Hi KeithOn this topic about trust. I’ve enjoyed your articles at Yale, and have contributed positively to the comments there for some time. But I no longer trust it as a source, because I do not now know who they are moderating away out of existance.The Scott denning recent article particularly was very interesting and Scott was active in the comments, which I thought was very good of him. And I commended him for this comment..Scott Denning:”Besides the Heartland conferences, I do a lot of public presentations on climate change, and I particularly enjoy engaging with hostile audiences. My experience has been that a lot of pleasant, decent people are predisposed to doubt the science. They’re not evil. They care deeply about their children’s and grand children’s’ futures, and genuinely want to do what’s right. These people are reachable, there are thousands of times more of them than there are climate scientists, and a lot of them vote. Not surprisingly, they often find unpersuasive an arrogant attitude that dismisses them as anti-intellectual fools.”——————————- Howevr – I made one comment on the John Abrahams article, online civil discourse, which sat in moderation for a day and has now disappeared, it is very much on on topic and positive and I do not see how it can fall foul of any comments policy.  my observation being that the article wants an onlkine civil discourse, yet talks about climate change ‘deniers’ and I asked politely if they could stop this and explaine politley why this was increasing the polarisation of the debate.Sadly they have not allowed it (yet many comments explaining why ‘deniers’ are exactly what people shoud be called.Perhaps you could have a word with theeditor. the One thing about Collide a scape i have enjoyed the most, is a place of intellectyual hinesty, where the host does NOT have an agenda that would silence anybody. Perhapsyou could have a word.. Who else perhaps are they blocking, ie Lord Monckton had one reply on another article. John Abrahams writes an article to rebut him.. And sadly now, I do not trust Yale not to have delted him out of hand (not that I’m exactly Lord Moncktons biggest fan, quite the contrary) Maybe you could ask why they deleted this sceptic and depending on the answer think about why you write thereI put in a follow up one line comment asking if perhaps it was stuck in a filter (ie had 2 urls. one to Tamsin Edwards, one to her comment at Bishop Hill)

Maybe Keith, you could ask for me what is going on at Yale.

Well, we can start with the pernicious ‘can the science be saved’ meme. That needs stamping out, for a start.

Good points Keith.

I’ve mentioned before how instructive it is to ask which of the advocates on ones ‘own’ side are the most dishonest – the least interested in truth. It’s quite a test of partisanship.

FWIW, from the non-alarmist coterie I’d dump Delingpole, Tim Ball and Moncton without further ado.

There are plenty of alarmists I find offensive – Romm, Rahmstorf and Tamino for instance, but because Hansen does the most damage to the CAGW cause, I’m quite content for him to keep spewing his garbage for decades to come.

He can talk about death trains, crematoria and ineffable disasters all he likes as it quite reasonably provokes healthy scepticism in people who aren’t already devotees one way or another.

I’m not sure where I to stop, if I were to apply this criteria, Keith.

Does talking about spin counts as spin too?

BBD – the purpose of your ignorant trolling?

Spin does nothing to hurt the skeptics’ case.  It destroys the alarmist case.  The essence of the alarmist case is an appeal to authority.  Spin by those in authority wrecks their credibility.  The essence of the skeptic case is that the emperor has no clothes.  The little boy who points out the absence of clothes need have no authority to be correct.  He could, for purposes of argument, be the same boy who cried wolf and his point about the emperor would still be absolutely valid.  Climate science “authority” built on the gross incompetence seen in studies by Mann, Rahmstorf, Jones, Briffa, Steig, and the polar bear study was embraced by the science establishment.  Skeptics do not need any credibility of their own to point out the circular reasoning of the IPCC, the corruption exposed by the CRU emails, and the general failure to operate with any concern for quality.

Seems that #5 fulfills the prediction in #4 quite expediently.

#10 TomThe problem with the spinmeisters is that much of what they write can be easily shown to be misleading at best. (Good propaganda always has a kernel of truth and Romm is a skilled propagandist).

So if I was a ‘tool of the evil oil industry’ I would never even bother trying to question ‘the science’…I would spend all my time attacking the misleading portions of Romm or Laden’s writings. Which is exactly what Marc Morano does for a living.

In other news that actually matters but is reported almost nowhere

Westinghouse, Burns and McDonald and General Dynamics Electric Boat have joined forces for a SMR demonstration project.

http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2012/05/two-more-companies-join-westinghouse-to-support-small-modular-nuclear-reactor-funding.html

Nuscale(backed by Fluor) appears to have found a ‘first customer’ in SCANA for it’s SMR offerinf

http://www.elp.com/index/display/article-display/9057515890/articles/electric-light-power/generation/nuclear/2012/May/NuScale_Power_wins_support_for_DOE_commercialization.html

Of course Romm and Grist are both certain ‘nuclear power’ is dead.

Anteros @ 9

‘Ignorant trolling’

With Keith’s recent remark in mind: this is about spin. You characterised Hansen as a ‘spewer of garbage’. I suggest that this betokens real ignorance of Hansen’s formally published work on your part. You respond by calling me an ignorant troll.

This sums up your absolutely self-serving take on the concept of spin.

It has taken until now for Mr Callender to dump Joe Romm? If he’s been buying in to the JR shtick for any length of time, it’s remarkable he was able to come back to reality.

Dear Keith,

You’re being desingenious.

See? There’s no need to name names to sound trollish.

Starting a comment with “You’re being X” where X is non complimentary often leads to food fights.

Anteros considers that naming names is instructive in #5. I don’t find that naming names is that instructive. That’s the whole point of my comment. I don’t believe that naming Tallbloke is a big surprise here. Have you read his blog lately?

I also believe that “Bishop Hill” refers to a blog curator that exists. So I believe that “Bishop Hill” acts as a name, in one of your sentences above.

I also believe that “Dave Roberts” has just been added to a class called “spinners”, and that this class seems to include “Laden” and “Romm”. Now, what was the last time when did I hear the name “Romm”. It’s your own whipping boy, Keith. At least own that!

Sometimes, I really ask myself if bloggers ever heard of the Golden rule. But then, perhaps I’m too busy waiting for Godot, like everyone of us hereunder.

***

Since you ask, I could add something that might be constructive: I do believe that there is some “feeding” going on. Climate blogland could very well be modelled in ecological terms. All those niches feed on one another.

Since I agree with you about that, surely you can agree with me if that to claim otherwise would contradict this belief. I know I just stated a truism. I just find this funny.

Here’s a comment that would contradict your claim:

For every Hansen and Bart, there are covens full of Elis, Tobises, Lamberts and Romms. Not to mention their groupies. The result is what you see around you.

http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/dilemmas-in-science-communication/#comment-16655

Nevermind who said this. This is unimportant. What matters is what is said and done with this kind of claim.

First, notice the names named.

Second, notice that the claim presupposes that the process is directional.

Please recall how many months Joshua spent deploring that kind of claim.

This kind of claims are all over climate blogland.

And I don’t mean all over the comment threads.

I mean: all over climate blogland

And that includes you, Keith.

And that includes me, I’m afraid.

This is our predicament, Keith.

Now, what shall we do?

More Godot waiting?

More Lobster chess?

My own hypothesis is that only love and light will save us.

How original.

I know, I know.

Non nova, sed nove, I guess.

I’ve been thinking about “trust communities” a lot since this article last week–and their role in spreading information (good and bad):
How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit

When I posted it on G+ it devolved into claims that I don’t understand Wikipedia (I do, ok?). But that’s not the point–it’s about information sources and manipulation of them. It was both scary and hopeful to me, actually: you can get lied to (or spun), but some places call BS effectively.

Violating trust communities is also certainly not new to the intertubz, but it’s faster here.

#17- Romm can’t support nuclear power because he isn’t a environmental or global warming blogger- he’s a writer for a political organization that promotes progressive (read “liberal”) policies.

There is nothing wrong with being a political writer, but it’s important to remember the distinction. He will advocate policies that fit his politics and fight those that don’t. If the latter just happen to be more effective, then Romm is an agent of delay and obfuscation. This is why folks like me get a chuckle out of the claim that “deniers” are the agents of “stasis” or delay. Two sides of that coin.

Progressive Democrats take great pride in having killed nuclear power in the 70s and 80s, a flip-flop on the issue would be damaging at the polls. Why go with the party that got it wrong? How can you blame Exxon when you were the reason we’re powered by coal (which Exxon doesn’t even produce)?

8# Keith you misunderstand I have made a number of comments at Yale before, and happily waited ‘pending moderation’. This time the comment was visible, pending moderation for a day, whenever I went back to the Yale article.  Now when I look at the article, the comment and the message have gone. ie now ‘moderated’ away?

Keith – 20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf (application/pdf Object)

I’m not sure where it was published.

Anteros

The problem is that, having failed to understand the scientific import of Hansen’s published papers, you fail to understand that quoting snippets out of context with negative editorialising is spin.First, let’s supply the context (Hansen & Sato 2012):

We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods of the past million years was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene. Polar warmth in these interglacials and in the Pliocene does not imply that a substantial cushion remains between today’s climate and dangerous warming, but rather that Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate global warming. Thus goals to limit human-made warming to 2°C are not sufficient ““ they are prescriptions for disaster. Ice sheet disintegration is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. We suggest that ice sheet mass loss, if warming continues unabated, will be characterized better by a doubling time for mass loss rate than by a linear trend.

The anti-Hansen spin continues with your erroneous statement that Hansen is ‘ peering into the dark ““ in an area he knows nothing about’.

This proves that you have *not* read Hansen (2007) either.

You are a biased contrarian spinning against one of the world’s pre-eminent climate scientists. It isn’t Hansen who is exhibiting personal prejudice and speaking from profound ignorance. It is you.

I’m fed up with the stream of ad-hominem against Hansen. Keith has asked you to stop. So pack it in, eh?

Anteros

BBD ““ you choose to link to a different paper from the one I quoted. The context is irrelevant to the quotation.

You provided a misleading frankenquote from the draft of what was to become Hansen & Sato (2012). I provided the missing context from the final published paper. I also provided a link to previous work on the subject of non-linear ice sheet response to temperature. Thanks for proving that you haven’t read any of Hansen’s scientific papers, that you are biased, spinning and clueless.

