Global Warning/Climate Change

[Wayne in Maine]

I think your diagram shows only the process for an individual experiment, and that leaves out a lot that is fundamental to science.

No, that is fundamental science.

But who decides if the process has been followed, if the model is adequate, if the data supports the claims? How is peer review done to decide if an article actually proves its claims and is good enough to be published? Who compares this single experiment to other experiments that show similar or different results to try to understand the system as a whole, and how do you make sure that all relevant studies are included in such a literature review?

This is a fundamentally important part of doing science. You cannot ignore this and have a grasp on the science.

This is above and beyond the fundamental scientific method itself. And I would assert that it has, in many instances, become highly politicized.

The data and reproducible results speak for themselves - that is the point of science. If the results do not support your hypothesis you do not change the data or denigrate as "deniers" those who point this out and instead take a vote to arrive at a consensus.

The notion that "the data and reproducible results speak for themselves" without any need for interpretation is really quite naïve. Reading and evaluating even a single paper takes a significant amount of work, and reading and evaluating all of the published papers in a field is a massive undertaking that few of us have time for, even those who have the skills. I don't think you would claim that you have done that.

I never claimed that everyone and anyone can read and evaluate the data and results of any experiment or data analysis. I am not qualified to test the models climatologists use - but other climatologists are, and they do, and the analysis of some of them does not agree with the political orthodoxy called the "consensus", so they are labeled "deniers" in popular culture.

Remember lung cancer? Even as the science became clear, lobbyist groups and others were creating papers that looked scientific, but were clearly skewed, and that made it extremely difficult for anyone except a real expert with loads of time to wade through the evidence. Data does not "speak for itself", and when it does, it rarely speaks as loudly as lobbyist groups.

[/quote]

And I remember SETI, nuclear winter, the population explosion, the ozone hole... which make me skeptical of the alarm over global warming.

[Wayne in Maine]

I think your diagram shows only the process for an individual experiment, and that leaves out a lot that is fundamental to science.

No, that is fundamental science.

But who decides if the process has been followed, if the model is adequate, if the data supports the claims? How is peer review done to decide if an article actually proves its claims and is good enough to be published? Who compares this single experiment to other experiments that show similar or different results to try to understand the system as a whole, and how do you make sure that all relevant studies are included in such a literature review?

This is a fundamentally important part of doing science. You cannot ignore this and have a grasp on the science.

This is above and beyond the fundamental scientific method itself. It is socially important (and as an engineer, practically important) but it cannot replace actual experimentation and evaluation, especially if it merely produces a consensus where there is demonstrable doubt in the validity of the hypothesis. And I would assert that it has, in many instances, become highly politicized.

The data and reproducible results speak for themselves - that is the point of science. If the results do not support your hypothesis you do not change the data or denigrate as "deniers" those who point this out and instead take a vote to arrive at a consensus.

The notion that "the data and reproducible results speak for themselves" without any need for interpretation is really quite naïve. Reading and evaluating even a single paper takes a significant amount of work, and reading and evaluating all of the published papers in a field is a massive undertaking that few of us have time for, even those who have the skills. I don't think you would claim that you have done that.

I never claimed that everyone and anyone can read and evaluate the data and results of any experiment or data analysis. I am not qualified to test the models climatologists use - but other climatologists are, and they do, and the analysis of some of them does not agree with the political orthodoxy called the "consensus", so they are labeled "deniers" in popular culture.

Remember lung cancer? Even as the science became clear, lobbyist groups and others were creating papers that looked scientific, but were clearly skewed, and that made it extremely difficult for anyone except a real expert with loads of time to wade through the evidence. Data does not "speak for itself", and when it does, it rarely speaks as loudly as lobbyist groups.

And I remember Malthusianism, Lysenkoism, nuclear winter, the ozone hole... which make me skeptical of the alarm over global warming.

[/quote]

[Bootstrap]

The notion that "the data and reproducible results speak for themselves" without any need for interpretation is really quite naïve. Reading and evaluating even a single paper takes a significant amount of work, and reading and evaluating all of the published papers in a field is a massive undertaking that few of us have time for, even those who have the skills. I don't think you would claim that you have done that.

I never claimed that everyone and anyone can read and evaluate the data and results of any experiment or data analysis. I am not qualified to test the models climatologists use - but other climatologists are, and they do, and the analysis of some of them does not agree with the political orthodoxy called the "consensus", so they are labeled "deniers" in popular culture.

OK, now we're getting somewhere. So you trust some climatologists more than others. How do you decide which ones, assuming we both want to escape the trap of trusting whoever says what we want to hear? Scientist A does an experiment, Scientists B says the experiment does not replicate, Scientists C and D say that it does, Scientist D does a meta-analysis and decides that it actually does, especially if you pool the data, Scientist B is still not convinced ...

