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Doug Bostrom at 11:15 AM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Further to (away from) Habilus, here in the US we used to have a general problem characterized by something called "Love Canal." We've moved to substantially repair the defect. Would restoring Love Canal to its former filthy state and returning to the general fecklessness it represented make no difference? Would that choice be equally "good news" as was correcting the problem of Love Canal? I think not.
So the China of today is not the China of tomorrow, if the Chinese choose to plan their future differently to how they run things today. They're doing so, apparently. Unless we believe the Chinese are uniquely unable to transcend their current problems it seems that China's decisions are indeed "good news."
Moderator Response: {PW] In addition to your points, there was--was, being the operative word--the time when the Cuyahoga River caught *fire*, and we addressed that, and fixed the issue. Through regulation. -
Tom Curtis at 11:14 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclecktikus @72, first year philosophy students are taught the sobering lesson of Gettier. The one thing, we are told, that all philosopher's agreed on, was that Knowledge was justified, true belief. Then one day, the Dean looked at the publication record of Edmund Gettier, an apparently undistinguished philosopher, and told him he needed to publish or perish. Gettier responded by publishing a short article that shattered the one consensus in philosophy that had lasted since Plato. He was not asked to publish again.
The point is, there is no consensus in philosophy, and there is certainly no concensus in philosophy of science. Picking out two people whose opinion you find agreeable and asserting "concensus" without bothering to demonstrate that there is almost universal agreement among philosophers and/or scientists about that opinion is using false authority as a substitute for thought. This is particularly the case as it is not even evident that your two authorities even agree with each other.
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Ken in Oz at 11:14 AM on 5 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Just a clarification of my thoughts and questions @95 (and noting that some of this may cross the off-topic line) - in the absence of something like continuous measurement of energy in and energy out at the top of atmosphere, it looks important to have of some kind of reference measure that can be used to communicate the ongoing change to the heat balance of the planet. One that, unlike the average surface air temperature, reflects that ongoing nature of that change with a minimum of the year to year, decade to decade variability.
The excessive focus on surface air temperatures may be an accident of history - it's what we have measured for the longest and it relates directly to how people experience weather and climate - but surface air temperature is a consequence of the complex ways that heat is distributed and moves, not a direct measure of underlying change.
The kind of graph of heat content used in this post looks to me to be a more suitable defining measure and my question, rephrased might be how much variability is there in these combined measures of heat content? When ocean heat content dips or rises, does the land, ice and atmosphere heat content rise or dip to reflect that it's a change of energy distribution rather than of change in the top of atmosphere energy in/out balance? Or, put another way, how short a period to get a statistically significant trend? Less than 5 years?
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Tom Curtis at 11:02 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Tom Dayton @73, Martin Gardner's explanation of the problem with Popper is simply wrong. Specifically, Popper asserted that a certain type empirical statement haveing the logical structure (x)Px ("For all things, x, x has the property P") are not emperically verifiable, but are falifiable. He further pointed out that scientific laws have that logical structure. It is essential to Popper's epistemology that statemenst have the logical form ∃(x)Px (There exists at least on x, such that x has the property P) are verifiable (but not falsifiable). It is by verifying logically particular statements that we falsify logically universal statements. Clearly Dayton's counter example to the claim that scientists seek to falsify logically universal statements (scientific laws) is a logically particular statement (∃(x)(Wx & Mx) where Wx means (x is water) and Mx means (x is on the surface of Mars); ie, a statement of exactly the form that Popper asserts is verifiable, and that must be verifiable for Popper's theory to be valid.
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Habilus at 10:51 AM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Have you ever been to China? Seen the chocolate colored water in the rivers? Breathed the viscous air? I have, plenty. There ain't no good news there.
"Australia's carbon tax is faring well" Are you kidding me? Have you seen the price of 'carbon' lately? "Carbon" markets are collapsing and Austrailia is counting heavily on those same 'carbon' taxes to make revenue goals. They aren't going to make it.
Time to step away from the keyboard and take a trip down reality lane here.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:41 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus... I think rejecting the nomination is more of a way of pointing out the fact that the system for selecting the winner is deeply flawed and being gamed. It actually gives the bloggies some assemblence of credibility to have SkS as a nominee in the category.
By requesting to be removed SkS clearly wins by pointing out that nearly every other nominee is there because Anthony Watts requested his readers go nominate WUWT and other similar blogs. It makes the category completely absurd when a very broad category like "science and technology" is dominated by the very narrow category of climate science denial.
