Wormtongues and Gandalfs
But when I escaped and warned you, then the mask was torn, for those who would see. After that Wormtongue played dangerously, always seeking to delay you, to prevent your full strength being gathered. He was crafty: dulling men’s wariness, or working on their fears, as served the occasion.
– Tolkien’s Gandalf, The Two Towers
The fossil fuel industry, along with its witting and unwitting stooges, continues to play the part of Wormtongue in trying to keep the US public from understanding and responding to global warming. Besides the Wall Street Journal editorial from a week ago, there was another [WARNING: BULLSHIT!] raft of denialist hokum in the Daily Mail [END BULLSHIT].
And there was this: Coal-Powered PAC Runs Harassment Campaign Against Climate Scientist Michael Mann.
A coal-industry astroturf group is running a public campaign to harass Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann for his “radical agenda” of climate science. The Common Sense Movement/Secure Energy for America Political Action Committee (CSM/SEAPAC) has established a website asking people to criticize the Penn State Speakers Forum for allowing Michael Mann to speak about the climate change challenge. “Join us in calling on the administration to disinvite the disgraced academic,” the group says on its Facebook page.
That really bugs me. Frankly, it pisses me off.
Some good resources to fight back against the B.S.:
- Global warming battles on the blogs – A good round-up by Greg Laden of the various outrageous lies and outraged rebuttals that have appeared over the last few weeks.
- Still going down the up escalator – An excellent response to the dishonest attack on Phil Plait’s use of the “escalator graph” (the same one I posted atop the item last week that led to the interminable thread in which shcb was too chicken to provide sourcing for his contrarian views on climate change).
We’re totally dealing with Wormtongue here, and the scientific consensus that has emerged in the last few years has moved us firmly into the “mask is torn” phase. People like Michael Mann are our Gandalf, letting a shaft of sunlight through.
Update: According to the Guardian (yeah, I know), Penn State (yeah, I know) is doing the right thing by Mann: Penn State defies Facebook campaign calling for it to drop climate lecture. Yay. Go, Gandalf.
February 3rd, 2012 at 9:26 am
Both sides are doing it, that’s what happens when science gets in bed with politics.
http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/Storm-subsides-between-William-Gray-Colorado-1754634.php
February 3rd, 2012 at 11:54 am
from your link
Everyone knows scientists are doing it solely for the filthy lucre, while the oil, coal and gas industries are selflessly pointing out that the science is just plain wrong. The problem is that the big money has bought out a certain stripe of politician and scientist alike. But since there is, shall we say, a certain bias already built in to certain perspectives, there is simply no amount of science, evidence, math or nose-before-the-face that will convince the zealot. Obviously from shcb’s perspective the exact reverse could be argued as being lwnj bias (science be damned).
I am ready to be convinced that ACC is not happening. Give us your best shot. Your most authoritative papers, the most peer reviewed, thrice-vetted, twice blessed studies and experiments.
Convincing me doesn’t really matter: convince the scientists who actually study climate. So far it would seem this hasn’t happened. The scientific consensus is that climate change is happening and human activity is driving it.
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:11 pm
And then there’s Sauron (R) of Mordor…
http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/23/politics/arkansas-campaign-cat/?iref=obinsite
Disgusting.
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Meteorology is different than climate science. Gray may be correct in disputing the tying of a particular hurricane or hurricane season to global warming, but that doesn’t invalidate the consensus of climate scientists. Climate science is about long-term trends, not short-term phenomena. Statistically, yeah, we’re probably going to tend to get more and stronger hurricanes overall (just like we’re going to get more “wackier” weather patterns, with severe storms, both drought and floods, and so on). There was lots of variability before; there will continue to be lots of variability. But the baseline against which that variability will play out will be shifting over time (and is already shifting).
One crankish mostly-retired weather researcher notwithstanding, that’s what the overwhelming majority of active climate scientists believe. Sure, there are people who disagree. There’s a technical term for those people. They’re “wrong”. The evidence is extremely compelling, at least for anyone taking the time to actually look at that evidence objectively.
