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RSVP at 20:10 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
John, You missed Characteristic number 6, which is simply having a good counter argument. The problem however is that no matter how good the argument, the so called non-deniers cant believe anything but the same old, same old. In past posts you used the expression, "you cant have it both ways". Please explain how, while on the one hand, green house gases are so efficient in trapping heat, on the other, all the exothermic waste heat from industry is not having any effect? Who is having wishful thinking about alternative energy sources not being a problem in their own right? Exothermic waste from burning fossil fuels, cooling of nuclear power plants, heat trapped by urban cement jungles are all producing heat that requires no thermometers or statistics to be noticed. Obviously, due to winds it spread it out, but green house gases are keeping this heat in, and its no coincidence that the global temperature rise is on par with the difference between urban and rural temperatures (i.e., 1 or 2 degrees). You cant have it both ways, attributing the natural warmth of the planet to natural GHG (which I agree acts like a lid on a pot) and then be ignoring the effect this can have on heat sources that are directly measurable. This extra heat is not being trapped by extra CO2. This extra heat is being trapped by ALL green house gases found in nature. Perhaps my idea is unpopular because it means there is no solution to this problem. The good news, however, is that the problem is not as big as that which is being attributed to the effects of CO2. -
johnd at 20:02 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Should we expect correlation between a regional event and a global one. Even for Australia, trying to find correlation between drought years and El-Nino found limited connection, but when the IOD was introduced into the equation only then was some significant and useful correlation found. -
Marcel Bökstedt at 19:53 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Bern> Exactly! This correlation is interesting even if it is only a correlation between heavily filtered curves. It should be turned around, to improve the case for global warming. As you say, the correlation could be used to remove some of the long term variability in the global temperature. It would be interesting to see what the modified record looks like, but it won't be a nice straight line, for the following reasons: In fig 2 of Foster et al. the Fourier transforms of two datasets are compared. One is the global temperature data, the second is the southern oscillation data. We can divide the Fouries transformed picture into three parts: High frequencies (periods shorter than 1 year), middle frequencies (corresponding to 1-6 year cycles) and low frequencies (longer than 6 years). The filter used by McLean et al. more or less removes the high and low frequencies, and the result is a (surprisingly!) high correlation between the two curves. So if we remove the high frequencies from the global temperature record, somehow subtract the SOI influence from it - which seem to more or less remove the middle frequencies - we still have the discrepency in the low frequencies. Eyeballing fig 2 seems to suggest that actually the two datasets differ a lot in the low part of the frequency spectrum. So it seems that after removing low frequencies and the SOI influence, we will still have "unexplained cycles" left with periods in the range of like 6 years and up. -
GFW at 19:36 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
John, you've included Figure 5 from Foster et. al. when you meant to include Figure 4. Fig 4 is the artificial data with the linear trend. Fig 5 uses a sinusoid.Response: Considering the multitude of typos (and mistaken graphs) in this article, I'll take this as a cautionary tale to not stay up too late reading peer-reviewed papers or write blog posts in a sleep deprived state the next morning. I've updated the graph with the correct Figure 4 from Foster et al 2010. -
Dikran Marsupial at 19:31 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
The "trick" of demonstrating a strong correllation between detrended temperatures and X to argue that X is the cause of the trend in global temperatures seems a common argument on the "skeptic" side. Of course if it really were the cause, then the correllation would be stronger with the raw data than with the detrended data! Spencer did that on WUWT to argue that ENSO is responsible for the rise in atmospheric CO2, Svensmark has used that argument to show that the rise in temperatures is due to GCR. Rather dissapointing to see it in a peer reviewed article rather than a blog or an unpublished response, as the flaw in the argument is so obvious. -
tobyjoyce at 18:17 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
I have found that the strongest strand in denialism is free market ideology/ libertarianism. This political belief rejects instinctively the collective action required to respond to climate change. Collective action necessitates a degree of state regulation and control. Anything that bestows more power on the state is anathema to hard right free marketeers. There may also, of course, be others on the left who agree with that for different reasons. For many deniers, the politics clearly controls their scientific viewpoint. From what I have seen on this site, there are sceptics who are not deniers. The boundary seems to be set by whether you accept AGW as a working hypothesis or not. There are sceptics "inside the tent" and sceptics "outside the tent". Lyndon B. Johnson was the first President of the USA to issue a warning about AGW. In may be just a coincidence that he also said "Sometimes you have to be either outside the tent p**sing in, or inside the tent p**sing out." -
Berényi Péter at 18:09 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
What can I say? This post is a political one for all intents and purposes, has nothing to do with science as such. It is also getting popular. John, is it worth it to violate your own comments policy?Response: I have noticed a whole bunch of links (or simple copy and pasting of the entire article) at many different websites. To be honest, I find it a little annoying. For once, I stray slightly off the topic of science. Why isn't there as many links to my science based articles? They're just as interesting, more so! However, people seem to be more interested in characterising their opponents than discussing science.