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Daniel Bailey at 10:25 AM on 5 March 2013‘Frozen Dirt’ and Methane … ‘We Cannot Go There’
Sadly, we don't. Those emissions will continue, just as surely as there is an energy imbalance at the TOA. Polar amplification will continue to cause more warming of the permafrost with yet more attendant releases of CO2 and CH4.
At least the Kraken does not yet wake... -
Tom Dayton at 10:19 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eclectikus, the most concise explanation of the problems with Popper was written by Martin Gardner. But if you want longer explanations, there are plenty out there.
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Eclectikus at 08:36 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Bill, Feynman and Popper might be (and they are, indeed) two of the greater thinkers or twenty century. There is consensus.
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Eclectikus at 08:26 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Nope, thanks Sphoerica, but I don't need any guidance to sift out what should I or should not I read, 17 years as geophysicist help me to form my own opinion based on what I read, here and there.
And yes, I think that SkS and the IPCC reports are based on the actual/mainstream science, while sites like WUWT clearly are not. Besides, I'm sure that that is healthy, indispensable, and good for everyone interested in Science in general, and in Climatology in particular. Is my opinion.
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scaddenp at 08:14 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
The biggist thing wrong with Eklectikis argument is that the statemment "they are no susceptiuble of falsability, and fail to fulfill the Scientific Method. " is simply wrong. I think itt stems from misunderstanding the nature of models and predictions within climate science.
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bill4344 at 08:03 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
The thing about Eklectikis' 'argument' is that Homeopaths could use it to support themselves in their brave struggle against the overwhelming might of the narrow-minded and hide-bound Scientific Establishment, Man!
Personally I think Feynman is seriously over-rated, as is Popper, that other most-likely candidate to be adduced as an authority by the 'see, a consensus is automatically wrong, so an overwhelming consensus must be overwhelmingly wrong!' brigade.
Occam's Razor remains a far more important principle than the hypothesized opinions of intellectual 'rock stars'.
This 'Feynman Process' also reminds me of the Neocon Right's continual revisionist attempts to make Orwell one of their own...
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Ken in Oz at 07:48 AM on 5 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Thanks Dana. It looks to me that variability even year to year is absent - smoothed data or is the heat gain actually approaching continuous? To my mind this or similar graphs ought to be amongst the first referred to whenever a climate scientist is asked whether warming has paused, slowed or is not statistically signifant over the past x no. of years. Even before referring to Foster and Rahmstorf's adjusted temperature - or the visually compelling variation used by Kevin C www.skepticalscience.com/16_more_years_of_global_warming.html
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Bob Lacatena at 07:46 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Eklectikis,
You don't appear to understand the science well enough to make the statements that you are making. I'd suggest you invest a lot more time in studying the actual science, and a lot less time reading WUWT, Curry, Spencer and Pielke, who don't actually communicate the science, but instead spend all of their time commenting on the politics and the 'debate' and sowing doubt in the science. You don't need opinions, you need facts.
I would also point out that Skeptical Science does not spread the official position coming from the IPCC. It merely communicates the science itself. Occassionaly, the site quotes the IPCC Assessment Reports, but more often than not, SkS directly presents and references actual scientific studies (which are also the basis of the IPCC reports).
Or are you simply trying to say that SkS and the IPCC reports are based on the actual science, while sites like WUWT clearly are not?
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Andy Skuce at 06:29 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
shoyemore @65
That story from Feynman, which I hadn't heard before, is a nice counterpoint to Ernest Rutherford's popular quote that a scientific discovery has no merit unless you can explain it to a barmaid.
Since Eli brought up Groucho, my favourite quip is: "Why, this is so simple a five-year-old child could understand it! [aside] Go find me a five-year-old child; I can't make heads or tails of it.".
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:23 AM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
I've said many times, much of China's current energy consuption is the direct result of production of goods for western markets. So, on a very real level, a portion of China's emissions are actually our emissions.
I'm hearing a lot of talk on both sides of the Pacific about manufacturing moving back to the US, so that energy consumption for manufacturered goods is headed back this direction. And I think that's a good thing.
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Dan Olner at 03:48 AM on 5 March 2013China Takes a Leading Role in Solving Climate Change
Phew, actually quite heartening - thank you!
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Eclectikus at 03:32 AM on 5 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Hi shoyemore.