February 4th, 2012 at 6:07 am
But I don’t think that is the point. The point is Grey is a very well respected scientist who has been in the business of studying the climate for decades and someone tryed to shut him up because he has a different outlook on a matter of science, the art of eternal exploration. Now those folks weren’t evil oil, and they weren’t evil nuke, or even evil auto, so who can they be?
He isn’t going to make it through your gauntlet of course, as we discussed for over 80 comments last week, but you don’t become the most respected expert in hurricanes working at a little land grant college in flyover country without knowing a little about the climate.
February 4th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
You’re cherrypicking your experts, just like the people who mislead you cherrypick the time windows that allegedly show the earth to be cooling rather than warming.
The question you should ask yourself is not, “Can I find an expert who voices opinions that match what I believe to be true?” Especially in the age of the Internet, it is trivially easy to find such experts, and to thereby support any belief you want by claiming there are experts to back you up.
What you should ask yourself is, “Does what I believe to be true fall outside the set of beliefs agreed upon by an overwhelming majority of the experts?” If it does (as it does in this case), you have a choice to make: You can choose to deny the evidence, and live in a comforting fantasy world in which you are right and the experts are wrong. Or you can accept that you are mistaken, and change your views.
The question, really, is whether you would cling to an illusion of infallibility, even at the risk of being wrong, or whether you’re willing to risk being wrong, in order to maximize the chances of actually being right.
In your case it apparently would be so painful to admit your error that you prefer to modify reality to fit your views, rather than the other way around. Which is kind of pathetic.
February 5th, 2012 at 6:49 am
I’m quoting my experts, I’m giving examples of what has happened to some of them for being on the “wrong” side of a scientific theory, I’m not sure how that is cherry picking. You seem to be of the opinion that I had a preconceived notion of AGW, I didn’t. I believed it as much as anyone else in the beginning, I mean who am I to question the expertise of people that have spent their whole lives studying the climate. But then other facts and anomalies started to pop up, why is the only solution global socialism? Well that was explained by socialists have hijacked the cause, that doesn’t mean the science is bad. Then the hockey stick doesn’t match the other data sets, etc, etc, we’ve been through that all before. Now I didn’t go out looking for these scientists because they matched my change of mind, these scientists changed it.
You say I should ask myself “does what I believe to be true fall outside the set of beliefs agreed upon by an overwhelming majority of experts”. My answer is no! an emphatic no! By the way, did you notice you said what experts believe? You’re slipping. Somewhere around 98% of experts in religion, priests, rabbis, and ministers, believe in a single deity, I don’t. Now I’m excluding atheists since, well, they haven’t written as many sermons as the others. See where I’m going?
In the first place (again) you and I disagree on the number of scientists that are on one side or the other, we evidentially aren’t going to change that you read what someone said about a study, I read what someone said, then I read what the study said and we came to different conclusions.
I’m not clinging to infallibility, real or imagined, I don’t mind being wrong, I just need someone to show me what has changed since I changed my mind many years ago. That is why I asked what new evidence in the last 5 years is Hayhoe talking about? You gave me her credentials, that isn’t evidence. And I don’t need links, your own words will do fine, I trust you. Then you gave me a link to someone saying what someone said, I read it, they said man had caused 150% of global warming, and the reason for it being more that 100% (an impossibility) is because the model didn’t match reality, ok, so I think I can mark that off the list of credibility, but to do due diligence I read what that someone actually said, they said, among other things, that they were way off in one direction in the first half of the century and way off in the other direction in the last part of the century and the two didn’t balance out so we caused it to warm more than it actually warmed, off to Starbucks! They know without a doubt that man has caused x amount of warming to a hundredth of a degree Kelvin but they missed reality by at least 50%, yeah, that doesn’t cut muster with me.
I just haven’t seen anything that would make me change my mind back the other direction. If anything the evidence I’ve seen is against AGW
February 5th, 2012 at 10:02 am
See Cherry picking (fallacy) at Wikipedia.
