This is so disappointing: James Randi joins the ranks of the climate change denialists, and he does so on the basis of an extremely poor argument. I know, he’s a professional skeptic about everything, but skeptics must have some standard for evidence … a standard which the climatologists have reached, while the denialists have not. Here’s the core of Randi’s dissent from the scientific consensus.
I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid. I base this on my admittedly rudimentary knowledge of the facts about planet Earth. This ball of hot rock and salt water spins on its axis and rotates about the Sun with the expected regularity, though we’re aware that lunar tides, solar wind, galactic space dust and geomagnetic storms have cooled the planet by about one centigrade degree in the past 150 years. The myriad of influences that act upon Earth are so many and so variable — though not capricious — that I believe we simply cannot formulate an equation into which we enter variables and come up with an answer. A living planet will continually belch, vibrate, fracture, and crumble a bit, and thus defeat an accurate equation. Please note that this my amateur opinion, based on probably insufficient data.
At least he’s self-aware enoughto realize that he has come to this conclusion on the basis of his personal ignorance. He has two main reasons otherwise to disagree with the idea of anthropogenic global warming.
One is the idea that climate is such a complex product of multiple phenomena that we should expect significant variation, and that no one could possibly have a single equation that describes it all. This is entirely true, but irrelevant. Climate scientists have collected a huge amount of data, and the confounding fact that none of them would ever deny is that it’s variable, messy, noisy stuff, with loads of daily/monthly/yearly variation, and it has to be analyzed to find long term trends. The consensus was not reached because somebody had a magic formula that predicts a result. It was reached because a body of observation has shown long term change is going on. They are aware of possible causes, and they know that phenomena like volcanic eruptions and cyclic changes in solar activity effect climate…and our situation is not sufficiently explained by those kinds of natural events. One consistent change is a rise in CO2 levels, and we know that we are digging up huge reservoirs of sequestered carbon and dumping it into the atmosphere.
The other source of his skepticism is one that Randi should have been more skeptical about: the Petition Project. This is a project by the denialists to gather enough signatures to show a strong pattern of dissent in the scientific community (Sound familiar? The Discovery Institute has done exactly the same thing with their “Dissent from Darwin” list). They’ve got over 30,000 signatures so far! However, as with the Discovery Institute’s list, only a tiny proportion of the signatories are actually qualified, and their procedure for gathering signatures is incredibly sloppy and prone to accumulate fake names. This is what you’d expect: they don’t want quality control, for the propaganda purposes of this list, all you need is quantity.
The source for this list is also rather dubious. It comes from a tiny team of crank scientists operating out of a ‘think tank’ in a small town in Oregon.
I would expect Randi to have given his denialist sources the same degree of critical analysis that he gave to the conclusions of the IPCC. Maybe he did, since he has shown no understanding of the IPCC determinations at all, but I think it was a gross mistake on his part to therefore charge in and decide on the basis of his rudimentary knowledge that maybe the fringe cranks were right.
*shrug*
Dude’s no scientist. On this topic, the half-baked opinions of a stage magician mean about as much as those of a plumber or stockbroker. Or radio personality.
I recall he did something similar once before regarding taking some claims from a AGW denialist documentary as accurate. Several readers corrected his errors and he retracted the point. I suspect this will result in a lot of knowledgeable people providing the understanding he currently lacks.
Anyone know any great sites that summarize the arguments for AGW? I’d love to be able to argue it more coherently when it comes up.
*Groan*
Adopting denialist talking points without looking into whether they’ve been debunked (repeatedly and thoroughly).
Skepticism fail!
Err, I forgot to include the last sentence. Maybe I should get some coffee.
Hopefully, Randi will exhibit some proper skepticism as a result.
This is sad that Randi didn’t look deeper into this.
Lets look a the consequences: if climatologists are right about AGW (massive amounts of data observed) then we are all going to be screwed if it continues without us making changes. If the denialists are correct (little evidence of this) then it has other causes and we still may be screwed or it doesn’t matter.
… lunar tides, solar wind, galactic space dust and geomagnetic storms have cooled the planet by about one centigrade degree in the past 150 years.
Haven’t seen these in climatological discussions before. Said factors being approximately constant, shouldn’t Earth have reached a temp of absolute zero during the Pre-Ediacarian – and stuck?
#3
Real Climate is a good site with a collection of debunking articles. Alternatively, the ScienceBlog Deltoid is pretty good.
Climate deniers remind me of creationists. They quote-mine and try to refute climate change with sweeping arguments that they don’t understand. Worse of all, many of them revert to a conspiracy theory to explain it away. Now that’s skepticism.
@3 DJSutton
Real Climate blog is like Panda’s thumb, only it’s Ph.D.s in climate science running it. Real Climate Start Page is the best place to begin.
For current developments take a look also at Andrew Revkin’s NY Times Climate blog.
While you may be right about this, Sven, that will not be the way it is seen by the AGW denialist camp. They will latch on to it like a pitbull on a mailman.
This is really unfortunate that a man of Randi’s stature within the skeptic community would willingly make a public statement on such a critical and polarizing issue while readily admitting it is based on ignorance and “intuition”.
This is a very poor job by a man who should know better what the impact of such a careless public statement will have on an already combustible topic.
Shame on you James Randi, you should know better.
Something about “if we have to redefine the peer review process”?
Is it not possible you have been fooled and become emotionally attached to the consequences of your false conclusions?
Another odd case is that of Alexander Cockburn. He’s a professional contrarian and grump, to be sure, but he decided that AGW is a hoax based on a conversation with a single nutball on a Nation fundraising cruise. As an unreconstructed Marxist he’s inclined to see corporatist conspiracies everywhere — many of which really do exist — but on what theory of society he attributes a pernicious conspiracy to thousands of underpaid Ph.D.s I cannot imagine.
Odd these cases are.
Sorry I can’t remember where I heard this one.
In the 70s Carl Sagan was writing articles and essays debunking the pop science shlock of a convicted embezzler named Erich Von Daniken who wrote In search of ancient astronauts and other follow up books promoting the same pseudo-science. He said that he knew the astronomy was wacky, but the archaeology sounded plausible.
Then some time in the late 70s he was in England (doesn’t matter whether Cambridge or Oxford) where he met at a party an archaeology professor who, as it turned out, had been writing essays and articles debunking Von Daniken’s crap. The archaeologist told Sagan that the archaeology in the books were really wacky, but he thought the astronomy sounded plausible.
Even Einstein fell into this trap. He wrote an introduction to a geology book in the 50s in which he slammed the idea of plate tectonic theory. Oops.
Lesson: don’t sound off outside your area of expertise unless you do some more research first.
@NewEnglandBob: isn’t that akin to Pascal’s Wager?
See, I think he’s adopting a rational position but from an irrational source. The rational position is that we don’t yet know for sure whether man-made factors are contributing to this climate change (though evidence currently being gathered tends to point that direction), but he’s not out and out saying that the earth is not getting warmer. Unfortunately, the sources he uses are saying just that.
Just another illustration that raw skepticism unaccompanied by any attempt at understanding is as stupid as raw credulity.
But this also illustrates how screwed we are on climate. Too many people are too willing to grasp at any excuse for not dealing with it. Our descendants (eventually, greatly reduced in numbers and circumstances) will curse us.
Not really, since there is actually only two outcomes in this case, unlike in Pascal’s Wager.
Whether Randi is correct or not, he is honest enough to say that he does not know enough or does not have the expertise to make a fully informed decision. Right there he is 100% more honest than any denier (or religionista for that matter). When in the future he is given the requisite climate change information, if he changes his mind, he will change his mind (again, unlike deniers and religionistas). For that, my respect for him remains intact.
I find it kind of strange to admonish James Randi here. He’s a skeptic like most of us, and he disagrees with the common scientific opinion right now, with qualifications.
He’s not even trying to be convincing. He’s reserved, repeatedly showing that he has doubts of the conclusion he’s indicating. He even states that his opinion is uninformed.
This kind of response, that he should be ashamed for expressing his opinion (especially in such a humble manner) is unnecessary. I’d be surprised if most of the people (climatologists excluded) who have concluded that AGW is occurring have looked at any more data than Mr. Randi here; the venom is a knee jerk reaction to someone disagreeing with them. Let’s face it, we’re (mostly) all armchair experts here.
That said; I also disagree with James Randi here, but I’m more confused that he came to his conclusion than saddened or upset.
Has he been spending too much time talking to Penn Jillette?
In any case this is sad to learn about someone I have quite a bit of respect for. Not so much because I think he’s wrong, but more because of the sloppy thinking which led him to his conclusion.
I think we need to create our own web poll to decide on the climate change issue then Pharyngulate it ourselves. That should resolve the whole issue once and for all.
I cannot see how one can be unaware of the mountain of evidence for anthropogenic climate change these days – in my opinion that’s alike to saying that you’re unaware whether evolution is true or not.
We have understood the effect of greenhouse gasses for 150 years – it’s not exactly a new discovery.
In other words, I have lost respect for Randi over this. He has not done even minimum research into a highly political subject before talking about it – would people give him the same sort of slack if he said something similar about evolution? The intelligent design crowd also has a petition.
yep, definitely a sad moment for the skeptic movement. Some more research Randi please.
#14 @Hans
The flaw in Pascal’s Wager hinges on the fact that there could be any god ruling over ‘who gets into the afterlife’, and praying to just one isn’t going to affect your chances much (there’s also the whole ‘praying only to get into heaven’ thing).
But climate change is just climate CHANGE – not a specific, defined change (well, except that it’s warming, globally). It’s very general. Either there is significant change or not, and significant change will spell disaster no matter what direction it goes in (though not necessarily human disaster, I would think…).
I have to agree with #4. But at the same time, he does admit that he does not really know very much about the subject.
Why does it always have to be an “accurate equation” to qualify as scientific? Whats wrong with probabilistic models derived noisy data? Although they wont degenerate into a yes/no answer, a 98%/2% answer is just as good in most cases. And that’s even before weighting in any consequences…
I never understood the respect Randi got from the scientific community. Most of the stuff I’ve seen or read was “mythbuster of the paranormal” level, fine for reality TV but not really an expression of scientific progress.
No, I’m sorry… this is just wrong. James Randi is not just some common doofus on the street. He is the founder of perhaps the most well respected skeptic organization in the world, and is not prone to making statements about controversial topics in public out of ignorance. It matters that this is coming from him. He is well regarded and well respected and it will not matter to the AGW denialist camp that he does so with reservation, or that he claims ignorance. He is a known name in both the scientific and skeptic community and this will certainly harm the AGW cause, unless he comes out with a more informed statement and retraction.
The only thing that will be splattered about throughout the AGW-denialist camp is the following line: “I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid.”
The problem I see isn’t that he spoke his own opinion on a subject, though I could have wished he had done a bit more research before he did. What I see as the problem is that all the denialists will latch onto this and be able to say, “Look. See, even Randi thinks we are right and he makes his living from being a skeptic.”
@dkbuck: that reads like a future controversial hacked email
We know for sure, from high-precision measurements, that atmospheric CO2 levels are rising steadily, and have been rising for decades.
We know for sure that this additional CO2 is mostly, if not entirely, of anthropogenic origin (burning fossil fuels).
We know for sure that CO2 absorbs radiation in the long-infrared wavelengths.
These known-for-sures are the foundation of the AGW hypothesis. The (“controversial”) empirically observed increases in global-average temperatures (as well as the empirically observed changes in biological phenology) are better viewed as tests of the foundational hypothesis.
So far it can’t be falsified.
So much for “Shoeless” James Randi.
I’m completely disillusioned now.
If he’s wrong on this, maybe he’s wrong
on the paranormal stuff, too. Maybe I
CAN win that $1,000,000. Yeah, that’s it.
Very disappointing… Since he did word this as open ended and say it’s his armchair opinion, I’m not sure if this could be classified as an Argument from Ignorance or Argument from Personal Incredulity…but as has been said above, there is a huge swarth of evidence coming from climate experts. If it’s just a blip from an unknown cause…Yay! But it sure doesn’t seem that way and it behooves us to take steps to reduce CO2 and other Green house gas emissions because their heat trapping abilities have been confirmed for over 100 years and the consequences of doing nothing would be catastrophic.
@ Greg 19
I’m sorry Greg, but you miss an important point. None of the Global warming denialists will see the nuances in Randi’s writing. Consider the case of Noam Chomsky and a holocaust denialist in the early 80s. Chomsky wrote an essay in support of intellectual freedom when the French government planned to ban the book based on its falsehoods and distorted history. Chomsky did not like the idea of state-sanctioned history. He prefers to have a history book fail on its lack of merits rather than state intervention. But he allowed the author to use the essay “whatever way he chooses.” Oops. Epic fail. The holocaust denial book was published and we see “with a forward by Noam Chomsky” on the cover in nice big letters. The creep used the essay to promote the book (not the original intent of the essay nor did the essay support the content of the book).
The crazies will use Randi and he has, albeit unwittingly, allowed himself to be used. None of them will include the qualifying comments. They will shout from now till doomsday that “a highly respected skeptic” has joined their ranks.
Gag.
British kids’ TV presenter Johnny Ball also came out with a load of anti climate-change guff in the UK last night, saying that farting spiders had a greater effect on CO2 emissions than man – shame, because I always used to enjoy his maths and science programmes when I was growing up.
While I’m all for rational skepticism, Randi’s been more of an embarrassment than a help, though he certainly has a gift for PR. But for someone to claim they have successfully debunked a purported hoax by sitting at their desk and stating how it might have been perpetrated, rather than investigating on-site and determining how it actually was perpetrated, does not help the cause. That’s always bothered me a lot. To expect Randi to be some sort of informed spokesperson for science is at best jejune.
Errrrr, wait. Hasn’t he ever talked with Phil Plait? The, uhhhh, president of JREF?
A “professional skeptic about everything” is an untenable position. Going against the mainstream consensus on everything isn’t skepticism, it’s contrarianism, which is just as lazy as traditional conformity albeit slightly braver. There’s not even a lot of bravery in climate change denialism; reversing climate change is going to be difficult, uncertain and expensive for the people who already accept the science as well as those who deny it. We have every psychological incentive to stick our heads in the sand. We would have every economic incentive to deny AGW, too, except for this: If the planet becomes incompatible with human life, there will be no economy. A given position on any empirical topic is either factually supportable, or not. It can go from a fringe position to the mainstream, but that doesn’t change its veracity.
(Alyson Miers)
The only similarity is that it’s “a wager”. The key to Pascal’s Wager is that the reward and punishment in the proposed heaven and hell are infinite. In other words, even though there isn’t a lick of evidence that either heaven or hell exist (or that belief is the ticket to heaven, for that matter), as long as the probability is greater than zero (even if it’s tiny beyond belief), then the infinite reward and/or punishment makes belief the infinitely better choice.
Unlike Pascal, NewEnglandBob was not arguing for something for which no evidence exists. The evidence for AGW is overwhelming! In fact, the only real debate in the scientific community is over just how bad “hell” is going to be.
Hans (@14):
I noticed, too, that there’s something superficially Pascal’s-Wager-esque about the argument that what we need to do about AGW is stuff we should be doing even if it weren’t true, and I’ve been struggling to understand why I reject PW and accept an ostensibly similar type of argument WRT AGW.
Here’s the thing: Pascal’s Wager bears on the truth of the proposition that God exists and rewards those who have faith in him. Taken on its own terms, faith only works to provide salvation if it’s true faith. Leaving aside the question of whether one can ever really arrive at a “faith” that’s valid on its own terms through the kind of self-serving calculation that PW represents, the point is that Pascal can’t really place the bet unless he truly believes… which inherently tosses out the “even if it’s not really true” part of the premise.
The argument WRT AGW, OTOH, is not about faith, nor about the existential truth of a metaphysical proposition: It’s about the real-world, predictable consequences of concrete public policy choices. The things we need to do, in terms of regulation and new technologies, to mitigate AGW will predictably reduce pollution (not just greenhouse gases), spur technological innovation, help small businesses and entrepreneurs (around the world, not just in the U.S.), reduce everybody’s dependence on the geopolitical distribution of fossil fuel deposits, and (I predict) actually accelerate development in the developing world, saving millions from starvation, disease, and early death. These are all positive results, I would argue, regardless of whether the threat that brings them about turns out to be true… and these positive outcomes don’t depend on the purity of anybody’s faith.
Then, too, there’s lots more evidence — infinitely more, in fact — for the reality of AGW than there is for the existence of God.
Randi is usually so spot on. This is sad. Anybody following general science in Nature of Science has been seeing data from NASA, Climate researchers, and biologists that has been consistant with anthropogenic climate change for about 30 years.
I asked Phil what he thought about this over on Bad Astronomy… I’m guessing he’ll have something to say about it before too long.
But as you may know, our little Phil has become a star and is now a very busy man. ;^)
Very disappointing to hear this. I saw him make denialist rumblings some time back when he was still writing his weekly Swift columns.
He has great clout in the skeptic community and so you cannot simply say “dude’s no scientist”. After all, the parapsychologists used to make similar claims about his credentials when he was criticising their work.
Good intro to climate prediction:
http://www.begbroke.ox.ac.uk/climate/interface.html
This was all an illusion, an elaborate trick. Randi never denied climate change is real. The Amazing Randi is baaack!… *wakes up*
I have learned so much about facilitative communication, magic, psychic readings and other woo industries from Randi. This is truly sad, almost as sad as when Maher went off the deep end on vaccinations or when Hitchens joined the ranks of W’s war bureau on the TV talk circuit or when Penn and Teller declared themselves small-L-worders. It is like Randi failed the Million-Dollar Challenge himself. My only hope is that Randi tries again and examines the evidence on this one.
My brother and I visited my Dad this last weekend. Dad really wanted us to see The Great Global Warming Swindle. They had the usual assortment of bad graphs, misinformation, and very true truths, such as the media’s efforts to turn a bad situation into doomsday.
Then it veered off into Whackoland and said that it’s being used to keep Africa from being industrialized. Whatthefuck? Where the hell did that come from?
Aaaaanyway, both my dad and my brother (both smart men) distrust AGW simply based on the way the media has presented it, and on the fact there is a correlation between solar activity and global temperature. I showed them where the correlation and established patterns diverge (quite dramatically after about 1980, in fact), and that they didn’t bother to show that data in the documentary, indicating to me that the filmmakers were being intentionally misleading.
When asked why scientists would support AGW if there’s no truth to it, my dad said, “For money.” Right. Like there’s not far more money in denialism than in AGW research.
I think the real failure, and the reason so many otherwise-intelligent people support the naysayers, is simply because of the misinformation from both sides. The media presents the case for AGW poorly. Any attempt to rectify the misinformation is interpreted as politicization (this is most evident in the recent email exposure distastefully known as Climategate).
And, the data and analysis look messy. Most people still think scientists are supposed to have 100% certainty. Hell, most people don’t even understand there’s rarely 100% certainty on anything. (*sigh* I wish Popper was required reading.) And when they’re told, “Look, the analysis is complex, and requires a lot of knowledge to understand,” they feel the issue is being intentionally obfuscated.
At least, that’s what I took away from the discussion with my brother and dad.
Climate change denial is age-related. Monbiot suggests that this is due to mortality salience – an intriguing idea. For more: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/02/death-denial/
Hey guys, I’ve been doing so digging so to speak on this subject and was wondering if you could answer some questions of mine.
Before I begin, I just want to start off saying that I do support the idea of climate change and that it is observably occurring now.
To the questions:
1. Are the recent articles (ex. Wired) stating that it’s essentially too late for us to do anything effective to stop this warming accurate?
2. Is the statement that America has reduced its carbon output by roughly 3% while Europe has had their output rise accurate?
Thanks in advance!
Randi writes, “An unfortunate fact is that scientists are just as human as the rest of us, in that they are strongly influenced by the need to be accepted, to kowtow to peer opinion, and to “belong” in the scientific community.” This is true. However, it is also true that “on average, contrarian views are less accurate than standard views.” Randi should acknowledge that as well. It’s all well and good to talk about Newton and Galileo’s contrarianism, but they were scientists in unscientific times. Nowadays, climate scientists have reached a consensus, and their chief opposition comes not from brilliant renegades but well-funded shills and blustering politicians.
He should also be aware that given his status, the “hoi polloi” will broadcast his opinions as loudly as those of any actual expect in the field. I never thought I’d say this, but please shut up, Mr. Randi. You simply don’t know what you’re talking about, and your vocal ignorance of this subject is going to be used as ammunition by people much less reasonable than yourself.
This is not at all surprising. The guy is completely over-rated.
“… skeptics must have some standard for evidence … a standard which the climatologists have reached, while the denialists have not.”
If this is to amount to more than a bit of hand waving, or maybe a bit of wishful thinking, we’ll need an explicit account of the standard in question; right? And, appeals to consensus won’t do the trick, unless it can be shown that the consensus itself is actually based on a rationally defensible standard of evidence.
Look on the bright side. If you can actually articulate such a standard you’ll have made an important contribution to scientific methodology. I await your instruction.
@Celtic_Evolution #28, Steven Dunlap #34
I suppose I can understand the basic fear that there are those who will appeal to authority by misusing Randi’s writing, and probably quote mine it to support those points…
Call me an optimist, I just feel that we shouldn’t have to sink down to that level and say only definites. It just seems like the space for calm, rational debate is getting increasingly squeezed out. Everything is filled with ad hominem attacks and off hand dismissals; it’s like there’s no room to take chances and be wrong.
lol, first Maher, now Randi…. I am so glad athiests are so smart.
Next thing you know someone will be telling us Bill Maher is anti-vaccination…
“Anybody following general science in Nature of Science has been seeing data from NASA, Climate researchers, and biologists that has been consistant with anthropogenic climate change for about 30 years.”
I come down believing in AGW, but just barely. My understanding is that climate change has been relatively stagnant since the bell-weather year of 1998. Artic sea ice last year matched the level of 1977.
This debate is different than evolution, because they evidence is simply not as strong, and there is a lot to be skeptical about. For me, the earlier mentioned blatant dishonesty of the anti-AGW movement, and the strong evidence of increased carbon levels in ice cores tips the scales toward AGW.
Nonetheless, I have this nagging question in the back of my mind: If we are releasing previously sequestered carbon from fossil fuels, doesn’t that necessarily indicate that this carbon has been in our atmosphere before without catastrophic consequences?
IIRC, Maher isn’t an atheist, he’s an agnostic that calls himself an “apatheist”. He denies being an atheist.
So what was your point, exactly?
just beat me to the punch….
Though just to be clear, Randi and Maher were on completely different skepticism levels.
Who knows now.
Lumping all who harbor misgivings about the current direction and so-called ‘consensus’ of scientists conducting climate research under the label ‘denialist’ is simply absurd. Read the article; Randi ‘denies’ nothing. He merely expresses skepticism, something for which he has garnered quite a reputation over the years.
Randi voices the reality that there are many pressing problems facing humanity, problems we must overcome despite shrinking resources. Isn’t it smart to be sure we’re using our limited resources to deal with problems we can actually fix?
PZ, you pooh pooh Randi’s observation (calling it irrelevant, in fact) that there are many, many factors that affect our climate with the statement that ‘scientists have collected huge amounts of data.’ Yes, from the time we started keeping records. A time period that represents exactly what percentage of the age of the earth? Irrelevant indeed. I realize climate scientists point to ancillary evidence collected from tree rings, fossil records and such, but interpretations of that data change daily.
You constantly trumpet the idea that an almost universal consensus among scientists adds credibility to a theory — Darwin’s comes to mind. Well, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. What is the current percentages of scientists who are in agreement with AGW and those who are not?
You suggest that many scientists who have signed on to the Petition Project don’t have the expertise to render an opinion. While I agree the opinions of climate scientists should receive more credence than other scientists, wouldn’t it be fair to say that scientists in general — people trained in the scientific process — should receive consideration above the lay public? These are trained scientists who have looked at the data and methodology of AGW advocates and are expressing doubts. What’s wrong with that? Isn’t this all part of the scientific process?
I find myself in almost perfect agreement on my interpretation of Randi’s position. Based on the data we’ve collected, there’s little doubt that global warming is occurring, and that CO2 levels are rising. And while there is a growing body of evidence to support the idea, I think the jury is still out, on whether those two phenomena are related. (The oft-used refrain around here is ‘correlation does not equal causation’.)
