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Dave123 at 06:34 AM on 16 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
This is a somewhat political opinion but all this talk of the need to defer to the delicate sensibilities of the alleged conservatives is simply a manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome...and in the long run is counter productive. You don't end temper tantrum politics by coddling the miscreants. -
shoyemore at 06:28 AM on 16 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
Andy S, Yes, the perceptions of risk in climate change, and the policies you are prepared to support are closely aligned (as you say). However, Roberts did not make any remarks refuting the useful observation of the Brookings poll that personal experience counts more than scientific evidence, to which the public get only limited exposure. If anything, it shows the importance of highlighting the scientific explanation on occasions where public attention is held by important weather events. -
ralbin at 06:23 AM on 16 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
While Adler deserves some credit for breaking away from the party line, this piece isn't a "conservative's approach" it's a white flag of surrender. Conservatives traditionally have 2 responses to externalities like global warming - deny they exist (Milton Friedman) or claim that property rights can be assigned to construct a market (Ronald Coase). The latter is the cap and trade strategy. Adler's piece is an implicit repudiation of bedrock principles of conservatism. The claim that a carbon tax is a "small government" solution is dubious. Any effective carbon tax will have to be global, requiring considerable international negotiations and considerable adjustments of present world economic arrangements. These are hardly "small government" tasks. Similarly, his recommendation that legal barriers to deployment be eased is essentially advocacy of increased governmental regulatory power. Adler is trying to run away from conservatism while maintaining some rhetorical cover. That Adler proposes remedies that violate conservative principles, at least those of American conservatives, demonstrates the bankruptcy of conservative ideas. -
KR at 06:10 AM on 16 June 2012Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong
balanceact - See the intermediate version of this post - his sensitivity estimate was 4.2°C/doubling. -
Andy Skuce at 05:55 AM on 16 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
Chris G @ 9&10 I found the reporting of the statistics in the Kahan Study hard to understand. A few more tables, bar charts and crossplots would have made things much easier to grasp. Also, some of their classifications were not very clearly defined. On their Figure S4 there are supposed to be dotted red lines showing standard deviations, which don't appear on the document I downloaded. -
Tom Smerling at 05:46 AM on 16 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
Dennis @#3 -- Adler has been saying this for several years (check out his links above). To my knowledge he is still widely-regarded as a conservative analyst in good standing, as is Peter Wehner and others. There's more tolerance of diversity of opinion in think tanks than, say, among Republican political candidates. BKSea @#1 Nobody claims that Adler is going to change anybody overnight. What I'm saying is that if we're serious about getting movement on climate policy, it is very important to encourage and promote intellectally-honest conservatives who accept the science, are searching for solutions, and can serve as role models for others. That would make it a lot easier for rank-and-file conservatives -- I'm not talking here about denizens of denial websites -- to take a stand. Think about old ad slogan for Levy's Jewish rye bread: "You don't have to be Jewish to love Levy's" They increased their market share, and made it into the Ad Slogan Hall of Fame. If we want to make progress, we need to be able to say "You don't have to be liberal to accept climate science." -
Andy Skuce at 05:21 AM on 16 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
shoyemore@8 The Kahan Study dealt with the perception of climate change risk, not whether people thought the climate was changing or not. What policies people are prepared to support is, I would guess, closely aligned with the level of risk they perceive. So, I think the energy policy parts of the poll are more comparable to Kahan's study, particularly because the responses were more politically polarized than the purely climate focussed questions. But I certainly agree, perceptions of the reality of climate change have a lot to do with the weather trends they are experiencing. I suspect that on the subject of smoking it was both personal experience and the clear scientific evidence that caused the shift in public opinion. The fact that smoking also affects others nearby makes it an easier bad habit to portray as anti-social than, say, overeating/obesity, where the damaging health effects are confined to the individual (Michael Bloomberg, take note). -
balanceact at 04:53 AM on 16 June 2012Hansen's 1988 prediction was wrong
What was Hansen using as the climate sensitivity to doubling CO2 back in 1988? Perhaps it is mentioned somewhere but I'm failing to see it. -
Dennis at 04:37 AM on 16 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
I have to agree with BKsea. Adler will simply get labled a RINO (Republican in Name Only) because he deviates from the party line. I hear it over and over again in the USA. Climate science is now no different from tax policy, health care reform, and social welfare programs to America's conservatives. Watch this guy get shunned by his fellow conservatives and show up later as a Democrat. -
DSL at 04:31 AM on 16 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
Well, that could be read alongside Michael Fumento's piece in Salon. Or perhaps Fumento first and then Adler. -
BKsea at 04:25 AM on 16 June 2012Glimmer of hope? A conservative tackles climate change.