However, the point of this article is not for the purpose of characterising people but to identify particular rhetorical techniques that distract people from the science - it's only by identifying these tactics that the discussion can be redirected back to science. I then give examples of how to bring discussion back to scientific evidence. -
Bern at 17:58 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
John B at #5: There are other reasons for opposing carbon trading schemes than a disbelief in AGW - many people question whether they even achieve the goal of reducing CO2 emissions (they certainly make a lot of money for the permit traders, though, money that might better be diverted into actual CO2 emission reduction). But that's a discussion for another day, on an article about how to reduce CO2 (yet another for your to-do list, John? ;-) Re the derivative hiding the long-term trend - I'm obviously not with it today, because it took me a couple of minutes to figure out that, if you have a long-term constant trend, then subtracting sets of points 12 months apart will always give you the same value. The high correlation of the derivative with the SOI, though, means that the SOI can be used to remove the ENSO signal from the temperature chart, and what's left will be due to any long-term trend, volcanic activity, and other forcings. Should make it easier to see the trend, without the distraction of the large dips & bumps caused by ENSO. -
RSVP at 17:29 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
Jeff Freymueller Your reply (74 for now) reveals exactly the ambiguity I am referring to. What exactly do I mean you ask? But why am I the only one who has to clarify "exactly" what I mean? Why dont climate scientists? Behind AGW is this idea that temperatures are increasing at least around .1 or .2 degrees per decade and will continue to do so mainly as a function of CO2 concentration levels. With exception to the methane gas issue in Siberia, climate scientist will tell you that this is not a run-away situation, however I have yet to see anything saying that the trend will flatten out or is self limiting. On the contrary, with the existing messaging you are left with the sense that once the polar caps all melt away its anyone's guess as to what will occur, etc. Yet with all those scientific resources, computer models, etc., why dont they come out, take the next step, and finish the story? I think what I said was very clear too. That things have warmed some yes, but they will not be warming much more. I did not explain why, but if you will, it is very simple. Anthropogenic warming is due to exothermic chemistry, and directly in proportion to its volume. The real deniers are those who wish to ignore this reality along with other basic laws of thermodynamics. -
dansat at 16:43 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Excellent post and an even greater example of how peer review and science is auto correcting. SLRTX hits the nail on the head. This seems to be a rather embarrassing mistake to me. Not just by the reviewers, but much more so by the authors. Am I mistaken?? Dan -
Jeff Freymueller at 16:37 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
#61 David Horton, I have a different take, maybe hanging out with a different set of geoscientists. I think your comments ring pretty true when you are talking about resource geologists -- oil and gas, and mining, although its certainly not true of all even in that sector. I don't think it holds true at all once you move outside of the resources sector. Your guess that self-interest plays a role in this seems likely to me. -
Marcus at 16:34 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
You're dead right Albatross. Look at that nice orange line for 2010, very clearly above anything for the last 12 years.