It’s right there in your first four words: “I’m quoting my experts…” You are guilty of cherry picking because you are willing to take a subset of experts and claim them as “yours”, while excluding other experts from consideration. It’s like you’re playing fantasy football, and there are only certain experts you’re willing to pick to be on your team.
We can play fantasy expert football if you want, but as we’ve already discussed, your team is going to lose that competition. And not just lose; they’re going to be crushed. It’s going to be the Giants (or the Patriots; I’m agnostic today) vs. the local pee wee team.
Look at the stats. There are objective, reliable ways to assess expertise. You can look at things like whether or not someone has academic credentials in the particular field on which they are offering opinions. You can look at whether or not they have been published in peer-reviewed journals in that field, how often they have been published, and how often other experts have cited their work. And lo, such comparisons have already been made. See Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? for a summary.
You betray another fallacy later in your first paragraph. You claim that you were previously a believer in global warming, “…[b]ut then other facts and anomalies started to pop up, why is the only solution global socialism?” I’ve pointed this out before, but it’s worth mentioning again, since you seem unable to grasp it: The facts of global warming exist independently of whatever response society chooses to make. The scientific consensus on global warming is about what it is that is actually happening to the planet’s climate. Of course those facts have strong implications for our policy choices, but the two are not the same thing.
We absolutely should be having a societal debate about what our response to global warming should be. But that debate needs to be based on reality. What you appear to be doing is to work backwards from your preferred policy choices, and try to use that to somehow change the actual facts. And that’s a childish fantasy. It’s completely, obviously irrational. You cannot magically make global warming go away just because you have an ideological predisposition against the policy response that some people believe it calls for.
The facts, as agreed to by the New York Giants and the New England Patriots of climate science (regardless of the protests of your pee wee flag football hurricane expert, whose trampled body is lying about 80 yards downfield from the current action), are these:
* The planet is warming.
* The large majority of that warming is the result of human activity.
* If steps are not taken soon to change course, the consequences for humanity will be dire.
That’s the starting point for a grown-up discussion about what we should do next. You want to make ideological rants against socialism as part of that, feel free. But you don’t get to rewrite the underlying facts to make it easier for you to make that argument.
I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt in our recent discussion, and gave you a chance to offer, to the extent you were willing to, a defense of your contrarian views on the scientific consensus. I asked you to make specific claims, and to offer a specific explanation of where your views came from: were they something you came up with on your own? If so, what was your reasoning? Or were they views that you heard from a third party? If so, who? What did they say? Why did you find it convincing? Why did you reject the views of experts who disagree with that view?
You declined to take me up on that offer. You talked (and continue to talk) a lot, but when push came to shove you skated away from making specific responses, taking refuge in excuses and aggrieved whining. You want to play a game in which you are free to spout conclusions without having to be specific or respond to criticisms or support your views with evidence. Fine. You do that. You are, after all, the honey badger.
I’m done for now.
February 5th, 2012 at 4:58 pm
The reason I’m not cherry picking is because I have and continue to listen to experts on both sides of the issue, I didn’t go out and look for Professor Grey because I was looking for his point of view, I found him, listened to his point of view and was convinced he had credibility. I’m not that impressed with the citation number game. I agree someone needs to have a certain level of expertise, people like Grey and Spencer have that expertise, but the numbers game doesn’t impress me as much as much as what they have to say.
I’ve read enough of these papers to see how the numbers game works. I read one study that was 10 pages long, it had over cited over 70 different authors and studies, in 10 pages! 2 of those pages were the references! That’s like I per paragraph, there was absolutely no research done by the authors of the paper, they were just regurgitating someone else’s work.
Now there is nothing wrong with the scientific method, there is nothing wrong with giving references or building on others work, that is how scientific progress is made properly, but you need to be able to recognize when there are abuses in progress. You and others that continue the mantra that all these scientists can’t be wrong seem to be working under the assumption that science is perfectly self regulating, I have the same view of capitalism, but I realize that is only to a point. There is a reason to have government involved in the regulation of business to a point, the trick is where is that line. Every aspect of human endeavor is susceptible to corruption, on a large and small scale. Evidently you didn’t listen to the video of Dr Grey talking at the State House I deposited in the last discussion. He makes the point that problems arise when government take a side in a scientific endeavor.