I put on my conservative hat to read this and here is what I got: First paragraph: "la la la la substantial uncertainties remain la la la" Second paragraph: "effects will be most severe in those nations that are both least able to adapt and least responsible" [Yeah! not us! stop reading] Third paragrpah: "la la la tax la la la tax la la la tax" Lots of people have been saying these same things without getting the conservatives to listen. Why do you think they will listen now? -
dana1981 at 03:54 AM on 16 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Interesting, attacks on the peer-review process seem to be becoming more frequent, presumably as attacks on the science itself become more difficult. -
pvincell at 03:31 AM on 16 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
Just to weigh in here, Skeptical Science is a remarkably valuable resource for understanding the peer-reviewed science on climate change. The Kahan paper doesn't cause me to question SkSc in any way. You guys and gals do us a great service--don't ever go away! What the paper *does* do is reinforce for me the need to seek ways to respectfully engage Americans with diverse worldviews. All Americans must be part of the solution to climate change, so maybe we who understand where the science is on this controversial topic can do a better job of reaching out to those who think differently from us. This really tests our commitment to diversity, no? -
Chris G at 03:23 AM on 16 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
From the paper: "...highly science-literate and numerate hierarchical individualists are more sceptical, not less, of climate change risks..." I'm having a hard time finding just what was their cutoff for determining 'high' from 'low'. Another way of saying my alternate explanation is that how an individual arrives at a belief is not necessarily the same within all individuals within a population. Both social coherence (agreeing with members of the group) and scientific literacy are strategies that people can use; there is no guarantee that all individuals within a population use the same strategy. It could be that if you are very highly skilled, your own skills tend to dominate the conclusions you reach, and if you have low skill, you tend to rely more on what your group thinks. In between, there would be a mix of people not only using different strategies, social versus rational, but even the ones attempting to arrive at a science-based conclusion might not applying the same set of rules (choosing to focus an clouds and discount water vapor, or vice versa). It could be also that the rules applied are unconsciously filtered based on social group compliance. Hah, let's test those with limited social coherence tendencies (on the Asperger scale) in comparison with those at the opposite end of that spectrum. -
Chris G at 02:04 AM on 16 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
Thanks Tom, I had guessed that the bar for competence might be lower than I imagined, but I had no idea it was that low. Wondering what the cutoff was between the high and low groups. I think this leaves some room for non-linearity between a different set of groups: a) Not at all competent. b) Competent enough to be right more often than not. c) Highly competent. One could speculate that those who typically have no idea how things work would be more willing to agree with authority figures than those who are marginally competent. I would expect that the ones who are highly competent tend to agree with each other, if only because the same information processed through a consistent set of rules tends to lead to similar conclusions, and science rules are designed to be consistent. Within this framework, you would expect the highest polarization amongst the marginally competent; the members of the group have the same information, but their rules for how to process it are not highly consistent with respect to other members of the same group, and they are used to being right. Sorry, it's probably in the supplementary information, but did they say what the cutoff was between an individual being assigned to the Low or High groups, and were the groups of equal size? In a normal population sample, highly skilled (at whatever the skill is) individuals will be a small fraction of the general population. -
Dikran Marsupial at 00:30 AM on 16 June 2012Fritz Vahrenholt - Duped on Climate Change
I find it is best not to get too hung up on terminology - sometimes the theory comes first, for example the hypothesised existence of the Higgs boson that CERN et al are trying to confirm comes from a theory that attempts to explain subatomic physics. IIRC we only think that the Higgs boson exists becase theory predicts that it should. Likewise there are some that would regard AGW as a hypothesis rather than a theory. -
vrooomie at 23:44 PM on 15 June 2012Fritz Vahrenholt - Duped on Climate Change
Dikran@28, and all who followed on, may I respectfully suggest a slight change? As I recall, the step of 'formulating a *theory*" is ~not~ the first step of a scientific investigation; rather, it is to formulate a *hypothesis*, then gather data, run tests, interpret data/tests, which ~then~ leads to a theory. At least, that's what they taught me way back in the 90s...;) Then again, dammit, I'm just a geologist, Jim, not a English major! -