I'm reasonably sure that Feynman would not support creationism, aether... Also reasonably (judging by his pragmatism, his taste for empirical verification of theories, and their detachment from the powers that be) I think that would be pretty critical of the IPCC, and specifically with the climate projections to, say, one hundred years from now... is this that bad?. But we have no idea, and we never will. Anyway, I brought Feynmann only to ilustrate the "no pejorative" meaning of the word pseudoscience in that context, that's all.
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brent at 18:42 PM on 4 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Tom Curtis @ 13, you must excuse my ignorance as to what's hot and what's not in Baptist circles. But I think the original reason for my interest in this isn't significantly altered.
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shoyemore at 18:14 PM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Apologies mispelling Feynman as Feynmann - mixup with Gell-Mann. They are no relation!
One story about Feynman illustrates his approach to science. After his Nobel Prize was announced, a taxi-driver recognised him.
"Hey, what did you get the Prize for?" ask the driver
"Bud, if I could explain it to you before the end of the journey, then it would not have been worth a Nobel Prize" answered Feynman.
It seems a strange attitude for someone who was (arguably) the greatest public lecturer on science ever. But he did not believe in Idiot Guides, and it is a questionable assumption that he would have taken to the world of science blogging and "Post-Normal" science that deniers try to push.
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shoyemore at 16:48 PM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Ecklecktius,
I notice deniers fall over themselves trying to claim trying to claim Richard Feynmann as a talisman. Feynmann was a sardonic, intellectually tough individual who could flirt with Californian wackiness and keep his science straight. Somehow, I do not see him falling for Tallbloke's espousal of the luminiferous aether or Dr Roy Spencer's Creationism and membership of the Cornwall Alliance. Nor do I see him buying into the conspiracy theories purveyed on WUWT or Jo Nova.
Feynmann was rather conservative and elitest when it came to science. "Post-Normal science" would have been alient to him. He believed in following observations rigorously, inter-scientist discussion and peer-review. I think he would have joined his friend, fellow-Nobelist, colleague and rival Professor Murray Gell-Mann in speaking up for the traducing and betrayal of science by both fringe figures and Establishment politicians.
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rockytom at 16:33 PM on 4 March 2013‘Frozen Dirt’ and Methane … ‘We Cannot Go There’
How do we stop the methane and carbon dioxide that is already escaping from permafrost areas, bubbling up from these pristine lakes and the invisible releases from other areas of permafrost?
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chriskoz at 16:14 PM on 4 March 2013‘Frozen Dirt’ and Methane … ‘We Cannot Go There’
More detailed press release of the most interesting detail of this video: 1.5C being the "tipping point" of the large PF melt (based on the stalactites growth radioactive dating by Anton Vaks) can be found here in Oxford Uni press in Science 21 Feb 2013, DOI: 10.1126/science.1228729if you have an access.
Interesting study worth close attention. Confirms Jim Hnasen's opinion that "danegerous" level of global warming is not beyond 2 degrees: we should limit it to 1 degree to avoid the "danger".
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dana1981 at 15:55 PM on 4 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Ken @92 - our data are based entirely on measurements. Ocean heat content was measured by expendable bathythermographs before the ARGO network was built. The data are sparser in the past, particularly for the deeper ocean layers, but the data exist nonetheless.
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Philip Shehan at 15:28 PM on 4 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Tom Curtis: In your reply to my reference to Lord Monckton's use of the Australian's version of Pachuari's views, you comment on "skeptics" silence on Monckton's views.
He is indeed too rich for some "skeptics" liking, including Australian Senator Barnaby Joyce and conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen:
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, the eccentric UK climate sceptic, is proving too hot for some of Australia’s most prominent climate sceptics — including Barnaby Joyce.
Joyce, who famously said that climate change sceptics were being treated like holocaust deniers and likened environmental campaigners to eco-Nazis, believes Monckton is on the fringe of the debate and unhelpful to those who question human induced climate change...
On Wednesday conservative columnist Janet Albrechtsen in The Australian wrote that Monckton was an extremist in his language and is hurting the cause of those who want to ask hard questions of the science.
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Stephen Leahy at 12:30 PM on 4 March 2013‘Frozen Dirt’ and Methane … ‘We Cannot Go There’
Schaefer has said that permafrost tipping pt might be only 15 years from now. That was before some new research in Feb this year showing that permafrost carbon exposed to sunlight turns into CO2 40% faster. All of which is to say: time to wound down the use of fossil fuels.