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Jeff Freymueller at 16:34 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
#71 RSVP: 'The term "Global Warming" connotes continuous warming.' I have seen you posting on numerous threads here, so I assume you have read the main postings and a number of the comments. Given that, I have to say that I really can't imagine that anyone who has read much about climate would consider your statement to be a serious starting point for a discussion, or anything other than a strawman. "Continuous warming" in what way? Clearly, we still have a day-night cycle, so continuous can't mean continuous on that timescale. We still have seasons, too. And you really can't miss all the talk about year to year variation in climate due to El Niño/La Niña cycles, Arctic Oscillation, Pacfic Decadal Oscillation, etc, so even if you don't know what all those things are you really can't miss the fact that they are related to variations in climate on a timescale of years to a decade or two. I really can't imagine that anyone who has even a bit of knowledge (as you should) can seriously think that global warming means all parts of the globe are continuously getting warmer every year. Now if you mean continuous warming on a century-average timescale, maybe that statement might be correct, but I don't think that's the way people are thinking about it, or how you meant it. So tell me: what did you mean if you were not just setting up a strawman to knock down or justify doubt? -
HumanityRules at 16:32 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
72.SLRTX at 16:03 PM on 18 March, 2010 You could if you wished continue to extend that list of motivations..... and prove my point. Some might be motivated by intellectual integrity. (I'm mainly motivated by jelly snakes but lets not go there) -
Donald Lewis at 16:15 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Sic! "The Southern Oscillation Index shows no long term trend while the temperature record shows a long-term warming trend. Consequently, McLean et al found only a weak correlation between temperature and SOI. Next, they applied another filter to the data by subtracting the 12 month running average from the same average 1 year later..." So they showed SOI does not explain warming trend! Sweet! -
Steven Sullivan at 16:08 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
A trivial (and common) mistake: you wrote "according to one of it's authors". It should be "according to one of its authors".Response: Funnily enough, that same typo has existed on the El Nino page since July 2009. But you lot are in eagle-eyed nitpick mode now so no grammatical stone is left unturned. -
jyyh at 16:04 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
This would have gone past my radar in peer-review, indicating I'm not an expert on climatology... I so much like to see good correlation with as little variables as possible, it's easy to forget that exluding one variable may result in closer correlation in some instances (here done with the exclusion of the long term trends.) -
Donald Lewis at 16:04 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Wonderful, thanks! -
SLRTX at 16:03 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
HR (#68) "DENIERS ARE NOT ONE SINGLE GROUP." Agreed. There isn't an organized movement called the denialist group, or denialist organization. But, there are people who view the world in a particular irrational way that can be called denial. Ok. We don't have to call it "denialism". Instead, we can call it "motivated reasoning", or "cognitive dissonance". The meaning's the same. The point is, there are people out there that just can't accept anything that is outside their zone of comfort. And also there are people out there who use this "condition" to gain political advantage. -
Albatross at 16:01 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Swanson et al. (2009, PNAS) have examined the role of natural climate variability in the 20th century warming, from their abstract: "Here we present a technique that objectively identifies the component of inter-decadal global mean surface temperature attributable to natural long-term climate variability. Removal of that hidden variability from the actual observed global mean surface temperature record delineates the externally forced climate signal, which is monotonic, accelerating warming during the 20th century." ENSO and other internal climate modes are oscillations on an underlying long-term warming trend, especially post 1950. Internal climate modes can and do of course play a role in modulating global air temperatures, and can either enhance (e.g., El Nino) or mute (e.g., La Nina) the underlying warming trend in global air temperatures (GAT), they are, however, not driving the warming. A super El Nino has been estimated to increase global temperatures by about 0.2 C (NASA). If what McLean et al. proposed were true, why then was 1983 not the warmest year in the 20th century, or why were global air temperatures in 1983 (GISS GAT +0.26C) not at least comparable to those in 1998 (GISS GAT anomaly +0.56); the 1982-1983 event was estimated to be the strongest of the 20th century (MEI >3). And why is 2010 probably going to be the warmest year in at least 130 years, even though the current El Nino is moderate, and we are just emerging from a unusually long and deep minimum in the solar cycle? According to the near real-time AMSU data (UAH), it looks like March 2010 is going to be the warmest in the satellite record, on the heels of the warmest November (2009) and the warmest January (2010). -