Here’s the expanded quote, with the snippet you provided emboldened to aid reading comprehension:

We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods of the past million years was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene. Polar warmth in these interglacials and in the Pliocene does not imply that a substantial cushion remains between today’s climate and dangerous warming, but rather that Earth is poised to experience strong amplifying polar feedbacks in response to moderate global warming. Thus goals to limit human-made warming to 2°C are not sufficient ““ they are prescriptions for disaster. Ice sheet disintegration is nonlinear, spurred by amplifying feedbacks. We suggest that ice sheet mass loss, if warming continues unabated, will be characterized better by a doubling time for mass loss rate than by a linear trend.

BBD – Do you understand what ‘demarcation’ means?

Mr. Fuller, in #32 you make a number of empty accusations.  Links please that Eli may discuss.  Otherwise withdraw your characterizations. 

No Anteros. I’m not ignoring the question. In order for you to demarcate fact from alleged fiction, you would have had to have *read* some (at least) of Hansen’s scientific publications. You seem to have skipped over the debacle at # 41, so let me remind you what we discovered: you haven’t read any of Hansen’s papers. So you cannot ‘demarcate’ or otherwise opine on the scientific investigations therein.

BBD – The link to Hansen 2007 seems broken.  He had several publications in 2007.  Were you referring to “Scientific Reticence and Sea Level Rise”?

I found this description quite appropriate:

“Pick a [somebody who makes a reasonable point about somthin gwrt to climate]. Abuse same without bothering to read/understand their wor[ds]. Repeat said abuse ad nauseam in blog comments. Defend this indefensible tripe as if it were valuable insight. Confuse and mislead as many people as humanly possible.

Repeat.”

Prediction – he’ll be just as unpleasant on his return.

Romm: If this story bears out and Gleick is vindicated…This does not appear to be “maximum spin” as asserted by some-random-blogger-that-keith-suddenly-likes-because-he-bashed-Romm.  On the contrary, Romm seems to be waiting for the story to be confirmed before endorsing it.  Callender does not read past the title.If you look at Callender’s previous posts, he endorses McArdles arguments on the strategy memo and her certainty in Gleick’s authorship, and might be a little sensitive in having to backtrack on the issue.Looks like more disingenuous political positioning for Keith.

I salute John Callender for reassessing his position and alliances, then speaking out for rational discussion. However, I question how thoroughly he has renounced spin when he uses the obvious spin word “denialist” in the very same article.

Then when I drop to the previous article on his blog, I discover that he was excited by the new Chris Mooney book, “The Republican Brain,” to explain “why people believe the wacky things they do” but disappointed that Mooney was too partisan to do the job right.

From there Callender links to a previous post of his from 2007 in which he suggests that the United States needs a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to recover from the Bush administration because to Callender those years were the equivalent of apartheid South Africa.

Given the mindset Callender has about skeptics and conservatives, I doubt that I could have much of a constructive discussion with him. It’s nice that he tries to avoid total tribal warfare and is not as extreme as some such on his side, but he still seems blind to how biased he is.

The problem with the current debates (not just climate) is not just spin but the two sides are so polarized that there is little space for open and civil debate, even from those who believe they are offering it.

Anteros,

I believe that when you talk about demarcation in #43, you’re referring to the demarcation problem, am I correct?

In that case, yes, I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.

For I believe that your argument hints at the fact/value dichotomy. And that dichotomy is not entailed by the demarcation between science and non-science. One could be a Popperian and hold that there are still values in sciences, say coherence, simplicity, etc.

So I’m not sure what’s your argument against the IPCC’s terminology, say to describe turning points in the evolution of some species. If your beef is only against words like “catastrophe”, which expressions would you prefer? As I already said, the IPCC might very well be in dire need of editors.

Please show us an example of what you have in mind.

Marlowe,

I’m glad you liked my comment, but I’m not sure how it cuts anything. It seeks to be descriptive. I leave scientific inquiries to others.

I’m intrigued by Keith’s current string of meta topics in which he overviews the climate debate as he sees it, and seems to be doing his bit to nudge that debate in more constructive directions.

I wish him well. It’s refreshing after all these years of the climate orthodox dismissing, censoring, and demonizing their opponents.

Somewhat cynically I wonder if this isn’t a tactic born of general desperation as reality sinks in for the climate orthodox that their agenda has failed politically and will likely remain moribund for the rest of the decade.

Some of the orthodox, like Romm and Gleick, have become more extreme in response. A few though, like Kloor and Callender, seem to be searching for a more civil middle ground for the climate debate.

I’m good with that.

Andrew Adams Thanks for your measured response.

My criticism of Hansen is not merely that he uses extreme emotivism, it is that he allows imagination to totally swamp his conclusions in the first place. Watering down ‘ineffable disasters’ to something less apocalyptic would miss my point.

In simple terms I think he should stick to science. You’re right to surmise that it is the ‘disasterousness’ of his envisioning that leads to me suggesting that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He would need to begin a study of the history of adaptation, the false certainties in negative imagination, the nature of change, the relationship between climate itself and human resilience and so on. His ‘envisioning’ is nothing more than imagination.

Hansen claimed only recently that in the coming decades food prices would reach ‘unprecedented’ levels. Nothing better could expose his ignorance of the history and trends in agriculture and food prices – and the history of similar predictions.

It may seem reasonable for you to say something is ‘dangerous’ (to humanity?) but this is a value judgement – something appears dangerous <b>to you</b>. Other people might make a different value judgement, but the essential thing is that science has nothing to do with the difference, though we all like to imagine that science is on our ‘side’.

The way we look at thing is also critical in how we arrive at our very different conclusions. It seems to me easy – but misleading – to <i>imagine</i> a change in state (say, a three foot rise in sea level) as if it was going to come into being next Monday afternoon. Inevitably, hysteria ensues. Al Gore has feasted on this particular vulnerability for decades, but such things don’t come about in an instant – sea level rise today is significantly less than the average for the last 15,000 years.

My criticism is focused on the fact that Hansen’s studies in atmospheric physics give him no insight into humanities changing relationship with the climate – none whatsoever. However, there are people who think his lab-based speculations mean we should give extra credence to his imaginings.

If the IPCC want to take some notice his ideas about Polar ice loss all well and good (they don’t, for some reason) but when he tries to use his position as a ‘Nasa scientist’ to give authority to his belief about what constitutes the <i>’biggest threat to humanity and all life on earth’</i> then yes, I think it is important to make the point that he really doesn’t know what he is talking about.

I fully agree that his science should be taken on merit. I think his imaginings should be assessed <i>separately</i>.

Willard -

I didn’t mention the IPCC, and wasn’t referring to them. I was solely talking about James Hansen.

Most of my answer to your question about demarcation can be found in my response to Andrew Adams above.

I would add that it isn’t simple a case of a fact/value demarcation – it is speculation/value, which makes the influence of the values even greater.

To me this goes a long way to explaining why the climate debate is so polarised – it isn’t as much about science as about world views.

I just said that I don’t believe that we need to generalize. On the contrary, I do believe we do need to generalize.

We should speak for the values we stand for or against, not for or against people we try to portray as symbolizing them.

We should mind the four idols [FourIdols] instead of the climate idols.

[FourIdols] http://www.sirbacon.org/links/4idols.htm

Willard makes a category error in #68,  based it is true, on the confusion besetting the term honest broker.  If, in the Pielkian sense, you mean that an honest broker tells her client (brokers sell stuff you know) everything out there, then you hit the INTERNET swamp, because everything is out there, including stark raving idiocy of the Sky Dragon quality

Consider RP Jr own introduction to this, where, when being asked for a restaurant recommendation the honest broker tosses a telephone book at the questioner, while the issue advocate says, well, Joe’s ain;t bad for this burgh.  Which advice is useful?
Eli has written on this in more detail

Willard

For the most part, yes.I think it’s not only instructive but important to understand that value-free science is an impossibility. However, it doesn’t have to be value-soaked or value-drowned.

You’re right that my beef with Hansen is with his penchant for making definitive statements (about disease, agriculture, species extinction, the end of humanity..) in areas where he has no expertise whatsoever. But you would also be right if you observed that I consider him to be ‘wrong’, which is also pertinent.

Richard Lindzen doesn’t have any obvious training in the psychology of negative imagination, but I would say he has stumbled inadvertently on an important insight when he says that many people who are climate-alarmed are akin to small children shutting themselves in closets to see how scared they can make themselves. This resonates with my understanding.

Lindzen’s ideas on climate sensitivity, though can be assessed without the interference (beyond what is inevitable) of value judgements. How both he and Hansen arrive at their positions is to my mind by the by, even if the ‘facts’ they both see are considerably determined by the perspectives that are entailed by their values.

Here’s an example of Tamino’s that illustrates my point – where there is an insistence that a value judgement is actually an indisputable scientific fact -

“The science is clear. Those who don’t want to believe it are fond of
screaming that “the science isn’t settled, science is never settled!”
That’s a lie. Certainly not all the science is settled, it never
is. But we know some things for sure, like gravity works and smoking
cigarettes causes lung cancer. And “” the globe is warming, it’s caused
by human beings, and it’s dangerous. Very dangerous. Extraordinarily
dangerous.”

Tamino’s use of the word ‘science’ and the phrase ‘what we can know for sure’ are very different to mine, and I think while a dichotomy is unrealistic, understanding is better facilitated by separating as much as possible values and ‘facts’.

What happened across the entire Western US during the MWP (~1000 – 1300 CE)? When it was a little warmer than today. And how might that bear on modern agriculture, and on the global food supply? How might this have informed Hansen’s remarks about food prices/shortages etc?

#73,What happened across the entire Western US during the MWPWe don’t need to go back to the MWP to understand what life was life in the Western US prior to modern irrigation and soil erosion policies…we only need to go back to the 1930′s. The ‘dust bowl’ years.  (1934 contending as the warmest year in the US instrumental record before ‘adjustments’).What happened was we adapted. We learned to build dams, manage irrigation and switch crops depending on ‘water availability’.In Eastern Washington State…on the banks of the Columbia River where there is plentiful irrigation we grow fruits and vegetables…elsewhere where there is little or no irrigation we grow wheat.  

Guess we’ll all shrivel up like little raisins and die, then. At least we’ll die happy in the knowledge that there by God was a MWP…

Current warming does not appear to be either simultaneous nor global.

Wanna guess the author? 

“Warming is larger in the Western Equatorial Pacific than in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific over the past century, and we suggest that the increased West”“East temperature gradient may have increased the likelihood of strong El Niños, such as those of 1983 and 1998. “

“¦”current warmth is nearly ubiquitous, generally larger over land than over ocean, and largest at high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.”