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Stephen Leahy at 12:18 PM on 4 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Nice work Andy. Public surveys show that +80% of Canadians want their environment protected EVEN if it slows economic growth or costs them money. (Environics Research pdf)
I wonder if denial is truly at heart of the matter or simply lack of awareness that Canada is fouling its own nest and profitting from what might one day be known as 'the crime of the century'?
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Eternal Consumption Engine at 11:50 AM on 4 March 20132013 Arctic Sea Ice Extent Prediction
First posting on this website. Greetings to all.
My estimate for 2013 minimum ice volume is 2221 km^3 based on the steepening trend seen in the last 6 years of the PIOMAS graph. If assymetric error margins are permitted, I will say +2500/-500 km^3 based on 2500 being roughly the amount of lumpiness in that section of the graph and -500 on an unsubstantiated hunch about the most northerly part of the ice sheet being the hardest to melt.
Based on the earlier mention that research crews are now having to 'hunt' for ice thickness of 2m and taking that as a crude average thickness, my prediction for ice extent works out to 1,110,600 km^2, or a radius of ~595 km, if it were perfectly centered on the pole (c.f. ~700km from north coast of Greenland to the pole). -
barry1487 at 11:45 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
(Sorry about the poor grammar. Hopefully it's not too difficult to amend my syntax on on the fly)
"It would have been enough to post here making the point that the Bloggies' science awards are about popularity and/or fanaticism, and eschewing the nomination without actually withdrawing. (Had SkS won and thereafter publicly reiterated this position, that would have been a stronger, as well as good-natured, stand)"
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barry1487 at 11:36 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
The principle for SkS has nothing to do with the awards criteria. Withdrawing misses the point in favour of declaring a preferred context (quality, not quantity). The woeful 'skeptic' blogs are ideological in nature and political in motivation. Pulling out is also political. It's a protest, isn't it?
It would have been enough to post here making the point that the Bloggies' science awards are popularity and/or fanaticism, and eschewing the nomination without actually withdrawing. (Had SkS won and thereafter publicly reiterated this position, which would have been a much stronger, as well as good-natured, stand) I don't think any use is served by withdrawing. It won't change anyone's mind in the denialist camp, or fence-sitters. Indeed, it will more likely reinforce the 'skeptics' and look like sour grapes to more neutral types. The defense of science by protesting a popularity contest? I don't think it's a good decision.
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Steve Metzler at 10:47 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
'Best anti-science blog' does have a certain ring to it. Isn't it just so... quaint that the typical Watts sycophant thinks they're doing 'real science', and that all the actual climate scientists are corrupt losers who can't even manage to walk and chew gum at the same time? Dunning-Kruger writ large, with a generous helping of right wing authoritarianism on the side (cyber bullies is what they actually are).
What I like best is that a lot of their armchair theories contradict each other, but they rarely call each other out. As long as it goes against established scientific findings regarding AGW, it's OK by Anthony. He's becoming more strident by the week, and it's long past the point of descending into farce/jumping the shark. -
EliRabett at 10:26 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
So John, you are a Marxist
Groucho type.
Moderator Response: [DB] Extraneous empty lines snipped. -
Tom Curtis at 10:00 AM on 4 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
brent @12, whether an obscure American journalist or the most renown English preacher was the author of the quote is easilly checked. The facts are, although the quote is often attributed to Twain, no such attribution also cites a source. In contrast, it is to be found in black and white in a book published by Spurgeon in 1858 (page 74). Spurgion writes:
'It is well said in the old proverb, "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on."'
As I presume Spurgeon was not lying, it follows that neither Twain nor Spurgeon were the author of the quote, though apparently Spurgeon was the first to put it in print.
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brent at 09:28 AM on 4 March 2013Reality Drop - using social media to rapidly respond to climate misinformation
Alces @ 5 and John @ 5. I'll leave it to readers to consider whether the pithy quotation is more likely to have been coined by an obscure English Baptist preacher or his almost exact contemporary, one of the best humorists of all times. But the reason I was interested in the attribution is that it's given as Mark Twain when the quote is used as the heading to chapter 12 of a tome entitled, 'The Hockey Stick And The Climate Wars'. The copy I have in front of me claims the author of this is a certain Michael E Mann.
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Ken in Oz at 09:10 AM on 4 March 2013Did Murdoch's The Australian Misrepresent IPCC Chair Pachauri on Global Warming?