RSVP at 15:54 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
The term "Global Warming" connotes continuous warming. What exactly are deniers denying? I personally believe human activity has contributed to a warmER planet, and without going into details, I do not believe the warming is continuous. The term "Global Warming" gives me only two choices, but neither choice is correct. -
HumanityRules at 15:21 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
#69 Agreed. -
gallopingcamel at 15:16 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
The paper at the head of this thread (Diethelm & McKee, 2009) is not up to the standard I have come to expect on this blog. It is creating more heat than light. John Cook, please give us something more worthy of discussion. -
HumanityRules at 15:15 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
There is one huge false premise around this argument which seems to completely undermine this sort of argument and John alluded to it. DENIERS ARE NOT ONE SINGLE GROUP. They don’t think with a single mind. They approach the subject from all angles many from the positions of an expert in their field. Focusing on the right wing lobbyist, which seems to be the group described by this article, is insufficient. -
thefrogstar at 15:06 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Could someone explain a bit more how the white noise is generated (amplitude? frequency?). I don't have access to the full papers at the moment and I'm not sure if it is shown in the diagrams above. Also, why do they add a sine-wave to it? -
yocta at 14:15 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Great post! Small point: You have Foster et al 2009 referenced at the start of the post and then Foster et al 2010 at the end referencing the same hyperlinkResponse: Fixed. It's great having you guys all proof-reading my text for me :-) Of course, it would be even greater if I didn't make these obvious typos in the first place :-( In my defence, I was up late last night reading Foster20092010. -
SLRTX at 14:15 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Another general comment I'll just throw out there... The fact that this paper by McLean et. al. was published in a peer-reviewed journal proves: 1. There is no conspiracy to keep "skeptics" from publishing. Either that, or the conspiracy is full of holes. 2. The peer-review process is not perfect. No one ever said it was. It's a collective process that, over time, will weed out the papers that don't hold up to scrutiny (read the response in Foster, et. al.). So, true rational skeptics understand that getting to the truth is a process. Irrational skeptics have no process that they can describe. Science is, by it's very nature, skeptical, but rationally skeptical: http://www.skeptic.com/about_us/manifesto.html -
David Horton at 14:09 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
"I do not like the use of the word "denialist". It is insulting (since it compares skeptics to Holocaust deniers)", Ah, TrueNorth, where did you get that thought from I wonder? Isn't it curious that all over the internet this phrase suddenly began appearing. I'm guessing it can probably be chased back to one starting point, or a group of similar starting points, and then off it goes with a life of its own. The purpose, of course, is to try to get us very polite AGWs to think, "Oh my goodness, we weren't doing THAT were we, how impolite, I suppose we better start calling them skeptics again". Nothing doing Mr North. As you know, the term "denier" or "denialist" apples equally well to Holocaust and climate change (and to evolution, tobacco, CFCs), nothing to do with the subject matter, everything to do with the approach. And that approach (eg for the Holocaust) consists of simply denying mountains of evidence, expert witnesses, documents, survivors, remains of camps and equipment, Nuremberg Trials, photographs, movies, chemical developments, and so on. No one could deny the evidence unless they had a strong ideological motive for doing so, and in this case they simply deny deny deny every piece of evidence individually (no matter how well these pieces mutually support each other) and come up with wildly implausible alternative explanations. Nothing can, or ever will, change this pattern of behaviour, because of the strong beliefs that underpin it. That is also precisely the case with climate change denial. So, no, you don't get to tell us what we can call you. -
mothincarnate at 14:07 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
You made a spelling mistake in the paragraph following figure 2, second sentence. Otherwise a very interesting piece. Thanks for posting it! -