Composer99 at 22:33 PM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
I can only say that if Dr Carter asserts that money can corrupt science [snip] It looks like this, combined with Dr Carter's previous FP article (debunked by Skeptical Science) is another instalment of the National Post/Financial Post "war on science".Moderator Response: TC: Accusations of dishonesty snipped. -
Dikran Marsupial at 22:13 PM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Carter writes "Scientific knowledge, then, is always in a state of flux. Much though bureaucrats and politicians may dislike the thought, there is simply no such thing as “settled science,” peer-reviewed or otherwise. Gavin Schmidt writes "Unusually, I’m in complete agreement with a recent headline on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page: “The Climate Science Isn’t Settled” ... The phrase “the science is settled” is associated almost 100% with contrarian comments on climate and is usually a paraphrase of what ‘some scientists’ are supposed to have said. The reality is that it depends very much on what you are talking about and I have never heard any scientist say this in any general context – at a recent meeting I was at, someone claimed that this had been said by the participants and he was roundly shouted down by the assembled experts. -
CBDunkerson at 21:01 PM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Well, it is official now. Having absolutely no grounds on which to refute the peer reviewed science, the 'skeptics' have now switched to 'refuting' peer review itself. Bob Carter claims peer review is corrupt. -
shoyemore at 18:08 PM on 15 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
Andy S #3, Roberts' comments were related to energy policy aspects of the Brookings poll, not to the climate change aspects. I thought the question regarding the drivers of changed opinions on climate change tells us something, allied with the Kahan paper. The public do not see climate change through the lens of scientific findings, but (1) thought the perspective of their group (Kahan), and/ or (2) their personal experience of climate as long term weather (Brookings). That represents a challenge to educators of the public on climate change, but it is also an opportunity. For example, what changed public perspectives on nicotine? Was it scientific findings reported (with opposition) in the media, or personal knowledge of a nicotine-addicted friend or relative dying of lung cancer or emphysema? Or was it both? -
Andy Skuce at 14:42 PM on 15 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
Tom, I agree and I made much the same point, but in less detail, in my "Caveat" #1 above. But, the genuinely scientifically literate or numerate were present in this sample, they just were not distinguished as a sub-category by the tests. Remember, also, that the "conservative" people were very slightly more scientifically literate on average. My hunch is that the number of people who are genuinely (as you put it) scientifically literate and numerate, and with some specific knowledge of climate science (which wasn't measured at all in the survey), are probably very few in a sample of 1500. They could have included some non-controversial climate-related questions, for example: What causes the seasons? Sunspots/the Sun getting closer to the Earth in summer/the tilt of the rotation axis. My guess is that of the 32% who know that the Earth goes around the Sun, many would not get that right. If we could get everybody to understand that, surely that would be a good start? -
Tom Curtis at 13:45 PM on 15 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
To avoid over interpreting these results, it is worthwhile actually looking at the questions used to grade numeracy and scientific literacy. In each case, the percentages given after each question is the percentage of respondents who have the correct answer. Numeracy:"EVENROLL. Imagine that we roll a fair, six-sided die 1,000 times. (That would mean that we roll one die from a pair of dice.) Out of 1,000 rolls, how many times do you think the die would come up as an even number? 58% PCTTOFREQUENCY1. In the BIG BUCKS LOTTERY, the chances of winning a $10.00 prize are 1%. What is your best guess about how many people would win a $10.00 prize if 1,000 people each buy a single ticket from BIG BUCKS? 60% FREQUENCYTOPCT1. In the ACME PUBLISHING SWEEPSTAKES, the chance of winning a car is 1 in 1,000. What percent of tickets of ACME PUBLISHING SWEEPSTAKES win a car? 28% COMPFREQUENCY. Which of the following numbers represents the biggest risk of getting a disease? 86% COMPPCT. Which of the following numbers represents the biggest risk of getting a disease? 88% DOUBLEPCT. If Person A’s risk of getting a disease is 1% in ten years, and Person B’s risk is double that of A’s, what is B’s risk? 64% DOUBLEFREQUENCY. If Person A’s chance of getting a disease is 1 in 100 in ten years, and person B’s risk is double that of A, what is B’s risk? 21% PCTTOFREQUENCY2. If the chance of getting a disease is 10%, how many people would be expected to get the disease: A: Out of 100? 