“¦”Fig. 1 B shows an absence of warming in recent years relative to 1951″“1980 in the equatorial upwelling region off the coast of South America. This is also true relative to the earliest period of SST data, 1870″“1900 (Fig. 3 A). Fig. 7, which is published as supporting information on the PNAS web site, finds a similar result for linear trends of SSTs. The trend of temperature minima in the East Pacific, more relevant for our purpose, also shows no equatorial warming in the East Pacific.”

http://www.pnas.org/content/103/39/14288.full&nbsp;

Anteros,

I acknowledge that you consider Hansen wrong about his definitive statements outside his area of expertise and that you share Lindzen’s opinion that CAGW is all but a scare in an echochamber, if I may paraphrase what you are saying in #71. Lindzen might not have any particular qualification in the psychology of masses, but he sure can find effective images, the one you underline sounding a lot like an ad superbiam. In the field of rhetoric, we can both surmise that Lindzen is a natural.

Perhaps I’m being uncharitable by saying so, and that both you and Lindzen really mean it. More importantly, perhaps I should presume that you interpret Lindzen as making a descriptive claim. This would explain why Hansen does not resonate as well than Lindzen to you: according to you, Hansen is factually wrong and Lindzen might very well be factually right.

I don’t believe that Hansen only sticks to facts. In fact, I do believe that he says so when he explains his stance as a witness:

My role is that of a witness, not a preacher. Writer Robert Pool came to that conclusion when he used those religious metaphors in an article about Steve Schneider (a preacher) and me in the May 11, 1990, issue of Science. Pool defined a witness as “someone who believes he has information so important that he cannot keep silent.” I am aware of claims that I have become a preacher in recent years. That is not correct. Something did change, though. I realized that I am a witness not only to what is happening in our climate system, but also to greenwash. Politicians are happy if scientists provide information and then go away and shut up. But science and policy cannot be divorced. What I’ve seen is that politicians often adopt policies that are merely convenient””but that, using readily available scientific data and empirical information, can be shown to be inconsistent with long-term success.

Again, I express my gratitude to grypo for the quote.

I chose this quote because I know you did connect a few times, here and elsewhere, climatological and religious beliefs. One can see that the idea is not new: Science was already promoting this trope in 1990.

From that quote, we can see that Hansen disagrees that his comments are merely factual. I know that you dislike your facts soaked in values, which is fair enough. At least the disagreement is clear.

But now, please consider Lindzen’s stance on the same subject. Do you really believe that his stance is only scientific? I sincerely doubt it, and I doubt one can sincerely believe that.

In fact, it seems tough not to take Dick as much of a witness as Jim. I suggest that Dick can’t say so directly because his main target might react negatively. If we don’t accept that both Dick and Jim are playing a PR game, we oftentimes get the narrative of a knight knight fighting alone against the corrupt scientific Order.

This last paragraph has been inspired by this very nice post by grypo:

http://grypo-saurus.tumblr.com/post/23605215982/the-skeptic-narrative

Whatever the factual merits of these narratives, we must agree that they are narratives. Not perspectives, nor conceptual schemes, even less Weltanschauungen. The very idea of a conceptual scheme could very well be dubious anyway, but let’s not digress too much.

Let me finish with Lindzen’s ideas on climate sensitivity. I do not believe that it can be assessed without the interference of value judgements. For the simple reason that one could very well consider that Lindzen is pushing the limits of justified disingeniousness. For this, I don’t believe I have to know in advance who between Hansen or Lindzen are right. All I need is the way the narratives are built.

I won’t comment on Tamino’s case, because the post is already too long, and because Keith warned us against oblique references. I believe Keith does have a point, and in any case he’s the boss here, which is confirmed by his Twitter photo. So I won’t follow through this specific example.

Not that I am not tempted. I do like to dance.

Thank you for your calmness and your patience.

Without disputing temperature rises over the past decades, it is clear to anyone with a brain that a global average temperature is an accounting fiction. Hansen knows that, BBD. Why don’t you?

Ah, apologies – the technical bit.

It’s late here in Piccadilly Circus..

@64, andrew

In one of his pieces Hansen told about the numerical experiment where he was trying to run his GCM until the ocean boiled. Unfortunately, he said, the model went unstable before ocean boiled.

Question for you: what do you think of the intentions of the scientist who sets up such a model run? If the ocean did boil, do you think it would be a publishing-worthy material?

Tom Scharf,

Thank you for your concerns about Hansen’s personal alarmism, which misdirects an appeal to his own paranoid authority.

Keith it seems you want to remove the extremes, leave the centre and thru’ this we’ll be lead to enlightenment. I’m not sure it’ll work this way. Personnally I’m flip-flopping around in the centre. with a skeptic bias but also keeping a cAGW scenario on the table. I’m waiting to be dragged to one of the extremes thru’ force of argument. That’s how I see resolution coming about.

Tom Fuller (with apologies to other readers)

To my frank astonishment, you repeat your deliberately misleading quote from Hansen et al. (2006). The only charitable explanation is that you are clueless, but if so, how did you find this quote in the first place?

The matter here deals with the effects of global warming on ENSO. The issue is the interplay between surface water warming and deep water warming (see bold). If the quote is *expanded to provide proper context* they ‘mystery’ disappears:

Theory does not provide a clear answer about the effect of global warming on El Niños (19, 20). Most climate models yield either a tendency toward a more El Niño-like state or no clear change (22). It has been hypothesized that, during the early Pliocene, when the Earth was 3°C warmer than today, a permanent El Niño condition existed (23).

We suggest, on empirical grounds, that a near-term global warming effect is an increased likelihood of strong El Niños. Fig. 1 B shows an absence of warming in recent years relative to 1951″“1980 in the equatorial upwelling region off the coast of South America. This is also true relative to the earliest period of SST data, 1870″“1900 (Fig. 3 A). Fig. 7, which is published as supporting information on the PNAS web site, finds a similar result for linear trends of SSTs. The trend of temperature minima in the East Pacific, more relevant for our purpose, also shows no equatorial warming in the East Pacific.

The absence of warming in the EEP suggests that upwelling water there is not yet affected much by global warming. Warming in the WEP, on the other hand, is 0.5″“1°C (Fig. 3). We suggest that increased temperature difference between the near-equatorial WEP and EEP allows the possibility of increased temperature swing from a La Niña phase to El Niño, and that this is a consequence of global warming affecting the WEP surface sooner than it affects the deeper ocean.

Sachka,I believe that Hansen considers “runaway” warming a possibility – in that sense his views do go further than the mainstream. My guess is that in running his model to try to make the seas boil he was trying to establish just how likely (or unlikely) the possibility of such runaway warming actually is. Or maybe he thought it was an interesting experiment to do for its own sake. As for publishing he results, sure – why not? Bear in the mind that the most likely conclusion would be that the circumstances required for such a thing to happen are way outside anyting we are likely to actually experience.

They’re peddling self-serving spin as truth, selecting what to pass on not on the basis of skeptical inquiry, but simply on the basis of which untested hypotheses paint their enemies in the worst light.

Upon looking at the categories listing at John Callendar’s site, http://www.lies.com, (good domain name snag!) I find that Callendar is indeed a typical liberal obsessed with George W. Bush. The george_w_bush  category far exceeds all other categories except the generic tag for the USA. When it comes to lies, John Callendar is not an equal-opportunity critic.

For example, I looked up one of the great lies from the Bush era, the forged memos Dan Rather used on 60 Minutes to attack Bush’s National Guard record two months before the 2004 election, and I found Callendar’s version of the “fake, but accurate” defense, in which he mistakenly upholds the media’s responsibility to truth in that incident, while fingering the real liars — alley-oop — “the Bush people” because they used the “60 Minutes” forged memos to distract from the National Guard controversy.

To John Callendar, it matters not that someone forged military documents nor that one of the most prestigious news venues on television, “60 Minutes” would air those forged documents against the recommendation of its own experts in order to attack a sitting president and possibly subvert a presidential election. To John Callendar the real issue was that the effort to paint his enemy, President George W. Bush, in the worst possible light failed.

Anteros,

Your caveat does make sense: there is a concern that imagination that runs wild can become counterproductive. Someone that find the projections counterintuitive won’t be convinced with eschatological stories. On the other hand, we might doubt they do serve a function. If that way to raise concerns in a population had not an effect, we’d stop doing it.

The big question is if that’s enough. Some witnesses can continue to testify that way. But about all the others? There must be some space in the media for other kinds of message. More so if you, Anteros, is the prototypical member of the audience to be reached.

There are two things that I believe deserve to be said here. They are so important, in my opinion, that I will say them and return to your other points at another time. And the first one is already implied by my last paragraph: there is no need to think in terms of “what is the best way to convey one’s point”, for I believe that many ways must be tried at the same time, and see how they compete or cooperate.

That means my second point is important. And in fact, it’s not really my point. It is Randy Olsen’s:

Voice, voice, voice. Communication is about “voices.” People listen to voices they like. They don’t listen to voices they don’t like. The bosses at BP figured this out the hard way last spring. Shortly after the Gulf spill they began running television commercials featuring BP CEO Tony Hayward and his British accent. Guess what? Within a month they wised up, dumped those spots, and came out with a whole series of commercials featuring working class Gulf of Mexico residents with their deep southern drawls. It’s about voice.

http://thebenshi.com/?p=1890

So I believe we need voices. When you say that Lindzen says something that resonates with you, I believe that’s what you say. You do prefer Dick’s voice to Jim’s. This voice matters so much that you still listen to Dick, even if you agree to describe him as a desingenious contrarian.

So there is something in Jim’s voice that you do not like. What you said so far about Jim does not pertain to his voice, but you have to admit that it does not help. The image of an Asperger talking carries a voice. The image of a fundamentalist too. If Jim sounds like an Aspergian fundamentalist, I suspect that his voice does not appeal to you.

Whatever the way we wish to communicate, if we accept the fact that people listen to voices, we must also accept that witnesses should keep an harmonious voice. Ideally, the voices of the witnesses would then form a chorus that would attract more attention. If people say that you shriek, it might very well be a good idea to lower down your pitch.

I know that this comment does not address your points about facts. But I believe that voices and facts go hand in hand. So I owe you an explanation why I think so. But if you want to think about it by yourself, you can ask yourself how people with the Asperger syndrome process their emotions.

Bye for now,

w

#102I can’t think of any greater indictment of a president than willfully
misleading the American people over its reason for going to war.

For any given policy there are multiple reasons for engaging in that policy.  Many policies are based on indirect causes and effects that may take decades to play out.