Further, I believe there is even less evidence to support the incredibly arrogant notion that humans can do anything to affect the global climate. Mother earth has been around for a long, long time. She’s seen her share of disasters. The evidence to support the theory that the scourge of industrial humanity — all of 150 years old — is any worse than the growing pains she’s experienced over the last several billions of years will have to be overwhelming.
Then again, I could be wrong…
Sadly, Randi is having intermittent bouts of dementia related to his age. I had an somewhat lengthy email exchange with him at my home (I was somewhat surprised he would contact me directly in response to something I wrote on the James Randi Educational Foundation’s forum — of course, since my screen name is clearly not my home email address, it had to be someone at JREF, so that reduced the possibility of being an impostor).
It started out a bit stilted, and then he just started getting further away from reality as the exchanged continued. Since he had been something of a role model for me for years, I ended the exchange prior to losing all respect.
No, he’s retired for good reason. The once great Amazing Randi has unfortunately turned into an infrequent dottering loon due to dementia. It makes me want to increase my donations to research for a cure to this terrible condition!
FWIW, I’m in with Kyle. I want to believe, I’m just not completely comfortable with it.
I find it sad that many people would dump Randi so quickly (lost all respect, sad day for skeptics, etc.) over one article that doesn’t really draw any conclusions.
He makes the valid point that the people doing climate research are human and prone to the vices inherent in being that, “ClimateGate” (I loathe that term) has shown some aspects of this.
To call him a denier based on these things is just senseless name calling. A denier won’t go with the evidence because they are tied to an ideology. As has been shown for many years, Randi follows the evidence, which is what a good skeptic does. If more information comes out, he is likely to change his position.
Also, Kyle. Sure the carbon was in the air millions of years ago, but the earth was also very hot. it wasn’t disastrous because the life of the time evolved in that climate. Global Warming isn’t going to be disastrous now either…unless you’re a human.
CITATION PLEASE pointing to any daily interpretation change and one that trends away from AGW.
That’s about as low as it gets. Shame on you.
What? I’m not trying to be merely argumentative here, Greg, but what does any of the above have anything to do with this issue regarding Randi, or even mean, for that matter?
What level are we sinking to? The level that allows us to be disappointed in a well respected and well regarded skeptic making claims about AGW out of ignorance? When is it ever acceptable to be OK with that?
And I don’t see anything irrational or “un-calm” about this particular discussion. As for the AGW discussion in general, yeah, it tends to take an irrational and irritable tone when dealing with kooky denialists. But again, that’s not really the tone being taken here. This statement by Randi is disappointing to most of us, and with damn good reason.
And I think you need to look up “ad hominem”… I don’t think it’s been used here.
Lastly, Randi isn’t (or at least hasn’t generally been) the kind of guy to flippantly “take chances” with opinions on important matters. That he does so here is disappointing. It’s not heroic to “take chances” and be wrong about subjects for which there is ample evidence and data… it’s ignorant.
Gao. I suppose he needs overwhelming evidence. It’s a shame, but I do wish he hadn’t signed on with some sort of bunk thing.
On the plus side, you know the Right Wing has spurned him before and will try to picture him as some sort of heroic collaborator now.
@#3
I find this an excellent collection of arguments and refutes:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
One small quibble: Why call the other side “denialists” when no one is denying that the climate changes? Are you trying to paint them with the same brush as Holocaust deniers? Seems like ad hominem which we all know is a fallacy.
As such an influential figure I wondered why he would say anything at all if he hasn’t done his research. Hopefully, he will receive enough emails and blog comments with evidence for AGW because of this to change his opinion. No human can make be right all the time, the reason I respect Randi is because he’s one of the few who will change their views based on evidence…
Wow! Just WOW!
I just read Randi’s ‘opinion’, and I think it’s extremely (and unexpectedly) disappointing that PZ calls Randi a ‘denialist’ for sharing his doubts on the issue, after having admitted the limits of his knowledge on the issue.
Denialists deny.
Randi holds his hand out for more evidence while admitting a certain level of ignorance.
That’s a HUGE difference!
(NOT getting into some of the points he makes, that are never addressed here, by anyone).
De DENIES nothing!
(He doesn’t even deny the existence of paranormal events! He has always been very careful to be VERY scientific about this.)
And then some of the comments! Tsk, tsk, tsk.
That general sentiment of “Not a scientist. So he’s just an ignorant fool that needs to be silenced and ignored or villified” (started by nitwit #1, and repeated by many others” .. that’s just plain revolting. All those people trying to be more PZ-ish than PZ.
THIS is EXACTLY what gives science and scientists such a bad name with the people who have been less fortunate in their education.
And then the comments go from blatant arrogance to plain stupidity (#27 and many others).
This is NOT how you engage in an otherwise important discussion. (or ‘education’)
If Randi has too carelessly chosen his words, considering the audiences that read him, PZ has repeated the error.
No, AMPLIFIED the error.
To some extent, the polarizing, the black-and-white stance taking (you’re with us, or a kook), the name calling, that’s all part of PZ’s style. It’s what defines him, it’s what makes his blog so popular. That’s why we love him.
The “blind followers”, though, are a bit scarry at times.
Okay now, go ahead, call me a “Randi apologist” .. 3, 2, 1 …
(Randi apologist: someone who would have prefered a ‘Randi, good man, let’s talk about this” over “RANDI DENIALIST, RANDI DENIALIST!!!”)
A couple things occur to me:
1) The con in this case is a little outside Randi’s skill set. The guy’s original and prevailing strengths were in spotting sleight-of-hand and the battery of psychological tricks used primarily in person by various showmen illusionists posing as ‘psychics’ and ‘faith-healers’. He was and remains awfully good at that, last I noticed–making him one hell of a good resource especially for scientists not so savvy about said methods of deception. And on the (happy) occasion of Oral Roberts’ getting permanently out of the world’s face, I may take the occasion to reread Randi’s The Faith Healers, speaking of…
But the AGW denialist camp is a different beast. A well-funded noise machine with more heads than a hydra, it uses a rather different array of tricks, and seeks slightly different vulnerabilities. Appeals to keep your mind so open your brains fall out, in this case not in the key of ‘anything’s possible/more things on Earth than we imagine’ handwaving woo but rather in the mode of ‘really, calling this settled enough at a confidence level high enough for action is premature’, never mind if it remains in any way true, so long as it’s useful to those spreading said doubt…
(Similar, incidentally, to more general dodges of responsibility for any given environmental degradation… ah, see, environmental sciences are so terribly complicated for our poor, limited, simian brains, who knows, let’s throw up our hands and pretend there’s still enough doubt to keep right on doing what we happen to want to do… somehow… and never mind no one can actually find species X in the wild anymore, let’s not go putting it on the endangered list, ‘cos gosh, it could be hiding under the bed or some damned thing… But I digress…)
2) In a saner world, this statement really wouldn’t be so terribly irresponsible. Given the way he couched it, etc., as others have pointed out, it would be fair enough as a personal opinion/confessional that he’s a bit confused about all this, less confident than others, yadda yadda…
But this is not a sane world, and appeals to authority hold more weight than they should, and the denialist camp knows very well that they do not so much need to convince anyone (which is just as well) the consensus is actually wrong as keep a suitable level of unwarranted doubt alive and confuse the issues to the degree that reaching a diplomatic consensus becomes impossible.
So fuck, I do wish Randi could have kept that better in mind, thought things through a hell of a lot better before he opened his mouth, here. His opinion carries weight, for better and for worse, and words can and certainly will be taken out of context and exaggerated for propaganda effect… all making this a serious fucking loser move on his part.
So what are ya gonna do. Mr. Randi, with all due respect, if you do read this: take a closer look at just who’s signing that petition, and ask yourself: how many are born a minute, now, and how hard is it to find enough of ’em to stuff a form like that one, given time and money?
(/And oddly, a certain recent XKCD on widely-held consensuses and thought experiments comes, again, to mind…)
Kyle, when you say things like, “My understanding is that climate change has been relatively stagnant since the bell-weather year of 1998. Artic sea ice last year matched the level of 1977.” it just sounds so . . . talking-pointy. No expert here, but as far as I know, the simple debunkings of this are:
1. 1998? That’s 11 years ago. Ten-plus-one. Someone with a basic understanding of AGW would know that the proper scale to be looking at this stuff is over decades, if not centuries. Think of it this way: if you had a fever of 103.0, then two hours later had a temp of 102.9, then two hours later had a temp of 102.8, would you say you’re getting better? Not if you were smart, since you’d know your body temp naturally varies during the day, so a 0.2 degree decrease over 4 hours wouldn’t necessarily mean the fever was going away.
2. Arctic sea ice increasing? Actually ANTARCTIC sea ice is increasing, you got the talking point backwards. Unfortunately Antarctic ice increase is dwarfed by the arctic ice decrease, which reached a record low (like, record low level in history) in 2005, and hasn’t improved much at all.
Seriously, just look shit up! It’s not that hard to find resources you can trust with a bit of looking, and these sorts of claims don’t help anyone make an informed decision.
The Copenhagen Diagnosis is a pretty good primer on the basics and on what has been learned since the IPCC’s assessment report three years ago. Executive summary: plot time on the horizontal axis and we’ve-well-and-fucked-ourselves on the vertical. The slope is positive.
This reminds me sadly of the Anthony Flew/Intelligent Design fiasco.
Rather than lumping Randi with Bill Maher and his anti-vax position, isn’t it more realistic to compare him to Antony Flew?
It’s sad but inevitable; both men are showing their age.
My once-vibrant mother is about a decade into Alzheimer’s and I know how painful this sort of decline is to watch. Anybody who’s been following him of late knows Randi simply isn’t his old self. Unless we’re lucky enough to get hit by a car, something along these lines eventually awaits us all.
I wonder if it would be as easy to invalidate the lack of belief in God of an atheist by declaring them to be God Denialists. The fact that a minority of climatologists have doubts about the human influence on global warming does not a priori make them wrong.
Lucifer: The fact that climate change is being caused by humans is being denied, which is what the issue is.
But it is also probably to link them with Holocaust deniers. This is a political debate which seems to have very little to do with actual science.
FWIW I’m of the opinion that most climate scientists believe in AGW, and that they are the people who would really know. I think that there are very few people weighing in on the debate who have anything like the required amount of subject knowledge.
JREF’s place used to be pointing out trickery that magicians were skilled in spotting, not pretending to be scientists. god.
I don’t know much about climate science either, but I do know that it is impossible for the earth to support the current level of consumption and waste that causes carbon emissions. I would at a minimum research AGW a lot before taking any sort of position on it. As far as political support for what climate scientists say is necessary- We do not have infinite resources, that much is obvious. It is impossible for the entire human population to live the way that western people do, and the way that we live inherently involves a majority of people being exploited for our gain.
Anyway, taking a position when you don’t really know the subject is deplorable when you are a public figure. especially when it encourages the ultra conservative jackasses everywhere into thinking that scientists are really morons or that god will rapture everyone before the earth gets ruined or whatever else.
Ok, at the risk of exposing my proclivity for spewing ignorance and thereby opening the door for an intellectual smackdown, I offer the following point: While I freely admit that I do not fully understand the climate issue (though I have read many articles from both camps and have genuinely tried to form an educated opinion), I do agree that Randi has availed himself to the denialists, whether that was his intention or not. However, the more the denialist camp invests in his remarks, the more they have to lose if and when he does a 180, right? Let’s say they hold him up as their poster boy, their latest “expert du jour” so to speak, using his remarks to further their campaign. Then, let’s say he recants next week and offers a starkly different perspective – wouldn’t this ultimately do more to undermine their campaign? They essentially make him a legitimate public voice, then he voices a different opinion and they’re tied to it in a sense. It’s sort of like a politician who relies upon the endorsement of a religious leader to further a campaign, then finds out that the religious nut has politically damaging skeletons falling out of his closet. Because the politican has invested in this individual and given him credibility, he’s now undermined his own campaign, and no matter how much he backpeddles, he’ll be publicly associated with his former supporter. Could this be a likely outcome? Of course I have no idea, but for some reason I needed to demonstrate ineptitude this morning. I can check that off the list now.
Here’s a message I just sent to Randi:
——– Original Message ——–
Subject: Why I Will Not be Donating to the JREF this Year
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:59:20 -0500
To: James Randi
I was at my computer today considering where to put my year-end charitable donations. I had solicitations from at least four skeptical
organizations, and was struggling to decide where to put my money. And so, I took a break and checked my Google reader, and saw PZ Myers’
posting on your foray into climate science. After reading your post in full, I removed the JREF from my donation list.
I have been to every TAM except the last one, and what I always valued about the JREF and its meetings was hearing about a wide variety of
subjects from people who have vast experience in those fields. I always enjoyed your talks and writings about bringing your considerable
experience and expertise in magic, deception, and related fields to those without that experience–like scientists. And I enjoyed hearing about science from scientists.
But, frankly, as a retired magician, I don’t particularly value your opinion on the incredibly complex issue of climate change. Of course, I
could just ignore your posting, but you are the heart and soul and the public face of the JREF, and I think you are doing damage by straying so
far afield from your areas of expertise. I think a far more interesting use of your time would have been to do some digging on the Petition
Project itself, applying your vast wealth of knowledge and experience on human motivations and deception to that group, which seems to have
questionable origins.
This episode has further confirmed my feeling that the JREF has lost its focus, and this is why I will not be investing in it this year.
John Huntington
Ooops. Where he lacks information, Randi makes a religious choice — he believes it may be correct.
When we say we “believe” is when our Hemingway machines should kick into high gear.
Is that the “consensus”? If an old man doubts your position, he must be senile?
Kyle (@54):
The value of catastrophic depends on context: Throughout most of geologic time, the changes caused by a sea-level rise of several meters to several tens of meters would look, from a human POV, fairly neutral: The map would change, some critters would get displaced or might even go extinct, but we might well file that under change happens and not call it catastrophic.
Today, however, the same change would displace, impoverish, or kill hundreds of millions of people… and I think most reasonable humans would call that “catastrophic.”
Arguments about what’s happened in the geologic past miss the point: We should be thinking about what’s happening now, and what’s going to happen in our future, and what it implies for humankind. If we were talking about planetary defense (i.e., predicting and preventing or mitigating asteroid impacts), would you say “well, we’ve had impacts in the past, so why worry”? Just ask the dinosaurs how that works.
“My understanding is that climate change has been relatively stagnant since the bell-weather year of 1998.”
Define “stagnant”. The World Meteorological Organization recently determined that
Meanwhile, NOAA states that “The 2000 — 2009 decade will be the warmest on record” and projects that “2009 will be one of the 10 warmest years of the global surface temperature record, and likely finish as the fourth, fifth or sixth warmest year on record.”
PZ, since you chastised an email writer for not having the good sense of checking his spelling and grammar, please learn the difference and proper usage of “effect” vs. “affect”!!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/6760481/The-Noughties-00s-a-fondish-farewell.html
Related link. Have a read and a sigh. Then say “Im human too” a few times.
The way this is going, scientists may have to wait until all the arctic summer sea ice is gone, the Antarctic ice shelves have finished disintegrating, and the US west is in a permanent water shortage.
All of these are in progress, all are obvious, and should be completed in a decade or two.
I’m agnostic on doing anything but adjusting to climate change for several reasons.
1. The changes will be significant but slow. We can adjust with some trouble but it isn’t remotely impossible.
2. Our whole civilization depends on fossil fuels. The developing world wants our standard of living and they have every right to do so. It is questionable whether we even can do anything, a position some climate scientists have come to.
My best guess is we will have a continual fundie style fire drill, wave our hands a lot, make some token gestures, and do nothing much about it. This is the status quo right now.
And when I was at TAM6, I found out that Penn & Teller, JREF/TAM regulars and skeptic heroes, are actually Climate Change Deniers! When asked by an attendee to justify their position, the crux of their argument was that Gore is a “lying sack of sh!t”.
And then we had Shermer join the Ayn Rand camp. Doesn’t say much for skepticism…
That sentence shows the classical problem with this discussion. Ten years is just weather. Thirty years or more is climate. The old bromide is “climate is what you expect, weather is what you get”. There is no doubt the climate, the summation of weather over time, is changing upwards on temperature.
Yep, you are big time. That has been demonstrated to you several times in the past.
You do know what the “A” in AGW stands for, right?
The proposed solution to climate change seems to entail profiteering by speculators (including oil companies), and massive wealth transfers to genocidal dictators.
Maybe that isn’t the way to go even in the worst climate scenario? Or does that go against some folks’ ambitions for the way the world should be run by them?
@87
I think Brian Dunning is too. Evil deniers, the lot of them.
Honestly, why does he expect creationists with incomplete knowledge to keep quiet until they know more, if he’s willing to spout standard denialist nonsense in his ignorance?
Like Nature wrote, the models are complicated and inherently uncertain, but with CO2 you can predict the temperatures we’ve experienced, and without CO2 you can’t.
I think it’s inevitable that it’s still possible that AGW doesn’t exist (95% certain that it does was what one organization was claiming not too long ago), but we sure shouldn’t be betting the planet’s future on a small uncertainty like that.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Ugh, I just read some of the comments over on Randi’s blog. A good number speak of the “global cooling” media fiasco. This is a sad day for skepticism.
I suspect that Penn and Teller are AGW Denialists because they’re crazy-libertarian, and Libertarianism can’t really produce a solution to the problem.
“Why call the other side “denialists” when no one is denying that the climate changes?”
Actually, some of the less sophisticated pundits still do (witness the “three feet of snow in Michigan and they say the globe is warming” comments which roll around every winter).
“Are you trying to paint them with the same brush as Holocaust deniers?”
Yes. They use many of the same methods, so applying the same term to both makes sense. (The same goes for HIV/AIDS denialists.) It’s not like the standard “call everybody you don’t like a fascist and/or a socialist” slur in American politics today: these people are all practising the common techniques of denialism.
Have you all noticed that there seems to be no discussion of the overpopulation part of the climate change equation? We certainly don’t want to offend some of those religious viewers / voters.
Randi is extremely, terminally, ill. Perhaps he’s just not thinking as clearly these days.
Thank you, Blake, for the link to the Copenhagen Diagnosis. That’s a sobering document right there.
Randi is promising a followup/clarification, I just received this in an email from him:
Mr. Huntington, I regret your disillusionment with the JREF as a result of my recent AGW piece. I urge you to see – later today – my follow-up. I’ve been chastised – correctly – for the piece, but I think much of that came because I was – at 3 a.m. – cutting a very long article down to one-quarter of its original size. My follow-up will perhaps somewhat alleviate readers’ apprehensions…
James Randi
What a horrible analogy.
There is some truth to this… as “leave me alone and stop spending my money” hardly lends itself to the social, global cooperation that would be required for a real solution…
The thing is that not only can their ideology not come up with solutions, it also could do nothing to have prevented the problem in the first place. And that is pretty much a disaster for Libertarianism.
My reaction at the time was that Penn was doing a decent job trying to rise above his gut reaction, saying that he had smart friends who accepted the truth of AGW. B+ for effort, maybe, C- for results.
IIRC, he was a Rand fan before he became a professional skeptic. Yeah, it shows.
I had hoped this would be the case… in fact I had on some level almost expected it…
I eagerly await it…
@99…
Good to see that this will continue. I do find it a bit sad that you played the “I will no longer support the JREF over this” card, though. That’s just silly.
Abdul (@63):
“Low”? Why do you assume that was a gratuitous insult? I don’t have any personal knowledge of Randi’s medical condition, but do you deny that dementia exists? That it can be associated with aging? Have you never watched a loved one — a parent or grandparent, perhaps — sink into mindlessness?
Fuck you and your assumptions!
I wonder if Plait knew this was coming and that is why he quit the JREF?
If you haven’t read Randi’s piece yet, you should. It’s pretty incoherent. For example:
That last sentence must be an error; he intended to mean that there is no additional increase in temperature, not carbon dioxide.
But even had he got the sentence right, what is the point here? Talking about the limit of CO2’s influence is only useful if you can connect that limiting point with a temperature on the Earth. If the limiting point is 20 degrees C above Earth’s current average temperatures, that is a cause for great alarm. If it is 0.1 degree, not so much.
The whole essay seems to be filled with non-sequiturs and points that are only loosely linked, or statements that make little sense:
Why is that almost paradoxical? And, more importantly, does the combustion of an entire tree to ash produce the same amount of increasing in CO2 (at the same rate) than a rotting tree absorbed into matter recycling within the ecosystem of a forest?
Huh? First he conflates survival of any life on Earth itself with survival of humanity, which is a serious category error. But then he confuses the point further by asserting that humans will survive–when the question of survival of humanity is not at all the concern of the effects of global warming. Instead, the concern is suffering of humanity (and loss of ecological diversity, beauty, etc.).
It’s a mess.
Have you seen this guy? His dirt nap is coming. He just needs to stir up some controversy before he goes. Honestly though have you seen any recent pictures or interviews?
They say the last thing to go is the mind.
@107
I HIGHLY doubt that.
“I wonder if it would be as easy to invalidate the lack of belief in God of an atheist by declaring them to be God Denialists.”
I think you’re confused on the process at work here. We’re not labelling people in order to “invalidate” their beliefs; we’ve examined their beliefs and found them factually incorrect, and then we’ve applied the common label “denialist” to indicate the tactics shared with other anti-scientific groups. Find us an atheist who embraces those tactics, and we can grant them the “denialist” tag too.
Dude doesn’t get any special rights. Oust him from his former prominence for his lack of skepticism if his followup betrays the same lack of insight that his original article did.
And when pray tell did it become a “common label”?
People have largely given up on that because it was hopeless. No point in trying to hold the tide back.
What stops population growth is prosperity. Many countries in the West and Japan are in negative population growth. The USA would be also if not for immigration.
The way to stabilize the population is to bring them up to our standard of living. Which is happening slowly.
The ultimate sustainable carrying capacity of the earth is unknown. If we have overshot it, we will eventually find out when billions of people die. It looks like that will happen after my projected life span but who knows?
I have a question…
We can estimate -more or less, I assume- the amount of CO2 we put in the atmosphere.
We can estimate the current amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
We can do tests wich allows us to estimate how many energy is “captured” in our atmosphere, as a function of this CO2’s density.
That wouldn’t be proof enough of antropomorphic global climate change?
Um, 1997? At least, that’s when I first came across it.
Of course increased prosperity leads to increased per capita CO2 emissions.
Which just goes to show the issue is complicated, and there are no easy or quick solutions.
The most important thing about this whole climate change debate to me is we are surly fucking up the earth. If the fucking up of the earth by people has anything to do with the earth getting hotter I have no god damn clue. Honestly why should I give a fuck? What I do fucking know is if we continue to fuck up the earth at the rate we are fucking it up at and search for reasons to not give a fuck my kid is fucked. If you want to go on with that type of attitude fuck you and your mom then you need to fuck off.
The best thing about this debate is we can note, regardless if they are friends or not, who the fucking assholes are. Hopefully if we take good fucking notes my kid will have the courage to do something about it – she is a beast.
Matt (@117):
Unless we break the link between energy usage and the burning of fossil fuels… which we must do, and which, I predict, will have many benefits in its own right, independent of its applicability to AGW mitigation.
BTW, there’s one occasional commenter whose inevitably angry pixels I expected to see in this thread, but have not. Did I miss a banning?
I just wrote Randi and told him that The petition Project(ie the origon petetion) is a total scam, or rather the people behind the petition are nothing less than repeated frauds and lairs.
I got this reply:
A further SWIFT item coming up… Don’t abandon hope…!
James Randi.
Greg,
What you are missing here is that we are talking about scientific facts, not opinion here. The warming is a scientific fact. That CO2 is increasing due to human activity is indisputable. We know with certainty that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We have 10 independent lines of evidence that agree amazingly well how much warming we can expect. We know that whatever mechanism is warming the planet looks like a greenhouse mechanism (cooling stratosphere/warming troposphere, later first frost and earlier thaw…).