84% B: Out of 1000? 81% FREQUENCYTOPCT2. If the chance of getting a disease is 20 out of 100, this would be the same as having a __% chance of getting the disease. 72% VIRAL. The chance of getting a viral infection is .0005. Out of 10,000 people, about how many of them are expected to get infected? 48% BAYESIAN. Suppose you have a close friend who has a lump in her breast and must have a mammogram. Of 100 women like her, 10 of them actually have a malignant tumor and 90 of them do not. Of the 10 women who actually have a tumor, the mammogram indicates correctly that 9 of them have a tumor and indicates incorrectly that 1 of them does not have a tumor. Of the 90 women who do not have a tumor, the mammogram indicates correctly that 81 of them do not have a tumor and indicates incorrectly that 9 of them do have a tumor. The table below summarizes all of this information. Imagine that your friend tests positive (as if she had a tumor), what is the likelihood that she actually has a tumor? 3% SHANE1. A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? 12% SHANE2. In a lake, there is a patch of lilypads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? 27% "
Even given that these results are obtained from a demographically representative sample of the US population, these results are stupefying! It is known that people, even well trained people find Bayesian reasoning counter intuitive, so the 3% success rate for Bayesian reasoning is the least surprising result; but based on this survey, just 3% of the US's population is not functionally innumerate, with around 25% not being numerate at all. Science:"EARTHOT The center of the Earth is very hot [true/false]. 86% HUMANRADIO All radioactivity is man-made [true/false]. 84% LASERS Lasers work by focusing sound waves [true/false]. 68% ELECATOM Electrons are smaller than atoms [true/false]. 62% COPERNICUS1 Does the Earth go around the Sun, or does the Sun go around the Earth? 72% COPERNICUS2 How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun? [one day, one month, one year] 45% DADGENDER It is the father’s gene that decides whether the baby is a boy or a girl [true/false]. 69% ANTIBIOTICS Antibiotics kill viruses as well as bacteria [true/false]. 68%"
Bear in mind that only respondents who successfully answered question COPERNICUS1 where asked COPERNICUS2. That means only 32.4% of a representative sample of US citizens know both that the Earth goes around the Sun, rather than the reverse; and that it takes a year to do so. Given the very poor scores for scientific literacy and numeracy, the proper analysis of this paper is that it shows that the abysmally misinformed on science and mathematics have stronger opinions on the risk, or lack thereof, of climate change than do the completely ignorant. It tells us nothing about the opinions of the genuinely scientifically literate and numerate, for they appear to have escaped the net cast by this survey.Moderator Response: [AS]I have added a comment to the post to clarify that not everybody was asked the COPERNICUS2, as Tom correctly points out.45% of those asked the question got the answer correct but only 72% were asked it. -
Lloyd Flack at 12:30 PM on 15 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
Ooops! Incomplete post. Continued. To a lot of scientifically literate people science is more a basis for technology than it is a way of understanding nature. They aren't really interested in nature much. As well interest in some technologies can develop intuitions that actually hinder understanding of climate science. Since technology usually depends on the well understood aspects of science there is a tendency for those for whom it is thir primary interest to only deal with science which is alwmost certain and to dismiss anything else as speculation. I notice this in information technology people a lot. Also some people are mostly interested in the new discoveries and breakthroughs in science and not in the consolidation part where you check things out and see how any discoveries add to the overall picture. Scientists are more interested in how discoveries fit into the big picture. In conclusion, familiarity with the results of science without a real appreciation of its methods can be fuel for denialism. Familiarity with the methods tends to counter denialism. I'll talk about the ideas of communitarianism in this work later. -
Daniel Bailey at 12:09 PM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
All participants, please note: Rufus9 has requested that his SkS account be terminated. I have formally passed that request on to the proper authority. Please respect Rufus9's wishes in this matter by letting this interlude pass without further comment. Thanks in advance. -
Lloyd Flack at 12:02 PM on 15 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