Wide use of surface air temperatures as the primary measure and indicator of global warming is an ongoing communications problem. The excessive focus - it seems to me, even by climate scientists - on a measure that has high levels of internal variability allows and encourages the false perception that anthropogenic global warming is an intermittent phenomena. When the strong desire to find cause to disbelieve science on climate - without the genuine skeptic's desire to be well informed or truthful or fair-minded - the idea that the world is not currently warming gains traction. Measures of heat content such as the graph used clearly show that warming has not slowed or paused and looks like a better representation of the ongoing fundamental change to our climate system - yet it is surface air temperatures, not overall heat content or top of atmosphere changes that get the attention.
But - how much is the Nuccitelli graph based on direct measurements? Even if the data record for ocean heat content doesn't go back as far as air temperaures accurate data about recent changes to ocean and overall heat content should help to put to rest the "pause in warming" misunderstandings.
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AndyS at 08:27 AM on 4 March 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #9
Another typo seeral => several
Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed; thanks! -
tmac57 at 08:23 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Tom Curtis- Thanks for the info, I was under the mistaken impression that The Weblog voting allowed an individual to vote once per day for the open period of voting,which could allow for a zealous group to bombard the poll way beyond the relative popularity of their choice. Maybe I was confusing their poll with another blogs poll,or maybe they changed their methods at some point. Thanks again.
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Bob Loblaw at 08:06 AM on 4 March 201316 years - Update and Frequently Asked Questions
...and mdenison shows us what a true skeptic does. Performs his own analysis, fInds an interesting, potential conflict between his results and someone elses, asks questions, gets answers, checks his work, and then comes back and openly admits that he was on the wrong track.
Kudos for having he courage to ask, and the courage to admit a mistake.
For others, the ongoing discussion at Tamino's is here.
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Bob Loblaw at 07:58 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Magma:
I didn't intend by my wording to imply that I didn't believe you as to the source of the quote. Exactly who said it wasn't relevent to my criticism of the statement, so I just didn't bother trying to verify it.
If I were writing a scientific paper, the correct way to reference the quote would be something like "the founder of the bloggies posted ...(as quoted by Magma, in comment X)". I don't have direct knowledge of the quote myself, so I didn't want to say "the founder said..." without qualification - so I chose the wording I used to indicate that my knowledge was based on your statement, rather than me seeing the post myself.
Sorry for the confusion.
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Tom Curtis at 07:50 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
tmac57 @49, the Bloggies already have a mechanism to avoid multiple voting by a single person. From their site, there mechanism for doing so is to restrict voting to one vote per email account, which is easy to game. Never-the-less, finding a more effective method would be difficult.
The problem with the Bloggies science award is that best is not the same as most popular. WUWT is more popular than Skeptical Science because it tells a lot of people exactly what they want to hear, while Skeptical Science requires that you think (an ever unpopular activity). That means Skeptical Science has far better content than WUWT in terms of scientific accuracy, so it is a better science blog. That can be seen in the fact that it has recieved an award judged by scientists, and is used as source material in several university level courses. Yet on any strictly popularity based contest, WUWT will beat Skeptical Science.
What is worse, however, is that there are general science or technical blogs that are far more popular than WUWT that still do not win because, as it turns out, their readers are not motivated enough, or their writers do not respect the bloggies enough to ask them to, vote for that blog on the bloggies. The Bloggies uses an unscientific polling method to determine the winner of each category, and unsurprisingly, as a result gets nonsense results for its "Best Science" category (and probably in other categories as well).
As the owner seems uninterested in correcting the problem, he has confined his award to irrelevance.
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mdenison at 07:48 AM on 4 March 201316 years - Update and Frequently Asked Questions
Re my comment #26. Tamino replied and as a result of what he wrote I realized I had made an error. In fact both methods give very similar results. I think I misled myself whe my results backed up what I though I had read about the T Smethods. My apolgies.
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AndyS at 06:30 AM on 4 March 20132013 SkS Weekly Digest #9
"The article about the Bloogies award"
Typo there, though Bloogies would be a good band name
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helenavargas at 06:24 AM on 4 March 2013For Psychology Research, Climate Denial is the Gift that Keeps on Giving
[N.B. A new arrival to this blog, driven by hoards of denialists and trolls pretty much everywhere. Retired physics prof, mostly lurker, rarely comment.]