And yet, someone who admits to not having familiarized himself with these facts feels fit to pronounce not just the climate science community, but the entire scientific community that has endorsed their findings, fools.
Mr. Randi has only succeeded in discrediting himself. If he can demonstrate such willful ignorance and poor judgment, I can assure you that anything he pronounces on will from now on be suspect.
By now, of course, anybody not fond of the term “denialist” has folks more influential than me to be concerned about.
Quite likely it’s the other way around in China, where curbing population growth appears to have assisted in the economic growth that they’ve recently experienced.
Naturally, I’m hardly in favor of many of their methods.
Nevertheless, their success probably indicates that such efforts need to be largely indigenously planned and effected.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Maybe this all a hoax to get donations from the deep pockets of the AGW Deniers for the Season of Reason Charity drive over at the JREF. That’s gotta be it, right? I mean he can’t possibly be that gullible, can he?
No, we measure the current amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. And we have been for a number of years.
Randi’s fantastic when it comes to busting psychics and dowsers etc…but sometimes he speaks too soon when he’s talking about things that are outside of his area of expertise. I think he should have held off and learned more about this issue before commenting on it, especially as the founder of the JREF.
No disagreement with you here.
Interestingly there are some major UK based companies who have been lobbying the Government for more stringent CO2 cuts, claiming there is an opportunity for them to benefit by selling clean technology.
#77:
it encourages the ultra conservative jackasses everywhere into thinking that scientists are really morons
Right, we don’t need public figures for that.
We have people like commentor #1 for that!
Beg your pardon?
The book recent book “Climate Cover-Up” does a nice job of addressing the Petition Project. The similarity to what was done by the DI is stunning. I recommend that book highly as a breezy tour of just what’s behind the denialism–the funding, especially.
he is just growing too old I guess. I haven’t lost any respect for James Randi cos I’ve seen how people lose their facilities with age.
Re 19:
[sorry if this has already been addressed] This is exactly what he should be ashamed of, expressing an uninformed opinion on an issue he knows is extremely volatile. He should have just left his statement at “I don’t know enough of the science to express an informed opinion on the subject”. Shooting off his mouth, even with little disclaimers, is irresponsible for someone that has made a career of rationality. It is just as stupid as if he had said, “I don’t know anything about geology, but I think geological forces can produce an endless supply of oil.”
Matt (@127):
Exactly! This is a key point that always gets missed when doctrinaire “free market” conservatives argue against regulation (and in particular against environmental regulations, including those predating the current concerns about climate change): In their ideological enslavement to laissez faire, they utterly miss the fact that regulatory change inevitably creates new opportunities for the very kinds of businesses — agile, innovative, entrepreneurial — that they claim to love so much.
I confess I don’t have data at my fingertips, but I’m fairly sure that environmental regulations have historically helped business and created jobs, rather than the other way ’round. So-called conservatives are letting their ideology trump their ostensible goals.
I have no formal training in physiscs.
A physicist explains, in popular terms, the multiverse idea to me.
If I then later blog about the multiverse idea: “I don’t know, I lack a lot of information, but it all sounds really far fetched to me”
Does that make me a Quantum Physics Denialist?
Come ON!!
As you well know, that’s a shallow and inaccurate caricature of libertarianism. It’s like characterising all left-wingers as “commie pinko hippie librul peaceniks”.
Peter G. says, “The fact that a minority of climatologists have doubts about the human influence on global warming does not a priori make them wrong.”
No. What makes them wrong is that they ignore or deny the evidence. It’s the evidence that makes them wrong. That’s how science works. Got it?
Your increasing use of blatant ad hominem lately is a real shame. I’m no big Randi supporter or anything, I just dislike how you have one standard for “agreeable” issues and another for anything that’s out of line with your own personal views.
Who are you talking to ?
If said physicist has libraries full of data to support quantum physics theories, and equally consistent data is not available to support competing theories, then…yes, Quantum Physics Denialist sounds about right. Also, IANAP, but I recall that quantum physics encompasses a great deal more than simply the multiverse theory.
Either way, false equivalence.
(Alyson Miers)
Not necessarily. But that isn’t anything like what Randi wrote.
No. It does make you someone who does not seem to understand the difference between hypothesis, theory and fact.
The multiverse concept does not have a consensus of acceptance amongst theoretical physicists. AGW does amongst climate scientists.
I suspect you are deliberately being disingenuous here.
I’m one of those that would say I’m not 100% sure about the evidence, but I will admit I’m not really keeping up with it. Either way, I do support making changes regardless if there is climate change or not. What support do the denialists have for us allowing cars and factories to spew poisons into the air. For what supposedly good reason should we chop down all the rain forests? For what good reason should we just continue like we have been? Really, the only reason I see is to keep the rich continually rich. The rich say it’s to keep people employed, but if they actually cared about that, they wouldn’t do massive layoffs to bring up stock values.
Jambe,
If you are going to use the term ad hominem, then at least learn what it fucking means.
Example: Why should we listen to Jambe because he is an idiot.
That is an ad hominem.
Counter example: Jambe is an idiot. He tosses around terms like ad hominem without understanding them
This is not an ad hominem because the first sentence is an opinion while the second is a fact cited as supporting evidence.
#129: Pardon denied.
Suggesting that ONLY scientists (as if that’s a qualification for knowing everything about everything) can have a valid opinion on this topic, is NOT doing science (nor scientists) a favor.
On the contrary.
Suggesting that the opinions of stage magicians, stockbrokers, plumbers and radio personalities on this topic are, almost per definition, worthless is of such an astounding arrogance, that it can only have a rather bad influence on the opinion the public has of science and scientists.
dutchdoc (@134):
No.
There’s a significant (and forgive me, but fairly obvious) difference between…
“I lack information, but [admittedly pretty far-out theory, even if true] sounds really farfetched to me.”
…and…
“I lack information, but [non-far-out real-world theory extraordinarily well supported by data] is false, and the people saying otherwise are either hoaxers or idiots.”
Nobody here is trying to equate simple ignorance or error with denialism. Denialism is a particular mindset, married to a particular set of rhetorical tools, and, as others are quick to point out, we can observe consistent forms of denialism across a number of subject areas.
Being wrong doesn’t make you a denialist; being somewhat slow to accept nonintuitive findings doesn’t make you a denialist (though it might make you wrong); lying about well established science (or history) because it doesn’t fit your ideology (or your naked self interest) does make you a denialist.
Randi’s reasoning — that the earth’s climate system is too complex for scientists to be able to develop any realistic predictive model — is similar to Freeman Dyson’s reasoning.
Sad!
Dutchdoc,
The multiverse idea is an interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is not science, but metatheory. There is no evidence to support it.
On the other hand, there mountains–both literal and figurative–of evidence that show we are warming the planet.
It is the arrogance of pronouncing judgment without looking at the facts that is astounding.
“I think it’s inevitable that it’s still possible that AGW doesn’t exist (95% certain that it does was what one organization was claiming not too long ago), but we sure shouldn’t be betting the planet’s future on a small uncertainty like that.” Glen@92
Personally I’d put the level of certainty at something more like 75% but that’s enough for a betting man. There are certain inconsistencies in the evidence. If there weren’t I’d be absolutely certain scientific fraud was taking place.
But, Walton! You say “commie pinko hippie librul peaceniks” like it’s a bad thing!
*puts on Che Guevara t-shirt, ties white-girl dreadlocks in kerchief, and grabs string bag for pedestrian trip to organic food co-op*
redmonster,
Dutchdoc says, “Suggesting that ONLY scientists (as if that’s a qualification for knowing everything about everything) can have a valid opinion on this topic, is NOT doing science (nor scientists) a favor.”
No one is suggesting that. However, is it too much to ask that you get off your fat ass and actually look at the evidence before forming an opinion?
You know what’s even more complex than climate? The human body. Therefore, all those people who pin some specific disease on specific germs are all wrong.
Settle down, Walton. It was an attempt at tongue-in-cheek over the top humor. Apologies if it did not come across that way.
The petition:
..through his Global Warming Petition Project, Arthur Robinson has solicited the opinions of the wrong group of people in the wrong way and drawn the wrong conclusions about any possible consensus among relevant and qualified scientists regarding the hypothesis of human-caused global warming. His petition is unqualified to deliver answers about a consensus in which the public is interested.”
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-11-12
Jesus what is it with denialist apologists and bad analogies?
Anyway…
Holocaust happened because there’s planty of evidence for and none against. Plus the “against” group are proven to be dishonest liars. Deny holocaust -> denialist.
Evolution is true because there’s plenty of evidence for and none against. Plus the “against” group are proven to be dishonest liars. Deny evolution -> denialist.
AGW is happening because there’s plenty of evidence for and none against. Plus the “against” group are proven to be dishonest liars. Deny AGW -> denialist.
God exists because there’s no evidence, but some people in funny hats say so. Plus, the “pro” group are proven to be intellectually dishonest. Deny God -> DENIALIST?
How does that work again?
Walton (@135):
Maybe so, maybe not… but it’s certainly an accurate portrait of a number of vocal (if shallow) individual libertarians.
While you have proven yourself amenable to convincing by reasonable argument, cast your mind back to some of the other L-word-arian regulars we’ve had here: Some of them clearly embody an unshakable ideological commitment to the notion that government regulation — indeed, any application of government power beyond national defense and policing — is invariably illegitimate.
When one’s quasi-religious belief is that regulation is always bad, it’s hard to know how to react to problems whose only feasible solutions lie in government regulation. Apparently, one way to resolve the conundrum is to simply deny the existence of the problem, and that, I think, is what the commenter you’re replying to was getting at.
The world turned upside down: James Randi is parroting nonsense and the Pope gets it right.
NofR@125 “No, we measure the current amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. And we have been for a number of years.” No. Every measure has uncertainties. They may be extremely accurate measurements but they are nevertheless estimates of what is actually present in the atmosphere. A quibble, to be sure, but understanding the sources of error is fundamental to the physical sciences.
Peter G. says “Personally I’d put the level of certainty at something more like 75% but that’s enough for a betting man. There are certain inconsistencies in the evidence. ”
Inconsistencies like…? Dude, we are dealing with a system where noise can trump signal for periods less than 30 years. Personally, given that fact, I cannot think of a single piece of evidence that is inconsistent with the portions of the consensus theory of climate that imply AGW.
Please, enlighten me.
I am not qualified to speak about the truth or falsity of AGW. However I work in a profession teeming with ideological bias. I have to be able to recognize their bias in order to evaluate what another economist is saying.
I’ve seen ideological bias in almost every instance of AGW “skepticism.” Libertarians probably exhibit the worst bias (and tend to exhibit it quite blatantly) but other skeptics show it as well. Randi isn’t showing ideological bias, but he hedges his skepticism so much that he’s giving a definite maybe about AGW denial.
Direct measurements are not normally considered to be estimates no matter that we know there are uncertainties.
If we accept your argument then ALL measurements must be considered as no better than measurements, and thus the term estimate can have no meaning.
30,000 people on the petition project…hmmm we are gonna need more Steves.
It is amazing how fast people have thrown Randi in the bin over one minor article where he might have some doubts. God forbid that he should not be right 100% of the time AND fully agree with everything YOU think.
I would have expected you to check everything he says anyway Dilbert-Space.
Idiots.
Question for you (and nobody help!). What is an ad-hominem argument?
Bullshit as usual. It is a libertarian self-description. And no, this is not an invitation to offer a different self-description. You’re a neoliberal anyway, not a libertarian, so I don’t know why you let it bother you.
@89 Yes I know what the “A” in AGW stands for. But the other side isn’t called “AGW denialists”, they are labelled “climate change denialists” which is inaccurate and dilutes the argument.
The critical thing to focus on is the difference between him and real deniers. As you said, “At least he’s self-aware enoughto realize that he has come to this conclusion on the basis of his personal ignorance.” That is a HUGE distinction. He essentially has said that he isn’t sure, he doesn’t really know, but it seems like… and it seems to make some sense that… Which is a far cry from trying to argue based on stupidity and being “sure” and waving flags of denial while calling climatologists liars, which many deniers do. It’s not unreasonable for a non-scientist to be unsettled on a complex scientific position, particularly when they express themselves in the manner he did. If you compare this to Bill Maher’s exhortations on vaccines you can see the difference between somebody unsure (Randi) and a denier (Maher).
Besides what others already explained to you, there is this thing called “moving the goalposts”. They were actual GW deniers at first, if you don’t remember. Same as other denialists such as creationists. In fact, it’s not much their flawed arguments that make me distrust them, it’s more their behavior akin to other denialist/conspiracy theorist groups.
And a question for you (and nobody help!). What is an ad-hominem argument?
@ 87, 101 & 102
Being a libertarian does not make one a climate change “denier”. They are seperate issues.
#151: “No one is suggesting that”
Oh yes! Have a look at comment #1!
That’s EXACTLY what is being suggested there!
“actually look at the evidence before forming an opinion”
If I have all the facts and evidence, I no longer need an opinion.
There are many who not only deny there is any human involvement in global warming, but also deny that
there is any global warming at all.
And you are the one complaining about lack of accuracy ?
separate ≠ unrelated
已经有一百三十二个注解，那么多了… 我刚刚从酒吧回家，喝多了，该不写，没事，我写
The basic problem with AGW isn’t a question of global climate change but of the anthropogenic cause (via CO2) of it all. CO2 by itself is a impotent forcer of temperature change thus, to fit observed and expected temperature changes, it must have positive feedback helpers, specifically water vapor. Aside from the models, where’s the connection between CO2 and water vapor? Googling for the answer, I find basically that there is CO2 in the atmosphere, but I already knew that. What is the link between CO2 and water vapor? CO2->warmer air->more H2O ->warmer air? But CO2’s contribution to this equation will be logarithmic, diminishing with concentration.
Can humans fuck up the climate? Sure. I’m living in a urban heat/smog island in China caused by too much soot and dust from construction, desertification, and coal plants. The models are built on assumptions. The hockey stick graph of Mike Mann was pulled out of his ass. What’s more important and often lost in the CO2 is the concept of sustainable development, of keeping shit like lead out of the drinking water. Over 10,000 people/kids in China got poisoned by lead dumped from a factory. Too bad it wasn’t CO2 cause then it might be news. Or maybe it were polar bears that got poisoned it might be news. The point being is that we’ve got our shirt in a knot about something that I frankly don’t see a strong connection yet stuff that really does hurt people is… well… not as sexy as polar bears.
Oh, by the way, I’m a socialist and I don’t own a car. :)
#145 Bill .. Ok, I can go along with much of what you say.
So.. considering what you say, then, at comment #145: Do you consider Randi a ‘AGW denialist’?
If we measure 350 ppm +/- 2 ppm that isn’t good enough for you? Over several continents and oceans with consistent results? Boy, the denial isn’t just a river in Africa. Spoken like a true ideological weasel.
There seems to be far more overlap between self-identifying libertarians and climate change denialists than can be explain purely as the result of chance. This is not actually surprising given that global warming is a result of insufficient governmental supervision and thus something libertarians cannot accept is happening without also admitting their political ideology has major flaws. Given any solution is going to require government intervention, and possibly quite draconian intervention at that, then it becomes clear why so many libertarians feel to the need to deny there is a problem in the first place.
Andyo@155: “AGW is happening because there’s plenty of evidence for and none against.” Very, very wrong. As I said above if the data were entirely consistent with the AGW/CO2 hypothesis it would be nothing less than miraculous given the complexity of climate. A case in point would be the very accurate measurements of the surface to troposphere temperature gradient. All greenhouse models without exception predict a higher troposphere temperature than is currently being measured. Furthermore many of the ice core isotope ratio studies seem to indicate surface temperature leads rather than lags CO2 concentrations and that other greenhouse gases primarily water vapor have a more significant role to play than carbon dioxide. Neither point invalidates the hypothesis that CO2 is a major cause of AGW but they do show that we have a ways to go on understanding climate. As I said before I am more than willing to back the odds on carbon monoxide being the controlling factor but frankly this has more to do with making a Pascal’s Wager/ risk assessment than absolutely conclusive science.
“No True Libertarian” in 5..4..3..
Richard Eis,
You are failing to comprehend the magnitude of this failure of judgment. It is not that Randi is wrong. We can all be wrong. It is not that he has been duped by a sophisticated PR campaign. That could easily happen to any of us.
No, what has happened is that a well connected individual who could have easily consulted with any number of experts and had the evidence explained to him chose not to do so and felt sufficiently confident in an area far outside his expertise to pronounce the entire scientific community fools. I feel the same way about Freeman Dyson.
If you don’t understand the science, learn it. If you are incapable of learning it, then determine who the experts are that you can trust. If you won’t trust the experts and can’t learn the science, then shut the fuck up. How hard is that?
OK… so then you disagree with the several comments that explain why comparing it to Pascal’s wager is a fairly bad analogy?
Ah. Well, fortunately, I was not suggesting either of those suggestions. Nor was I attempting to speak for science, nor even as a scientist.
I intended only to indicate why I, personally, don’t give a shit what James Randi has to say on the topic of global climate change. It’s for the same reason I don’t give a shit what my plumber or Rush Limbaugh have to say on the subject (I don’t have a stockbroker): I have no reason, a priori, to think that they know what they’re talking about. On the other hand, someone with a track record of doing science–collecting and analyzing data, designing experiments, applying accurate logic–is much more likely to have a valid opinion.
You think that’s “arrogant”?
@163 http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=ad+hominem+argument
e.g. Randi is a climate change denialist (just like Holocaust denialists), therefore we can safely dismiss him.
Technically Randi is an AGW skeptic since he does not deny climate change (as far as I know).
dutchdoc (@173):
No.
See ‘Tis Himself, OM (@160), re Randi’s lack of ideological motivations. My analysis @145 suggests that Randi’s position on this is wrong, not denialist.
How come when Peter G mentions scientific measurements he fails to state that according to his definition of scientific measurement they can be nothing more than estimates ?
I think this just goes to show that, no matter how wonderful, sceptical, intelligent and cool someone is, they are fallible.
Desert Son’s old sign off of “No Kings” is highly appropriate here. Randi, like the rest of us is human and capable of getting things wrong. However, and I reckon this is a decent bet, I’d put money on Randi changing his mind if properly confronted with the evidence.
This is one of the reasons that I am very pleased the “atheist/sceptic movement” isn’t a movement per se, and the “high priests of atheism/scepticism” aren’t actual high priests. We get to go up to Randi and say “Hey, Randi! You’re wrong dude, here’s some data”. Let’s hope he deserves my faith in him, I’ve admired him for a good while.
Louis
NewEnglandBob writes:
Lets look a the consequences: if climatologists are right about AGW (massive amounts of data observed) then we are all going to be screwed if it continues without us making changes. If the denialists are correct (little evidence of this) then it has other causes and we still may be screwed or it doesn’t matter.
Pascal’s wager! Sort of.
(I’m not an AGW denialist; that just jumped out at me and I had to giggle)
Given that we can look at the planet’s past and see that it’s gone through various stages of dramatic climate change, it seems to me that we should continue to expect it. Sure, it might mean we’re wiped out as a consequence, but who cares? I mean, getting wiped out sucks but it’s going to happen sooner or later, anyhow. Obviously, later is better, but – meh. We were/are stupid to think we can keep growing our population indefinitely.
@7: radioactive decay has made a non-trivial contribution to the temperature of the Earth. Presumably there was a lot MORE heating in the earlier Earth, since the stuff decays exponentially.
As for Randi .. arrogant bluster is kind of his thing. At least when I saw his road show in the mid-90s it was.
#172
And THAT is exactly Randi’s (and, since he has been named here: Penn Jillette’s) point:
Maybe there’s something to it, maybe not, I just don’t see it (clearly). And maybe I’m wrong, (or as Penn said (TAM7): “I PROBABLY am wrong”) but in the mean time, given that we only have limited resources, there are more urgent, more important issues to take care of.
As for ripping Randi apart, give the man some time: he said he will publish a clarification.
In the mean time, commentors like #97 should be ashamed of themselves.
The fuck is that supposed to mean?
Peter G. #176. Where in that sentence you quoted is CO2 mentioned? AGW is the deal. Why is it so very, very (two verys) wrong? And even if it was about CO2, you come along with all your verys and then say
And, Pascal’s Wager’s flaw is that it resolves itself after you die, and doesn’t affect those you leave behind. And yeah, it deals with imaginary stuff for which there’s no evidence.
And, the “chaos” gambit has already been addressed by PZ above, but also, chaos doesn’t mean that what’s already happening could suddenly turn a 180° out of nothing.
Only very sort of.
Reducing our use of fossil fuels would be an excellent idea even if AGW was not an issue. There is ample evidence that children are harmed from vehicle exhaust fumes for example, with those living near major roads having asthma at levels way beyond what would normally be expected even after allowing for the fact housing near major roads tends to be at the lower end of the socio-economic scale. In addition there would be a benefit for decreased reliance on oil and gas from the Middle East.
Peter G. says, “All greenhouse models without exception predict a higher troposphere temperature than is currently being measured.”
Wrong!. See:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/riddle-me-this/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/
Peter G: “Furthermore many of the ice core isotope ratio studies seem to indicate surface temperature leads rather than lags CO2 ”
Irrelevant: Of course, CO2 lags. It wasn’t the initial cause of temperature rise at the end of the ice ages. That was due to changes in insolation due to changes in Earth’s tilt and orbit. (Google Milankivitch cycles). In that case CO2 was a feedback–just as it will be once the permafrost starts to melt and the clathrates evaporate. Far from supporting denialists, this argument actually adds to the urgency of doing somethin NOW.
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=CO2_doesn't_lead%2C_it_lags&printable=yes
Peter G: “…other greenhouse gases primarily water vapor have a more significant role to play than carbon dioxide.”
Except that water vapor is only increasing due to increasing global temperatures according to the Claussius-Clapeyron equation.
Dude, is that all you’ve got? You really haven’t looked into this too much, have you?
“How come when Peter G mentions scientific measurements he fails to state that according to his definition of scientific measurement they can be nothing more than estimates ?” @183 Find me one scientist or engineer in the world who says otherwise.
“Spoken like a true ideological weasel.” NofM@174
Spoken like someone who hasn’t passed a high school science course. I strongly suggest you google “sources of error”.
These are celebrity stage magicians. Why in the world should I care even a little bit about what they say on any given complex scientific topic? I wonder what Jay Leno thinks!
Typical of an ideological unscientific weasel. All of a sudden cabon dioxide becomes carbon monoxide, which is ustable in the atmosphere long term. And no mention of methane, which has a more intense IR absorbance than cee-oh-two, and is also increasing. I notice he will say/do anything to try to create doubt. But never, ever, cite the peer reviewed scientific literature to prove his inane point.
Or not.
Or not.
Or not.
Or not.
Oy! I know it’s tempting to chime in without reading a whole long thread — I’ve done it occasionally myself — but was it not predictable that people in this particular community would’ve already addressed this obvious point?
John Huntington, I think you are an idiot.
I see too many people from the get go look at this issue from a purely political standpoint. Us as Atheists and general skeptics are very much to the left side of the argument in most cases. I see to many people reading the liberal handbook for their opinions and not forming it themselves. Global Warming as we know has a very strong political base. As skeptics its hard to stand up and question the side you belong to, but Randi has done this. But I know most people are not willing to do that, who take the words of educated people on their “side” without using their own mind. Use tags such as “denier”, which echo’s Holocaust Denier.
Randi is living true to his word as a skeptic and is not taking everything at face value.
Even though I disagree with him on this topic, I think his non-political skepticism is refreshing.
(sorry about my horrible grammar)
Yeah, you can google. So google “strawman argument”, cause that’s what you’re doing, cause there’s no trace on PZ’s post of what your example implies.
Well you didn’t say it did you ?
Exactly! And while we’re at it …
Being an antisemite does not make one a holocaust “denier”. They are seperate issues.
Being devoutly religious does not make one a “creationist”. They are seperate issues.
Methinks I see a pattern forming.
Of course, CO2 lags. It wasn’t the initial cause of temperature rise at the end of the ice ages. That was due to changes in insolation due to changes in Earth’s tilt and orbit. (Google Milankivitch cycles). Is the current best explanation for the discrepancy but is not entirely persuasive given the magnitude of the discrepancy.