I think there is a bit of conflating of different things going on in this paper. Some key distinctions are not being made. One is the distinction between understanding the results of science and understanding how science is done. The other is the distintion between communitarianism as social cohesion and communitarianism as universal altruism. I post a lot on a site with libertarian and conservative mebers all of whom are scintifically literate. I have noticed a big difference in the acceptance of AGW between actual scientists on that site and non scientists. The scientists nearly all accept the reality of AGW but I think a majority but not all of the non scientists do not. The scientists understand how other scientists do their work even if they are in other fields. They are much more sceptical about any attacks on the integrity of other scientists seeing them as attacks on science itself. I think a lot of scientiffically literate people are actually more interested in technology than in science. To them -
KR at 11:45 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 - Real scientists will, upon notice of raised issues, pull a paper while working it out. And that is what Gergis et al have done. This particular paper and the issues involved are in discussion at RealClimate, incidentally. The "pal-review" papers discussed in the OP have not, on the other hand, been pulled, retracted, or updated with any information that withstands scrutiny against observations, despite the multiple issues that have been raised. I would (IMO) consider that poor behavior on the authors part. At this point, Rufus9, I would have to consider your comments on this thread simply trolling. You've presented zero support for your Tu Quoque fallacies, zero response to other comments, and continue to try to minimize the faults of the de Freitas papers. No amount of Tu Quoque fallacies will excuse the documented excesses of that set of papers. Enough. You are just making pointless noise. -
Rufus9 at 11:02 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Here is one - "on hold" http://retractionwatch.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/paper-claiming-hottest-60-year-span-in-1000-years-put-on-hold-after-being-published-online/Moderator Response: [DB] Note: this has been discussed over at RealClimate for several weeks now. This is a normal part of the peer-review/publication process. -
Andy Skuce at 09:38 AM on 15 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
I think that David Roberts addressed that poll very well in Why climate polls don’t mean much. Telling quote: The pollsters did get at that [social cues vs weighing of the argument] a bit. They asked about “federal regulations” to reduce greenhouse gases and got 42 percent approval from Republicans; when they rephrased the same thing as “the Obama Administration’s current policy to use the Clean Air Act,” Republican support fell to 28 percent. When Dems heard Obama’s name next to the policy, their support became more intense. Obama’s name, in an of itself, serves as a heuristic. The poll answers depend on the framing of the question. The response to the framing depends on cultural triggers. -
shoyemore at 07:43 AM on 15 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
The Brookings Institute finds an upsurge in acceptance of AGW among US Independents Brookings Institute Poll Perhaps someone at Skeptical Science might comment on this poll as it finds that most people's opinions of AGW are shaped by the weather they experienced in the medium-to-recent past, rather than by scientific findings. Mother Jones Comment -
KR at 07:17 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 - To clarify my point a bit: Your posts here have been in essence a set of Tu Quoque (You too) fallacies. There is no evidence whatsoever that any significant amounts of bad science is being published supporting AGW - you have certainly presented none at all. Your initial statements here are quite simply bogus. -
KR at 07:05 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 - The set of "pal-review" papers discussed in the OP are scientific failures based on those objective criteria, at a level approaching 100%. Mann et al and other papers discussed in Montford's book are not - the work in those publications has been replicated, confirmed, and extended, leading to further investigation and information - again, at a level approaching 100%. Mann's early work regarding paleoclimate temperature reconstruction (the core of the Montford book) has been validated over and over in multiple studies. That's a clear distinction - one group of works is reasonable science, the other, as sheparded through publication, is not. Montford's book is merely polemic, and inaccurate at that. Your arguments otherwise, and your apparent lack of concern regarding objective criteria, are simply not supportable. -
Rufus9 at 06:14 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