angliss at 13:57 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Yet another example of why scientists desperately need to run synthetic data through their tests BEFORE they publish - having someone else do it for you makes you look incompetent at best. (My first exposure to this axiom was the Santer et al 2008 response to Douglass et al 2007) -
Marcus at 13:57 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Here's another point. We know there is at least *some* correlation between ENSO & Warming (however small), but in what direction does the correlation work? i.e. its just as possible that warming is *causing* more El Nino events as it is that El Nino is leading to increased warming. Strange, though, how the authors immediately took the latter meaning of the correlation. -
Marcus at 13:54 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Good point SLRTX. That's a question I often asked-namely "even if McLean et al are correct-& everyone else is *wrong*-how come the El Nino Events of the last 50-60 years are suddenly causing a long-term warming trend, but apparently were incapable of causing warming in the more than 300 years prior to this that El Nino's have been known to exist?" -
angliss at 13:49 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Typo right below figure 2: "This result contradicts virtually every other study into the connection between ENSO and temperature variability, particularly with regard to long-term warming trends."Response: Oops, thanks for pointing that out. Unfortunate misspelling :-( -
John Bruno at 13:47 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
Amazing. A scientist caught manipulating data to achieve a pre-determined result. Lets wait to see if the denial-o-spehere goes wild with outrage. I somehow doubt it. The conclusions Bob Carter drew from this work,even if it were not flawed, are nuts. I also wonder if he will now retract his opposition to carbon trading schemes... -
SLRTX at 13:36 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
The problem with McLean's "proof" is that El Ninos have been around for a long, long time (pre 1850). And was there the same level of warming then? Nope. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html#q4 http://www.atmos.washington.edu/gcg/RTN/rtnt.html There's strong evidence for historical ENSOs going way back in time. So what's suddenly so different now to think the ENSO is somehow driving the current global climate warming trend? What changed? Did McLean offer a reason? Nope. A great explanation for ENSO and climate is at Gavin Schmidt's RealClimate page: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/el-nino-global-warming/ -
David Horton at 13:25 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
I thought it was always obvious that if you removed the long term trend from the variability you would be left with the variability and that McLean et al had not hidden this procedure (which always made me wonder why on earth the paper was promoted as a disproving of global warming from GHG). But the details added here are useful. That division of the two graphs in figure 4 is becoming something of a standard in anti-GHW efforts isn't it? -
rmp at 13:24 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
I'm not a climatologist. I'm a lowly engineer. But anyone that now anything about control theory knows that a derivative is noise amplifier. If you're wrestling with getting control of a process, the FIRST thing you do is kill the derivative. -
D Kelly O at 13:18 PM on 18 March 2010A peer-reviewed response to McLean's El Nino paper
John Thanks for this post. Bob Tisdale at Climate Observations has a number of posts on ENSO. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Bob's work.Response: Thanks Kelly, like I didn't have enough on my to-do list :-) -
SLRTX at 12:34 PM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
John, Re: My post #63 Yes. We all fall into denialism from time to time. That's why the peer-review process is so great. It's a collective judgement call that a claim that someone is making is based on facts, and not personal bias, or denialism. Any rational scientist knows that if they fall into the denialism trap, they'll loose credibility. Now, let's look at it from the other side... Denialists and their related blog posts, like WUWT, have what process? Nothing that they can describe. At least the scientist (esp. climate scientist) can point to their process, which is peer review. One is a rational way to mitigate the bias and denialism, the other encourages bias and denialism. I'm sure you know about this, but here's a good video on this topic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUB4j0n2UDU (A related link is in my comment #2 in this thread.) BTW - I'm glad to see you have a post focusing on the subject of denialism vs. skepticism. Everyone can argue AGW/ACC all they want, but obvious logical fallacies are harder to defend, even for a denialist (unless they are just wacko cranks). ;-) -
shawnhet at 12:26 PM on 18 March 2010Guest post: scrutinising the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition Project