“Except that water vapor is only increasing due to increasing global temperatures according to the Claussius-Clapeyron equation.”
If you think this equation is the sole explanation for the effect of water vapour as a greenhouse gas then you don’t understand the importance of nucleation as a process of cloud formation and the important effect that has on surface temperature. There are many other factors that mitigate or enhance the effect of water vapour as a gh gas.
Sure, it might mean we’re wiped out as a consequence, but who cares? I mean, getting wiped out sucks but it’s going to happen sooner or later, anyhow.
Please do not ever seek political power.
#180
Granted, that sounds slighly less arrogant than “*shrug* Dude’s no scientist, so I don’t give a shit about his opinion” (which is more in line with your original comment).
I think more problematic is the senseless populism that engulfs so much of the United States.
If you want to dissent with the experts on matters of SCIENTIFIC FACT that have already been well-researched and substantiated, get the same degrees, learn the same information they do, and THEN say something if you find yourself still having issues, but until then, use your voice for asking questions and learning, and otherwise STFU.
And even then, when you have those credentials, you better be prepared to back your shit up with the same standard of information whatever you’re challenging is backed up with. You better be prepared to take harsh criticism. Real adults aren’t insecure, wilty little wimps who scream the moment they’re criticized.
Unfortunately, most Americans would probably be more useful to the country as Soylent Green, they’re so dumb and arrogant.
@198 I would say that when PZ says “James Randi joins the ranks of the climate change denialists” that he is essentially labeling Randi a “climate change denialist”.
Does anyone here really think it is a good idea to misrepresent your opponents’ views?
Abdul Alhazred in #63 and #81 seems to think that my comment in #58 was in regards to Randi’s current statement about the climate.
Nope.
Bill Dauphin, OM in #106 is correct that it isn’t a gratuitous insult. I’ve been a fan of the Amazing Randi since the early 1970s, and even joined the JREF, and started attending TAM meetings with at least one intention being to meet him in person.
I was thrilled that he emailed me personally. Then the exchange grew a bit crazy, then further out on the fringe. It finally ended with the poor guy ranting against pseudonyms (this coming from the Amazing Randi) and what appeared to be some incoherence. I was stunned and shocked.
I found out soon after that he was ‘retiring’ and it became clearer that he was not always coherent. This, to me, is exactly the same behavior I’ve observed in friends/relatives who suffer from early stages of dementia.
I’m not just slinging insults at a famous skeptic. I’m saying that this particular statement may just be more of his declining faculties. I feel sorry for someone that I’ve admired and held in high esteem for years appears to be slipping.
Unfortunately it will tarnish his career. Better for him to stop making public statements at this point. This is a repeat of Anthony Flew’s decline.
Walton, there is (at least) one significant difference between “leave me alone and stop spending my money” and “commie pinko hippie librul peaceniks” – one is a declaration of what the target believes, whereas the other is a string of insults. Not that those insults don’t convey information, but there’s a disparity in tone as well as content.
Given Randi hangs around with Penn & Teller – both Cato Institute fellows – I’m not surprised this happened. Why do I only hear from libertarians when they agree with conservatives? I know there are libertarians who also support socially liberal issues, but instead I only hear about the evils of economic regulation and social services. That’s not a leading question, I really do want to know!
“Please do not ever seek political power.”
Way to miss the point of what the original said.
There seems to be some concern that speculating on Randi’s mental health is an argument ad hominem and one to be ashamed of in some way.
I would turn this around. Those talking about JR’s “selective skepticism”, if I may so call it, are not generally trying to knock down his arguments with talk of illness, but find excuses. The piece he has written does has some good reasoning in it (a fact clouded by the line he appears to have swallowed from the deniers). As for shame; the reasoning advanced by JR may be the product of rational thought, or it may not – this seems a fair subject for discussion, no shame involved.
——
Denialists on climate change are at a stage where they are seeking to delay action to increase evidence. This is a later stage of a crumbling defence that simply denying the facts; a superficially plausible position that will not actually change in the face of more evidence. JR lending his name to those fraudulent efforts is unfortunate, but if he can review the evidence for a few days and then repudiate his current tentaive support for the Petition Project, his contribution to the debate and to public understanding may turn out to be rather more positive than if he had said nothing.
@190 I agree entirely with that argument. Aside from the massive amounts of pollution that hydrocarbons generate it is daylight madness to burn through a non-renewable resource without an alternative in place and operating when those hydrocarbons are exhausted. Personally, as an engineer, I’ve always favoured nuclear power as the only truly reliable technology capable of generating the gigawatts of power industrialized societies must have.
#194
Huh? What on earth have these people’s profession or celebrity status to do with anything?
As if that in and by itself disqualifies them from having an opinion on anything.
If you don’t really care about other (non-scientist) people’s opinions, then fine. Ignore them. What’s your point?
I see where Al Gore is taking all kinds of insults from FOX idiots about his statement that Dr. Maslowski said the ice cap would be gone in 5 years or so. Maslowski said “that wasn’t what he said”. If fact it is what he said.
http://freshnor.dmi.dk/handout_freshnor.pdf
I bet what happened was that Maslowski read that Gore said “No Ice in Five Years” and like a good (but short sighted scientist) said “I didn’t say *NO* ice, I said *Almost No Ice*. The chart clearly shows that there will be about 10% of the ice remaining between 2011 and 2015. Can you read the chart better than the Fox dumb shits?
People like the flaks at Fox need to either learn how to read a chart like that or quit commenting on them.
Al Gore was right but failed to speak like a scientist and Maslowski was right but failed to speak like a non-scientist.
(Sigh)
I think that was his point, genius…
“…other greenhouse gases primarily water vapor have a more significant role to play than carbon dioxide.” – Peter G.
You are an ignorant idiot. Water vapour is a feedback, not a forcing like CO2, so it has an entirely different role. The amount of water-vapour the atmosphere can hold rises with the temperature, so its atmospheric concentration acts as a positive feedback w.r.t. any primary cause of temperature change. This is well-understood, and incorporated in all GCMs. No other GHG has a role remotely as important as CO2.
Don’t google for a typo. Just go here.
hmm, what about the full sentence: “James Randi joins the ranks of the climate change denialists, and he does so on the basis of an extremely poor argument.” And, you know, the whole freaking post that follows it?
Obviously not, that’s why I’m arguing with you.
I caught the point quite clearly, thanks. Such laissez faire attitudes regarding human prospects amidst the various coming disasters of our own invention are chillingly complacent and I would like to keep power out of the hands of those who would shrug at the suffering and death of millions.
My point, I guess, is that as fallacious as the argument from authority is, it ain’t half as fallacious as the argument from celebrity.
Huh?2 What on earth would make you question the notion that people’s profession has something to do with their fitness to comment on a professional question?
Nobody’s saying nonscientists have no right to an opinion about AGW or its mitigation; people are saying that when nonscientists speak with assumed authority about the science, their bloviations should be taken with more than a handful of grains of salt. Do you really not get the distinction?
Just because I agree with you that AGW is real doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to dishonestly use emotional appeals to fear rather than hard facts to support that conclusion. It makes me cringe every time I see this global warming argument being trotted out: “Believe the threat is real purely because it’s better to err on the side of fear than err on the side of recklessness”. Why do I cringe? Because it’s just Pascal’s Wager dressed up in environmental clothes rather than theistic ones. We’re better than that. It’s morally wrong when the faith-heads use Pascal’s Wager to convince people via fear, and it’s morally wrong when we do it too.
Step 1 is to convince people AGW is real, and then only after that do you move to Step 2, which is to motivate them to do something about it (a step where making them fearful is perfectly valid). But don’t go the other way around and use the fear of how bad it is as your argument to convince people that it’s true.
Let us hope Randi corrects his previous statements. He was one of the first skeptics(barring my parents) that I ever identified with and led me to Dawkins and a few others.
PZ I am not so sure the human body is more complicated than climate(and subset weather) though your analogy amused me.
Lastly, Climate scientists have the expertise to understand AGW debate. Everyone else is an ametuer to a greater or lesser degree. The papers and data i have read lead me to agree with the consensus and quite frankly the Denalists help solidify that position by way of their predisposed biases. When Oil companies, Mega corps, and nut job politicians take a side that seems representative of their interests I must conlude something slimey is going on. I know how much scientists make and its overwhelming less then Lobbyists and CEO heads. Dont see profit as the primary reason for AGW support.
Enough with the Pascal’s Wager! It is NOT. Just do a CTRL+F on this thread for “pascal’s wager” and you’ll find no less than 5 explanations why it’s not. Argue with those if you want, but don’t just flat out repeat the same nonsense about PW.
The multiverse, or many-worlds interpretation, isn’t the only interpretation of quantum physics. You could say that many-worlds seems too far fetched for you to believe, but be quite comfortable with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Roughly, many-worlds says that every possible outcome of a quantum mechanical event occurs, but does so in a different “world” (or universe). The state (or configuration) of a QM system splits amongst the universes, but remains the same when viewed across all of these worlds.
The Copenhagen interpretation says that, while any given outcome is possible before the event, only one outcome is possible after the event. The rest of the states are simply lost (instead of spread out across many worlds).
They’re different ways of looking at a phenomenon, but in the end the result is the same between them.
It’s kind of like (in a superficial way) sitting down to discuss whether we should be talking about the increase of global temperatures in degrees Celsius or Rankine.
I’m not either, but what’s likely to be more important is that the body is “configured” (evolved) to act reasonably regularly and predictably.
Weather, of course, has not.
I’m not saying it’s a particularly bad analogy (at least it’s quite complex, and drug “side effects” are often not predictable), it’s just that we need to understand how our analogies fail and how they succeed in “explaining” phenomena.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
#214:
Let me clarify it for you then:
What’s someone’s point by posting a comment stating that you’re going to ignore the opinion at issue.
Sounds like engaging in a discussion by stating that you’re going to withdraw from the discussion.
There are more effective ways of ‘ignoring’.
Or .. was this meant as an advice to PZ? Like “I’m not interested in this guy’s opinion, so don’t post about it, so that I don’t have to read about it”.
man, this is a bummer.
kind of like watching Dawkins in his video interviewing Peter Singer. Dawkins admits that most people should have a vegetarian diet, yet he himself has yet to become vegetarian. it made me lose a lot of respect for him.
@DJSutton
Quote: [Anyone know any great sites that summarize the arguments for AGW? I’d love to be able to argue it more coherently when it comes up.]
Well it depends on the level you are arguing on, though I for starters recommend The Royal Society´s climate guide(ie Climate change controversies: a simple guide).
http://royalsociety.org/General_WF.aspx?pageid=5322&terms=climate+guide
And as a pdf:
http://royalsociety.org/General_WF.aspx?pageid=5322&terms=climate+guide
SYNTHESIS REPORT on climate change:
http://climatecongress.ku.dk/pdf/synthesisreport
There is of course also Nasa´s main page, Nasa´ goddard space flight center and Noaa(US, National Oceanic and atmospheric administration)
Other useful material:
AAAS statement:
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/mtg_200702/aaas_climate_statement.pdf
Joint science academies’ statement on Global response to climate change:
http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
Never and I mean never use any of those unaffiliated private resources, as they are so filled with anecdotal and moronic discussions with people, whom have gravy for brains.
If you actually read this, enjoy DJSutton.
Steven (@221):
I think you’re mischaracterizing the not-really-much-like-Pascal’s-Wager argument, which I see more as:
“Believe the threat is real purely because the evidence overwhelmingly says the threat is real… but even if, for some crazy reason, you don’t believe the threat is real, don’t oppose the mitigation efforts, because they’ll produce desirable results in any case.”
Sadly, it often seems to take a crisis to impel us status-quo-loving humans to do the right thing… the thing we should have done in the first place. I’m fairly well persuaded that AGW is just that sort of “fortunate” crisis. Fortunate, that is, if we pay attention and get on the fucking stick with mitigation measures.
People who climb Mt. McKinley? ;^)
@210 A university instructor in chemistry you say?
Apparently one lacking in fundamental knowledge of mensuration and error. Where did you teach Bob Jones U.?
It was meant to express bemusement, is all. I found PZ’s apparent level of distress a bit naive, is all.
And now I shall shuddup.
That’s the problem with naive skepticism and rationalism as a fetish — common among rationalists. It soon becomes a parody of itself.
lol@#229 (although I imagine that this isn’t the best time of year for that) :-D
CJO writes:
Please do not ever seek political power.
I’m not. Don’t worry.
If I were emperor of the planet, I’d make it my #1 objective to reduce the human population to under 5 million. Just because that’s how much I like humans, but it’d also solve a lot of resource problems.
CJO, I was under the impression they meant ‘whether or not AGW happens, it’s too late and we’re all screwed anyway’.
I disagree, but it’s not as if I got the impression the person who said it was a sociopath.
Boy that Pascal’s wager comment sure got some people excited didn’t it. Pascal’s argument while readily discarded and appropriately so with regard to the existence of a god (for which no risk is assessable) is, in fact, the basis of a whole industry: risk management. The logic is entirely applicable to global warming. The probability that global warming and human generated co2 emissions are related is quite high and the risk associated with failing to abate it even higher. That’s why I mentioned it. Wiki on friends.
You can google all day long, but you won’t find anybody else but you claiming that a measurement (with inherent error) is the same thing as an estimate.
I note, with great sadness and shame, that my own father, a retired chemistry and geology professor, signed that piece of pony loaf.
Bah, blockquote fail in #210.
That’s the problem with naive skepticism and rationalism as a fetish — common among rationalists. It soon becomes a parody of itself.
Peter G (@236):
I see what you’re saying, but I think it’s a bit of a dodge: The term Pascal’s Wager is, AFAIK, fairly universally understood to refer to a specific theological argument. I can see how risk assessment/risk management might be somewhat analogous to what Pascal’s Wager would be if it weren’t, in fact, a steaming theological pile… but why not just call risk management risk management instead?
@DJSutton
I see a number of people directed you to RealClimate, and in particular its start pages, I would suggest the RealClimate Wiki, which actually provides details by myth:
http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=RC_Wiki#By_Myth
oh dear, Randi sounds a bit creationist here, doesn’t he? “The myriad of influences that act upon Earth are all so tewwibly complicated that no one could ever say anything definitive about them. Except me. Cuz I’m untainted by all that there fancy expertise.”
When your done with your smug self-back-patting, you might want to note that it was not you that brought it up.
And saying that the logic might be valid is not the same as comparing it to pascal’s wager w.r.t. existence of god. Using Pascal’s wager as a defense for the logic of managing the risk is not the same as using it as a reason for believing AGW. See the difference?
shit…
post #244
first “your” = you’re.
dammitall.
Knockgoats:
Yes. The residence time of water vapor in the atmosphere (except for the small amount in the stratosphere) is on the order of days. This means that water vapor concentration can react quickly to changes in temperature, which is why it’s best to consider it a feedback. And as Nick says, it’s a positive feedback, which isn’t good. CO2, on the other hand, persists for decades, at least, and and is better considered a forcing.
@237 Sadly that would imply something very true and that is too many posters here don’t understand what a measurement is. Let us, for example deconstruct Nerd’s assertion about the known accuracy of the the percentage of co2 in the atmosphere. Now co2 is subject to considerable variation both seasonal and otherwise depending on where it is generated and where it is being consumed. The atmosphere is not everywhere uniform. So a reported figure for the concentration for that gas must be the product of numerous measurements and weighted calculations of the relative of volumes of the atmosphere with a given concentration. Now this is being measured at a lot of points so the estimate is very accurately known. It is nevertheless an estimate.
I do so wish that people who claim a love and admiration for the scientific process would bother to learn some of the fundamentals.
Great Scott, I had to do a double take at the calender to see if I had slept all the way through to April 1st. Sadly no I hadn’t.
Peter G:
“The estimated uncertainty in the Mauna Loa annual mean growth rate is 0.11 ppm/yr”
source
IOW a low level of uncertainty.
Sometimes yes, in the case of AGW, no.
@244 Did I claim to be the first to bring it up? No I did not. I merely used it. I did not know it was proprietary.
Bear in mind that there are two substantially different, if inter-related, schools of thought which come under the heading of “libertarianism”.
On the one hand, there is the ideology which is sometimes described as “deontological” or “natural rights” libertarianism. Libertarians of this type believe that the initiation of coercive force against others is intrinsically wrong, and that rights of property and contract are “natural rights” with which it is morally wrong to interfere. Accordingly, they consider any coercive government activity beyond the bare minimum (or, in the case of anarcho-capitalists, the existence of any government at all) to be a priori wrong. This is an argument from first principles, rather than an evidence-based position. This seems to be the kind of libertarianism to which you’re referring.
That kind of libertarianism shouldn’t be confused with “consequentialist” libertarianism. Consequentialist libertarians argue that, generally speaking, a high level of individual freedom is conducive to human prosperity and happiness, and that free markets are, in a lot of cases, effective means of allocating resources. This is an evidence-based position, and is therefore more flexible: as such, where there is clear evidence that a particular area of human activity requires government regulation in order to avert disaster or human suffering, consequentialist libertarians will admit the need for government intervention. This is the type of libertarianism with which I, broadly speaking, identify myself.
@217 The whole freaking post that follows the mislabel doesn’t change the mislabel (which is the only thing I criticized.) So what are you arguing?
Peter G. @211,
I couldn’t agree more, you might like joining the discussions about this topic over at http://www.theoildrum.com
@DJSutton
Quote: [Anyone know any great sites that summarize the arguments for AGW? I’d love to be able to argue it more coherently when it comes up.]
Well it depends on the level you are arguing on, though I for starters recommend The Royal Society´s climate guide(ie Climate change controversies: a simple guide).
http://royalsociety.org/General_WF.aspx?pageid=5322&terms=climate+guide
And as a pdf:
http://royalsociety.org/General_WF.aspx?pageid=5322&terms=climate+guide
SYNTHESIS REPORT on climate change:
http://climatecongress.ku.dk/pdf/synthesisreport
There is of course also Nasa´s main page, Nasa´ goddard space flight center and Noaa(US, National Oceanic and atmospheric administration)
Other useful material:
AAAS statement:
http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/climate_change/mtg_200702/aaas_climate_statement.pdf
Joint science academies’ statement on Global response to climate change:
http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf
Never and I mean never use any of those unaffiliated private resources, as they are so filled with anecdotal and moronic discussions with people, whom have gravy for brains.
“Yes. The residence time of water vapor in the atmosphere (except for the small amount in the stratosphere) is on the order of days. This means that water vapor concentration can react quickly to changes in temperature, which is why it’s best to consider it a feedback.” Of course the role of water in the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas depends quite a lot on what forms it is in. The fact that it remains in the atmosphere a relatively short time is significant but what form it takes is significant as well. Condensed vapour as clouds reflect light and cloud formation is the result of numerous factors such as the presence of particulate or cosmic rays which initiate the nucleation process for droplets. Water vapor can be both a positive and negative feedback. Now if the average time vapor was present in the atmosphere were accurately known that would be of incalculable importance of putting the nail in the coffin. The ratios of h2o and d20 in ice cores would be very enlightening since their relative vapor pressures are well known. I’m sure you can appreciate that so subtle a shift in residence time in the atmosphere from say 2 days to 4 would could have quite a large environmental effect all other things being equal.
James Randi is of an advanced age now. It could be that he has done a Anthony Flew, and gone senile. It is a shame to see this happen to someone who was once a great sceptic.
I congratulate Randi on being a REAL skeptic (and possibly Scotsman).
Take notes folks. This is how it’s done. You start with doubt and you don’t stop doubting until you can’t doubt anymore. Then you crank up the doubt until you can muster enough doubt to start doubting again.
Sorry for you in this one PZ.
Maybe Randi didn`t know enough about climate (i doubt he knows less than Al Gore).
But real scientist with real data shows AGW is all a big fake.
Time will show you that… and i hope you apologieze Randi then ;)
Greetings from Arg.
PS: Sorry my english.
Randi also sums up how I feel about WARMINOMG!!
link?
Bravo for Randi. This is a breathtaking breakthrough. 150 years ago there was no single equation describing the behaviour of light passing through a barrier with two slits in it. Thanks to Randi, now we know that the phenomenon couldn’t have existed before a reasonably accurate mathematical description of it could be crafted by humans. That’s enough to make me pretty sure kinda based on amateur physics that light didn’t exist before about 1948, or certainly not before the early part of the 20th century.
Luckily, proves that all of creation is only a scant half century old since “let there be light” could only be possible after world war II, which obviously didn’t happen and the evidence for it was planted by the devil to test our faith.
Addendum to my post at #251: Protection of environmental resources is, in my view, a classic example of an essential objective which the free market alone cannot achieve; and, as such, I’m perfectly willing to admit the need for environmental regulation. Unlike deontological libertarians, I don’t see such regulation as inherently immoral. If it serves the purpose of protecting scarce resources and thereby averting human suffering, it is justified.
How right you are Fred. Unfortunately this involves convincing rather a lot of people to give a miss to the lifestyle afforded by an industrialized society and asking many people who currently partake to surrender theirs and not in any egalitarian fashion either. I am amazed when I see people tout technologies that are still in their infancy as a cure especially since so many require particular resources and elements that are in very short supply. The world’s easily recoverable sources of indium, tantalum, neodymium and especially lithium are very limited. Major technological leaps are required in material science and even then both solar and wind power will always suffer from their grid unreliability. It is odd that most people who tout advanced technologies are prepared to ignore the very large advances in nuclear technology where reactors can breed even more fuel than what is put in to it. The waste disposal problem is very susceptible to solution. Thirty years ago in engineering we were taught that the cure for pollution was dilution. That was never true. The earth cannot stand it as a functioning eco-sphere. Nuclear reactors require the concentration and safe storage of waste but then one could say the same of every industrial waste.
If the point of Penn Jilette, Randi, and others is “Well, Polar Bears are news, kids dying to lead in China isn’t”, must I remind you that hte loss of most coastal cities /is/ news? It’s easy to say we’re focusing on things when they’re not happening now, but when they will.. it’s not like this shit isn’t going to affect us.
Juice,
In the absence of knowledge, one is not a skeptic, one is merely ignorant. James Randi, despite admitting he doesn’t understand the science, sees fit to pronounce the entire scientific community fools. Is it really so hard to say, “I haven’t looked into this. Let me get back to you.?”
The way one is a true skeptic is to doubt and then see if there are compelling answers to one’s doubts, doubt some more, repeat until the doubts make no significant difference in the outcome. That is science, and that is what climate scientists have done over the past century.
@WAlton, at 251/263.
You’re the second libertarian I’ve met who looked solely at the consequences. The other is a Keynesian when times are bad, and against significant interference (But not basic regulations) when times are good. You’re going to have to forgive us when your breed simply doesn’t appear to be very common.
@175: That’s exactly what I was saying by linking Libertarians to AGW Deniers. “My philosophy can’t cope with this, and there is ever so vague room to dispute it, so I shall”
PeterG:
9 – 10 days
Nerd@253 But you still can’t explain why you don’t know some very fundamental shit. All I see from your posts is a poseur who constantly berates others for spelling errors ( I’m glad your spellcheck works) while failing to demonstrate even the slightest appreciation of complex scientific issues. Face it dude. Your main function here is resident sycophant. Chemistry professor my ass.
I wouldn’t call Randi a denialist because of a single post. The hallmark of the denialists is that they keep repeating the same old lies. As the ancient Romans may have put it: stultus est in errore perseverant.
By the way, where are those kittehs? I still see nothing but octopods in coconuts. Mmm… that gives me an idea … curried octopus in coconut milk.
Peter G.
I’ve seen a number around ten days, though I don’t have a source at the moment. But models can give an idea of the speed with which atmospheric CO2 can respond to perturbations. One of the principals at RealClimate ran a GCM for which he set the initial concentration of atmospheric water vapor to zero (a pretty serious perturbation). Within fourteen days the concentration was back to 90 percent of its equilibrium value. Yeah, I know, [Python quote]”It’s only a model,”[/Python quote], but still it’s strongly suggestive, and the fact that it essentially corroborates the ten day number is encouraging.
Your point about clouds is well-taken, in that they’re the largest source of uncertainty in the models at this point. But even with the large error bars on their effects, the uncertainties aren’t enough to change the fundamental conclusions.