I can’t think of any greater indictment of the US Mass Media then their inability to even discuss policies that have ‘indirect’ causes and effects. Granted it’s difficult for many to follow A->B->C->D->E.

Hence, Presidents that  engage in policies where the desired ‘effect’ is indirect and may take decades to play out end up looking like ‘liars’ in contempory media.

When historians write history they have the benefit of being able to view whether the ‘indirect’ costs and benefits were desirable or not.

Nixon’s China Policy which was quite controversial at the time was based on the idea that trade would lead to ‘economic freedom’ which would lead to ‘political freedom’. We still don’t know whether it will play out that way 40+ years later.

Then we have the policy’s of Jimmy Carter as epitomized by Zbigniuw Brezinki’s comment…”What’s a few riled up muslims compared to the fall of the Soviet Empire?”

In light of 9/11 maybe a few riled up muslims ended up being a larger indirect cost then Zbigniew anticipated..

Another historical example of ‘it seemed like a good idea at the time’ that went bad was the Treaty of Versailles.

Sashka,

Thank you for clarifying your comment #104.

You seem to say that by real science we mean math & theoretical physics, and perhaps some chemistry, or any discipline that is value-free. Science is value-free, everything else is not real science.

There is no need to rehearse Latour’s analysis to protect ourselves from the straw coming out of your energic shaking.

@107

We’re talking about science here. Not math or physics specifically. In 68 you tried to advance an outright lie:

An honest broker could come along and tell you that there is no such thing as a value-free science.

My comments 90 and 104 are sufficient to close this attempt to mix the science with post-normal science and other kinds of bullshit.

I didn’t give you any definitions, that’s another lie, I just gave you examples. If you show me science with values added I’ll show you bullshit science.

Not interested in your pseudo-philosophical digressions either. You can troll someone else to your heart content.

Sashka,

I believe that this thread is about spin. So I’m not sure what you mean by “we’re talking about science here”.

Let’s quote that statement that you believe is a lie.

An honest broker could come along and tell you that there is no such thing as a value-free science.

I’m not sure that your assumption that science is value-free shows shows this is a lie.

An honest broker could very well come along and tell you this, even if you assume that he would not talk about real science. In fact, we know that something like this has already been written in a book about honest brokerage.

***

You are challenging my use of the word “defined”. Here is where I believe you defined science:

The point is that not only value-free science exists but that’s the only kind of real science there is.

I believe that this can very well be considered a definition. It’s incomplete, of course. But it does state an essentialproperty of science: being value-free. Please do not ponder on what “essential” means in that sentence, or else you’ll troll yourself into thinking, which might be bad for your writing habits.

You have yet to argue for your assumption that science is value-free. If you do not like “value-free”, consider that it could very well replaced with the expression “contain judgement calls”. Judgements calls have an intriguing tendency to correlate with social norms, as your latest reply to andrew shows.

Please tell me how my comments presume anything about post-normal science. Everything said so far is compatible with any reasonable verion of physicalism you like.

So I believe I have shown that your point is quite remote to our discussion, is being submitted as a proof by assertion, and contains two misreading and at least one misrepresentation.

Please acknowlege this.

If you do, we could try to see what we can do with your challenge: I believe I can come up with so many examples readers will have to wonder how many theories are not bullshit science according to you.

Sashka,

I only know of one person that had any success sincerely believing he takes nothing for granted. He does not even exist for “real”.

The focus of this discussion is not about science. Please acknowledge this.

I did not claim that all sciences was value-laden, I invoked an hypothetical honest broker to prove a point unrelated to yours. Please acknowledge this.

You did invoke a minimal characterization of science as being value-free, contrary to what you claimed earlier. Please acknowledge this.

Since your last comment makes me trust you in acknowledging all this, here are three examples:

For maths: the Axiom of Choice.

For physics: string theory.

For chemistry: ununseptium [1]

And that’s notwithstanding mundane entities like trees, rocks, and Pluto.

I also have a more significant example, if you know what I mean.

Waiting for your acknowledgements,

Best of luck,

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/science/07element.html

Thank you for your kind words.

Please tell where the subject changed.

Although string theory dates back to 1970, the field took off in the mid-1980s when researchers realized it had the potential to be the long-sought Theory of Everything””one that unifies the physics of the familiar, everyday world with the odd quantum behavior of atoms and even smaller things. A second wave of theoretical breakthroughs in the mid-1990s drew even more people into string theory research.

But skeptics are many, and they came out in full force last year with the publication of two books critical of the theory: Not Even Wrong, by Peter Woit of Columbia University, and The Trouble With Physics, by Lee Smolin of the Perimeter Institute in Canada.

Right or wrong, string theory has been drawing big crowds””from more than 900 people at the first Isaac Asimov Memorial debate in 2001 to a sold-out crowd at the 2003 Aspen Institute Ideas Festival.

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000481

Perhaps we can offer this “constructive” proof, with at least two puns intended:

1. Think of a word or an expression that designates a field of science or a theory.

2. Fire up your favorite browser and open your search engine.

3. Enter the word or the expression you chose and add to it “debate”.

4. Try not to find a debate where values do not clash.

Perhaps we should add a warning: Debates may contain traces of values. Those who are allergic to values should consult their physicist.

You don’t seem to see that I asked you two times now to acknowledge your previous mistakes.

Perhaps someone in the audience can help Sashka, here?

#121,

I don’t see any value judgements, either. I wonder if this is an argument about definitions. ‘Values’ is usually interpreted to mean the “ought”s that Kant said could not be deduced from an “is”. I get the feeling that by “value judgement” you mean something like “opinion”.

The nearest you get to a value judgement in mathematics is the concept of ‘beauty’, in which an equation, method, or proof is judged to be beautiful or elegant. Proof’s “ought” to be elegant, we want them to be beautiful, but from a pure mathematical point of view they don’t have to be.

The difference of opinion over the axiom of choice was not about this – it was about whether it was safe to assume, whether doing so could lead us into paradoxes and contradictions – which is very much not about values. It turned out the answer was definitely “no”, and besides being interested in knowing which results depend on it, there is no issue there any more.

A better example of a scientific point that depended on aesthetics would be the Copernican circles versus Ptolemaic epicycles. The epicycles were more accurate, but many chose heliocentrism out of aesthetics.

Even then, it’s arguable that it has a practical purpose, in that beautiful theories are often more true, and lead us to deeper insights.

Instead of entering into an epitemological debate, we might wish to return to the topic of this thread, perhaps we can invoke two authors that cite Dick Lindzen:

Richard Lindzen, of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, has emphasized that
problems will arise where we will need to
depend on scientific judgement, and by ruining
our credibility now we leave society with a
resource of some importance diminished . The
implementation of public policies must be based
on good science, to the degree that it is available, and not on emotion or on political needs. Those who develop such policies must not stray from sound scientific investigations, based only on accepted scientific methodologies. Such has not always been the case with environmental
tobacco smoke.

http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/qsa03e00/pdf

Depending on scientific judgement.

Good science.

Sound scientific investigations.

Accepted scientific methodologies

Value-free science.

Yup.

#125,

And are those part of the desiderata or the definition of science? Bad science is not science. It only pretends to be.

> desiderata or the definition of science

Looks like a distinction without a difference.

Or perhaps there is: we don’t need to define science to do science. In a way, we do need some desiderata.

But in another, we really don’t. Even monkeys jumping on a typerwriters can write Sashka’s comments.

Sashka,It is impossible to establish anything with such a numerical experiment. The model was never designed to deal with such extreme conditions.Your first sentence simply isn’t true. Hansen did find the experiment interesting and useful otherwise he wouldn’t have mentioned it. The fact that the outcome might have matched our expectations doesn’t in itself mean it wasn’t useful.I really don’t know what your problem is here. Why shouldn’t Hansen have done what he did? 

@113

I invoked an hypothetical honest broker to prove a point unrelated to yours. Please acknowledge this.

No I won’t. The point quite related.

The point quite related.Sashka, if it helps, I’m fairly sure that Keith doesn’t charge by the word. You should feel free to use verbs, or even dependent clauses, in the exposition of your thoughts here.

PDA -

Space isn’t exactly at a premium either – you can leave spaces after full stops

Congrats on joining grammar-Nazis, PDA.

Why do my line feeds keep disappearing?

I think everyone should complain to the management.

Willard -
You drive a very hard bargain..

AnterosThere are
of course lots of uncertainties around the consequences of AGW, both about the
immediate impacts and the consequences for our civilisation. However, there are
some things which are more certain than others,
and there are some things we can say with confidence. In the specific
case of the ice sheets, we do know that if the earth continues to warm the ice
sheets will continue to lose mass, just have they have done in the past. We also
know that this will cause sea levels to rise – it cannot do otherwise, and that
this will ultimately lead to some areas (in the absence of some pretty drastic
engineering projects) either becoming uninhabitable or at least being much more
prone to flooding, as well as other negative effects such as the contamination
of aquifiers. There really is no doubt about
this, it is merely a question of timescales. If you claim otherwise then you
will need to tell me exactly where the above is wrong.
Hansen’s research indicates that he process is likely
to work faster, possibly much faster, than we have previously thought. I don’t
claim he is right, but assuming he is confident in his findings it is perfectly
rational for him to be concerned.
What I really object to in your argument is the notion
that people’s concern over the consequences of AGW is somehow down to “feelings”
and “imagination”, as if a large number of people had not spent a great deal of
time on research into the likely impacts of AGW and what a warmer world will be
like. The reason by people like Hansen, Tamino and others are concerned about
the future is not because they have over active imaginations, it is because they
have looked at the evidence, looked at the published research and reached their
conclusions accordingly. Such judgements are always going to be imperfect given
the uncertainties which remain but it doesn’t eman they are based on
nothing.

@140

The reason to object is that this “experiment” has no scientific value for the reasons explained above. I wouldn’t object even then but he feels obliged to talk about it to the media as if a small numerical problem was in a way of scientific discovery.

This is just a ‘for example’.

“In the specific case of the ice sheets, we do know that if the earth continues to warm the ice sheets will continue to lose mass, just [as] they have done in the past.”

Ice sheet mass balance is a balancing act between precipitation (snow) in the accumulation zone, and the flow rate. There is an argument that global warming will increase humidity which will increase precipitation which will cause ice sheets to build up. There is also an argument that ice flow is an extremely complex hydrodynamic problem. Most of the ice sheet is trapped. The weight of the ice depresses the crust of the Earth so that the ice mass rests in a bowl surrounded by mountains. There is spillover from the edges through glacial valleys, but for the vast majority of the ice sheet the gradient is slight, the flow rate is slow and the mass change as a proportion of the amount of ice there is tiny. The fast flow at the edges is highly variable, but not significant.

