have a spectrum of opinions on the science, but to see that spectrum go off in a totally different direction than the spectrum of views of professional scientists, is odd. Even if I’d take their criticism on the details at face value (which I don’t; call me skeptical), it doesn’t logically follow that their opinions of the science as a whole, let alone on mitigation, would be dramatically different.

The fact that many “citizen scientists” seem to be have such different views of the big picture makes me think that a sizeable proportion of them did come into this debate with preconceived notions. Something must have picked their interest in the science. Perhaps it’s more likely that they came to this debate with a skeptical inclination, rather than purely based on a love of the science in question, as is the case with archetypical examples of citizen science. This skeptical inclination could have extra-scientific reasons (e.g. psychological, ideological, political, etc) or it could be that criticisms they read about (e.g. from McIntyre) made them question the validity of the science, which they then decided to explore themselves. It’s important to distinguish between the details and the big picture. To what extent do they question the validity of the big picture, while exploring the details? And conflating the two? Without knowing the big picture, the McIntyrian way of looking at things probably sounds very convincing, especially to those from specialized technical fields.

The existing polarization, and subsequent defensive attitude of some spokespeople of mainstream science, may also have contributed to technically savvy people being drawn to ‘the other side’. That’s something we shouldn’t discount as a potentially important factor, and we should try to learn from it. It is clear that mainstream scientists (and their supporters) have not come to grips with these new skeptics, citizen scientists, technically savvy critics, auditors, or whatever name you’d want to give them.

See also some recent posts by Michael Tobis here and here.

Let me end by naming some constructive examples of citizen science:

Clear Climate Code

The making of a sea level study

Temperature reconstructions (and my reply to Lucia at Comment#46143)

Recent examples of citizen journalism also make clear that the less judgment is (perceived to be) passed onto the subject of study, the better it will be received.

Uncritical “skeptics” taken in by hoax yet again

Many climate skeptics claim to be solely interested in critically assessing the science. But often, their critical glasses disappear very quickly when they look at “evidence” that confirms their predetermined notion (of climate being a non-problem).

This becomes extra clear when they uncritically push an anti-AGW story that later appears to be a hoax. This just happened (again) with a 4^th grade student who allegedly won a NSF price for “disproving global warming”. Michael Tobis did some detective work into the implausible story, and quickly found that the whole thing was faked. It is not (yet) known who perpetrated this action at the cost of a young child’s expectations. How the story spread via various internet and news media can be seen here.

It reminds me of another hoax from a few years ago, where somebody put out the word of a fake paper which allegedly disproved global warming. It was uncritically accepted as true by many self-proclaimed “skeptics”.

The author of the fake paper explained his purpose as follows:

Its purpose was to expose the credulity and scientific illiteracy of many of the people who call themselves climate sceptics. While dismissive of the work of the great majority of climate scientists, they will believe almost anything if it lends support to their position. Their approach to climate science is the opposite of scepticism.

This is shown (most likely unwittingly) to be true yet again by the current episode.

As Albert Einstein wrote in 1920:

This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter depends on political party affiliation.

A very fertile environment for conspiracy theories indeed.