I don’t know how you read the article, but I read it as “I can’t trust the ‘science’ as it is, and based on my limited knowledge of the subject, I’m not going to panic because some people working at and for the UN told me to.”
People are compelled by different things differently.
You can’t prove anything. The only thing you can do is convince other people.
And nothing convinces people like convinced people, especially if they are an ‘authority’ on the subject.
If someone shows me a chart of ‘global’ temperatures over the past 10,000 years with an error of less than 10%, I can never trust that, no matter how meticulous they say they were with the data. If someone shows me chart of ‘global’ temperatures over the past 100 years and then I see all the inconsistencies in the way the temperatures were recorded over that time period, and the poor way the data is handled, I can never trust that or any analysis that comes from it. Ever.
Is this why Dr. Plaitt left? I smell a schism.
You knowing science my ass. You are the real poser. What are your credentials? Mine are a PhD in chemistry and 30+ years as a working scientist, including publishing in the peer reviewed literature. Here’s the thing. I can either believe you, who only seems interested in raising doubt, so your truthfulness is questionable, much less your research credentials, or professional scientists who are honest in their professional work and publish in the peer reviewed scientific literature. The scientists win that battle every time. Why? They earned my trust by doing the science, unlike you. Lose the attitude. You aren’t smarter than us. We are familiar with the points you keep trying to bring up, but they have all been addressed by the climate researchers.
Peter G says “If you think this equation is the sole explanation for the effect of water vapour as a greenhouse gas then you don’t understand the importance of nucleation as a process of cloud formation and the important effect that has on surface temperature.”
Well, except once the water vapor has condensed, it’s no longer VAPOR, and therefore not a greenhouse gas. Kinda obvious if you think about it.
Peter G.: “Now co2 is subject to considerable variation both seasonal and otherwise depending on where it is generated and where it is being consumed.”
Well, except that CO2 is well mixed and long-lived. The seasonal variation is quite regular, so the trend is clearly visible. Spatially, you get significant variation only near large sources or sinks. And of course all of these variations are irrelevant when we are talking about climatic forcing.
You keep mixing up the issues of water vapor (a ghg and covered by the C-C equation) and cloud formation, a much more complicated question, which has both warming and cooling effects. Your stuff reads as if you have randomly sampled from science and denialist sites and sought a middle ground. Unfortunately there is on middle ground between science and anti-science. Pick one.
About a year ago I heard a talk on global warming by a member of the OISM faculty, Jane Orient, which I blogged about here:
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2008/12/anthropogenic-global-warming-debate.html
OISM is definitely out on the cranky fringe. Click the link on “Association of American Physicians and Surgeons,” Orient’s own organization, for some real crackpottery.
.
Phil says not.
He also says that Randi is going to post some sort of follow up tonight and that in the meantime we should just untwist our knickers a bit. Carry on.
Juice, If you don’t understand the science, you don’t voice an opinion. Period. You say, “I haven’t looked into this, so I won’t comment.” YOU DO NOT embrace a petition circulated by a bunch of cranks signed by a random selection of nutjobs and cranks and say, “Oh, it’s all to complicated to understand.”
Again, is it really too damned much to ask that people look at the evidence–all the evidence, not just a couple of weather stations that have some record keeping problems–before reaching a conclusion?
@267 Would that be everywhere? Over the poles? Over the equator. Over a jungle? Over a desert? Over the oceans? Over land? Getting an accurate average reading of atmospheric concentrations of vapor might be quite useful but variations throughout the atmosphere in both locale and time would be necessary for the proper construction of a computer simulation. Along with monstrous heaps of other data as well. Averages are of suspect utility with so complex a phenomenon as climate. I can use my infrared thermometer to measure my dog’s temperature but it won’t tell me how he works.
The up shot of my posts is this. I am entirely persuaded that controlling greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants in general is an entirely desirable goal. But to pretend that climatology has all the answers to all the questions is wrong and disingenuous and a serious disservice to the scientific process and progress in that field. To those of you who present reasoned arguments and cite valid research: Bravo. To those of you who rely on insults and similar nonsense a hearty “Fuck You”. Winning a workable strategy in Copenhagen will rely on convincing people not that AGW is certain to the last decimal point but only that it is most probable and the consequences of failing to do so dire. Insults accomplish nothing to that end.
Well, in the end, Randi is an entertainer, after all. He’s as well qualified to comment on AGW as Ben Stein.
Obviously.
Are we sure the increases in atmospheric carbon are from contemporary manmade emissions? What about historic human agricultural activities? How important are other human sourced greenhouse gasses like methane from ruminants?
I always wind up arguing about global warming with my right-wing family when I go home around the holidays and these are some of the questions I have that would help bolster my case- just so you know I’m not trolling but genuinely curious!
From Phil Plait, on a post ironically asking people to donate to the Randi foundation:
A skeptic has few choices when dealing with an issue such as this. But there is a surprising correlation between people who express doubts about science, and an ignorance of the science, itself. And it doesn’t work both ways, either, as some have suggested, because it is perfectly reasonable (and I would argue, ethical) to accept the consensus on any given issue, if you cannot, for whatever reason, inform yourself to the degree that is necessary.
It is not reasonable to continually say things that are ignorant, particularly when an issue has been in the public eye for many years, meaning that you have had plenty of time to inform yourself of at least the basics, and then expect others to react without condemnation.
And that is the problem with Randi’s post. Sure, he admits that he is largely ignorant, but why even say anything about it in the first place, rather than spend some time asking people who do know what they are talking about why they have concluded as they have? Most of the things in Randi’s post could have been answered in five minutes of googling, so it shouldn’t be surprising that people react negatively to what is a clear example of intellectual laziness.
“You keep mixing up the issues of water vapor (a ghg and covered by the C-C equation) and cloud formation, a much more complicated question, which has both warming and cooling effects.”
Isn’t that exactly what I said. Water, not vapor, provides both positive and negative feedback. I don’t think I mixed up the roles water plays. Not at all.
By the way I think someone had better check the definition of vapor. The degree to which water has condensed to a vapor greatly affects its’ albedo but it is not the same as water in a gaseous form.
From (here)
Conor H: Please visit SkepticalScience or RealClimate, where that claim is explicitly explained with citations.
In a nutshell, we know the CO2 is from fossil fuels due to a difference between fossil carbon isotope ratios and the isotope ratios of carbon that’s actively moving through the carbon cycle. This is corroborated by a decline in atmospheric oxygen levels (burning fossil fuels binds the carbon to oxygen, while agricultural emissions do no).
For the methane/cows argument, yes, they’re important too. Methane is about 23 times more powerful than CO2 as a warming agent (though that number is just a guideline; there’s a lot of confounding factors), and agriculture itself also gives off a lot of CO2.
The relevant SkepticalScience page is here.
OK, just for fun, let’s look it up:
FAIL!!!
Great, thanks Damianphipps and Brian D!
Peter G (again:)
yes
(might take a while to load)
Peter G. says, “Averages are of suspect utility with so complex a phenomenon as climate.”
Oh, sweet baby fucking Jebus. Do you even think about this stuff before you post? Do you even know the definition of climate? We are talking about energy fluxes adequate to heat not just the atmosphere, but a significant portion of the ocean as well! Of course it is averages that matter–and long-term, global averages at that!
Peter, a scientist looks at a complex system and asks, “Hmm, what are the most important contributors to that system? He or she simplifies and then adds complexity until it makes little difference. There is much we do not know about Earth’s climate. There is a lot of fascinating research to be done. However, I think that after nearly 200 years, we’ve got the effect of greenhouse gasses about down. Doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will likely raise the temperature of the globe about 3 degrees. The rise will be at least 2 degrees, and it could be as high as 5 degrees. (note: this is the Charney sensitivity). If you are going to pretend to understand this stuff, maybe you should go off and actually learn some of it, huh? I’deven be happy to help. I’m serious. Because right now, you are just embarrassing yourself.
Wow the tide is turning. Even skeptics like Randi and liberals like John Stewart (I saw someone past a video of him on youtube realising it) are admitting that AGW is a hoax. Climategate really opened up those doors and people’s eyes.
I hope evolution is the next thing to go and people will see that this evolution “theory” is based on the same kind of flawed “science” the global warming “theory” was based on.
I’m sure if someone hacked an evolutionary biologist’s email they would find the same sort of things they found at Climategate.
“That Darwin skeptic is trying to publish an article critical of Darwinism. We must keep him out of the peer-reviewed literature even if we have to redefine peer-review.”
“I’d like to beat that Sternberg guy up for reviewing all sorts of peer-reviewed publications on intelligent design.”
“Quickly that data shows the irreducible complexity of that flagellum , just like Behe said, we have to delete this and these emails.”
“Oh no those animals are not evolving at the rate we expected them too. We have to hide the decline.”
Perhaps they will also uncover details on how they persecuted Dr. Dembski and Dr. Crocker and Dr. Hovind and all the other PhD scientists who dared to question Darwin. I remember that time there was *revealing* information uncovered when the DI secured those emails the ISU professors sent around whilst they were persecuting that ID Astronomer (Gonzalez?)
Mulch, prepare to have your hopes dashed — reality doesn’t care about your wishful thinking.
Thankis, mulch, for your informed and enlightening contribution.
If mulch’s last post wasn’t an obvious example of wanking, I don’t know what is.
Creationists do love their little imaginary scenarios, don’t they?
eco-Poe?
Who let Sarah Palin into the house?
Enjoy.
As well as checking the source, Randi could also have checked whether The Petition Project was indeed a petition signed by the relevant scientists.
This petition is updated from an earlier list. Of the original 17,200 signatories:
“signers of this petition so far include 2,660 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists.”
This is obviously supposed to be the core experts. Yet physicists have no place being in this group. Also, “Environmental scientists” is much too broad to be relevant.
The rest of those signatories are in irrelevant fields or are not even scientists.
Mulch, I’m an ISU alumn and Gonzalez got fired because he was a fuckup who couldn’t secure grant money or get advisees through the program.
Peter G. @263,
I happen to agree and to those that say this is reason enough not to try convincing people that change is coming whether they are ready or not, my reply is “tough noogies”! ;-)
Well, I’m not too sure how vast that middle ground really is but I digress.
Ah yes, this is a topic for much lively disscussion over at http://www.theoildrum.com
I myself am less concerned with solutions to nuclear waste disposal problems than I am with being part of a society that is still very much in the dark with regards the implications of living in a house of cards built on non renewable resources.
Sustainable Energy – without the hot air by David JC MacKay (Free download available)
Has what I as a layman consider a reasonably lucid breakdown on the long term sustainability of nuclear energy and seems to conclude with a generally positive assesment.
Regarding the large advances in nuclear technology I must by necessity defer to the experts. There are a couple of nuclear engineers who do offer to chime in with their expert opinion now and then. I am keeping an open mind as to how much of a contribution nuclear energy will be able to contribute to the overall energy mix. I doubt it is as great as you seem to think but I do see that it has a place at the table.
You need to watch the Jon Stewart thing in context. Taking what he said and concluding he denies AGW is like taking the the last four words of the quote “I’d have to be an IDIOT to think Bush is a genius” and concluding I’m a big fan of the former president.
I say mulch is Poe.
Juice | December 16, 2009 4:12 PM:
You reject evidence simply because you think a given degree of confidence can “never” be obtained? That is an argument from personal incredulity. This is no different from creationists who reject paleontological evidence for the age of the earth because they can’t believe anyone could show the Earth was so old with any confidence.
*rolls eyes*
Here’s the part that makes me also suspect mulch’s Poeitude:
I’ve put up a blog post about some of the major climate skeptic organizations, in hopes that skeptics will avoid Randi’s error of relying on a cranky group like OISM:
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2009/12/who-are-climate-change-skeptics.html
@Sven DiMilo (#302)
My parody alarm started ringing with this
But the deal was sealed when I read the line you just quoted. I actually thought that whole comment was quite funny. That’s a sign of a very good Poe: it’s hilarious whether it’s real or not.
Oh no those animals are not evolving at the rate we expected them too. We have to hide the decline
Hahaha. Nice one.
Randi’s post is so wrong on so many levels that the only way for him to redeem his credibility is if it turns out that the post was just a test to see if “skeptics” treated him as an authority just because he’s got an established reputation as a skeptic.
Mulch, you are talking out of your ass. In fact, you have your head so far up your ass, that you cannot see the shit for all the methane.
When you can fantasize like that, it is obvious how you can believe in a religious fantasy.
PZ might want to read the 2nd paragraph of Randi’s again. Its a very nice summation of what has been going on for 15 years – people wanting to fit in and get part of the 100 Billion US pie for research grants.
Humans being humans until we find out that it could actually destroy civilisation and curse millions of people in 3rd world countries to starve to death and look for salvation through jesus and zeus and apollo…
Wow. Maybe it’s just me but there seems to be a lot of pointless sniping and quibbling in this thread. Unpleasant news has a way of bringing that sort of thing out.
My own thoughts are a bit conflicted. While I disagree with Randi, I realize that I base that disagreement mostly on the testimony of specialists whose work I can currently understand only to a certain degree. I don’t have the time, money, or energy to become an expert on the subject, and even from the perspective of experts it is a big and complicated subject. While the arguments against AGW may not be all that great, there are many of them coming from many well-funded sources. To even a skeptical, well-educated, thoughtful non-expert, the whole issue can seem full of controversy, whether there is any genuine controversy or not. While the denialists may be following a blind dogma of the free market solving everything, it does not immediately ring false to many intelligent people in the same way that creationism or holocaust denial does. It lacks some of the emotional punch, doesn’t outright fly in the face of commonly-known fact, and is not based on obvious, religion-style fantasy. The denialist tactics may be the same or similar, but there is more than enough information and misunderstanding involved with AGW to successfully obfuscate the issue without using obvious lies, fantasies, and propaganda.
I think that many of you are taking it a bit hard on Randi. Between age, illness, and business, perhaps he hasn’t had the time to go over all of the evidence. As other have mentioned, he also has many friends who are more toward the libertarian end of this issue who may have been ‘massaging’ his understanding of the science. They are not experts either, but they are reasonable people who usually have fairly reasonable perspectives and are often right about other skeptical issues, or at least in agreement with Randi. While denialists may well dishonestly use this to their advantage, it was clearly not Randi’s intention to knowingly fuel the fire of manufactured controversy, but just to express his own bits of doubt and lack of certainty. I think it was overzealous of P.Z. to lump Randi in with the denialists in the title, though he did give him a bit of leeway later in the post. I can understand how a person could be honestly and innocently doubtful about AGW, even after reading quite a bit on the matter.
The one thing that really did disappoint me about Randi’s position was his citing of the petition. If one can be skeptical about the work of scientists, specialists and experts (which is fine by me)then one should also be skeptical of those who disagree with them. The fact that scientists exist who disagree just shows that there might be different possible interpretations, but their existence does not really serve as evidence one way or the other at all. If the opposition seems to have ulterior motives, their efforts might even be a little self-refuting.
Anyway, nobody is a perfect skeptic, and nobody is right all the time about everything. Someone mentioned Desert Son’s old sign-off, “No Kings” being relevant here, and I second that. It sucks sometimes maybe, when we crave easy answers and trustworthy authority, but that’s the way it is. However, that doesn’t mean that I have to lose any respect at all for a great man who has spent decades doing more to popularize skepticism and critical thinking than most or even all of the readers of this blog put together.
Criticize away, show him he’s wrong, tell him you expect better, but talking of losing a lot of respect or acting like he’s gone loony or sold out or horribly betrayed his principles is overly dramatic, knee-jerk pouting and little else.
To say “X is a Poe” is to state a contradiction and to miss the point of Poe’s Law, which is that fundies and deniers are prone to such lunacy that they are self-parodying, and so it’s very hard to know that something is a parody rather than the real thing. Only if you actually know that something is a Poe because you authored it or the author admitted it can you legitimately say that something is a Poe. i.e., mulch might well be the real deal — there certainly are real fundies who believe everything mulch said.
tm @306, you don’t consider Randi can redeem credibility via a clarification based on review of the evidence? I do.
—
PS I’m in agreement with AJ Milne @70.
Maybe it’s just me but there seems to be a lot of pointless sniping and quibbling in this thread.
No, it’s not just you who employs ad hominem fallacies and innuendo.
Perhaps you can point to some specific “snipe” or “quibble” and explain what error was made.
This is what confuses me about the AGW-denialist movement. Recent events have shown just how vocal some can be, but as to what motivation there is for such fervor as to capitalise on such bad evidence to support their position leaves me somewhat perplexed.
The best I can gather it seems to be part of a wider reaction against the looney left, and that combined with other factors might cumulatively push the notion to being on par with motivations for evolution or holocaust denial? This is anecdotal, but it seems that almost every person I’ve come across arguing against AGW has either argued against the environmental catastophism characterised in the social movement, or has been a libertarian. It seems that politics and culture is defining what should be a scientific issue.
I’m surprised Randi mentioned the PhD credentials of some of the signatories on the petition. He’s well known for his opinion of the PhD..
tm @306, you don’t consider Randi can redeem credibility via a clarification based on review of the evidence?
No, because he radically misused evidence and misapplied or failed to apply basic principles of skepticism — and the ways in which he did so have already been noted by others, here and in the comments to his post (but it is like you to ignore all that).
well, yeah, sure, but “X is a Poe” is well understood (at least here @ Pharyngula) to mean “X is a parody troll” or “X is a would-be Poe sensu stricto.”
It’s a perhaps unfortunate term, but it’s not meant as a formal invocation of Poe’s Law and its usage isn’t ambiguous.
A whois on “petitionproject.org”, gets this result:
Domain Name:PETITIONPROJECT.ORG
Created On:12-Feb-2008 03:00:50 UTC
Last Updated On:12-Dec-2009 01:44:17 UTC
Expiration Date:12-Feb-2010 03:00:50 UTC
Registrant Name:Arthur Robinson
Registrant Street1:2251 Dick George Rd.
Registrant City:Cave Junction
Registrant State/Province:Oregon
Registrant Postal Code:97523
Registrant Country:US
Registrant Phone:+1.5415924142
Registrant Email:[email protected]
Admin Name:Oregon Institute-Science-Medicine
Admin Street1:2251 Dick George Rd.
Admin City:Cave Junction
Admin State/Province:Oregon
Admin Postal Code:97523
Admin Country:US
Admin Phone:+1.5415924142
Admin Email:[email protected]
Tech Name:Arthur Robinson
Tech City:Cave Junction
Tech State/Province:Oregon
Tech Postal Code:97523
Tech Country:US
Tech Phone:+1.5415924142
Tech Email:[email protected]
Name Server:NS24.DOMAINCONTROL.COM
That´s funny, because that is the address of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, and they sure have a Arthur Robinson. In fact he is listed right on their webpage.
http://www.oism.org/
So what is it these giant of science dabble in, well:
Nuclear War Survival Skills
Homeland Civil Defense
Civil Defense Perspectives
Doctors for Disaster Preparedness
Home schooling
Just listing those excellent topics should make it quite clear, that they are an extreme fringe group.
I got an argument against AGW the other day,
“The quantum absorption spectrum of CO2 only covers (re-absorption) perhaps 1-2% of the infrared black body re-emission from the earths surface (ie nowhere near enough energy to produce any climate change), also anything that`s going to get absorbed by the current CO2 content will do so in a matter of meters, doubling the CO2 content will simply mean doing it in half the meters – there`s only specific wavelengths the CO2 can absorb, and all of it is already being absorbed, increasing the CO2 content has an effectively null effect.”
Can anyone explain this? I don’t have sufficient knowledge of the issue to understand it. I understand what he’s saying, but I imagine climate scientist have taken this into account, I would love to know why CO2 still makes for a rise in temperature though.
John Morales, I’m afraid I’m with truth machine on this one. In carelessly tossing off his little brainfart, Randi has slandered not just the community of climate scientists, but scientists and science in general. He has demonstrated that he hasn’t the foggiest notion how science works and can’t be bothered to find out, despite the fact that there’s not a scientist worth his salt who wouldn’t gladly take a call from him.
This is very much akin to the decision of the editor of the Bulletin of the APS Forum on Physics and Society to give a soapbox to Lord Monckton, no less. The damage is done. There are still nutjob liberturds claiming this means that American Physical Society has reversed its longstanding climate change position.
Likewise, the nutjobs will be basking in Randi’s skeptic bona fides long after he’s gone. It’s a little late for, “Oh, I really meant to say…”
Here is another piece at randi.org (not by Randi). It highlights the difference between being a skeptical ignoramus — as in someone who has no opinion as to whether AGW or evolution or God are real and are skeptical of any claim one way or the other — and being a scientific skeptic, which involves inference from the available evidence to the best explanation.
For another example of a skeptical ignoramus, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWt2Rir8OQk
tm @315, that’s harsh. I’m not about to search for it, but I’m pretty sure Randi has admitted he’s been fooled/mistaken before.
I’m not ready to give up on him yet.
(Also, see #99.)
Day, See this treatment:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/
Basically, both arguments ignore the tails of the absorption lines (which are thick) and further broadened by collisions with other atoms. This has only been known since the 1950s. Some folks are just a little slow, I guess.
ARIDS @319,
Alas, yes.
—
tm, I’ll follow and peruse your links.
well, yeah, sure, but “X is a Poe” is well understood (at least here @ Pharyngula) to mean “X is a parody troll” or “X is a would-be Poe sensu stricto.”
It’s a perhaps unfortunate term, but it’s not meant as a formal invocation of Poe’s Law and its usage isn’t ambiguous.
So you didn’t understand a word that I wrote, and did miss the point exactly as I noted.
The import of Poe’s Law is that you can’t know that something is a parody troll rather than the real thing. Again, mulch is indistinguishable from the real thing. Those who claim to know that he posted a parody are grossly ignorant of what actual people believe.
evil9000 says “Its a very nice summation of what has been going on for 15 years – people wanting to fit in and get part of the 100 Billion US pie for research grants.”
Uh, dude, where are you getting all these millions in grant money. Most profs I know can barely pay a couple of grad students and buy toner cartridges. Fucking moron!
tm @315, that’s harsh. I’m not about to search for it, but I’m pretty sure Randi has admitted he’s been fooled/mistaken before.
You again demonstrate your (typical) failure to comprehend. It’s not about him being fooled or mistaken (he admits that possibility in his post), it’s about him not knowing how to think — as arids said, “He has demonstrated that he hasn’t the foggiest notion how science works”.
Also, see #99.
Sigh. I was aware of it when I wrote #306 .. what I had in mind was that his “clarification” would be that this was just a test to separate the sycophants from the real skeptics. (However, I don’t actually think that’s at all likely, unfortunately.)
mulch mentioned “John” Stewart. Here’s what Jon really said: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/02/jon-stewart-on-climategat_n_376672.html
Not true. The point of calling a commenter “a Poe” is not to say “I can’t tell whether X is a parody troll or a real lunatic.” This would, of course, better reflect the import of Poe’s Law than the actual usage of the noun w/ indefinite article, which is to flag a potentially indistinguishable post as parody, based usually on some specific over-the-topness. Making such a judgment call is neither exhibiting gross ignorance of the stupidity of actual people nor even claiming to know anything. It’s a game. Parody trolls play their little game and Poe-spotters play ours.
If you don’t like the usage, you don’t have to play.
Neil, You are wrong on several counts.
First the science of climate change is not all that complicated. It really comes down to conservation of energy and the definition of equilibrium. Energy comes in as sunlight–mostly visible light–and leaves as thermal or infrared radiation. The only way energy leaves the climate system is if an infrared photon escapes the uppermost reaches of the atmosphere. If Energy_in=Energy_out, the temperature stays the same. If Energy_in is less than Energy_out, the temperature falls, and if it is greater, the temperature rises. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gasses take a big bite out of the Energy_out, so the temperature HAS TO rise. And it has to rise until the amount of energy in the infrared escaping to space again equals Energy_in, despite the big bite taken out by greenhouse gasses.