(snip) I have seen a similar influence network as figure 1 along with similar allegations in Montford's book. That may be viewed as low trust in this group for legitimate reasons. KR - you have provided some of the trigger criteria. The equation could say Trust or Accuracy. It depends on what exactly a paper is measuring and whether it is possible to reach a definitive answer. The effect of AGW on hurricanes is likely to require more latitude. As such, there could be differences in whether answering "no" to one of your questions is fatal or not. For example, it is possible to have results not consistent with other evidence. Separately, I have looked at the spreadsheet. It appears there is a slight error in the calculation of the average days to review and differences between the summary at the bottom Row 750. I believe the intention was to calculate the average for the bolded rows, not select the ranges that are in the formula. As such, if you do so, these are the results: Other = 266 days Pals = 186 days If we look at the median review, it is 146 days across the Freitas population. If you take all papers and sort numerically by Days, you visually see no obvious pattern. As such, the Significant? question appears to be "no".Moderator Response: [DB] Inflammatory tone snipped. -
KR at 04:56 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 - Your 'trust' issues are red herrings, really. Science is about results, repeatable results. Peer review is simply a first-pass filter which, as discussed in the opening post, can be subverted - and interestingly enough, in the only case on this scale I am aware of, was subverted by folks who decry 'pal review' most loudly. Once published, the more stringent review begins - does the work contain anything new (if not, it will likely be ignored)? Are the results repeatable (not by 'audit', or code inspection, but by others investigating along the same lines)? Are the results consistent with other evidence? Do they open up new lines of investigation? The various 'pal review' papers discussed in the OP all failed one or more of these criteria, and hence are not good science. Not because of 'trust', but because they failed in the real world of objective criteria. That does not mean that they are ignored - they have instead been used as argumentative 'talking points' by those either not aware of or not caring about their shortcomings. Science is about objective results. Those, like the well-connected group discussed above, who appear to be sliding bad work through as rhetorical talking points, are not helping matters. From your post:"I put this article as: Imitation is the ultimate flattery. Essentially, this influence network has been described on both sides of this debate..."
You have provided zero support for this assertion, no evidence whatsoever. You have therefore (IMO) not demonstrated any regard for objective truth. -
Dikran Marsupial at 04:02 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 I have written a peer-reviewed journal paper on the cause of the observed increase in atmospheric CO2 (as you will know from reading the SkS post I mentioned). Do you trust me when it comes to this particular issue? If not, why not, and what specifically would it take for you to trust my paper (above the fact that it was peer reviewed)? -
Utahn at 03:56 AM on 15 June 2012Scientific literacy and polarization on climate change
"In reality, our target audience is that large group of people who are not yet committed or engaged." Or perhaps who are not at the "poles" of the political spectrum? The Kahan study lumped people into two groups based on their Hierarchy-Egalitarian and Individualism-Communitarianism axes. What would be really interesting would've been to divvy the group up into quartiles for example, to see if scientific literacy correlated differently with the understanding in "the middle" of the political spectrum...In fact I'm sure they could've done that though I dont' see it on glancing through the paper. Maybe time for an email! -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:31 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 I give up, the point I am making is that at the end of the day you if you are unwilling to accept the findings of mainstream science (on pretty much any area of science) then need to make an effort to investigate the science and find out for yourself. This is something you appear to be completely unwilling to do and want someone to create an automatic system for ensuring that all scientific findings are solid and trustworthy. However this is completely unrealistic. If it were possible, we would have put it into practice already. The skeptics like to talk about "trust" and "pal review" because often they don't want to talk about the validity of the science itself. Sadly this is the impression that you are giving (intended as helpful advice on the assumption that this is not what you intend). (snip)Moderator Response:[DB] As noted, the interjection of the field of medical research by Rufus9 constitutes a strawman argument, as it is not a valid comp. As such, responses to it are a waste of time.
OT snipped per request.
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Rufus9 at 02:57 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Dikran As the cancer issue showed, some of those papers were cited >200 times, so perhaps that is not a good metric.Moderator Response:[DB] As noted by others earlier, the field of medicine is not a good comp to that of climate science, for a variety of reasons.
Please stick to the OP of the thread, offer links to the supportive (climate science) literature to support your points, discuss the material raised by others to counter your previous assertions (which you have avoided doing) or concede them.