Ok, I'll give it a shot. Let's say that we could in theory(using physics and chemistry) calculate how each *individual* raindrop formed in the atmosphere. Such a calculation could never be performed for the entire atmosphere. So the folks who build models make guesses as to how raindrops form in much larger areas and come up with some sort of expressions to codify those guesses. These sorts of expressions are then subbed into the larger climate model to supposedly mimic the behavior of the actual climate. This is why there are many climate models, individual modellers make different guesses as to which expressions are the best approximations of the real world on the scale they are working with. If there were no differences in these parameters, each model would have identical outputs. How this applies to the theory is that changes in parameterizations will/must lead to changes in predictions of the behavior of the climate. Cheers, :) -
Alexandre at 11:59 AM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
It's alledgedly based on a book by Marcello Truzzi, "On Pseudo-Skepticism", but I wasn't able to verify it. Anyway, it looks pretty much like a description of a climate denier to me! -
Alexandre at 11:56 AM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
The Portuguese version of the Wikipedia lists an interesting list describing a "pseudo-skeptic" (under "Skepticism"): - the tendency of denying, instead of doubting. - the use of rigor standards above reasonable to assess the object of one's criticisms. - Making judgments without complete and conclusive investigation. - Tendency to discredit, instead of investigating. - Use of ridicule or personal attacks. - Presentation of insufficient evidence. - The attempt of desqualifying new ideas calling their promoters as 'pseudo-scientists'. - To assume that their criticisms don't have the burden of proof, and that their arguments don't have to be supported by evidence. - The presentation of counter-proof merely based on plausibility, instead of empirical evidence. - The suggestion that insufficient evidence is enough to prove that the theory is falsified. - The tendency of discrediting every presented evidence that counters their own beliefs. -
SLRTX at 11:15 AM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
True North (#62) - Rational skeptics should not be worried about the label "denialist". It's only the denialist who keeps insisting on being a skeptic, when clearly they are not. Here're a couple of links (one is to my site) that describes the difference between skeptics and denialists. http://www.skeptic.com/about_us/manifesto.html http://www.slrtx.com/blog/rational-skepticism-and-denialism/ And, just to show you this isn't just a climate change phenomenon, here's a great article from the NY Times about another group of denialists: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/science/08tier.html?_r=1 Denialism exists. It is real. Denialists are not true RATIONAL skeptics. This is completely in-line with John's post here.Response: That NY Times article is fascinating, particularly the study of the political partisan brain scans:When we contemplate contradictions in the rhetoric of the opposition party’s candidate, the rational centers of our brains are active, but contradictions from our own party’s candidate set off a different reaction: the emotional centers light up and levels of feel-good dopamine surge.
I especially note that this applies to both sides of the political fence. It's a universal human reaction, not restricted to one side. We all would do well to remember that and endeavour to apply skepticism to arguments whether they support or contradict our currently held beliefs. Hard, I know, it's defying human nature to do so. -
TrueNorth at 10:59 AM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
I like the idea of this blog, but I do not like the use of the word "denialist". It is insulting (since it compares skeptics to Holocaust deniers) and it is misleading because it is applied to people with widely varying educational levels and opinions. Obviously, there are some people on the skeptical side who are naive or ignorant but there are also people on the other side who believe that global warming causes earthquakes or any of the other tabloid-style claims that are made to enhance the urgency of the argument. The truth is somewhere in the middle. So why be insulting? Can it not just be agreed that Prof. Richard Lindzen, Freeman Dyson and others who question the most dire global warming scenarios are sincere scientists who just honestly disagree with the current consensus? They may be wrong, but you have a better chance of convincing me that they are if you stick to science and avoid the "denialist" stuff. -
David Horton at 10:52 AM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