Now there are lots of complicated concepts like feedbacks and forcings, etc. Don’t worry so much about them. The fact is that we can use current climate and paleoclimate data and other factors to estimate how sensitive climate is to added CO2. Doing this, we have at least 10 independent lines of evidence telling us that if you double CO2 content, you raise the planet’s temperature by an average of 3 degrees. All ten lines of evidence agree on the most likely value. Moreover, they all say, the warming can’t be less than 2 degrees and could be as high as 5 degrees.
This isn’t that hard.
OK. Maybe Randi didn’t know that. And maybe he didn’t know that the OISM is a bunch of nutjobs. But did he bother to find out. Did he do what a skeptic would do and maybe, oh, I don’t know, google OISM or maybe call a climate scientist. Nope. He just assumed that all climate scientists would willingly perpetrate a fraud because they want to “fit in”. Goddamn it. We’re fucking scientists. None of us have ever fit in! We wouldn’t feel comfortable fitting in! And we sure as fucking hell aren’t goint to risk our fucking careers just so we fucking fit in.
Maybe you would feel differently if Randi had said that Biology text books should teach Intelligent Design. James Randi has demonstrated that he has no understanding of science and that he can’t even be bothered to get off his aged, white, privileged ass and find out.
He has performed his ultimate magic trick. He’s made his credibility disappear!
@309
I think your concluding statement sums up many of the shrill comments I’ve read here, at the Swift Blog and over at Bad Astronomy. Family issues anyone?
When the whole world is a tropical paradise, there’s nothing horrible about that.
When the whole world becomes a tropical paradise within a few thousand years, starting from its current state, that is utter horror. If things keep going as they are, half of Bangladesh will be gone in 100 to 200 years. Current total population of Bangladesh: 140 million.
“Limited resources”? What limited resources? Last time someone checked, the Iraq war had cost three trillion dollars up to then. I think that was three years ago.
The money is there. It’s only a question of political will what to spend it for.
Let me put it this way: Randi has fallen prey to the Dunning-Kruger effect. That’s deeply, deeply embarrassing – especially because Randi has made skepticism his profession. It’s painful.
Explain yourself, Mad Monk. I have no clue what, if anything, you’re talking about.
Absolutely not. The many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics isn’t even testable. It’s not part of quantum physics, it’s one attempt to make it imaginable. Arguably it’s not a very parsimonious one, which may be why so few physicists prefer it over the alternatives…
“They are called”? Justify this generalization, please…
However, there are many left who deny climate change altogether, and many don’t know it’s still going on and shout that ignorance from every available rooftop.
“It’s not happening, and it’s not our fault, and it will actually be a good thing, and it’s too late to do anything about it anyway, and look – it has stopped!” Full circle.
Soot contributes to the greenhouse effect, BTW.
Wrong and wrong, respectively. Do try to keep up. Spend a few hours in Real Climate for a start instead of embarrassing yourself.
Oh for crying out loud!
This is still circulating?!?
It’s of course true that CO2 lags the temperatures every time an ice age begins or ends. That’s because these temperature changes are directly caused by the already mentioned Milanković cycles. CO2 acts as a feedback: rising temperatures drive it out of the ocean and into the air, where it increases the greenhouse effect and makes the warming much greater than it would otherwise be; falling temperatures drive it into the ocean and out of the air, diminishing the greenhouse effect and making the cooling much greater than it would otherwise be. This is why glacials and interglacials are so close to an either-or affair, with no stable intermediates; and it’s why there’s not a lot more fluctuation in the temperature (temperature fluctuations that are too small and short-lived to have an effect on the CO2 concentration in the air fail to trigger the feedback).
This time around, on the other hand, the CO2 concentration is increasing for a reason other than temperature for the first time in probably 55 million years. This increases the greenhouse effect, and we’re seeing the beginning of the results. The sea rises by 3.1 mm per year. If this goes on, Shànghǎi will become Zhōnghǎi before the end of the century, and similar excruciating puns will happen to Tiānjīn, Hongkong, and so on and so forth.
Having the professions they have doesn’t qualify them from having an opinion, but not having the profession of climatologist comes pretty close, because it greatly diminishes the probability that they know what they’re talking about.
The media. The people who could fall for arguments from authority. Hundreds of millions of them… politicians included.
You’re embarrassing yourself again. CO2 is remarkably well mixed in the atmosphere. The concentration, and even its seasonal variation, is practically the same all over the globe – there are hundreds of measuring stations from pole to pole.
Cosmic rays nucleating clouds, if that’s what you mean, was a nice idea. Past tense.
Bingo! We have a winner.
Incidentally, this: ` is the grave accent, and this: ‘ is the apostrophe.
He’s in fact just as irrelevant as Al Gore. Gore isn’t a climatologist either, he just parrots what they find out.
You do know about the German project to build several large solar power plants all over the Sahara…?
Why have all those reactors been shut down?
Difference: waste from nuclear reactors must be stored safely for thirty thousand years at the very least.
Big difference.
I’ve had it with those American paranoiacs who have no idea what the UN even is!!!
There is no such fucking thing as a scientist who works for the UN. Scientists are paid by universities, not by the UN. The UN has an annual budget of a few million dollars. It can’t afford a single black helicopter, much less employing or bribing thousands of scientists all over the fucking world.
The stupid! It burns!
Now, now, don’t go all postmodernist on us. It’s true that science cannot prove, only disprove. What we can do instead, and what we do, is to look at the evidence, publish the evidence, publish which ideas are compatible with the evidence and which are not, and publish which of the compatible ideas are most parsimonious ( = require the smallest number of extra assumptions).
There is such a thing as evidence, there is such a thing as a fact. Some facts are difficult to discover, and every observation, every measurement, comes with an error bar – but it doesn’t boil down to “he said, she said”.
Details, please. Did you ever try to understand the “inconsistencies”, for example? Did you ever ask a climatologist about them…?
Yet another one who doesn’t know the first thing about science. Scientists are paid for publishing papers that get cited often. The only way to do that is to publish something new, something unexpected, something that runs counter to a widespread opinion. If your manuscript just confirms what others have found, it will most likely be rejected by the editor without even being sent out to peer review.
It works this way all the way up. Every Nobel Prize has been awarded for a discovery like this.
And if you think you can buy a Rolex from your research grant, think again. Becoming a scientist for the money is like becoming a Catholic priest for the women. On the other hand… how many times has ExxonMobil now promised to finally stop funding AGW deniers?
Besides… 100 billion? That I want to see.
That wouldn’t be an excuse. To the contrary. It is immoral to pontificate about stuff one doesn’t know enough about.
:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
ARIDS (my bold),
What about kinetic energy from outgassing molecules into space?
(Not saying it’s significant, just that it occurs)
@ a_ray_in_dilbert_space.
Thanks for the link, that was a good read! very interesting :D
This is one of the most divisive issues I’ve seen discussed here. One the one hand, I’m a long term fan of Randi’s. My first real exposure to skepticism was through the JREF site, and from reading books like Flim Flam!
OTOH, the AGW deniers are certainly going to latch onto this. Like creationists, they’ll continue to quote (mine) what Randi originally said even if he retracts it in a convincing fashion.
I suppose now it’s all about damage limitation. Let’s see what the man says next and go from there…
Celsius, of course. Not Fahrenheit or something.
I’m thinking James Randi needs to meet Lester R. Brown here:
http://www.earth-policy.org/
End of f*cking conversation.
John Morales says of energy loss:
“What about kinetic energy from outgassing molecules into space?
(Not saying it’s significant, just that it occurs)”
Mostly Helium, negligible mass. Wanna take into account the kinetic energy of meteoric impacts, too? Hey, I’m a physicist. Let me start with the solution for the spherical cow.
John Morales says of energy loss:
“What about kinetic energy from outgassing molecules into space?
(Not saying it’s significant, just that it occurs)”
Mostly Helium, negligible mass. Wanna take into account the kinetic energy of meteoric impacts, too? Hey, I’m a physicist. Let me start with the solution for the spherical cow.
ARIDS @338, heh. I don’t dispute incoming K.E. >> outgoing, but you should know better than to use quantifiers like “the only”. :)
“It was reached because a body of observation has shown…”
How can you “observe” something – in the FUTURE? Clairvoyance? If so, it’s Randi’s turf, because he debunks that kind of stuff.
No, you say, *computer models* have reliably shown us the future. Even if we forget that the climate is a “complex product of multiple phenomena (and) we should expect significant variation, and that no one could possibly have a single equation that describes it all”, take a look at the computer modelling code revealed through the Climategate insider leak. (bishophill.squarespace.com have plenty of analyses.)
So, we can’t *observe* the future, and sloppy excuse for modelling code can’t possibly *simulate* the future – at this point, you have nothing to stand on.
–Ahrvid
Day, you are welcome. Realclimate is the best site I know of for reliable info–as it is run by actual climate scientists. You might also enjoy Tamino’s Open Mind blog.
Flipping the coin of registration….
My only wish was that people who don’t quite know the subject would restrain to talk about it, more or less proportionally to the extent of their ignorance. I try to do that.
Most of what I’ve said or written about it was in reply to comments that are just “skeptic” memes, those you find replies just by googling one or two keywords, and will appear on the first result page, even more if you add “realclimate” or “skepticalscience” sites to the parameters.
That or just more broad, generic, skepticism, often with at least a hint of political bias, to which I basically respond that I think that the scientific process hasn’t been that hijacked by political interests. Actually, it looks that as far as it has been, it was predominantly on the other direction (e.g., “[msnbc] Bush pressure seen on climate experts“). I think it would be much more scandalous if it was real, not to mention that the skeptical arguments would be much harder to sound as appealing. Even though I’m by no means an expert, not even it’s a subject I can say I have a good grasp of, the AGW proposal is sound, whereas the skeptic side, aggravated with the denier noise, is kind of messy and confused, barely decided on the veracity of GW itself, and failing to propose a compelling alternative. Sounds a bit like “dark warming”, warming provoked by some unknown effect of dark matter.
Unfortunately, this whole parroting not only makes much more unbearable (and a waste of time) to follow the not-so-technical discussions on the internet, but may obfuscate more reasonable skeptical-with-no-quotation-marks points that may exist.
Ahrvid Engholm says,
“- at this point, you have nothing to stand on.”
You mean other than physics…and nearly 200 years of climate research…and a couple of thousand research papers…and 130 years of rising temperatures…and a few trillion tons of melted ice…and a few hundred years of phenological data…and the support of over 90% of the world’s climate scientists…and the support of every National Academy of sciences or engineering that’s looked at the problem…and the support of every professional organization of scientists who has looked at the problem…
And don’t like computer models. OK, try this one:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/not-computer-models/
And when you’re done with wishful thinking, maybe you’ll want to try science.
I don’t know what it makes you, but your comment makes me curious, and inspires a question. If you have no training in physics and have simply had a particular concept/issue explained to you in popular terms, then why would you be writing blog posts* about that concept/issue? What contribution would you be expecting to offer physics or science education/communication?
*I interpreted what you wrote as to mean actual posts, not just comments in a thread.
What? No gomer+ComicSans for the quote?
Ahh, yes. The problem of induction. One wonders why given one can’t know the future, they won’t jump off the empire state building. After all we can’t *know* the future, who is to say one wouldn’t float or hang suspended in midair. Maybe that’s an extreme example, so why not start with something simple like putting water in your petrol tank next time you fill up?
So instead of taking the models of extrapolations of known causal connections between particular phenomena for what it is, let’s just take the uncertainty of the enterprise to dismiss all the science behind it. Are you one of those who thinks that just because scientists can’t predict the exact date and time that someone develops lung cancer or the number of cigarettes one needs to smoke that scientists can’t know that there’s a link between smoking and lung cancer?
I’m extremely pleased that Randi is behaving as skeptics should. AGW has become a religion and skeptics cannot endorse it. There may be some evidence for AGW, but we are getting force-fed with the stuff. Skeptics should resist the propaganda and Randi is doing just that. More power to his arm!
We should all be skeptical about specific proposals for solving the problem, but I implore pharyngulites who are “skeptical” about the scientific evidence for AGW to educate yourselves. It’s hard, but not that hard, and most of you are up to it. The Start Here page on RealClimate has already been suggested. A personal favorite, SkepticalScience, is handy for concise rebuttals, with citations, of denier talking points.
Once you get started, you’ll soon realize that the scientific consensus is based on an immense body of data, obtained from vast numbers of observations of diverse physical and biological phenomena. There are multiple, independent lines of evidence contributing to a robust theory. It’s not a house of cards that will tumble if one publication is found to be flawed, or some computer programs contain inelegant code, or a few scientists are revealed to be human. It takes time and effort to become knowledgeable, but when you have done so you’ll understand why people with obvious non-scientific axes to grind, making the same ridiculous accusations over and over, are rightly called deniers.
hmm, are you all just rehashing the whole climate thing again and again?
I thought the point was that JR used crappy reasoning to come to his amateur conclusion.
Rutee@94: nail, head, bam.
Libertarians can’t cope with the reality of AGW because there is no libertarian solution to the problem. Same reason a lot of libertarians have gone antivax and anti-secondhand-smoke.
The facts are discarded when they do not agree with the doctrine. It becomes a religion.
Randi’s been a bit of a flawed character in my mind anyway — because he’s an annoying pretentious git, not because of his skepticism — but this cements it.
It continues to surprise me how much is being made of these emails. Some of the stuff discovered by the industry lobbying and PR groups that are opposed to doing anything about climate change have been caught with things as bad or worse, and yet you never hear about that.
As for the claim that the scientists are using this to make money — do you think there is more or less money in climate research versus carbon fuel extraction? Or maybe the idea of a several thousand person global conspiracy that took decades to be revealed seems feasible to some people?
Personally, I don’t know if the science is correct or not because I don’t have the requisite knowledge to judge it. So, I don’t really have any choice but to accept that the climate scientists know what they’re talking about. We still can’t say with 100% certainty (and never will) that smoking causes lung cancer, so maybe we should all take up smoking!
Well, it looks like I squeaked through!
Having been a fan of Randi for many years it is sad to think of him declining, it is also possible to cut him a little slack if that indeed is the case because it is at least possible that 1) he doesn’t realize when he is writing incoherently 2) he is in denial about that decline and doesn’t wish to acknowledge it.
Kyle, way back up thread said:
“Nonetheless, I have this nagging question in the back of my mind: If we are releasing previously sequestered carbon from fossil fuels, doesn’t that necessarily indicate that this carbon has been in our atmosphere before without catastrophic consequences?”
Well yes and no. On the one hand, the fossil carbon we are presently burning at a breakneck pace was sequestered in the form of fossil fuels over periods of hundreds of millions of years, so there is no reason to think that cabon dioxide concentrations were necessarily catastrophically high at any time during that process even though they may have fluctuated considerably enough to cause significant variations in global climate.
In addition, it depends somewhat on what your definition of catastrophic is. I think if you went back to the end Permian mass extinction and polled the denizens of the oceans they might think of whatever was going on then as catastrophic though it didn’t last all that long geologically speaking it sure as hell put a dent in the bio-diversity of the time.
Which brings me to my real point, I’m not a paleontologist but I use it in my work on rare occasions (fossils in xenoliths). The causes of mass extinctions have been elusive and though the Alvarez hypothesis for the Cretaceous mass extinction may have some credibility, there is no evidence it applies to all of them. One thing I have learnt from reading about the climate science involved in the AGW issue is the increase of carbonic acid in the oceans. It immediately occured to me that such a phenomenon could be important to global mass extinctions because of its impact on the viability of the planktonic base of the food chain.
Logically, this leads to a serious and to me at least, very hard to address question of whether or not the “worst” effect of dumping gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere could be this ocean acidification leading ultimately to a collapse of the global ecosystem.
On a tangent, I was pleasantly surprised to see at least a few mentions of what the root cause of all these issues actually is, global human population and its seemingly inexorable growth. I haven’t any references ready to hand but a little googling should turn up the fact that there is actually a long list of elemental subtances that humanity is using more of than they are discovering new resources for, beginning with two that are fairly essential and basic, oxygen and fresh water. I am not talking about exotica necessary for so-called green technologies. Base metals are on the list.
Lastly, I agree with PZ that the climate is not as complex as the human body, or any body for that matter be it a squid or a dragonfly they are amazingly complex. Still the climate is something that is perhaps even more elusive than unraveling the workings of biochemistry and genetics will ultimately prove to be if for no other reason, than very much like biological evolution, it occurs over time scales that we can only imagine.
One wonders if human civilization will indeed have the dexterity and acumen to survive for another two millenia.
And to the guy who had the audacity to cite the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, is this just a phase your are going through? :-)
Ciao,
Truth Machine-
I apologize, I could have been clearer but I didn’t feel like addressing every single reaction. It was a general response to the treatment Randi was receiving in the first part of P.Z.’s post and many of the comments, not the discussions between commenters.
Some examples that I thought were a bit much:
(well, maybe reasonable, but come on, nobody worships the guy)
…and the one about not donating to the JREF this year because of this one article.
I was stating that while I agree with most of the commenters about the issue of AGW, and that Randi is wrong on this, I thought that a lot of the reactions were sniping and overdone. “Quibbling” was probably a bad word choice, it sounds more like I was referring to the later arguments between commenters themselves, not the reactions to Randi. It seemed to me that the bad news of this announcement brought out a bit of undeserved rage in this case, with some attacking Randi’s and the JREF’s overall image and usefulness based on one most likely temporary disagreement. I should also mention that there were a few people who expressed a similar reaction to my own: disappointed, but not ready to call for Randi’s head just yet!
One more example:
Sniping:
6. to attack a person or a person’s work with petulant or snide criticism, esp. anonymously or from a safe distance.
I realize that I am not in possession of all facts and eternal, immutable truth. I realize that neither is Randi. Unlike yourself, “Truth Machine”, neither of us ever claimed to be. In light of some circumstances that I stated in my previous post(age, health, misinformation by otherwise trustworthy colleagues) and in light of the years of good work done by Randi and his organization, I cannot reasonably say that he has lost all credibility just because of this episode, and I don’t think it’s reasonable for anyone to react that strongly. As others have pointed out, he openly invited disagreement and discussion by admitting his incomplete knowledge of the situation. You know, the first step to learning. I can only expect that someone who goes by “Truth Machine” might not be very familiar with the concept.
Also, I’m not sure what where you got “ad hominem and innuendo.” I was never arguing or disagreeing with anyone’s assessment of Randi’s factual wrongness, or their opinions of AGW issues. It was an obvious statement of opinion, not a smear. No matter how you read “quibbling” or “sniping”, I was just stating my opinion on the harshness of the response. Again, apologies, I could have been clearer in that first sentence, but I thought the rest of the comment got my point across.
I will repeat one bit from my previous comment, as I find it relevant again:
Yourself very much included. Forgive me if I take your personal assessments of credibility with a few grains of salt.
I don’t think it’s fair to say “so few” physicists prefer it. Out of 72 “leading cosmologists and other quantum field theorists” 58% thought the many-world interpretation was true. This included Hawking, Gell-Mann and Feynman.
http://www.physics.wustl.edu/~alford/many_worlds_FAQ.html
Sorry but this doesn’t follow. The science of climate change sits external to the social movement following it. If someone made a religion around nuclear physics and followers started worshipping an atom bomb, would that take away from any of the science of nuclear physics? Of course not!
And this is the problem. There are a lot of nonsense claims made about the environment in the social movement, but these are not necessarily what is backed up by science. Destroying the arguments made by well-meaning but naive supporters of AGW is not the same as destroying the case for AGW. If someone comes up to you and says “smoking a single cigarette will kill you”, does that mean that there’s no link between smoking and lung cancer?
DJSutton asked for a site that summarizes the arguments for AGW. The best page that I have seen on this topic is How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic.
Libertarian skeptics usually leave skepticism at the door if corporate profits are threatened.
Krubozumo Nyankoye @354 sez:
Oxygen? We are running out of oxygen? Is that why I have been so short of breath lately?
BS
BS, yes in fact oxygen is decreasing in abundance in the atmosphere, I don’t have a cite for you but there was a reference to this up thread as well and perhaps the person there can make a cite. Try also googling on terms like oxygen depletion and see what you get.
I would gladly do this work for you but my connection from my remote location is so slow that I can hardly proof read my postings.
Cheers,
Randi wrote in the linked statement:
Yes we’re smart. Smart enough to use physics and chemistry to develop the theory of global warming. Smart enough to back it up with observational evidence. Smart enough to build computer models to simulate our planet’s climate. Smart enough to make projections of future climate change. But are we smart enough to collectively do anything about it in advance? Time will tell, but it ain’t looking good.
a_ray_in_dilbert_space:
Funny, in my APS Bulletin that arrived today, there’s an article to the effect that, after demands by some of the usual suspects that APS replace its official (and rather strongly-worded) statement on AGW that supports the consensus with an anti-AGW one written by denialists, the Society has refused to do so. The committee investigating the issue suggested that they consider the tone of the current statement, but takes no issue with the truth of it.
evil9000:
WTF? Who’s giving out $100 billion in grant money? Over how long a period? I want to know now! Could it be the NSF, whose entire research budget is about $6 billion? Probably not. Could it be NASA, whose budget for everything, including shuttle launches, unmanned missions, etc., is about $17 billion? Er, no. Is there some shadowy government agency that secretly funnels grant money to researchers who can sing the official AGW fight song?
Or are you babbling about the $100 million in grant money put up the the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation? If so, you seem to having trouble counting zeros.
Krubozumo Nyankoye: I am dumbfounded. This is the first I ever heard of this. The depletion appears to be .1% since the beginning of the industrial age. See here.
BS
Preview doesn’t allow one to see embedded tags anymore? What’s up?
BS
BS – never the less it is real and we have to think in terms of how finely tuned the physiology of mammalian respiration is to the partial pressure of oxygen. When will it actually become difficult for all of us to breath? I have no idea, but I am concerned about how humanity imbalances the funadmentals of its ecosystem without undertanding them.
BTW you gave no link in your post but I have see higher numbers elsewhere than 0.1%.
Cheers,
Krubozumo Nyankoye Other sources gave larger figures for stagnant pockets; the .1% figure is for the atmosphere as a whole. I will read more. Click on the word “here” in #365. It works for me.
Couldn’t our bodies acclimate in the manner of people who live a high altitudes?
BS
If he’s wrong, it wouldn’t be the first time Randi blundered while dabbling in another well-established field.
Back in 2007, he risked the JREF prize on a remote viewing challenge that relied on a bit commitment protocol that he designed himself, without realizing that he was doing something that even skilled cryptographers have trouble with. Shortly afterwards, a cryptanalyst named Matt Blaze broke the protocol and revealed the contents of Randi’s “sealed box”.
Luckily, Blaze was more honest than your average clairvoyant.
Lucifer #252,
Since inference seems too much for you, I’ll just spell it out.
It wasn’t ad hominem. PZ said Randi joins the ranks of denialists, BECAUSE of what he explained in the whole freaking post. The POST WAS AN EXPLANATION.
Ad hominem would have been: Randi is stupid, therefore he’s wrong. The post was: Randi sympathizes with denialists, because of this:”
Clear enough?
@Neil #355,
In future, could you make your posts much shorter?
I have read and re-read the quoted text from Randi, and can’t fathom how anyone gets “denialist” out of it. For skeptics, people here sure like to joust at straw windmills (pardon the mixed metaphor). I interpret Randi’s comments to suggest that we don’t yet have reliable computer models that can make testable predictions — and we don’t. I didn’t realize there was contention over this point. “Sometimes it is better to ask some questions than know all the answers.” –James Thurber, Fables for Our Times.
A_Ray_in_Dilbert_Space
I would like to hear more about the “spherical cow”
Fail.
There is considerable confidence that climate models provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. This confidence comes from the foundation of the models in accepted physical principles and from their ability to reproduce observed features of current climate and past climate changes.
Dave R @372, please read the The Petition Project.
Now, what do you make of Randi’s quote “I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid.”?
Skippa88 @373, it’s an old physicists’s joke.
I’m hoping someone can help me. I’m looking for a rational explanation as to why the proxy data doesn’t match the real temp data for, I think, 1960 onward? What period was used to calibrate the proxy data for MBH? If the calibration was correct, why doesn’t the real temp data for 1960 onward correlate? This is truly puzzling to me, and I’m hoping that someone can help me to understand. Thanks.