Take a look at those studies claiming mass loss, check what period of time they were done over, and compare the loss to the total mass of the ice sheets. How long would it take, even assuming that the flow continued indefinitely, to significantly reduce the mass? Do you think these claims are to be taken seriously?

Consider also – if the average temperature in Antarctica is -40 C, and it hypothetically rises 3 C to -37 C, how much ice will melt as a result? How long will it take for a 3 C temperature rise to diffuse/conduct through a 3 km thick slab of ice? Is it really so obvious that the ice will disappear? Why did it not disappear during the Eemian, for example, for which we have a continuous ice deposition record?

That’s not to say it’s not possible – vaguely plausible mechanisms have been proposed – but that it isn’t a straightforward question. You have to know a lot about the physics of glaciers and ice sheets to be able to hazzard an educated guess.

“and that this will ultimately lead to some areas (in the absence of some pretty drastic engineering projects) either becoming uninhabitable or at least being much more prone to flooding”

I thought they used to teach this in first year geography. Perhaps they don’t any more. I don’t know.

Do you know how river deltas are formed? Do you know how coral islands are formed (Charles Darwin figured it out), and why they are so very flat and so very close to sea level, despite the sea level having risen hundreds of metres over the past ten thousand years?

Bangladesh and many coral islands have been increasing in area, despite the sea level rises over the past 150 years. This is the just normal coastal physics. The balance between deposition and erosion may shift, but not by all that much.

Consider – have your sources for these alarming reports made all of this clear?

In an old paper that I just discovered, Richard Rudner argues that the very fact that scientists reject or accept hypotheses knocks down the fact/value dichotomy:

[S]ince no scientific hypothesis is ever completely verified, in accepting a hypothesis the scientist must make the decision that the evidence is sufficiently strong or that the probability is suffciently high to warrant the acceptance of the hypothesis. Obviously our decision regarding the evidence and respecting how strong is “strong enough”, is going to be a function of the importance, in the typically ethical sense, of making a mistake in accepting or rejecting the hypothesis. Thus, to take a crude but easily managable example, if the hypothesis under consideration were to the effect that a toxic ingredient of a drug was not present in lethal quantity, we would require a relatively high degree of confirmation or confidence before accepting the hypothesis-for the consequences of making a mistake here are exceedingly grave by our moral standards. On the other hand, if say, our hypothesis stated that, on the basis of a sample, a certain lot of machine stamped belt buckles was not defective, the degree of confidence we should require would be relatively not so high. How sure we need to be before we accept a hypothesis will depend on how serious a mistake would be.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/185617

I believe this argument bears directly with the predicament of climate blogland. It is interesting insofar as it does not appeal to any meta, proto or pre-scientific issues. And the image shows that as soon as a science endeavour has a non-negligible impact regarding public health issues, the dichotomy, even if it were true elsewhere, which we have good reasons to doubt notwithstanding Sashka’s gaslighting, is irrelevant in this very thread.

So much the worse for the proof by asserting “science bullshit”.

Do you know how river deltas are formed? Do you know how coral islands are formed

Rapidly. But not rapidly enough to cope with ~5m sea level rise in a century.

I wonder if you would be so very sanguine if you lived on a delta already prone to flooding by storm surges? Really, I do.

#152,

There’s a distinction between the science and the uses to which it is put. The science says something like “the probability of these observations occuring with more than 5% of the pills toxic is less than 80%”. The user says “that’s no good enough! Small children and cute fluffy animals use these drugs!” The science replies “nevertheless, the probability of these observations occuring with more than 5% of the pills toxic is less than 80%”. It makes no difference to the science that we’ve put values on the consequences. The moral weight of the consequences does not push the number up to 99%; only a better experiment can do that.

What Hansen is doing is trying to use moral weight to take the place of better evidence. It’s the Pascal’s Wager gambit. If people decide on the basis of probability times cost, and you can’t make a case for a high probability, then simply offer ever more excessive speculations about the cost. You don’t know the probability that Tlaloc the climate god exists, but the consequences are so dire if he does that perhaps we ought to make a few sacrifices, just in case.

Or to put it another way, he’s trying to say that science has shown that more than 5% of the children and cute fluffy animals are going to die if we carry on, and therefore we all need to deny life-saving drugs to sick children.

Actually, science hasn’t shown that any of the pills are toxic; all it has said is that they might be, and we can’t be sure they’re not. We’ve speculated about a highly emotive potential cost, shown that the science cannot rule it out, and then used our authority as scientists to advocate for a particular policy. This approach has the perverse property that the less certain the science the more urgent action becomes. And unlike Rudner’s example where greater moral importance demands higher scientific standards, the moral scare implies that greater moral importance demands lower standards and sloppier science, because the threat is so great that as soon as it is recognised scientists need to put down their test tubes, come out of the lab, and wave placards at protests demanding immediate action. Working to improve the quality of the evidence is a waste of valuable time.

It’s a point of view, certainly. But that’s still an argument about how we use science, it’s not the science itself.

NIV

I think you should resist the temptation to make *any* further comments on the WAIS. Not on my account, but you might confuse or even mislead others.

As an exercise for the interested reader, is the WAIS grounded above the datum, at the datum or below the datum, and by how much? 

#159,

And what would happen to sea level if the Himalayas fell into the sea?

I don’t need to make any reply to your comments because I’ve already discussed the general tactic in Hansen’s case.

In #150, Sashka claims that the conversation turned to science from his own 90. If the subject of the discussion “has changed along the way” and that 90 introduces the question of real science, and perhaps more importantly real scientists, even Sashka should infer that the discussion was not about these things in the first place. Since a conversation usually takes more than repeated proofs by assertions and cheap macho insults, we could even argue that Sashka never joined the conversation.

If Sashka can’t see there are still question in mathematics regarding how constructive it should be, then I have to wonder if Sashka should work as a real scientist. He’s be perfect as an HBGary agent. His gaslighting number looks like he could be a pro.

Let the interested readers observe that Sashka is still stuck at answering for his mistakes already underlined in #107 and #111. Not that it matters much if your aim is not to have a conversation, but to gastlight like a professional HB Gary agent.

In the thread at Bart’s where I first made the comment above, there is this Big Think presentation that relates to spin:

Not only we dislike being told to change our hairstyle, appealing to our fears does not motivate us to change it:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/24991

#163,

I find the gaslighting accusation interesting, as it looks somewhat self-referential to me. Sashka makes a perfectly straightforward observation that consideration of values are conventionally excluded from the practice of science, and you try to persuade Sashka that this perception is wrong, the argument diving into a whirl of surreal allusions to the axiom of choice and referential inscrutability, to somehow end up at the conclusion that Sashka is an agent of HBGary and trying to fool us.

Poe’s law seems to indicate that a gaslighter trying to persuade their victim that they are the gaslighter ought to be mistaken for a clever parody. I’m not sure, myself – is it possible to tell?

There is an important point amidst the flotsam here, actually two.  One is, that if the number of people at risk is large and the percent to be affect is not vanishingly small, you can pretty much bet the bottom dollar that there will be problems and get pretty close to how many bad outcomes there will be.  A good example of this is children’s pajamas.  If they are not fireproof, even tho the risk to any child is small there will be numerous burns and deaths.  On the other hand, even large changes in a rate, for example the risk from some drug increasing by a factor of two, might be worth taking if the total number of bad outcomes across the population goes from one to two per year.  Of course it would suck to be that extra one, but if the benefit accrues to many that would be worth it.
This is, of course, the issue with testing for breast cancer for women under 40 and cancer of guys (aka prostate).  
The point is that rates can be tricky, an in assessing outcomes you have to look at the expected number of both good and bad outcomes, not the rates.

>>onlookers can make their own minds up.

That’s the idea.

You can’t make the entire world fireproof.

False equivalence with climate science and its policy implications.

Things disappear upthread so fast. Let’s not forget the recent past:

# 151 – NIV: Gish Gallop of nonsense about WAIS etc

# 154 – 6 BBD: Response

# 157 – NIV: continues anti-Hansen spin without reference to # 154 – 6

#158 and # 161 – NIV: refuses to engage with central issues in # 154 because inconvenient

# 168 – BBD: Points out that NIV has nothing but continues his anti-Hansen spin anyway

Only on the internet, eh?

#147,The reason by people like Hansen, Tamino and others are concerned about the future is not because they have over active imaginations, it is because they have looked at the evidence, looked at the published research …

It’s folly to believe one can peer into the mind of another and deduce ‘the reason’ they think as they do. The idea that a given human mind rationally looks at facts and then attaches a fear rather then the human mind experiencing a fear then attaching facts would be an extraordinarily difficult case to prove.

The list of things that could go horribly wrong in the future is almost infinite. There is no shortage of people concerning themselves about what could go horribly wrong in the future.

Personally I think the odds of a pandemic that wipes out 1/3rd of the global population should probably be the largest concern given the speed at which disease can travel with international air travel and the fact that a significant portion of the population now lives in dense urban centers.

Of course there are others that view the size of the human population as the ‘most important’ concern for the future and would welcome the ‘natural death’ of 1/3 of the population as long as it they aren’t the ones dying.

And don’t forget to explain how sea ice impedes glacial outflow. We should be told.

Have you had much conversation with Anteros before, willard?

I’m a businessman. Perhaps your understanding of the term is not based on practical experience?;-)

@153

willard, I take you abandoned your (never actually started in serious) project to demonstrate presence of value judgement in your 3 examples? That’s good. Why don’t you just say so before changing the subject? But I’m disappointed that you didn’t even try. If you don’t feel strongly that you’re making sense why did you bring it up?

Now I am supposed to be scared out of my pants by the towering authority of Richard Rudner himself. OMG. Let’s see what he has to say, though.

How sure we need to be before we accept a hypothesis will depend on how serious a mistake would be.

I’m afraid this is a common case of condusing science with policy. How we choose to deal with the hypothesis does depend on how serious a mistake would be. But taking certain line of action doesn’t necessarily constitute acceptance of the hypothesis. It’s purely a risk management issue. Nothing to do with science.

@163

If Sashka can’t see there are still question in mathematics regarding how constructive it should be, then I have to wonder if Sashka should work as a real scientist.

I never said any such thing as anyone can easily see. Are you unable to argue without lying?