Delighted to see the recursion infinite loop on CT/denialism explored quantitatively! Still in my own infinite loop with internal debate on (A) DNFTT vs. (B) responsible engagement with scientifically honest critiques. My own discriminator between the two just isn't able to keep pace with the rapidly propagating rage.
Greatly appreciate the calm, rational insights from most regular commenters. Also grateful for the moderators!
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Magma at 05:50 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
DSL @50 and Bob Loblaw @54, there is a link to the Guardian article quoting the founder of the Bloggies in the first paragraph of the lead post.
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Bob Loblaw at 05:22 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Climate4All gives a quote (s)he attributes to Truzzi that says:
"Evidence in science is always a matter of degree and is seldom if ever absolutely conclusive. Some proponents of anomaly claims, like some critics, seen unwilling to consider evidence in probabilistic terms, clinging to any slim loose end as though the critic must disprove all evidence ever put forward for a particular claim."
...and then immediately follows it with a sentence that says
"If we allow ourselves to diminish doubts,by black balling, name calling and unwilling to consider that science is unsettled,"
...in which "unsettled" is used as an absolute, without regard to the probablistic nature of "unsettled". Apparently, in Climate4All's view of science, the failure to provide absolute conclusions means things are "unsettled". This is a spectacularly useless definition of "unsettled", and is part of the "Merchants of Doubt" playbook that tries to pretend that little is known about [climate] science. Noone that has seriously read the IPCC reports or the climate science literature can pretend that real scientists ignore the uncertainty in the science. The claims of certainty and unwillingness for self-criticism and true skepticism are far more common on the "it's not happening, and we're not causing it anyway" side.
AFAIK, physicists haven't come up with a Unified Theory yet, and an explanation of what causes gravity, but I sure as heck advise against jumping off a tall building without a parachute as a means of demonstrating that the science of gravity is "unsettled".
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Bob Loblaw at 05:01 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Magma attributes this to the founder of the Bloggies:
"But it seems that science blogs would rather complain about the results than try to submit nominations themselves"
To me, this is analagous to putting up a bird feeder to attract pretty birds, having nothing but squirrels show up to eat the feed, and then saying it's the the fault of the birds. I suppose it's an easy out when one doesn't want to make any effort to design a bird feeder that is more attractive to birds and doesn't let the squirrels in.
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BillEverett at 03:39 AM on 4 March 2013Living in Denial in Canada
Ray@9, I am not forgetting population expansion
I hope the third-world people have the desire to raise their standard of living, but I don't know to what extent it is true
To see the world I would like to see in 2050, it would be absolutely necessary to raise their standard of living, but this needs to be done by leapfrogging the old model of technological progress and providing distributed clean energy sources on a massive scale. There exist analyses indicating that this is technologically and economically feasible.
We have been able to adequately feed the entire world population for at least the last twenty years but have not done so: political will and/or skill has been lacking. Perhaps (maybe most likely) the 2050 I envision also will not happen because of lack of political will and skill.
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Eclectikus at 03:18 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Hi Paul D. Do you mean more authoritive that Richard Feynman? That is a hard task ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_science#Economics
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Paul D at 03:06 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Cheers Eclectikus I have been wanting to find an authoritive figure to reference regarding economics being pseudo-science.
Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed link. -
Eclectikus at 02:54 AM on 4 March 2013Why SkS withdrew from the Bloggies
Well, I can agree with a good part of your discourse (DSL #47). But I read often people like Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, Roger Pielke Sr. and is difficult to me accept that they are "denialist" or that their blogs are pseudoscience. I can accept they are wrong just in the same way that you can find mistakes here in Skeptical Science, but cross that line seems to me at least an exaggerated position.
Yeah, I am aware that Climatology can be everything but "soft", my impresion is that some of the essential mechanisms have been well explained, and there is a good consensus in some directions. But everyone knows there is many other issues that remain unexplained, and the scientific dispute is perfectly legitimate. SkS (and many others at several levels) spreads the offitial position coming from IPCC, and others (also in an heterogeneal mixture) broadcasts other views... Can anything be more healthy? Mi answer to this question is that "no way".
Said this, coming back to the Bloggies, I think that SkS should not have resigned, they/you have nothing to loose, and at least one thing to win: place a pro-IPCC blog between "the best" Science Blogs. People arriving to that list could compare, and ultimately change their vote for successive years. Now they will see only one side of the discussion, and this is always a bad thing. IMHO.
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