Dave R: “We don’t yet have reliable computer models that can make testable predictions”
Try again.
Even if Randi were 100% correct in his claim, there are so many other lines of objective evidence all pointing to the same conclusion that Randi’s claim is equivalent to saying “we don’t know what colour dinosaurs were therefore they don’t exist”.
Of course, even that is a straw man — a major point of contention we have with Randi isn’t the incorrect conclusion, it’s the damn sloppy reasoning he used to reach it. He accepted the Oregon Petition, for Gouldssakes! It’s essentially climate change’s equivalent of the DiscoTute’s petition against evolution, and suffers from very much the same flaws (except here, some of the signatories have been dead since before the petition was first circulated, and the petition once proudly listed the cast of MASH and “Dr” Ginger Spice as signatories).
Randi could have reached these conclusions with even a cursory bit of skepticism or research. Instead he decided to go with uncited sources (head over to fellow SciBlog The Island of Doubt, where James actually phoned Randi and found out that Randi couldn’t remember where he learned about “lunar tides” and so forth) and transparent frauds instead of peer-reviewed evidence.
[Just checked, and Randi still has not posted his follow-up. We’ll see…]
A number of people seem to be confusing rejecting a person based on a substantive disagreement with believing that someone has fundamentally lost credibility as a skeptic by failing to uphold basic standards of skepticism.
Skepticism doesn’t deal only, or primarily for that matter, with the content of beliefs. It is an epistemological position. I think some people need to think about what this means in-fucking-full. Furthermore, Randi is a well-known skeptic whose words have impact, as he well knows, with a set of responsibilities corresponding to his spokesperson role. By publishing this, he has:
1) Given evidence that his skepticism does not rest on a solid epistemological foundation, which can lead to suspicions about its selectivity and doubts concerning its application in other realms, in addition to calling into question his and other skeptics’ ability to resist corporate disinformation campaigns. A single failure has implications.
2) Irresponsibly provided ammunition to a rabid corporate/ideological campaign based on pure short-term greed – the propaganda wing of a movement that is poisoning the planet for future generations. (We should really talk about the responsibilities of scientists and skeptics in these cases…)
Both of these are serious. In a way, I would be relieved if his follow-up were something like that suggested by tm, even though he’d look like an asshole. Otherwise, his talking-point nonsense is an embarrassment and a shame.
[Of course, this whole discussion is irrelevant. If you question/oppose the scientific understanding of AGW, present the specific scientific* basis for that. Or STFU.]
*By this I mean make a specific fucking argument based on cited sources in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Hope someone can help me with this. Thanks.
It looks like I’m late to the party, but what the heck… As someone who remains insufficiently convinced of the “A” in “AGW”, I’d just like to add something.
The current position of climate scientists is that they are “90% sure” that climate change is largely anthropogenic. To me, 90% seems to fall short of the usual standards of science. There is, after all, a 10% chance that they are wrong, and that is not insignificant.
Now, what could happen if we act on this now, and that 10% chance becomes a reality?
We may very well find ourselves in a situation where we have expended the vast majority of our available resources (money, time, etc) in a futile attempt to prevent further climate change. Resources which could have been spent, instead, on preparing to adapt our way of life to a world with a warmer climate.
It is this reason that I find the “Pascal’s Wager” argument, which many AGW proponents put forth, to be just as fallacious as the religious form of the argument.
Am I wrong? If so, why?
Darren,
Please cite your sources, for all of your claims. Thanks.
Darren,
Please explain how money and time are non-renewable resources that can be “spent.” Thanks.
Please tell, what is the usual standard of science?
@SCOM, #381
Thanks for the quick, if incredibly lame, response.
The “90%” comes from an interview I heard with Dr. Tim Flannery, a well known AGW proponent here in Australia. The 4th IPCC report also uses the term “very likely”, which they define as “90%-99%” confidence, supporting Flannery’s claim.
The remainder of what I wrote is a hypothetical to expose the flaw in the “Pascals Wager” argument.
It’s almost like you didn’t read it…
“Need Help” #377 said:
I think proxy data is anything that isn’t direct temperature readings. It is only the tree ring data -in fact, only the data from some trees in some places- that doesn’t match the real temp data from 1960 onwards.
Michael Mann said this was due to rainfall and pollution. The most cited paper I had found on the subject (500+ citations) is here, if you want to read it.
The tree-ring data isn’t vital anyhow, and the reason for the decline (while interesting in itself) isn’t important in the overall context.
After all, the tree ring data matched the real temp data closely before 1960 (and fits well with all the data going back further), so it wasn’t coincidence – there must be factors that have become newly significant.
#383
It is subjective, which is why I wrote “to me”, but I would feel that a 99%+ confidence level is a good level to aim for. Could you agree that a 1 in 10 chance of being wrong is not insignificant?
#382
Thanks. I now know what it feels like to be bukkaked with stupid.
It’s almost like there isn’t a source for anything after the 90% claim. It’s almost like you made it up out of your head, like a hypothesis.
It’s almost like “We may very well…” should have been “I am guessing that…” based on nothing but wishing.
@Darren: “The current position of climate scientists is that they are “90% sure” that climate change is largely anthropogenic. To me, 90% seems to fall short of the usual standards of science. There is, after all, a 10% chance that they are wrong, and that is not insignificant.
Now, what could happen if we act on this now, and that 10% chance becomes a reality?
We may very well find ourselves in a situation where we have expended the vast majority of our available resources (money, time, etc) in a futile attempt to prevent further climate change. Resources which could have been spent, instead, on preparing to adapt our way of life to a world with a warmer climate.
It is this reason that I find the “Pascal’s Wager” argument, which many AGW proponents put forth, to be just as fallacious as the religious form of the argument.
Am I wrong? If so, why?”
Yes, you are wrong. The situation is not analogous to Pascal’s Wager, we don’t have scientific evidence for the existence of God, not with 90% or even .9% certainty. A much better analogy is the following: Imagine scientists find an asteroid near Earth and determine that a catastrophic collision will occur with 90% (or make it 10%) certainty. Imagine that we had the technology to significantly reduce this probability, but that it would be expensive, and that scientists also say that it might be too late if we wait another 20 years. Would you bet on the chance that it would miss or that we would develop some kind of miracle technology in the next 20 years? It is obviously not a scientific decision, but it seems rational to me to try to avoid the catastrophe, even if we are not 100% sure that it will occur.
Darren, @381 SC asks for citations, not anecdote.
Also, your #387 is an evasive non-answer.
It’s a nice point to aim for, but in science terms it’s unrealistic. 90% is nothing to look down at.
So even in a situation in which AGW is ‘only’ 90% certain (leaving aside the enormous environmental issues aside from and related to this which are pushed aside in these discussions, and based solely on peer-interviewed data), you’re perfectly willing to risk your grandchildren’s and great-grandchildren’s… lives on those odds. Nice. Asshole.
Darren,
The cause aside for the moment, do you think global warming is occurring? Yes or no? Cite peer-reviewed scientific sources in your answer, please.
@DaveH (#388)
That is the nature of a hypothetical. The Pascal’s Wager argument is based on the idea that there are no undesirable repercussions if we act now. The hypothetical is used to demonstrate this is false.
@Lukas (#399)
Your strawman argument bares no resemblance to the argument I presented.
“Would you bet on the chance that it would miss or that we would develop some kind of miracle technology in the next 20 years?”
What the fuck, dude? I never said anything of the sort. I was going to try and rephrase your analogy to make it more consistent with my argument, but it is so far off base it may as well be apples and oranges.
Occurring or not?
@John (#390)
I am sorry that you do not understand what “anecdote” means. Please come back when you have something to contribute.
#Kel (#391)
I agree that with 90% confidence is not to be sneezed at, but a 10% chance of error should likewise not be discounted.
#SCOM (#392)
Yes. It’s a matter of instrumental record that the climate has/is changing.
Apparently a lot of denialists don’t even understand Pascal’s wager.
His point was that because hell entailed infinite suffering and heaven infinite reward, while prayer and attempted belief were finite expenditures, even the tiniest nonzero chance of God’s existence would justify attempting to believe. Pascal didn’t claim that the wager still applied if hell was only very undesirable but not infinitely undesirable.
The wager has everything to do with balancing finite investments against infinite gains and losses. It doesn’t work as an analogy outside these boundaries.
I think Darren is too busy using the straw man’s arguement of false dichotomy to bother with giving you a staight answer back by solid evidence, SC OM. /sigh
@Darren (394)
I was pointing out why Pascal’s Wager is not related to this problem. The question was a question about a hypothetical analogy, not about anything you said directly. The analogy is much closer to the AGW problem than Pascal’s Wager (again, because there is no scientific evidence for God), but if you don’t like analogies, we can discuss it directly. (But then you shouldn’t throw around Pascal’s Wager yourself.)
Let’s look at your argument again: “We may very well find ourselves in a situation where we have expended the vast majority of our available resources (money, time, etc) in a futile attempt to prevent further climate change. Resources which could have been spent, instead, on preparing to adapt our way of life to a world with a warmer climate.”
The main problem is that adapting to a warmer climate, depending on how much it will warm, will likely be more expensive and cost more lives than curbing carbon emissions now. That is what current-day science predicts. Yes, it is not 100% sure, but what exactly is your point if not betting on the chance that the “very likely” explanation is false? Your argument makes the implicit assumption that we can adapt to a warmer climate easier than curbing carbon emissions. Is this backed up by science?
My question was @ #393: “The cause aside for the moment, do you think global warming is occurring? Yes or no? Cite peer-reviewed scientific sources in your answer, please.” Respond.
@sgbm (#397)
Pascal’s Wager is a wager where you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. That’s it.
@Utakata (#398)
What false dichotomy have I presented?
#SCOM #400
FFS! Global Warming, Climate Change… call it whatever the fuck you like! YES! Stop wasting my fucking time with your inane and irrelevant questions you pedantic fuck.
The source for my position is all the countless graphs which exist showing the instrumental record of Earth’s climate warming over the last 50 years.
That false dichotomy. /facepalm
Darren:
You claim you heard someone said it in an interview. Maybe I should’ve written “say-so”, rather than anecdote? :)
Still no citation(s), I note.
PS re “very likely”: [Pullquote]
Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report
Summary for Policymakers:
It is very likely that the observed increase in CH4 concentration is predominantly due to agriculture and fossil fuel use. CH4 growth
rates have declined since the early 1990s, consistent with total emissions (sum of anthropogenic and natural sources) being nearly constant during this period. The increase in N2O concentration is primarily due to agriculture. {2.2}
There is very high confidence that the net effect of human activities since 1750 has been one of warming.6 {2.2}
You should read it in Pascal’s own words then, dumbfuck, because that’s not what it is at all.
Prayer and devotion aren’t “nothing to lose,” they are expenditures of time and energy, and as Pascal acknowledged, error is a loss.
And human survival isn’t “everything to gain.” It is not an infinite gain; it is not heaven. Neither is extinction an infinite loss; it is not eternal torture in hell.
The wager simply is not analogous. The more you insist that it is, the more you demonstrate that you did not understand the wager.
Gee, but those brains running Religion98 just can’t cope with fancy software like Nero Informal Logic9 anymore….
:P
So that’s a “Yes, global warming is occurring” for Darren. What do you think is the cause, Darren? Please cite peer-reviewed scientific articles in your answer.
Darren,
Please explain how cutting our consumption of fossil fuels and reducing the waste of other precious resources (water, forests, top soil, etc…) will make us less adapted to our future environment ?
Darren,
You might want to read up on the intricacies of Pascal’s Wager; it’s hardly as simple as you’re presenting it. Try going here.
@sgbm (#405)
You sound like a new-age spiritualist trying to define “god” as the vibration of the energy waves which reside in us all.
Labels like “Pascal’s Wager” work because we, as a society, have a shared understanding of the concept the label refers to. No one gets to enforce their personal definition on the rest of society.
It is clear that you knew exactly what I meant by “Pascal’s Wager”, so the label obviously is a fitting one, and yet all you do is argue over definitions of words rather than tackle the argument.
But I never expected anything more from you.
Yes it was a very insightful hypothetical you posed. A mental journey into the future, you hero-like in the jungle of possibilities, with your gleaming Sword of Hypo-
The word “hypothetical” doesn’t give you carte blanche to make stuff up.
is irrelevant.
Nothing to do with AGW is “based on the idea that there are no undesirable repercussions if we act now.”
There will be some undesirable repercussions for all of us.
That is IF the nations can get together and all agree to act against their own short-term interests, especially the major industrial nations, for the sake of the long-term.
Shorter Darren: without absolute certainty, ameliorative action is premature and unwarranted.
Bah.
Stupid fuck. I am defining “Pascal’s Wager” to mean “the wager that was proposed by Pascal in his Pensées.” You are the one who is trying to redefine it to mean something else.
I’m pretty sure Pascal gets to enforce his personal definition of his own fucking wager.
If you think it means something else, that’s your fault, and I don’t think you get to blame society for your ignorance.
No, I don’t think even you know exactly what you mean by it.
What argument? You are using a shitty analogy because you are subliterate. This is very annoying, so I am trying to help you learn something.
Read the wager. It applies only to infinite gains and losses against finite investments.
It can not apply to global warming, because the worst case scenario is merely the extinction of all humans and most other animals. That’s somewhat undesirable, but it’s trivial compared to torturing us all in hell forever.
@scom (#407)
I do not know what the cause is. Climate scientists are 90% sure it is man, and they may well be correct. I, personally, have not been convinced, perhaps due to the lack of easily accessible layman-level literature, and am concerned that putting all our eggs in one basket at this stage may not be the brightest idea. I don’t know how you expect to get citations for personal opinions. It seems you think requesting them will impress your fellow Pharyngulans.
@negentropyeater (#408)
1. It may cost a hell of a lot of money and has potential for long-term economic difficulties.
2. It consumes time which could be spent preparing for climate change.
3. If (1) turns out to be true, and the science is wrong, it will undermine public confidence in science, making it more difficult to persuade future action.
Note: I am not saying we should do nothing now, and just accept it is going to happen. But I think some thought needs to be given to the consequences of being wrong.
#Wowbagger (#409)
See #410. I am done arguing definitions. It is clear you understand the concept I am referring to, so stop this distraction.
No, Darren’s argument makes the assumption that it will be easier to adapt to a warmer climate by plundering the earth’s resources now rather than conserving them.
He seems to be making the Bjorn Lomborg argument.
Darren:
Layman-level literature: begin here.
I asked you what you think, and on what basis. A simple question…seemingly.
[scientific citation needed]
Indeed. Evidence and all that shit.
Why not? What alternative(s) do you find more convincing?
Bullshit. It’s been linked on this very fucking thread, you mendacious disingenuite.
[truCAST] blather. I’ve asked you specific questions.
A distraction would be choosing a shitty analogy and then clinging to it jealously when people point out how stupid it makes you sound. Really. The sane thing would have been to simply admit “yeah, it was a shitty analogy, sorry about that.”
Seriously, I cannot understand what greater point you think you’re trying to convey, because unlike you I understand what Pascal’s wager actually is, and your clumsy handling of it is a distraction from coherent discussion.
@3 DJSutton
Anyone know any great sites that summarize the arguments for AGW? I’d love to be able to argue it more coherently when it comes up.
Try ‘Climatedebatedaily.com’ – gives both sides of the argument and is a balanced view of the science and populist scaremongering on both sides. As for me, the world may be warming, but I am as undecided as I am not concerned. I tend to take the view AGW is happening but not to the catastrophic extent foisted on us by the green mental brigade.
@John (#411)
To make myself clear, I am not using the “Pascal’s Wager” argument as a rationale to dismiss AGW or taking preventative action. I am using it to caution against the “we must do something/this is something/therefore we must do this” mentality which is prevalent in pro-AGW circles, without a proper understanding of the potential consequences (namely, the consequences of being wrong).
@sgbm (#413)
Fine. Let’s call it the “everything to gain/nothing to lose argument”. Whatever floats your boat. I don’t care for your word games and distractions. Tell me why the logic of my argument – whatever you want to call it – is wrong. PROTIP: It has nothing to do with hell.
#415. Bad timing. See #414.
This highlights the disparity between the scientific establishment and the layman. You’re getting hung up on a figure that’s really there as a means of saying there’s not absolute certainty. Given the nature of the scientific enterprise though, this kind of language is expected. It is not religion, it doesn’t pretend to be infallible.
I suggest that you pick up Michael Shermer’s wonderful book Science Friction where he explores the limits of science. He has an interesting essay in there on certainty in science and overthrowing of ideas. On there he uses a scale from 0.1 to 0.9 where 0.9 is as certain as one can get in science while 0.1 is indistinguishable from the null hypothesis. When Shermer uses 0.9 when talking about the earth orbiting the sun, does it really mean that we should feel that such a statement is like rolling a 10 sided dice where it could come up 1 instead of 10? Or rather it’s conveying that the position is strongly held and supported despite the scientific endeavour being fallible?
Then, as I suggested, STFU. If you won’t engage with the literature, you have nothing of scientific value to say.
Darren wrote:
No, you aren’t; that implies that you presented an argument to support your position when you have, in fact, only made unsupported assertions – and have subsequently been demonstrated incorrect by numerous posters.
You can pout and stamp your feet all you like – you’re still wrong.
Darren,
Please explain how conserving precious resources will cause more long term difficulties than wasting them.
NB: precious resources = fossil fuels, water, forests, top soil, etc… NOT “money”.
You don’t seem to understand that time spent on working on renewable enrgies and reducing our waste of precious resources prepares us for climate change. What do you suggest we spend our time on in order to prepare us better ?
Tony Abbott, is that you ??
The same fallacious short-sighted lobby-friendly arguments for sure.
#416.
Thanks, watching now. He seems to have a large collection of material. I actually do want to be convinced, because I am sick of feeling like an outcast in the skeptical community – like an atheist in a room full of christians, which in it’s own way is disturbing (free-thinking ‘n all).
#421.
You could be right, but I would have thought that “99%” would be a better indication of extreme certainty without (unattainable) absolute certainty. If climate scientists are 99% certain, then they should say so! 90% does not exactly have me brimming with confidence in the biggest issue in our history.
#423.
Yes, I am. The point of the argument is that it is not hard to envisage a plausible scenario where *drastic* action now could place us in a situation just as bad or even worse than the one we are currently in.
All you and SGBM have done is argue about my use of the term “Pascals Wager”.
Insisting that you are right does not make it so.
Darren,
What should we do then ?
Darren,
First, it was not I, but SGBM who chided you re your misapplication of Pascal’s Wager (and #411 was DaveH_of_Lundun!).
Second, the consequences of being wrong would be no longer being dependent on non-renewable fossil fuels. That’s bad? :)
(Hint: consider, as but one factor, the geopolitical consequence of this.)
Dumbfuck, it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about hell or anything else; Pascal’s wager is about infinite gains and losses for finite expenditures.
And you’re still fucking it up now. Responding to global warming does not gain us “everything.” Everything that humans lamented before we discovered global warming will still be worth lamenting.
Neither does responding to global warming entail “nothing to lose.” In fact, DaveH_of_Lundun just reiterated this for you:
Nothing to do with AGW is “based on the idea that there are no undesirable repercussions if we act now.”
Why are you so stupid and subliterate?
Al Gore: We have here a scales that balances two different things. On one side, we have *gold* bars! Mmmmmm, don’t they look good? I’d just like to have some of those gold bars. Mmmmm. On the other side of the scales… um… THE ENTIRE PLANET! Hmmmm…
[the audience laughs]
Al Gore: I think this is a false choice for two reasons: number one, if we don’t *have* a planet…
[laughter]
Al Gore: The other reason is that, if we do the *right* thing, then we’re gonna create a lot of wealth, and we’re gonna create a lot of jobs, because doing the right thing moves us forward.
Would you feel better if they said 99% even if such a statement were scientifically unjustifiable even if it reflects a more general understanding of the nature of probabilities?
#424
“You don’t seem to understand that time spent on working on renewable enrgies and reducing our waste of precious resources prepares us for climate change. What do you suggest we spend our time on in order to prepare us better?”
That’s actually a *very* good point (also the first post here to actually address my argument – how about that?).
Right now I can’t think of any action to prevent GW which would hinder an attempt to adapt to climate change, which kind of blows a hole through that point.
My point about public confidence in science still stands (which I assume you didn’t have an issue with), but I may have to go away and re-think my position on this one.
Thanks.
Darren,
Kudos for your attitude — though I disagree that your point stands: science stands or falls on its merits (i.e. congruence to reality as established by empiricism), not on its popularity or convenience.
John (#428)
Apologies for the confusion. You basically just made the same point as negentropyeater, so see my response at #432.
sgbm (#429)
“Nothing to do with AGW is “based on the idea that there are no undesirable repercussions if we act now.”
Strawman. Wither that or the sub-literacy is on your side.
Kel (#431)
No. That’s why I take issue! The fact that they say “only” 90% implies that there must be 10% uncertainty, which is a large enough chance to at least consider the consequences.
Replying to self at #434
Oh, joy… trust me to type “Wither” instead of “Either” when talking about literacy…
Sorry if someone mentioned this before, I couldn’t go through all the comments:
I am sad to hear that. Then again, this may be a chance for skeptics to prove that we don’t blindly “follow” our “authorities”.
Well, except for pharyngulating polls…
You imbecile, plenty of people have been addressing your mistakes (you haven’t made an argument), but you can’t learn anything as long as you persist in deliberately misunderstanding the issue as “everything to gain and nothing to lose.”
We know many of the costs of inaction. We know many of the costs of action. A successful decision can be made on such a cost/benefit analysis, but all windows of opportunity close over time.
If you could acknowledge that everyone else has a great deal more nuanced understanding than “everything to gain and nothing to lose,” you might be able to learn something, but probably not, since as a separate matter you are invested in the faith that all working climate scientists are stupid and your incredulity is more important than their work.
Damn, but you are fucking stupid, Darren. If “everything to gain and nothing to lose” is a strawman of your ignorance, then you shouldn’t have offered it yourself.
Well, I’m done for the night.
Thanks everyone for the interesting and lively debate. Special thanks to John, Kel and negen for giving me something to think about, and SGBM for being the token wanker.
Good night!
And not only stupid, but the short-term memory of pig shit.
Guh. Have you ever taken a statistics course, Darren?
Oh, FFS. I swear this is my last post for the night, but I can’t let this one go by without comment.
SGBM, you are *continually* misrepresenting me. For the last time: I am NOT using the “Pascals Wager/whatever you want to call it” argument as an argument that AGW is false!!! Get that through your thick, dogmatic skull.
I was using it to illustrate a potential consequence of taking *drastic action* with considering *possible consequences*. It has nothing to do with my personal position on AGW.
With people like you on their side, it is no wonder climate scientists are having a rough time convincing people.
Good night all (and this time, I mean it).
Stupid fuck, I didn’t ever claim that you were. Learn to read.
No shit, that was obvious, and it was still shockingly stupid, because we know most of the costs of action, and we know most of the costs of inaction, and none of that has anything to do with “everything to gain and nothing to lose.”
Absolutely no one here made any suggestion that justified your deliberate misrepresentation of “no undesirable repercussions if we act now.” You are a liar, and you’re lashing out at everyone because you were caught in your lie.
As for fucking “drastic action”, you lying piece of shit, there’s no honest room for such distortion when we are talking about 1% of GDP.
The vast majority of the world’s people are convinced. It is no wonder that it is in those countries that are the most adept at over-consumption and waste of resources that one finds the most people who have a hard time being convinced.
James Delingpole has a new crap article on his Telegraph blog. I’m sure it’s not the only place the story will appear.
Feel free to replicate the following information wherever fit:
Delingpole fails at journalism. Again.
A solitary Russian newspaper (Kommersant – lit. “The Businessman”) reported claims by “the Institute of Economic Analysis”, based in Moscow, that the Hadley Center for Climate Change cherrypicked Russian meteorological data.
This story was gleefully swallowed by “a libertarian conservative who writes brilliant books and brilliant articles, and is really great on TV, radio and the internet too.”
Since Delingpole is, at best, too lazy to check his sources, others will have to do it for him.