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Dikran Marsupial at 02:50 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 There is an important point that you don't appear to understand. In science, all that matters is whether an argument is valid and supported by the evidence. It isn't about trust. It especially isn't about gaining the trust of the general public. It is fine to be skeptical about some finding, but the solution is to take the time to find out whether it is supportable or not. Peer review is only to be relied on as a basic sanity check. Expecting it to be proof of validity (trustworthyness) is completely unralistic. That is why we have scientists who have expertise to discern whether some new idea is good and worth investigating further or not. Peer review is only the start of the test of a paper, not the end. Ultimately whether a paper is any good or not is indicated by whether other scientists are convinced by it, take it up and work on it further. So if you want a better indication of trustworthyness, look at the number of citations. -
Tristan at 02:47 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Not only did the bible pass the higher power review, it was also reviewed by 12 peers ;) -
Rufus9 at 02:32 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Trust is an important issue. It is made up of several factors that can be positive or negative: +/- expertise of the individuals involved +/- methodology / measurement error +/- reputation of the journal +/- the editors influence +/- the peer review process +/- other factors This paper raises the issue of "pal review", which is a combination of the editor and the peer reviewers. Certainly, if we see a set of "connections" between the author, editor, and peer reviewers, we might have cause for lower trust. We could also have cause for higher trust, depending on the individuals involved. What we need when we see an "event" like this is a set of criteria that move the situation to an "incident" (Dikram called it an incident in XX). So, for example, we might list several criteria that we consistently use in making this evaluation. I'm used to calling these criteria "triggers" Event Trigger 1? Trigger 2? Trigger 3? If one or all of the triggers fire, then we have an Incident. From this position, we again need criteria, especially if we are going to investigate the situation and then try to determine the Impact. Event -> Triggers -> Incident -> Triggers -> Investigate -> Triggers -> Impact What I see in this story is that we have moved from Event (correlation) to Impact ("... no doubt thanks to the false media balance which gives the ~3% minority of experts who think humans aren't the dominant cause of the current climate change (and their non-expert surrogates"). In my view, that is a leap beyond where the data supports the assertion. This seems to suffer from the ice cubes to puddle of water logic. It is easy to see ice cubes will lead to a puddle of water. However, if you have a puddle of water (e.g., the public survey results), it is much harder to work backwards to the ice cubes. It would be relatively easy to list 100 factors that could influence the survey results other than this set of authors and their papers. That is why I asked / suggested that additional steps could be taken to outline the approach we should take when we have suspicions or trust issues. Having a pre-set framework with tested criteria would presumably be helpful in sorting out whether Pal Review or other events are or are not a trust issue. As to whether there are other models, there is the Cochrane Collaboration, which is not performing the same function, but seems as though a system like this could put additional rigor in the system. Perhaps something like this exists in climate change. I have not come across it. http://www.cochrane.org/cochrane-reviews -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:02 AM on 15 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 I would be more keen to continue the discussion if you were to show that you actually are interested in the answers to the points you raise. For example by either accepting that man is reposnible for the rise in CO2 or by defending your objection on the appropriate thread. Raising points and walking away from them is not acceptable behaviour in a scientific discussion. -
eostrom at 00:20 AM on 15 June 2012Greenhouse gases are responsible for warming, not the sun
Just a grammar note: I suggest retitling this article to "Greenhouse gases, not the sun, are responsible for warming." The current title implies you're trying to argue that greenhouse gases are not responsible for warming the sun, which may be true but isn't the real subject. -
DSL at 23:13 PM on 14 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Has anyone tried the higher power review? Yesterday afternoon I tried putting Shakun et al. (2012) on the altar of my local church, and a beam of light shown down upon it. I tried the same thing last night with Lacis et al. (2010) and there was darkness. I am now composing emails to Lacis that will accuse him and his fellow fraudsters of fraud. Seriously, Rufus, what's the real problem here? Peer review is peer review. The method is not inherently corrupt, except where it requires people. People are the problem. They have all sorts of issues. Some are willing to treat their integrity as a commodity. Some just can't accept being wrong. Some want fame and glory, at least from their local acolytes. The sciences that make up climate science are not the grand repository for these folk. They're everywhere. They're in politics, organized religion, business, education, etc. Perhaps the fact that science overtly requires an individual to cast aside those sources of irrationality allows everyone to be more critical of failures to do so. It's hard to hide deliberate BS in science. It's possible, but very difficult. If it doesn't describe observed reality, someone will eventually start asking questions. If it's a highly scrutinized area, "eventually" could be on the order of a few days. Rufus, if you have trust issues, but you accept the general epistemology of science, then spend the time to do the math yourself. If it takes a few years, so what? The value of knowing the levels of honesty of others is more than enough compensation for the effort. -
