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Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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Dexter

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Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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I don't know much about climate science, but this might be of interest.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/0 ... e-science/

A few excerpts:
I repeat that I am not a full sceptic of climate change, let alone a “denier”. I think carbon-dioxide-induced warming during this century is likely, though I think it is unlikely to prove rapid and dangerous. So I don’t agree with those who say the warming is all natural, or all driven by the sun, or only an artefact of bad measurement, but nor do I think anything excuses bad scientific practice in support of the carbon dioxide theory, and every time one of these scandals erupts and the scientific establishment asks us to ignore it, I wonder if the extreme sceptics are not on to something. I feel genuinely betrayed by the profession that I have spent so much of my career championing.
Judith Curry of Georgia Tech moved from alarm to mild scepticism and has endured vitriolic criticism for it. She recently wrote:

There is enormous pressure for climate scientists to conform to the so-called consensus. This pressure comes not only from politicians, but from federal funding agencies, universities and professional societies, and scientists themselves who are green activists and advocates. Reinforcing this consensus are strong monetary, reputational, and authority interests. The closing of minds on the climate change issue is a tragedy for both science and society.
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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Sounds like a good book for all of us to read.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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Sure, we occasionally take a swipe at pseudoscience—homeopathy, astrology, claims that genetically modified food causes cancer, and so on. But the great thing about science is that it’s self-correcting. The good drives out the bad, because experiments get replicated and hypotheses put to the test. So a really bad idea cannot survive long in science.

Or so I used to think. Now, thanks largely to climate science, I have changed my mind. It turns out bad ideas can persist in science for decades, and surrounded by myrmidons of furious defenders they can turn into intolerant dogmas.
This is very true and something I read some place else. I forget where.

Bad ideas, or bad hypotheses, are weeded out because of the strongest aspects of the scientific method - testability and replicability. If it can't be tested it's an unworkable hypothesis. If it can't be replicated, it's unverifiable - period.
And what can we say about predictability in all this?

Climate science essentially has only its mathematical models to work with for confirmation of hypotheses. None of this can be tested out in the real world. The predictive power of climate models has been poor and inadequate.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I for one support lowering dirty, toxic emissions. i don't doubt they are harmful to our environment.

What I don't buy into is the dogma that's ossified around this entire issue and is now turning into accusations of immorality aimed at people who are skeptical of the science of climatology. Dogma can turn relatively smart people into complete idiots who really just want to ride a moral high horse but don't really know jack-shit about the science.

On a side note, rising nations like India and China have accused countries that demand action be taken now of attempting to stultify their economic growth so as to prevent them from becoming economic super powers.
There's a conspiracy in play.
I mythers can play the conspiracy card so can I.
But wait a second - the great All-knowing Oracle of science has said man is the primary cause of global warming.
The gods have spoken and they are on the side of morality!

Hail to the mighty gods of consensus science! :adore:


EDITED:

Here's another gem from the article:

That these alarms—over population growth, pesticides, rain forests, acid rain, ozone holes, sperm counts, genetically modified crops—have often proved wildly exaggerated does not matter: the organisations that did the most exaggeration trousered the most money. In the case of climate, the alarm is always in the distant future, so can never be debunked.
Right on the money.

Case in point; climate models that predict the current 17 year pause is just that - a pause, but that the globe will continue to warm at an alarming rate in the future.
How can a "it will happen in the future" conclusion ever be falsified?
Is that science?
Last edited by ant on Tue Jun 23, 2015 12:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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Interbane wrote:Sounds like a good book for all of us to read.
Why don't you lead the discussion?
Can you put down Richard Carrier and Daniel Dennett for a few days?

:bananen_smilies035:
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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I went to buy the book and found a few articles instead. Here's one with quite a few links.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... t-journal/
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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Interbane wrote:I went to buy the book and found a few articles instead. Here's one with quite a few links.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... t-journal/
An article from 2014 that'll debunk an article in 2015!
And from an unbiased "progressive" source "Think Progress" - subcategory "climate progress"


brilliant
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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Interbane wrote:I went to buy the book and found a few articles instead. Here's one with quite a few links.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/0 ... t-journal/
I am wondering, were climate scientists surprised by the ocean apparently absorbing all of this heat? Why wasn't this anticipated?

I don't know the history of all the players in this "debate," and I certainly don't know the technical points, but it seems to me Ridley is being viciously attacked for making what seems to be reasonable points about misrepresentation and perverse incentives in the climate science community.
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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Here is something I came across before reading the climate wars article.
The demonization of Jim Steele
Look what happened to a butterfly ecologist named Camille Parmesan when she published a paper on “Climate and Species Range” that blamed climate change for threatening the Edith checkerspot butterfly with extinction in California by driving its range northward. The paper was cited more than 500 times, she was invited to speak at the White House and she was asked to contribute to the IPCC’s third assessment report.

Unfortunately, a distinguished ecologist called Jim Steele found fault with her conclusion: there had been more local extinctions in the southern part of the butterfly’s range due to urban development than in the north, so only the statistical averages moved north, not the butterflies. There was no correlated local change in temperature anyway, and the butterflies have since recovered throughout their range. When Steele asked Parmesan for her data, she refused. Parmesan’s paper continues to be cited as evidence of climate change. Steele meanwhile is derided as a “denier”
There are huge monetary profits to be made within the walls of this politicized science:
Michael Oppenheimer, of Princeton University, who frequently testifies before Congress in favour of urgent action on climate change, was the Environmental Defense Fund’s senior scientist for nineteen years and continues to advise it. The EDF has assets of $209 million and since 2008 has had over $540 million from charitable foundations, plus $2.8 million in federal grants. In that time it has spent $11.3 million on lobbying, and has fifty-five people on thirty-two federal advisory committees. How likely is it that they or Oppenheimer would turn around and say global warming is not likely to be dangerous?

Why is it acceptable, asks the blogger Donna Laframboise, for the IPCC to “put a man who has spent his career cashing cheques from both the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and Greenpeace in charge of its latest chapter on the world’s oceans?” She’s referring to the University of Queensland’s Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.
Can we trust spokesmen for climate change that make millions of dollars off it?
I truly believe politics infects everything, especially when billions of dollars can be made.
It's the layman that's duped by all the rhetoric I feel sorry form, in certain cases.
Follow the money trail and you will find personal motive.
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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Dexter wrote:I don't know the history of all the players in this "debate," and I certainly don't know the technical points, but it seems to me Ridley is being viciously attacked for making what seems to be reasonable points about misrepresentation and perverse incentives in the climate science community.
This is a problem. I don't think either side believes they are wrong or duplicitous, which means their intent is noble. To be skewered for offering dissent is bad for science.
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Matt Ridley, "The Climate Wars’ Damage to Science"

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The ocean covers 71 percent of the Earth's surface and contains 97 percent of the planet's water, yet more than 95 percent of the underwater world remains unexplored. The ocean and lakes play an integral role in many of the Earth's systems including climate and weather.
http://www.noaa.gov/ocean.html

The absorption of heat by the oceans and the varying temperatures, particularly at unknown depths and its effect on climate is little known.
To understand global warming, scientists must first understand the oceans.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... e-changes/


What does the consensus say about the oceans impact on climate, Interbane?
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