Sashka,

If I prove that you have everything already in this thread and that you are just gaslighting me, would you take your leave from Keith’s until 2017?

Good question. Keith, perhaps?

I don’t think Keith would be suitable arbiter for this. BTW, what if I win?

Either it’s a good question or it defeats my point. I go for the former.

But I’m pleased that I annoy you enough that you’re ready to go extra mile just to get ris of me. (I wonder what you’d do eliminate NiV?) I have to confess in return that you don’t bother me nearly as much.

In return, I’d like you switch to the skeptical side. Not the Morano or even Watts style. More like Lucia or Mosher or yours truly.

Of the frequent posters here I find only NiV acceptable. But you apparently have enough time to hang out on many blogs. Feel free to bring outside talent.

On wiki question, you already have the answer./br>

I don’t feel like I need to say what science is. I didn’t and I don’t plan to.

No I don’t feel compelled to answer any questions that I didn’t answer before.

Sorry, your offer is too vague.

Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn what you consider.

You brought this up so go ahead defend it.

The honest broker could well tell you just imagined him.

You’re right that skeptic should remain agnostic. That’s exactly what I am, no matter what you say.

Willard -

Indeed. Business-like would be a good thing to aim for.

I think also there is something still missing about much communication and rather than stress the relativity, I think it pertains more to the necessity for relational terms.

If someone (was foolish enough to) say that ‘The science has spoken’, beyond noting that science doesn’t (and can’t) speak, I’d insist that the foolish speaker add that the science has spoken ‘to me’.

This is actually a poor example, but always our desire to pretend that our own perspective is, or should be universal makes us leave out relational terms. Adding them seems to diminish the message but in doing so makes it honest.

The psychotherapeutic world often does little else but emphasise the importance (to emotional health) of making value statements and emotional utterances specific and personal. We try to say A is B, and forget that A is B to C. C usually being ourselves.

What appears dangerous? What appears dangerous to whom.

The most common example of the need for this is with morality and ‘should’. When I hear ‘should’ out of habit I want to ask ‘to achieve what? and for whom? Taken far enough this obviously removes any normal conception of morality – positivism in the extreme – but even in everyday understandings asking ‘to what end?’ often uncovers something not very well thought out.

With the communication of imaginings purportedly underpinned by science, these questions are especially useful – and expose the messy quagmire that is Hansen’s ‘voice’.

I note that I’ve wandered somewhat, but it has been an enjoyable trip.

I give up.

> The honest broker could well tell you just imagined him.

Exactly, hence the majestic ridiculousness of saying that this is a “lie” that an honest broker could hold that there are no science without values.

I never brought up what you said I brought.

Asking that I defend my arguments with other arguments could make for an infinite gaslighting game. This is not skepticism, this is denial logic.

Only a food fight can save you, now, Sashka.

A food fight, or your fleeting freedom to feverishly affirm your favorite froufrous.

Sashka, DFTT.

& DFTT.

What are Trolls?

The best answer I found is over there:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/23607301392

Anteros will appreciate the relational character of mike’s terminology.

May 5th, 2012 at 11:39 pm

Willard, we have come to a parting of the ways, and none too soon. I will not be responding to any more of your comments.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2012/05/04/climate-wars-reach-new-low/comment-page-8/#comment-108386

Was #205 a response to my comments?

I forgot to ask the definition of “response” and “comment”. Damn.

Willard – indeed

If I can jump into the science/value ‘discussion’ (without adding much) I would suggest two reasonable statements -

a) Science, itself, is value-free

b) Science, practised by human beings is value-tinged (at least).

I don’t think there is much mileage in looking for the truth-value of the statement -

c) science is value-free.

To further the cause of reasonableness, some scientific enterprises are vastly more value-laden than others.

There are only hints of vestiges of value-inputs in determining the ratio of atoms of hydrogen to oxygen in water. Somewhat more in assessing probabilities of catastrophic sea level rise…

Just my tuppence-worth

Sashka can thank you, Anteros.

As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer . . . For my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer’s gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing, the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conceptions only as cultural posits.

- Willard Van Orman Quine

PDA -

Glad Quine had his moments of reasonableness too.

Spot on.

Can none of you use this new gadget called the Internet?

Anteros:Keith ““ 20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf (application/pdf Object)
I’m not sure where it was published.

It was published in 2012, as a chapter in the *book* titled   “Climate Change: Inference from Paleoclimate and Regional Aspects”, Berger, Mesinger and Sijacki, eds.  which is largely a report/follow-on from a 2009 paleoclimate symposium held in Serbia. As neither Drs. Hansen nor Sato are listed as presenters I am going to guess theirs was an invited chapter. .

http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-3-7091-0972-4/#section=1066250&page=1&locus=18

Thank you for your comment, Nullius.

Constructivism is a project that interprets the phrase “there exists” strictly as “we can construct”:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mathematics-constructive/

The point of this interpretation is to forbid any mathematical entity that is independent from the process of mathematical creation, with an ontological framework that exists in a platonism realm of intelligible forms. This is a commitment as to what ought to be considered as a mathematical entity. What a proof is depends on what we ought to choose.

The only alternative would be to say that mathematical entities are what they are, independently of what we think about them. This kind of platonism still has currency. But I have yet to see a Platonist that claims this is not a personal choice, that fits with his own value judgements as how to conceive his mathematics.

Incidentally, one of the value that is at stake in this debate has been mentioned earlier. It is parsimony. There are other values, but I’ll let Sashka simmer a bit, while reminding him that he has yet to tell us what he believes is a value judgement. I’ve offered twice now the Wikipedia definition. Nor has he told us why he thinks mathematics is a real science. Indentally, according to constructivists, the very idea of a science per se makes no sense whatsoever.

Next time I see you or Sashka mentioning Ockham’s Razor, you’ll hear of me…

#221,

“The only alternative would be to say that mathematical entities are what they are, independently of what we think about them.”

Do you think you have found an alternative form of mathematics in which mathematical entities can change what they are, depending on how we think about them? Two plus two can equal five if we think about it the right way? That it’s a personal choice?

Thank you, Sashka.

Read and learn:

Are there general arguments against abstract objects? There are some, although it must be said that some of the most famous deniers of abstract objects have not always based their rejection on arguments. This is the case, for instance, of Goodman and Quine who, in their Steps toward a Constructive Nominalism, base their rejection of mathematical abstract objects on a basic intuition (1947, 105).

One argument against postulating abstract objects is based on Ockham’s razor. According to this principle one should not multiply entities or kinds of entities unnecessarily. Thus if one can show that certain concrete objects can perform the theoretical roles usually associated with abstract objects, one should refrain from postulating abstract objects. The effectiveness of this kind of appeal to Ockham’s razor is, of course, conditional upon our having been shown that concrete objects can play the theoretical roles associated with abstract objects. But if every theoretical role played by abstracta can be played by concreta and vice versa, then one needs a further reason why one should postulate concreta only rather than abstracta only. Sometimes the only evidence for the existence of the abstracta in question is that they perform the theoretical role in question. In that case one can use the principle that one should not postulate ad hoc entities or kinds of entities unnecessarily (Rodriguez-Pereyra 2002, 210″“16). That is, one should not postulate, if possible, entities for which there is no independent evidence, i.e. entities for the existence of which the only evidence available is that they satisfactorily perform a certain theoretical role.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nominalism-metaphysics/

The first paragraph is quoted only to wake up PDA and Anteros and all those who can think of the Holocaust when they hear “deniers.”

Nominalists as deniers of abstract entities. Take that, Ockham!

#225,

And how does that argument apply to the axiom of choice?

Nullius,

The sentence you take objection could very well be a truism. It basically says that the only alternative to anti-platonism is platonism. Anti-platonism does not entail pure conventionalism, nor does it entail some kind of mathematical solipsism. Searching for “mathematical solipcism”, I found this joke

The dean of a small university wants to build a new faculty
(Why? Eh, for the fame? Bugs me, it’s a joke) and since
it’s a small university (I said that?!) they are short on
money, and he asks a financial expert (who will probably
charge more for his advice than is saved): “Which kind of
faculty will be least expensive?”
The expert: “My second best suggestion would be a
math faculty. Give them enough pencils and paper and
a waste basket and they’ll be the happiest guys on earth.”
“And you can top that still?!”
“Yes. Do a philosophy faculty and you can even spare the
money for a waste basket.”

Not that I would say that my sentence is a truism, mind you. For the life of me, I would never say that. Take a look at the last time I said something like that:

http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/1432049429

This should remind you the last time we talked about dancing, btw. Wink, wink.

Your

The question that concerned people was simply whether the axiom of choice might lead to paradoxes, which is an objectively determinable issue.

is proven false by referring to the constructivist debate. Paradoxality is not the only question for mathematical foundations. Besides, there are other questions than foundational ones:

I think this is the real reason to avoid AC when you can: even if it’s true for boring old sets, in lots of other natural situations it’s just false. This is the same point that Harry was making, but I think it’s seeing the examples that really drives the point home.

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/22927/why-worry-about-the-axiom-of-choice

So much the worse for aesthetics.

What is aesthetics, by the way?

Nullius,

My last comment was adressed to you.

Since I need to say this, let me remind you that my #221 should make clear that the question how to derive ought from is has no bite when we don’t need to derive ought from is in the first place.

What is still remain what it is, of course. That has been known since Parmenides.

Is my #230 starting to sink in, kdk33?

Please, do join the conversation.

As Musashi once said, the more the merrier.

No, he did not say that exactly.

And what he said was not said it in English.

The last sentence is here to underline Nullius’ use of “expression” above.

#230,

That’s news to me…

#231,

Constructivists became constructivists over concerns about paradoxes.

The mathoverflow quote is highly dubious. I think they’ve tried to generalise a particular implication of the concept in a particular way to completely different sorts of objects and found it doesn’t work, but this is like arguing that because the concept of multiplication doesn’t generalise to multiplying lemon cheesecake, we ought to abandon the notion. More likely, they just generalised the wrong way.

Aesthetics is an instinctive enjoyment of the process of recognising subtle patterns to reduce apparent complexity. The greater the reduction (as a ratio), the more attractive it is.

> What does it mean to win?

What is the meaning of a word?

…and, by themselves, can words have meaning?

kdk33,

“What is the meaning of a word” can’t be decided unless we make the question more precise:

There is no simple and handy appendage of a word called “the meaning of the word (x).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._L._Austin#.22The_Meaning_of_a_Word.22

Please tell me what you mean by “words by themselves”.

So “winning” here means we get to inspect this posturing.