One of the curious things about "scientific denialism" (yes, an oxymoron, I know, but bear with me) is that there seems to be a disproportionate number of geologists who indulge in it. I have puzzled over this, some of my best friends being geologists, and not stupid people, and suspect there are two factors involved. The obvious one is that, unusually among the sciences, geology has an inbuilt strong link to people who dig things up and turn them into untold wealth for members of the Forbes Rich list. Other sciences can have potential for links to commercial activity (eg genetics), but only geology I think has the possibility of wealth from toil built into every geologist's pick or bore hole. So the proposition that some of this stuff, found by great exertion by geologists trudging, in dirty khaki shorts and sweaty shirt, over the sweeping plains, should be left in the ground for the good of the planet, must seem to be a viciously pernicious idea, to be fought on the beaches etc. It might also be that such a field of research carries inherently a tendency towards conservative libertarian-style thought patterns, but although you might say that I couldn't possibly comment. And, second, is what I hereby name the Crocodile Dundee fallacy. Geologists are used to the big picture (one once told me, my research being in the late Pleistocene-Holocene of Australia, that the sediments I was interested in were just the scum that geologists removed to get to the really interesting stuff) of enormous time depth, and moving continents, and mass extinctions, and huge ice caps, and basalt flows and all the rest. So the idea that the rapid change of climate of the last 100 years, especially the last thirty years, could be of concern to the 7 billion people now on the planet, seems nonsense to them. "Call that climate change? This is climate change". Hence the constant refrain that climatologists "don't realise that climate has changed in the past". A pity, it would have been good to have these guys onside. At least one of them has fought the good fight against creationists, and as members of the discipline that provided the original academic underpinning for Darwin, you would think that they would recognise the links, direct and indirect, between climate change deniers and evolution deniers, but it seems not. -
yocta at 10:34 AM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
Cheers. "LINKS" at the top of the site takes us to the global warming directory and "Links" at the bottom of the site takes us to the Links/Resources section :) -
yocta at 10:26 AM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
RE# 43 frogstar: If I find myself in agreement with the "scientific consensus" on the first three topics (smoking/cancer, HIV/Aids, and Creationism), but have serious reservations about man-made climate change driven by CO2, does this make me "a denialist"? Not necessarily but it depends on your approach climate science. If you are in agreement in the scientific concensus with the first three points you mentioned, can you not see the sharp parallels in the methods and approach to the science between the "skeptics" of smoking/cancer etc and those in climate science? It's kind of interesting that yes you may get more legitimate climate skeptics writing on other blog sites or even in peer review but then when 'climate skeptics' readers get a hold of it, it doesn't really matter what they say, as long as it is against AGW. This quote I got from a recent reader on RealClimate I think sums up the mood: Obviously, there are plenty of ill-considered opinions to be found either side of any issue, but only the most ignorant person could fail to see the terrible intellectual gulf between the quality of so-called skeptic sites and those defending the science behind the AGW thesis. Note to John I can't see the Resource link on the main page anymore...I see the "links" section. But it could be my tired eyes...Response: The LINKS navigation button now goes to the global warming directory - this is now a key aspect of Skeptical Science so I gave it more prominence. So I moved the link to the previous Links/Resources section down to the footer. There's only so much real estate in the top navigation links. -
slimething at 09:48 AM on 18 March 2010Watts Up With That's continued ignorance regarding Antarctic sea ice
Looking at Southern Ocean SST, where is it accelerating again? http://i49.tinypic.com/jt6zvn.png -
Marcel Bökstedt at 09:13 AM on 18 March 2010CO2 was higher in the past
The lecture by Richard Alley is good! Very convincing piece of work. I'm wondering a little about why the "skeptic argument" above claims that there was glaciation in the "Jurassic-Cretaceous period". It would indeed be bad for the connection to CO2 if there was widespread glaciation during this period, but I can't find anything about that. -
tobyjoyce at 09:09 AM on 18 March 2010The 5 characteristics of scientific denialism
suibhne, Ah, shure & begorrah, fantasy is always to be preferred to the truth on St. Patrick's Day. But tomorrow the real world will be back, and then you can appreciate what Phil Jones actually said. Or, next time you are opening a bottle of Powers, here are some more of Pete Sinclair's excellent videos: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=greenman3610&annotation_id=annotation_984683&feature=iv
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