Bart Verheggen at 22:56 PM on 14 June 2012Greenhouse gases are responsible for warming, not the sun
Thanks vrooomie. Glad to know our response landed well. -
Rufus9 at 22:50 PM on 14 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Given the context of my statements has been lost in Rufus 40, I request it be further snipped to only the few sentences and 2 links about Retraction Watch. -
Dikran Marsupial at 18:38 PM on 14 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9 wrote "However, how many assumptions are buried in each of those terms?", this comment pretty much makes my point. If you had taken the time to understand the argument presented in my article you would know the answer to this question already (two of the terms we can measure directly, and nowhere in the argument do we assume anything about the other two - not even their numeric values). If you really want to demonstrate true skepticism, then ask questions on the appropriate thread. As to your post in 44, what makes you think a next step is necessary after this study? The whole point is that "skeptics" complain of pal review, yet offer no real evidence to substantiate this other than the rejection of their papers (which could potentially be explained by the possibility that their papers may be flawed and hence correctly rejected - if you are attacking mainstream science that is very likely). However it is very easy to find a clear example of pal review in the skeptic community, yet they never seem to mention that, which shows a lack of balance. There is no real evidence that pal review is a significant problem in peer review, there will be the occasional incident (such as this) just as there are occasional incidents of plagiarism or scientific fraud. This is because scientists are human beings with human frailties, just like in any other sphere of human activity. A better criticism of peer review is that many bad papers have made it through peer review, even though competent reviewers ought to have spotted them (e.g. Douglass et al, Essenhigh, ...). However those who understand the purpose of peer review know it cannot be relied upon to detect every error in every paper, so even that is not a substantive issue. So I challenge you again to suggest a system better than peer review, that has not already been shown to be even more flawed. -
Rufus9 at 15:09 PM on 14 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
My question is whether there is a next step after this study. It has been demonstrated that their is a potential influence or conflict, but it has not been shown what impact may have occurred. My suggestion is along the lines of the following: Document the hypothesis and develop criteria to test whether there has been an impact. Conduct a review of the "pal" papers Also randomly select and review a reasonable sample of non-pal papers Present the results -
Bob Lacatena at 13:41 PM on 14 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Deniers keep complaining that peer-review is broken without (a) providing evidence that it is or (b) explaining why it was never a problem until climate science warned them that fossil fuels create a serious danger to economies, civilization and our current lifestyle. To this point the only evidence that peer-review is broken comes from the way deniers (denial scientists and denial editors alike) have been able to manipulate the system. Deniers began to point to issues in other aspects of science, such as drug studies, only when it became convenient as a tactic for further assaults on climate science. And yet I don't really see them taking other branches of science to task for it. It's as if abuse of the system in drug studies and medicine is only relevant in that it demonstrates who corrupt and evil those conniving climate scientists can be. Why is that? -
Composer99 at 13:28 PM on 14 June 2012Pal Review - the True Story and the Fairy Tale
Rufus9: Having read through your comments on this thread, I fail to see how what you are arguing pertains to the OP. It appears to me that you are attempting to argue two things. If these are not reasonable summaries of your claims please clarify. (1) On account of documented issues in peer-review and retraction of papers, the conclusions of mainstream climatology must be considered far more provisional than they generally are. (2) In addition, the Earth climate is just so, well, complicated and doesn't that make for (more) uncertainty about the conclusions of mainstream climatology? Frankly, as far as I have seen you have not managed to substantiate either argument with direct evidence. In addition, argument (2) is off-topic for this thread. Meandering forays quoting Hayek or discussing medical science are certainly not going to do the job. Bringing up the latter almost certainly qualifies as a category error since the mainstream conclusions of climatology depend on our knowledge of the radiative properties of a handful of atmospheric gases, which as individual molecules or as aggregates are vastly simpler than any living organism.
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