In what sense then is it possible to lose.  And if you cannot lose, how can you win?

Can we know what it means to win, without first knowing what it means to lose?

> which was the first word?

I believe it was a verb.

Another interesting question would be:

What was the first sentence?

I believe this is an open problem.

Am I right, kdk33?

kdk33,

Citation needed about your 70%.

If you can find any statistical detail behind this number, it would be appreciated too.

Do not worry, we’re not into epistemology yet.

Besides, I’m not the one who holds anything about what real science is.

Besides, nobody forces you to play games you do not like.

Not even commenting on games you do not like.

I never really understood why commenters took time to say that they take no interest whatsoever in what they read.

On a more constructive note, we can observe that mathematicians do seem to need a stable environment:

This history should make one thing clear: we are less certain than ever about the ultimate foundations of (logic and) mathematics; like everybody and everything in the world today, we have our “crisis”. We have had it for nearly fifty years. Outwardly it does not seem to hamper our daily work, and yet I for one confess that it has had a considerable practical influence on my mathematical life: it directed my interests to fields I considered relatively “safe”, and it has been a constant drain on my enthusiasm and determination with which I pursued my research work. The experience is probably shared by other mathematicians who are not indifferent to what their scientific endeavours mean in the contexts of man’s whole caring and knowing, suffering and creative existence in the world. (Weyl 1946, 13)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weyl/

Perhaps Weyl is only expressing aesthetical judgements there.

Perhaps not.

Another question:

Is real theology void of judgement values?

> Can we know what it means to win, without first knowing what it means to lose?

I suppose so: Paul Morphy did. Not that it helped him much when he was deprived from any opportunity to lose. In itself, winning brings oneself closer to reality.

But usually the effect of a loss does motive oneself to learn how to win. Loss too brings oneself closer to reality, but in a more indirect way.

We do value winning and losing. Our survival might very well depended on this valuation.

Willard,

You seem to have taken offense.  None was intended.  I willingly participate, but I also recognize it for what it is.  It was, in a way, a self-deprecating remark – meant to bring pleasure, primarily to myself.  I assume you can connect the dots.

You can google up the 70%, it’s in the ballpark -probably depends on how you measure you it.

> Is that a serious question?

It was not really a question. It was a way to convey the idea that I was talking about the Bible.

I do know that the Bible contains expletive. What would be your favorite one? I surmise that you know that Big Book better than most here.

The first sentence of the Bible, which we don’t know where it ends I believe, does not contain expletives, I presume. But how can one be sure it we don’t know what is the first sentence of the Bible?

Perhaps we should invent theological constructivism.

Please note, dearest readers, that the inspiration for constrivism was the presence of the word “constructive” in that thread. There are 22 occurences to date. The main one that inspired me was Keith’s, when he asked if I had something constructive to say…

Moses may have been promised a room, but he forgot to make a reservation, and there weren’t enough rooms to go around, and it all took a bit of soring out.Apparently, the festival was in town.  Something to do with trumpets.

> Really. Why?

Ask your girlfriend.

That didn’t take long.

kdk33,

Just read your #257.

Understood. No offense taken. I know what you can bring to a conversation. I accept that.

Proust once said something like this:

It is not to another intelligent man that an intelligent man will be
afraid to look dumb.

I see no reasons to be afraid of anything else than Knights who say Ni.

Not that I am afraid. If they turn into a chorus of Erynies, I might have to change my mind. But for now, it’s tough to create that kind of chorus with half an assertion every few hours.

Oh, same goes to you, Anteros: I hinted thus with my emoting/rationalizing duality.

And if you wish something that takes a bit longer, kdk33, I could say that we have evidence that you do know Bible’s message in a biblical sense…

This feels like a chat, now. It should always feel that way.

Quite frankly, Sashka seems to be holding that science does not contain hypotheses.

Would you mind sharing how you arrived to this remarkable conclusion?

The question, said Alice, is can you make words mean so many different things.

The question, said Humpty Dumpty, is who is to be master, that’s all.

Erratum to #268:

It’s not a mathematical conjecture, btw, because it’s not a formal claim on both sides of the equation.

@271

Cf.

How we choose to deal with the hypothesis does depend on how serious a mistake would be. But taking certain line of action doesn’t necessarily constitute acceptance of the hypothesis. It’s purely a risk management issue. Nothing to do with science.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/2012/05/22/have-you-had-enough-spin-yet/comment-page-6/#comment-110297

Not feigning anasthesia against #242 would be nice too, but Knights who say Ni only show up to say Ni.

@272

Citation needed.

kdk33,

On the contrary, language is a social art, as my alter ego used to say.

Nullius,

Not enough energy except to warn you that there are some breadcrumbs for you in the previous comment.

Enjoy,

kdk33,

The overall takehome from this is that you should stop worrying about Humpty Dumpty. It’s just an egg that tries to sit on a wall.

Frege was worried about Humpty Dumpty. Well, not Humpty Dumpty per se, but the treath that what was in our minds could never be shared:

If each man designated something different with the name “˜moon,
namely one of his own ideas, somewhat as he expresses his own pain with the cry “˜ouch, then the psychological point of view would indeed be justified; but an argument about the moons properties would be pointless: one man could perfectly well assert of his moon the opposite of what another man, with equal right, said of his. If we could not grasp anything but what was within ourselves, then a conflict of opinions (based upon) a common understanding would be impossible, because a common ground would be lacking, and no idea in the psychological sense can be such a ground. There would be no logic to be appointed arbiter in the conflict of opinions.

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~some3090/teaching/FRW/FRW%204.pdf

Basically, Frege is arguing against explaining mathematics by way of psychological states. His own realism is motivated by something called anti-psychologism. At the beginning of the 20th century, many philosophers accused one another of being a “psychologist”. This was worse than “denier”: Husserl (another famously unknown name) did not take it very well when Frege criticized his Logical investigations. Even the word “psychologist” can become a label.

I’m citing these notes simply because I wanted to copy-paste this quote instead of typing it. I take no responsibility for what is written in these notes. But it tends to illustrate what kind of notes students of philosophy have to decipher nowadays. People that believe that philosophy is still a bunch of Hegelian rhapsodies, you’re in for a big surprise.

Do not worry, I’ll be returning to our normal programming soon enough.

As long as you mind your Humpty Dumpty cliché, I will keep away from real semantics.

Is real semantics void of judgement values, by the way?

Lots of values there, kdk33! Beware to say that you’re doing real science, or you might hear from the Knights of Ni.

Please tell me more about Excel’s fregeanism.

I just found some old notes about winning, if you’re interested.

#282,

Gosh, it’s been about 20 years since I read much on the foundational debate. It was complicated, and I simplified somewhat for the sake of explanation. The concern about admissible methods in mathematics has always been about the fear of using plausible but essentially invalid methods that lead to erroneous results. Paradox is simply the sharpest example of that. Much of it dates back to the Bishop of Berkeley, and his criticism of calculus (“the ghosts of departed quantities”), from which came the attempts to put mathematics on a solid foundation, which led to Russell and Frege trying to axiomatise it, which led to the discovery of the Russell paradox, which led to the Hilbert programme and the Intuitionist programme, which all led to Godel.

It’s like asking a historian what caused the first world war. You could even say it goes all the way back to Euclid’s parallel postulate.

You could start here:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hilbert-program/

Sashka identifies his “concluding remark”:

You can troll someone else to your heart content.

Sashka earlier claimed:

As expected, I was quite right [...]

Can Sashka’s demand be “quite right”?

Can a demand even be a remark?

For completeness, let’s quote Sashka’s “concluding remark”:

Not interested in your pseudo-philosophical digressions either. You can troll someone else to your heart content.

We certainly can concede that Sashka seems to be right about his lack of interest.

Readers will judge if my digressions are “pseudo-philosophical” as Sashka presumed in that quote. Interestingly, this accusation was lacking from his latest comment.

How can willard be ‘pseudo-philosophical’ by inquiring into the meaning of things? By definition, he is philosophical, surely?

BBD,

The philosophical interlude started when Anteros asked you if you knew what demarcation was around #40.

The use of “pseudo” in “pseudo-philosophical” did not mean much. It was just a cheap insult. I believe the philosophical interlude shows that this insult lacks justification.

Sashka knows what real science is. Sashka does not feel compelled to define science, to justify is accusations of lying. Sashka simply knows he was clear all along.

Speaking of “pseudo”, here’s another use:

It was a pseudo-argument based on imagining of a non-existing entity and assuming that said entity would have the views convenient to you.

Here’s for the non-existing entity:

Douglas has written a useful book with a clear thesis. However, in the end it offers far more support for the myth of the value-free ideal than might be expected by the overall thesis. Douglas is right in saying that moving beyond the value-free ideal indeed makes good sense, for the practice of both science and policy. But her analysis would be more consistent and more helpful if she pointed out that the goal should not be the unattainable value-free science but the more realistic value-transparent science. Scientists certainly should feel empowered to advocate for a course of action where the scientific evidence is weak or inconclusive, but they ought to be explicit in explaining that this is what they are doing. The alternative is not value-free science, but a science that hides values from view.

http://www.issues.org/27.2/br_pielke.html

Could we honestly broker Junior as a “non-existing” entity?

In that article, we can also note an interesting distinction about different kinds of values: ethical, cognitive, and epistemic. No mention of aesthetical values.

I’ll return to the argument Sashka characterized by a cheap insult later today. I need to answer Nullius before that.

Indeed, kdk33 and bringing the two sides of the Venusian symbol together: interest.

Climate blogland is convincing me that the ancient frameworks were quite robust:

http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/dilemmas-in-science-communication/#comment-16616

Did I just say “robust”?

Did I just say “robust”?

A filthy habit.

BBD -

I most definitely didn’t ask you whether you understood the demarcation between science and (Hansen’s fevered) imagination. That’s what we call ‘made up’. A false invention.

I asked you whether you understood ‘demarcation’ – you just imagined the rest.

The relevant point – which you missed – is the difference between one kind of thing and another. Between a state of affairs (say an increase in temperature of 1.5C) and its meaning (‘dangerous!’ ‘catastrophic!’).

The great misunderstanding (which you share with J Hansen) is that science can underpin fevered imagination.

I’ve read much of Hansen’s science and not a shred of it can underpin his imagination of dangerousness.

I recommend you revisit R Betts argument for why this is the case. The science and the meaning-value are not related in the way that you think.

I’ve read much of Hansen’s science and not a shred of it can underpin his imagination of dangerousness.

