The Global Warming Debate

[nomoon]

Thanks once again for your contribution. I apologize for the delay in my response. My day job has a big release and had demanded much of my time lately. I hope to be more prompt in the future.

(10-07-2012 03:43 PM)refill Wrote:  

nomoon Wrote:Nomoon: "I’m not sure if I completely understand your comment about climategate.

The Climategate incident wasn’t a study. It confirmed what many believe to be unethical practices among a key group of climate scientists in the field of paleoclimatology. Among the charges against this group are manipulation of data and coordination to suppress publications by critics."

I understand. I'm saying that it seems that a large part of the counter-argument hinges on climate-gate, as if it totally negates all other research.

I wouldn’t agree that the large part of the counter-argument hinges on climate gate. Every issue disclosed in the climate-gate emails was already known about. People who brought up these issues were ridiculed for even implying that these types of coordinated shenanigans were going on. The emails merely confirmed it. I’d say that climate-gate reduces the credibility of this particular sub-field or climate researchers, and reinforces the argument that we should try to reduce our reliance on argument from authority involving issues with involve their research. I still think that the best arguments rely on examining the science, instead of using arguments from authority.

In the big picture, climate-gate resides in area III.A (Paleoclimate Reconstructions) from my original post. The implication is, if global temperatures were hotter during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and possibly the Roman Warm Period (RWP), then the current temperatures are not unprecedented. It would reaffirm that natural variations in climate are larger than the models assume, and that the current temperatures are within the natural variation of climate, and that CO2 isn’t necessary to explain our current state. Disproving the hockey stick wouldn't concretely disprove catastrophic warming from CO2, but it would remove the "unprecedented warming claim" that was used as moderately strong circumstantial evidence to support it.

refill Wrote:

nomoon Wrote:"I think that many of us can better assess this by examining the science, rather than trying to evaluate the sources.
I don’t think that we need to rely 100% on an argument from authority on this issue."

To a degree this is true. However, unless you intend to go get a PhD and then do your own research, you have to decide which experts you trust. Aside from one's 1 or 2 fields of expertise in life, you have to trust the opinion of your doctor, mechanic AC repair guy, lawyer, etc. The fact is, even if we have the mental capacity to achieve expertise, we do not have the time to be expert at everything.

I don’t feel that you need a Ph.D to understand some of the key critical issues. In fact, with this particular public scientific debate, I feel that too many people assume that the issues are not understandable, and therefore, we must rely on authority.

Coincidentally, ClimateAudit has a new posting (Forensic Bioinformatics)on a situation in the field of cancer research that parallels the issue of bad science and manipulation of data. It started when two statisticians tried to replicate work published by a group of cancer researchers at Duke University. They made critical comments in journals, but instead of honestly addressing the criticism, the Duke researchers resorted to rigorously defending the work, and relied on their authority to claim that the criticisms from the non-experts where “deeply flawed” and minor. The criticisms from the statisticians had trouble getting published in mainstream medical journals because their results were “too negative.” An investigation at Duke even cleared the cancer researchers. It wasn’t until later that their story began to unravel when the main researcher’s credibility was undermined for an entirely different issue. The experience from the two statisticians is strikingly similar to the experiences of Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick.

refill Wrote:Seems there are very few credible scientist on the skeptics side (your list of 3 are the most prominent of a short list, from what I can tell).

A larger list of skeptical scientists can be found at this Wikipedia link. (Note that climate based Wikipedia articles are closely patrolled by global warming advocates, including William Connolley, who apparently has rewritten over 5000 climate articles. Condescension regarding skeptics can be expected at Wikipedia).

I'll make a comment on the SkepticalScience blog in a followup post.