How do you get a solid overview of what science can tell us? My answer would be to start with the IPPC and the scientific associations. You think there is a more trustworthy source. Who, and why should I trust them more?

[Bootstrap]

Remember lung cancer? Even as the science became clear, lobbyist groups and others were creating papers that looked scientific, but were clearly skewed, and that made it extremely difficult for anyone except a real expert with loads of time to wade through the evidence. Data does not "speak for itself", and when it does, it rarely speaks as loudly as lobbyist groups.

And I remember Malthusianism, Lysenkoism, nuclear winter, the ozone hole... which make me skeptical of the alarm over global warming.

That's certainly valid - science can be wrong. Remember the 1970s, when we were going to run out of gas within a decade? That was clearly wrong. But it was also the best answer science had at the time, and we often have to navigate based on our best understanding.

We know for a fact that we are making big changes to the atmosphere, and there are things we can do to slow that down significantly. We aren't quite sure how much that will cause harm, but there seems to be a reasonable chance that it will.



I like Andrew Lang's quote: "He leans on statistics as a drunken man leans on a lamppost - for support, not for illumination." We agree, that's not how it should be. I suspect we would also agree that there are some people on both sides who do this.

[Wayne in Maine]

OK, now we're getting somewhere. So you trust some climatologists more than others. How do you decide which ones, assuming we both want to escape the trap of trusting whoever says what we want to hear? Scientist A does an experiment, Scientists B says the experiment does not replicate, Scientists C and D say that it does, Scientist D does a meta-analysis and decides that it actually does, especially if you pool the data, Scientist B is still not convinced ...

It really is not that simple is it. Climate Models are complex, there is not a single model being evaluated, but measured data casts doubt on many (most?) of them, and an evaluation of some of the assumptions made in the models casts even greater doubts on their value in predicting the state of the climate for the purpose of spending trillions of dollars to reduce Carbon Dioxide emissions.



Which model predicts the measured temperatures best?

How do you get a solid overview of what science can tell us? My answer would be to start with the IPPC and the scientific associations. You think there is a more trustworthy source. Who, and why should I trust them more?

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political organization, not a scientific body.

[Robert]

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political organization, not a scientific body.

Of this, I agree.

[Wayne in Maine]

.. science can be wrong. Remember the 1970s, when we were going to run out of gas within a decade? That was clearly wrong. But it was also the best answer science had at the time, and we often have to navigate based on our best understanding.

It's not a matter of science being wrong, science is an iterative process, hypothesis are modified or discarded and replaced. There is no such thing as "settled science", especially if the process of evaluating a hypothesis, like the net positive feedback effect of Carbon Dioxide on global heat retention, is done by consensus.

We know for a fact that we are making big changes to the atmosphere, and there are things we can do to slow that down significantly. We aren't quite sure how much that will cause harm, but there seems to be a reasonable chance that it will.

We're not really sure what changes we are actually making or how significant they are in comparison to natural phenomena. On a geologic scale we might be making very small changes that might even be beneficial to humans and the biosphere in general.



Ice ages have caused mass extinctions and human depopulation.

[KingdomBuilder]

Peer review is not a part of the Scientific Method, it is what ensures that the method is being followed - it is (presumably) what keeps practitioners of science honest. An experiment or method of analysis in support of a hypothesis must be reproducible (that's what's left out of the graphic), the task of one's peers in a field of study using the scientific method is to attempt to reproduce the results.

It's integral to the method, and the method is built heavily around it. They go hand in hand.

[Wayne in Maine]

Peer review is not a part of the Scientific Method, it is what ensures that the method is being followed - it is (presumably) what keeps practitioners of science honest. An experiment or method of analysis in support of a hypothesis must be reproducible (that's what's left out of the graphic), the task of one's peers in a field of study using the scientific method is to attempt to reproduce the results.

It's integral to the method, and the method is built heavily around it. They go hand in hand.

A good discussion on this question:
In the scientific method, is peer review an essential part of the falsifiability of a theory?

[Bootstrap]

A good discussion on this question:
In the scientific method, is peer review an essential part of the falsifiability of a theory?

Indeed. And I particularly like this comment by Zen Faulkes, with the nice byline "Must a scientific theory withstand the attempts of other scientists to prove it wrong?"

When you say "peer review" to most working scientists, this usually means pre-publication peer review by a journal, organized by the editor, with two to three anonymous referees.

I argue that there is a much wider universe of peer review:

The further out to the right, the closer you are to knowing something. Just getting a paper published isn't the whole story, a lot of the most important work happens after that as the paper is debated (assuming someone finds it important enough to debate).