So, who the hell are the Institute of Economic Analysis, and what would they know about climate science?
The IEA was created by Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov , a Russian libertarian economist and former economic policy advisor to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. A well known global warming skeptic, Illarionov is currently employed by the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute, a pro-free market, libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C.
The IEA retains close links with the Cato Institute. The IEA website reports on a recent cozy joint conference. Isn’t that nice?
It seems that once again we have a smear story from the rumour mill that has absolutely nothing to do with climatology.
KG, Lukas @389 already made your second point, and Darren already dismissed it as “apples and oranges”.
Dave R. says “I interpret Randi’s comments to suggest that we don’t yet have reliable computer models that can make testable predictions — and we don’t.”
Horseshit!
Model predictions:
That the globe would warm, and about how fast, and about how much.
That the troposphere would warm and the stratosphere would cool.
That nighttime temperatures would increase more than daytime temperatures.
That winter temperatures would increase more than summer temperatures.
Polar amplification (greater temperature increase as you move toward the poles).
That the Arctic would warm faster than the Antarctic.
The magnitude (0.3 K) and duration (two years) of the cooling from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
They made a retrodiction for Last Glacial Maximum sea surface temperatures which was inconsistent with the paleo evidence, and better paleo evidence showed the models were right.
They predicted a trend significantly different and differently signed from UAH satellite temperatures, and then a bug was found in the satellite data.
The amount of water vapor feedback due to ENSO.
The response of southern ocean winds to the ozone hole.
The expansion of the Hadley cells.
The poleward movement of storm tracks.
The rising of the tropopause and the effective radiating altitude.
The clear sky super greenhouse effect from increased water vapor in the tropics.
The near constancy of relative humidity on global average.
The expanded range of hurricanes and cyclones–a year before Cyclone Catarina showed up off the coast of Brazil, something which had never happened before.
Maybe you should educate yourself.
I see Orac has weighed in.
I think what has put Randi off is that there is so much stupid on the correct side of the debate (that AGW is real and a problem) that it is obscuring the real science. Watching the introduction to Copenhagen and listening to Al Gore I would be tempted to conclude that it’s all bullshit if I wasn’t a physicist and hadn’t read and understood what the IPCC is saying. With the bullshit flying fast on both sides I am not surprised that Randi doesn’t think either side has proved their case.
Darren;
Just a rock-pickin’ minute here. Didn’t you just quote them saying exactly that in the IPCC report just above?
Yes, yes you did! I think you might want to heed what some of the others have had to say about your memory, I can’t help but agree with them. You may have chosen the lowest possible percentage to quote and remember, but it looks to me like they defined ‘very likely’ as at least 90% and up to 99%. So, since they ARE saying exactly that, according to your quote in post #384, are you going to change your tune and stop suggesting that we do nothing?
I see Darren the troll supposedly left. He never produced a scientific citation, just blathered about confidence levels, and picked the lowest confidence to keep hammering for his lack of necessity for political solutions. What a head-in-the-sand probable liberturd.
Quote from Randi’s article
“Humans will continue to infest Earth because we’re smart.”
This is so disappointing. I though Randi was one of the good guys – look at the evidence and come to some conclusion about what you find based on that evidence. Just because we have been around for a while (an eyeblink in real terms) doesn’t mean we’ll still be here next week, next year, next century…
The problem with AGW for me is that everyone seems to have an opinion and nobody seems to trust the CLIMATE scientists. The reason that is put climate in capitals is that they are supposedly the experts. And yet Randi has put his faith in a petition that is signed by general scientists. IE not climate expets.
I have a degree in Computer Science which would qualify me to sign the petition (242 Computer Scientists have signed it) but I don’t believe for one minute that I am qualified to actually sign the thing. I’m good at assessing data but I’m no climatologist.
I think he needs to get back to looking at what the experts say.
John Morales@446,
Thanks – I’d still be interested in a proper answer from Darren, as to why the situations are allegedly so different. I can list specific respects in which apples and oranges differ, so he should be able to do the same for AGW vs asteroid collision.
This seems to be a good place to raise a very serious issue: the increasing epidemic of innumeracy in our country. More and more we see poor unfortunates like our poster child Darren seem utterly unable to deal with simple statistical concepts like probability and confidence. I think that we need to have a Benefit Poker Tournament for folks like Darren in which they, to can participate as, um, guests of honor!
Darren states that climate scientists are 90% certain and concludes from that that there’s a 10% probability that they are wrong–despite the fact that there’s no evidence that they are wrong.
OK, let’s say that I have a jar that I am told contains black and white balls. I draw 22 balls and they are all white. Binomial statistics says that I can conclude with 90% confidence that the percentage of white balls is at least 90%. I’m gonna give Darren and all the other folks out there this problem as a qualifying question as a contestant for our poker tournament. If you would take the bet if I offered you 9:1 odds if the next ball drawn were black, then you qualify as a contestant for our little Tourney.
Any takers?
negentropyeater says “It is no wonder that it is in those countries that are the most adept at over-consumption and waste of resources that one finds the most people who have a hard time being convinced.”
You forgot “bad at math”.
Sheesh, morons and probability don’t mix well. I heard Ray Comfort whining about the fact that “evolutionists” speak in probabilities rather than certainties like it was a bad thing. Well, I guess for a professional con artist like him coming across as anything short of absolutely confident would be a bad thing. He views talk about probabilities as an attempt at making catch-all predictions and proof that we lack certainty. In his (what I will generously call) mind the fact that he speaks in absolutes and we don’t is a victory for him. However, talking in terms of probability is just an honest admission about your incomplete information and limitations. Yeah, Comfort has pyschological certainty, but so does the locked up nut who thinks he’s Napoleon.
And when you use phrases like “extremely unlikely” to people like Comfort or Darren their ignorance of probability and wishful thinking allows them to intrepret it as “fairly likely”. It’s not surprising casinos can make a lot of money off people like them.
/early morning rant
Ah, well. Opinions are like dismembered cheerleaders in the freezer: everybody’s got one. (Ummm…right?)
This and the entire paragraph that follows are, in my ever so humble opinion, excellent summaries of one of the root causes of much of the modern misunderstanding both of evolutionary biology and AGW.
I got no proposed cure for it, sadly. I think often it’s essentially a wilful misunderstanding. You can explain until you’re blue in the face that reality is all about probability, that absolute certainty is mostly the province of abstract mathematics, and that functionally extremely high confidence levels are as good as you’re going to get, and more than good enough for a criminal verdict or a solid, workable non-bathshit-crazy cosmology, and the woo-addled brain is still gonna treat that .00002 percent probability that’s left as the loophole through which it pours all its wishful thinking. All they hear is that you’re saying yeah, there technically could be a magical pink pixie in the sky that listens to mah prayers and a little red horned guy what spread the fossils around for kicks, and carbon levels could just by some miraculous coincidence have risen and fallen in step with temperature all these millenia while have nothing to do with it… The infinitesimal probabilities you have to attach to those, that all washes past ’em like it’s some kinda irrelevant fine print… I mean, who cares, I live on hope, however insanely unwarranted…
(/So here’s $150,000 cash, the deed to mah house and the keys to the family car, and put it all on the dead horse they’re probably not even going to be able to resuscitate in time for the race, thanks so much, my good man…)
Comparing the evidence for “AGW” to the evidence for evolution betrays an appalling lack of comprehension of the scientific method. And it’s sure rampant here.
Dave,
Actually, the evidence for anthropogenic causation of the current warming epoch is overwhelming. It is much better than the 90% CL. So I must ask, where are YOU looking for your evidence, ’cause it sure ain’t the peer reviewed literature?
Darren,
Ha. Don’t be fooled by strange gods’ abrasive debating style and penchant for profanity. Underneath it all, he’s got a heart of gold. :-)
As the regulars will be aware, I used to be an ardent AGW sceptic; but I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that, having no background in climatology, I don’t really know what I’m talking about on the subject, and so I no longer weigh in on these debates. No one is an expert in everything, and part of the process of educating oneself is to identify the areas of one’s own ignorance; as Socrates said, “If I am wise, it is because I alone know that I know nothing.” As far as I’m concerned, only time will tell who’s right on this issue.
I didn’t see this get answered. Current partial pressure of oygen is about 159 mmHg (STPD; apologies for the archaic units); this means about 100 mmHg in the alveoli of the lungs (after mixing with depleted air in the dead space of the trachea and bronchi). Almost all of the oxygen in arterial blood is bound to hemoglobin, and hemoglobin is pretty much saturated down to about 60-70 mmHg.
So atmospheric oxygen declines of even a few percent are probably irrelevant to physiology at sea level.
Just a note to those who hope Darren has skived off: He only promised to leave for the night… and it’s morning where I sit!
Darren, the whole Pascal’s Wager line of argument is a giant red herring. Leaving aside how wrong you are about the nature of Pascal’s Wager, the argument you’re tagging with that label isn’t anybody’s main argument anyway.
Those who support the proposition that AGW is real, and that it urgently demands mitigating action — which is to say, the overwhelming majority of the Reality-Based Community™ — are not saying, as you seem to think, “Hey, there’s a good chance we’re wrong, but so what? There’s really nothing to lose.” Instead, we’re saying, “We’re as sure as we can possibly be that we’re not wrong, at least about the core issue, and there’s everything to lose if we don’t act quickly to address the problem.” And then, as an afterthought… a fillip to the whackjobs who still don’t get it… we add, “By the way, the things we need to do to mitigate AGW are things we probably ought to be doing in any case.”
It’s not that anyone claims mitigation actions have no cost; it’s that some of us understand that they have net positive value, independent of the transparently urgent need to save the fucking planet from AGW specifically.
I’m disappointed, both in Randi’s half-baked conclusions, and the failure of trolls to take the bait. One would think they would smell blood on the battlefield and swoop in for the kill when it’s one of our own. I think they’re scared of us. That or they’re too bumfuzzled by the login process.
The log in has been off for a few days. Most of the potential trolls probably have gotten their pants scorched here before. Something about their inability to show real scientific evidence, that leaves them with their
pantsgoats on fire.I’m so fucking sick of these people (in addition to being annoyed by their singularly uncreative screen names…but I digress…). Even the ones who say they’re really just talking about solutions won’t actually put in writing that they accept the problems. They’re perfectly willing, within a thread or moving from discussion to discussion, to jump among levels of denial. It’s deeply dishonest. It’s impossible to have a conversation about solutions when one party will not present an honest and explicit evaluation of the problem.
I think anyone claiming he’s talking about proposed solutions should first have to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence for AGW (and if he believes there are other causes, specify them and provide the scientific basis for said belief); recognize the suite of associated issues (ocean acidification, the rapid depletion of nonrenewable resources, habitat and soil destruction,…); and acknowledge that these are dire problems that require action (and if they don’t believe that, provide the scientific basis for said disbelief). They can then propose and defend alternative solutions.
Are you honestly saying that you believe the evidence amassed by the IPCC and, say, Monckton is equivalent? That you are completely incapable of evaluating the quality of evidence in this area? That you’re that stupid? This is an urgent issue. Stop being a mealy-mouthed dipshit.
On the Difference Between the AGW Wager and Pascal’s Wager
Okay, I admit that I have not read each and every post that precedes mine, but I thought I’d chime in for whatever it’s worth. Maybe someone has already pointed this out, or will have by the time I’m ready to press “Submit.”
From what I did read, many people noted that, of course, there is no evidence for god, while there is plenty for global warming. And others noted that a Pascal’s Wager-style argument could reasonably be applied in kinds of risk management to other ideas for which there is evidence.
Sure. But I don’t think those are the primary reasons the AGW Wager resonates intuitively in a way that Pascal’s Wager does not. I think the real difference is that Pasca’s Wager sets up a false dichotomy, while the two options in the AGW Wager are, indeed, the only two options available.
Pascal’s Wager posits that their either is a god who will reward belief, and punish disbelief, in him or there is not. Therefore, one might as well beleive, since there is nothing to lose by believing and potentially something to lose by not believing.
The AGW Wager posits that global warming either exists or it does not. Therefore, one might as well act on the assumption that it does by taking action to reduce it, since there is nothing to lose by being green and potentially something to lose by not being green.
Whatever the individual merits and faults of the AGW Wager, it is most certainly not like Pascal’s. The premise with which the latter begins just isn’t true. Maybe there is a god and she loathes unthinking belief, and will actually reward doubters in the afterlife. Maybe there are many gods, and some value disbelief more than belief. Or maybe there is just such a god as described, but he also requires a lot more, such as believing in the correct Holy Book or calling him by his one and only name (Yaweh? Jesus? Allah?).
In any case, there are myriad other possibilities than the two in Pascal’s Wager’s false dichotomy, which makes even beginning hedge one’s bets in the manner suggested flatly impossible. Moreover, one actually can act on the assumption that global warming exists even if one does not believe in it, but Pascal’s Wager requires actual belief, which, as far as I know, can’t be faked.
That there is actually evidence for global warming is true, but if equal amounts of evidence pointed to the equal probabilities of an infinite number of other theories, the evidence wouldn’t much matter.
What I think truly resonates intuitively and on first read is that the AGW Wager sets up a genuine dichotomy. Either global warming exists or it does not. That much is true. So, we can then move onto the rest of it with our minds open to the advice.
He was also completely fucking right in the entire exchange with Darren. I understand you probably have Libertard sympathy pangs or something, but you come across as an ass with a comment like that, “making excuses” for sgbm being right and making a fellow Libertard look/feel like a moron.
Walton:
As much as I admire your Socratic wisdom regarding the limits of your own knowledge, I don’t think “only time will tell” is a viable approach to this issue.
Or, really, to any issues of human governance in a technological age. Admittedly, some technical questions are sufficiently not urgent that kicking the can down the road is a defensible strategy… but more often, at the intersection of science/technology and public policy, laypeople who are clearly unqualified to judge the core science nevertheless must make judgments about the policy implications of the science, if humans are to continue to live in self-governing communities.
Most of us are nonexperts about most things; If we’re to have functional society, we must have some mechanisms for knowing when to trust the folks who are experts. I think such mechanisms exist, and that they’re operating properly in AGW case, and I’m confident in casting my votes (and asserting whatever other sociopolitical influence I might have) in favor of aggressively mitigating AGW, notwithstanding the fact that I actually know the cubed-root of fuck-all about the details of climate science.
Democracy, dude!
Randi has a response up on the
swift blog. 2 pages long, I haven’t read it yet.
BS
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/806-i-am-not-qdenyingq-anything.html
It was a joke. strange gods and I have a long history on this site (which has included plenty of hostile exchanges), and I doubt he will find my comment particularly objectionable. If he does, I’m sure he’ll say so.
Wow, that’s a disappointing read.
*sigh*
Randi has posted a follow up.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/806-i-am-not-qdenyingq-anything.html
re 474:
Wow, that’s a disappointing read.
Agreed. While “notpology” is not the quite word for this, I can’t think of a better that starts with “not-“.
Basically boiled down to “I have the right to express uninformed opinions.” I had hoped Randi would be rational enough to know that “I don’t understand the science enough to express an opinion” is a perfectly acceptable stance.
Seconded. Randi splits commenters into “good” and “bad”, implies PZ has lost credibility with his reaction, and completely ignores that most of the “bad” commenters were so disenfranchised due to the shoddy (or lack of) reasoning employed in his previous blog post.
Great, now he’s “not sure, leaning towards believing”. That doesn’t change his equivocating between scientists doing real climate work and armchair skeptics who go against vast published evidence. Seriously, his response stuck me as very Walton-esque. It’s great that you hit a point where you realize you aren’t qualified to seriously evaluate the evidence, but that doesn’t justify a “only time will tell who is right” laissez-faire approach.
Randi:
This passage is little short of bizarre. He seems to think that the problem with burning fossil fuels and wood is that heat is released…?
embarrassing
And of course he does. However, we have the right to thank him kindly for his opinion, and then gently suggest that perhaps, if it’s not too much trouble, maybe he could just STFU until he’s learned enough about the subject to say something meaningful.
Sven (@478):
Yeah, in addition to the peculiar emphasis on heat, the paragraph you quote lists lots of things “we” do to increase warming, then concludes “My remarks, again, are directed at the complexity of determining whether this GW is anthropogenic or not” [emphasis added].
“You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means!”
Randi:
that’s the excuse for both lame pieces.
And Randi digs further into nonsense :
No Randi, you are very clearly a denialist. No different than most of them. You deny that we can know that the observed GW has anthropogenic causes. And that helps others to deny that we should do anything about it.
PZ didn’t rush to publication by accusing you of having joined the denialist camp. And your second lame piece makes it even more patent.
Randi, STFU before it’s too late.
Reading the totally off-topic second paragraph of Randi’s follow-up post, I was thinking that this could be a small glimpse into the frustration all those psychics, dowsers, healers, and telekinetics who went up against Randi must have felt. I always liked how he veered off onto other subjects using his wizard’s wit to distract during anti-magic performances and to flesh out minor semantic quibbles, but, unholy spam, it raises the red flags of “not-pology” and “avoidance” at the beginning of a response to critics.
“Say it ain’t so”
Well, PZ I have news for you. There is this interesting new invention. This science guy, Alexander Graham Bell, invented it. Obviously you haven’t heard of it yet but it’s called the “telephone”. You pick it up and INSTANTLY can be in contact with someone that lives far away! You can talk to them.
Even 60 Minutes calls before they run a story to have the “other side” comment. It’s called being “fair and professional”. It’s not called “getting my google on” and “self promotion”.
If anyone is deserving of the simple respect of a phone call, it is Randi. You know what he’s done. The thousands that are inspired to follow in his footsteps, the books, the awards, the sacrifice. Respect is earned, and I should think if anyone has earned some respecct it is Randi.
Doesn’t mean he’s our sacred cow, but any human being is deserving of at least a phone call before you write something like THAT mess above.
I don’t mean to get all religious here, but “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” isn’t out of place here. You would like a chance to comment before all the articles written about you I hope. Or is just gettig the old google hits up what it’s all about? I don’t know, and I dont’ have your phone number to call and ask you.
but I know you have Randi’s phone number.
Can you hear me now PZ?
damfino (@484):
Sorry, but I disagree entirely and emphatically with your position. PZ’s function here is as a blogger, not as an investigative reporter: His role is simply to have opinions, and to write about them in ways that his readers find useful and/or entertaining.
And it’s perfectly legitimate to for him to react to Randi’s actual words, just as written, without making any effort to track Randi down and find out what he “really” meant. Randi’s obligation is to communicate clearly: The majority of his readers will not be in PZ’s privileged position of being able to call Randi up and chat with him. We’re not only allowed, but perhaps obligated, to take Randi’s posted words strictly at face value. Certainly that’s what the people who seek to use them to sow doubt and confusion will do.
The very reason you want PZ and others to bend over backwords to give Randi the benefit of the doubt — his history, and his prominence in the skeptical community — are also the reasons his FAIL here is so damaging. At some level, skeptics must distance themselves from the invidious implications of Randi’s comment (regardless of whether or not they reflect what Randi “really meant”), lest skepticism itself be tarnished.
Oxygen depletion? Come on. Yes, it’s decreasing by the same amount that carbon dioxide is increasing, for the obvious reason – and that’s absolutely not something we need to care about. The atmosphere currently contains almost 21 % oxygen, and we can breathe all the way down to 13 %. Thirteen. This (along with the inefficiency of our lungs) is why mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is at all possible.
You know what “ppm” stands for, I’m sure.
Come on! Flannery is a well-known vertebrate palaeontologist, not a climatologist! It may well be that he understands the matter better than Al Gore (Australia’s climate having changed a lot during the time which he studies), but that still doesn’t mean you should rely on him as opposed to climatologists.
so, PZ is a blogger and that allows for all fallacy and gosh knows the internet does seem to allow many people the fun ananomity of posting whatever they feel without it reflecting back on them personally. It’s this new rules anything goes internet morality that allows people to download music and videos and steal art and photography to use on their sites and all that.
PZ is NOT just some nameless blogger without Randi’s phone number. yes PZ should have run the article, I disagree with Randi on a number of issues. BUT ONE MINUTE phone call is ALWAYS the most basic level of journalistic/ editorial etiquette. Just becuase PZ calls himself a “blogger” instead of say an editorialist is no excuse for his poor judgement.
The fact that they are on the “same team’ and that they are friends makes it even more sad that a ONE MINUTE phone call was not given. Yes PZ I will defend to the death your right to write whatever and however you wish. But, I will also defend a long history of journalism and free press in the United States to at least on some level strive to be fair. Being skeptics we should be held to a high standard. That includes Randi. But, this total lapse in all areas of simple basic courtesy, respect, and fair play is not doing the skeptics any good. And it’s NOT THAT IT’S RANDI.
In fact I think PZ would have contacted ANY woo organization that he felt should be called on the carpet for THEIR say. But because it’s Randi, he ignorned a courtesy he would have given to the most rabid fundie organization.
Do I agree with Randi, no. Am I ashamed of PZ, yes. There is being wrong and there is being inconsiderate and unprofessional.
Some journalistic standards please. Don’t use “it’s the interwebs” as an excuse for being too lazy to pick up a phone.
Looks like a standard notpology. Now he’s in denial about even being in denial.
When do we scatter the ashes of his credibility?
Sorry to disappoint those who were hoping I would not return. If it is any consolation, this will be my final post on this issue.
To all the people who label me with being a libertarian or a crazed fuck who just want to keep polluting (and all this without a single shred of evidence, I will add), stop this red herring bullshit. You are wrong and exposing as a joke your so-called “free-thinking” (OMG! He’s not one of us! He must be one of “them”!).
I can now see my original position was flawed; any action we take to prevent AGW will likely be beneficial to us even if the science is wrong. This has convinced me that acting to prevent AGW is a good idea, though my mind has still not been convinced of the “A”.
Like Walton, I have decided not to discuss the AGW issue further due to my own lack of expertise and the difficulties of trying to have 20 simultaneous discussions (which seems to happen a lot when AGW is mentioned).
Thanks.
damfino –
Nice rant. Now what in Randi’s follow up, exactly, would have specifically refuted or corrected anything PZ initially wrote? I’m not sure much of it would be.
And I still don’t get why Randi’s inability to convey his thoughts more articulately is any fault of PZ’s. PZ could have waited for Randi to clarify himself (as it seems Phil Plait did… that’s his style, I’ll grant), but does that mean he’s required to?
What if everyone took that tack and no-one said a word in criticism of the original post… do you think Randi would still have written the follow up? I don’t. It was PZ and other’s vigilance to not allow this sort of thing to go unanswered that forced him to clarify… and that’s a good thing, as far as I’m concerned.
Don’t blame us because Libertarians go denialist about problems that their ideology can’t fix. You’re a dime a dozen.
Darren –
While others here may not (and I think much of that was based quite a bit on your own aggressive posturing on the subject initially), I will accept your statement that you have changed your position on the issue happily and chalk it up as a win for the good guys. I’m always happy to hear that someone has changed an opinion through research, logic and reason.
Good on ya.
damfino @487, did you even read Bill Dauphin @485?
damfino:
<sigh>
You seem determined to fail to understand what PZ is doing here. His post expresses his reaction to, and his concerns about the third-party reaction to, Randi’s public comments about AGW. It’s really cosmically irrelevant whether Randi might have been able to better explain himself to a friend in a private phone call (as an aside, Randi’s follow-up comments suggest he probably couldn’t have); the point here is the content and impact of his public expression.
BTW, the distinction I was making by pointing out that PZ is a blogger had nothing to do with the internet, per se (making your grumpy natterings about “internet morality” also cosmically irrelevant), but instead had to do with the difference between personal expression and reporting. The notion of calling the subject of a story for comment is part of the ethos of journalism… but this is not that!
I phrased that badly, I did not mean to imply that he doesn’t have that right, but instead, due to his role as a “public skeptic”, he does have a responsibility to be a bit more circumspect in expressing uninformed opinions.
So Darren, still not convinced, even though the percentages quoted by the top scientists were by your own admission up to the 99% surety you claimed to want to see?
Why am I not at all surprised?
Ah, a science denier. Good to know for your next trolling here. We won’t have to waste time with your lack of bona fides that you’re just an idjit…