So let’s see,
* The planet is warming. (Yes)
* The large majority of that warming is the result of human activity. (Maybe, but probably not)
* If steps are not taken soon to change course, the consequences for humanity will be dire. (probably not, but if it is true, what are our options?)
That is how adults debate an issue, they look at all sides, they look at all options and they realize there is still a lot they don’t know, there are always things that are going to go wrong because we are dealing with the human element and in this case the natural element, neither of which is totally predictable. I’ve been reading some of what Mike Hulme has written lately, interesting fellow. Professor at EAU, kind of the epicenter of the debate, he believes in AGW, doesn’t seem to have much good to say about the IPCC, is looking into this issue in many different ways, what is interesting to me (and he) is what makes this issue so polarized, why are the people on either side of this issue considered naive, stupid etc and the only way to deal with this issue is to totally socialize the world or ignore it completely. I haven’t bought his book yet, but I might.
Oh, you said I haven’t given you links, I did you give you some, you didn’t like them. I asked you to tell me what new has been discovered in the last 5 years, you haven’t done that either.
February 6th, 2012 at 12:42 am
“I didn’t go out and look for Professor Grey because I was looking for his point of view, I found him, listened to his point of view and was convinced he had credibility.”
Okay. Let’s do this again. YOU. ARE NOT. QUALIFIED. TO DETERMINE HIS CREDIBILITY.
And for every example of a study you read that was 10 pages long and cited so many papers, etc etc, I guarantee I can provide a paper that cites properly, in which research was done. Your life experience story holds no credibility here.
I actually read one of the papers that CITED the paper you listed as “evidence” against AGW…it was about species diversity in some European mountains, and only cited your paper as “some people believe that AGW does not exist”, as an aside in their final discussion. It was cited for the opinion it expressed, not even for the merit of the “science” in the paper. Aka, I have yet to see anyone express respect for the paper you provided. And don’t argue that you barely read it, I consider myself accountable for any sources I post here.
For every Dr. Grey you provide, there are over 9 Dr.s expressing opposing opinions.
Notice how the scientific community has more or less moved on from the question of “is AGW taking place?” That’s because, big tip here, the overwhelming majority are in consensus. But it’s cute that you don’t see that.
February 6th, 2012 at 5:05 am
Okay. Let’s do this again. YOU. ARE NOT. QUALIFIED. TO DETERMINE HIS CREDIBILITY.
Really? Think about that just a little. If ‘m not qualified to determine his credibility, how are you qualified to determine the credibility of those that oppose him? You can’t use credentials because Grey certainly has the credentials. So are you using his point of view to determine his credibility?
February 6th, 2012 at 9:35 am
It’s pretty simple: I use credentials. I use which papers they have published, in which journals. I use how many times those papers have been cited (you can argue that doesn’t matter, but really, that’s a ridiculous argument). I then look at their sources of support; where does their funding come from?
I am not qualified to determine, “well this guy seems legit”, without looking at all these things. I have seen you do that multiple times. Let’s consider for a moment that Grey has credentials. I believe I’ve already said this, but let’s try again: there are over 9 Drs expressing the opposite viewpoint to him.
February 6th, 2012 at 9:51 am
Anithil,
I’d like to take that a step further. Would you agree that the >9:1 Drs ratio roughly equates to a greater than 90% certainty or would you say that that with such near consensus the certainty is nearly 100%?
I’m wondering to what extent you place any value on dissenting opinions about what conclusion can be made from existing evidence and facts. Surely there are examples in science where near unaninimity was found to be somewhat misplaced, e.g. Newtonian physics was once thought to explain everything – now we’re not so smug.
February 6th, 2012 at 2:36 pm
IMHO the discussion so far has been bordering on “absolutes” (either you believe the evidence and the credentialed scientists consensus or you don’t.) A more realistic framework might be that you and JBC agree with the credentialled scientists with a greater than 98% confidence; and shcb has something like a 50% confidence level in their results & conclusions.