No you haven’t. Caught you out on this upthread. What about Hansen (2007) on the non-linear response of ice-sheets? Also you ignored my reference to Dai et al. and to Western US megadrought during the MWP. Which strongly support Hansen’s remarks about agriculture and food scarcity.

I’ve taken you to task for misrepresenting Betts before. Don’t make me do it again. Remember this?

Nov 11, 2011 at 12:34 PM | MacRichard Betts has admitted that the 2 degree meme is in no way dangerous.

While really bad things may happen at 2 degrees, they may very well not happen either – especially in the short term (there may be a committment to longer-term consequences such as ongoing sea level rise that future generations have to deal with, but imminent catastrophe affecting the current generation is far less certain than people make out. We just don’t know.

But remember, this is the guy who said this:The most solid evidence for something with serious global implications that might happen at 2 degrees is the possible passing of a key
threshold for the Greenland ice sheet

To completely ignore the WAIS is, in a word, wrong. Maybe you should place quite so much confidence in RB. You might also have noticed that not a single other climate scientist has endorsed his remarks. Probably because they were questionable, and in my view, ill-advised.

Anteros

Multi-model global drought projection, 2030 – 2039 (data from Dai et al. 2010)

Chuck in accelerating SLR as the WAIS starts to go and I wonder just how much of a spanner in the works we’re looking at. If, as you claim, you had read around the two subjects of drought and ice sheet responses you would not – could not – be so complacent and confident:

Whatever the possible change in average weather, the important changing variable yesterday, today and tomorrow is climate-resilience.
It dwarfs climate-change.

Hansen’s claims that we are stuck with infrastructure specific to a particular climate are simply embarrassing and uninformed. Our infrastructure is changing dramatically faster than climate is ever likely to.

Climate resilience, eh? You are seeing only what you want to see.

BBD - 

A provocative and profoundly contrarian claimHow is it contrarian? Is Hansen a contrarian? I think naive is precisely how Hansen sees those who presume a linear response. My references would, of course, be anything that Hansen has published on ice sheet loss in about the last 25 years.

Climate resilience, eh? You are seeing only what you want to see.

We mean something different by the word ‘see’. I am talking about what we know. The dramatic and profound development of climate-resilience that easily matches our overcoming great numbers of infectious diseases. That trend is occurring today.

You’re relying on computer models to ‘see’ something that suits your speculation.

It is true that it is easier by far to imagine ‘bad’ things and to be moved by them, than to put them in realistic contrast to things happening in the opposite direction. 

If humanity is another order of magnitude more climate-resilient in a hundred years time, it would need a genuine climate apocalypse to prevent us from being better off.

BBD -

My complacency? Your alarmism?

The most important resource for this topic is actually history. And what people (particular those who are ‘alarmed’ by the future) fail to understand is that the important part of this history is not the events themselves. No, indeed not. What is important is the history of belief.

It is very easy to look at the present, extrapolate (with some models) into the future, see changes implying disaster and assuming that this is therefore what is going to happen.

Neo-Malthusians are particularly prone to this. What is needed is a history, not just of food production per capita, but the beliefs of fellow Malthusians over the past 200 years. Always it looks like population will outstrip production, and without the knowledge that indeed it has always looked like that, it is easy to convince oneself that disaster awaits – just as previous Malthusians did.

And of course, Malthusians have been wrong 200 years in a row but still see the future in a Malthusian way.

What is needed is the recognition that models, extrapolations and imaginings always misunderstand the future because they misunderstand the nature of change.

When it looks like there will be climate disasters (droughts, floods, whatever you get your models to generate) you only have a small proportion of the relevant information. 

I don’t doubt that it can look very like a changing climate will result in catastrophe and calamity but a history of things that have looked like that hint that expecting disaster is just a human disposition.

There was exactly no reason to expect that quadrupling the human population during the 20th century would not end in billions of deaths from famine, and yet the globe has a food surplus.

Anteros,

Minimization and denial feed one another. Worse, the roles get switched depending on the topic. Please help Keith break this spinning spiral of shrieks.

You appealed to Malthus five times in your last comment. Quite frankly, it is insulting. I’m sure you can think of more creative ways to drive the same point.

At the very least, let us have an inspiring wait for Godot.

Anteros,

Stove is regrettably right about how philosophy evolved. But I do share your sentiment, in a way. At least, I did the same as you, but a bit later.

I had a different concept of minimization in mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimisation_(psychology)

willard -

I’m much more familiar with that conception of minimising and its counterpart maximising (cf alcoholics stereotypically minimise, addicts stereotypically maximise), but I confusingly chose the word instead of ‘diminish’ for some reason. A Jungian slip perhaps.

I’m not sure that either denial or minimising are appropriate when the future imagined is pictured mainly by speculation. It is a strange world where people are accused of denying others’ fears. It speaks of a quite fundamental certainty in the beliefs of the worried.

An interesting link to the origination of the concept of hysteria. I should note that had it not been for the attractions of alliteration I would have used another term.

“A History of (anxiety-laden, future-imagining) Beliefs” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, though.

Having said that, the history of the conceptions of ‘mental illness’ has its own fascination ['to me', need I add].

Here’s the ngram for “scare”:

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=scare&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

I forgot to add: notice the word “by themselves” in the quote.

Thanks for the compliment, Anteros

Now that neverending audit has ended, I can look at other sources in my Reader. So here’s a last one from the Stone, for your Piccadilian night:

The plumber’s or electrician’s activities are a manifestation of the same kind of intelligence as the scientist’s or historian’s latest articles “” knowledge of truths. It is true that someone might be adept at car mechanics and hopeless at philosophy. But it is also true that someone might be adept at theoretical physics and hopeless at philosophy. Distinctions between what one is adept at and what one is not adept at do not correlate with the folk distinction between practical and theoretical pursuits. If only to appropriate student loans rationally, we must also recognize distinctions between professions, the mastery of which requires learning many and perhaps more complex truths, and professions that one can master more easily. But these are distinctions along a continuum, rather than distinctions in kind, as the folk distinction between practical and theoretical pursuits is intended to be.

Jason Stanley works on practical reasoning, which might be more pallatable to you than formal epistemology.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/the-practical-and-the-theoretical/

Anteros,

When I said that minimization and denial feed one another, I said something that made no sense.

I meant that minimization and alarmism feed one another.

Fear and fearing fear is another common transaction loop.

BBD,

First life is knocking to the door, and I just wrote this [1] in a discussion that shows a counter-example to your claim that I’m always polite and perhaps illustrate reasons why I seem to attract insults, so I’ll try be brief:

I don’t know. I would have to think about it. And even then, I’m not sure there is an univocal answer to your question.

I believe that Anteros’ point in this discussion is to say that there never are alarms on the tables. Well, since there can be, let’s say instead that there can’t be alarming reports on tables.

Alarms are what hear people that read the reports, or what people hear from people who did read those reports. Alarms can raise many concerns. One of them is that is can be a false alarm. That seems to be one of Anteros’ concern.

My own concern is that if I kept hearing an alarm, my first reflex would be to shut it down. In fact, I already did this, and the firemen were not happy. It was not my job to do so. Since the alarm was kept quiet, they could not track back from where the alarm rang. Not that it mattered much, in the end, since the panel could not indicate precisely anyway, but this incident changed some policies, and the panel.

Hearing an alarm and thinking don’t go well together.

On the other hand, the “middle way” that all this discussion presumes made sense in Lao Tsu’s times, but make little sense nowadays. But I’m willing to be convinced. Who’s pinching in to write the Tao of Climate?

[1] http://judithcurry.com/2012/05/26/doubt-has-been-eliminated/#comment-204391

BBD,

Now everything’s calm and I have a minute. Since earlier today, I’ve had time to think a bit more about ice ages, ambiguity, and politeness. I will try to connect these topics together. Wish me luck.

First, ice. Since it’s the last of the neverending audit at Keith’s, I’m putting some order into my notes. Emptying my Circa (an Atoma clone), I saw this quote from Dick in response from a comment by Anna about that advocating a 1 degree CS is tough to reconcile with what is known about glacial cycles:

The paleoclimate people have usually never worked with theory of climate. The papers by Jerry Robe, by Peter Huybers and Milankovitch are theory. [...] So it’s pure ignorance to say paleo demands it. Hanson has said this for years, it doesn’t make any sense and I don’t think it’s even widely accepted. The paleo community has grabbed on to it, says oh, now we’re relevant but I mean I don’t think it matters more than that.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/changeyourmind/webextras/richardlindzen_transcript.pdf

The cascade of minimization is impressive, starting to “it’s all theory” to what Dick’s statement of opinion: “I don’t think it matters more than that”. Sounds like spin to me.

Consider the mental effort it takes to see how this cascade answers the question. In all fairness, Dick also shows some kind of calculation in the middle of all this, but this calculation does not erase the spin. By itself, the spin does not respond to what Anna brought: it amounts to accumulate indirect attacks on the certainty about the 3 CS from paleo.

Dick’s line of defense does not amount to a knock-down argument. All it does is to mix objective from subjective claims. And even on that ground, some claims are ambiguous.

Take “this is all theorical.” It can be used as a accurate description. But here it is not purely descriptive: it functions like an argument. Being theorical, the works of Huybers & al are insufficient. What’s dogwhistled here is that it would be better to have empirical results.

I’m not saying it to hold any grudge against Dick. It’s certainly his right to step up on the political arena and debate. We all do this, and all have this right, and sometimes the obligation, to do so. Besides, these are claims made in the flow of an interview

An interview does not work exactly like a conversation, but it does share some conversational aspects: the need to be interesting, the somewhat free associations of ideas, etc. In that kind of setting, you’re quite right to underline to efficiency of ambiguity.

And this is where politeness enters my point. To converse is not to debate. The way to win in a conversation is not the same as in a debate. It’s easier to act in a judicary accusatory mode during a debate. In a conversation, it sounds odd.

Hence the power to remain polite. But there is polite and polite. Fred Moolten is polite. But he does not use his politeness to say more than he could say if he shouted. I won’t surprise anyone by saying that it’s possible to use politeness in such a manner.

In hockey, a player that believes he will be called for a penalty will try to entice a player to retaliate. To that end, he sometimes use insults. If you don’t know anything about this kind of behavior, I suggest you look at the best hockey movie: Slap Shot. One of the main reasons why I got hooked hereunder was because I like hockey.

Thank you for your kind words,

See you around,

w

Your link goes nowhere.  Ironic, that.

Dean Donne knew more than was good for him