Monday
Jan242011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill What's next?
Jan 24, 2011 BBC Climate: CRU Climate: Jones Climate: Parliament Royal Society Two interesting days ahead. Firstly I should get my embargoed copy of the House of Commons report on the Climategate inquiries later today, so there will be some reading to do. The embargo is lifted at midnight, UK time, and I'll time a post to go up shortly thereafter, so those of you in other parts of the Anglosphere may be able to read it at a sensible time.
Then later today we have the BBC Horizon programme on wicked sceptics. I'm really looking forward to this. There is a trailer article here in the Independent, in which the paper's science correspondent Steve Connor manages to get the trick to hide the decline completely wrong. You would think that after all those inquiries, a science journalist would understand what Jones did.
Reader Comments (23)
I just posted this link on the original Horizon thread.
There is another superb open letter from Rupert Wyndham to Paul Nurse at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=7077
There is an email of the Commons report coming here to. Backup in case of snafus.
You would think that after all those inquiries, a science journalist would understand what Jones did.
Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach, and those that can't teach become science journalists.
Tonight's Horizon will be interesting.
The Indy quotes the good Prof: "Science has created our modern world so I would like to understand why scientists are under such attack". Ay, there's the rub.
Only a nutter is anti-science, ranting against a body of provable and replicable laws.
Public scepticism is, I submit, a reaction against scientists, particularly those who are bringing the noble profession into disrepute. Scientists are human and fallible, and the ones who bandy about unfalsifiable conjectures should be shunned by the mature sciences such as chemistry.
Sir Paul Nurse should either distance hard science from Climatography (yes, it doesn't deserve the 'ology'), or else change his outfit's name to The Royal Society for the Advocacy of Scare Stories.
"I think today there is a new kind of battle. It's not just about ideas but whether people actually trust science... Science has created our modern world so I would like to understand why scientists are under such attack and whether scientists are partly to blame," Sir Paul said.
This is complete twaddle, served up for the masses who know little of science, little of philosophy and little of history. He knows he can get away with nonsense because few will notice, and most will believe him on the back of his 'authority'. Well, here's a head of the Royal Society who, notwithstanding his accolades, cannot think straight or clearly. Here he has confused two things. The science that he talks about that has 'created our modern world' (more than a little hyperbole, methinks) is the instrumental use of science, properly known as technology and engineering.
But to say "It's not just about ideas but whether people actually trust science" he is talking about something completely different. To string together the word 'science' in two completely different contexts, where the word is not used univocally, is disingenuous. No wonder people don't trust 'science' when people like Nurse either don't understand what they are talking about, or, as Rees before him, are playing cheap rhetoric and logical fallacies.
What on earth does he mean by 'trust science'? Science is an abstract concept, so here he is either personifying science ('I'm science, trust me') or reifying it (you can lean on this large object called science, it will support your weight)? I do hope he's not that stupid. So, then, does he mean to put faith in a man-made fallible and contingent set of assumptions interpreted by a collective body of practitioners? Presumably.
Actually science IS all about ideas. It is a description of something that goes on in the mind. Sure, there are empirical inputs to the mind, and there are outputs from the mind that result in technology. But if Nurse thinks that science is a means of knowledge, or knowledge itself, about ultimate reality then he is positively deluded and should go on a crash course on the history of science, or the philosophy of science. As I say, he can get away with this twaddle with the public at large, but I would expect a person who calls himself a scientist, and the head of a scientific establishment, to actually know what science is.
But then again, Rees didn't.
Here's my take on the programme. I'm afraid I was stitched up something rotten....
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100073116/oh-no-not-another-unbiased-bbc-documentary-about-climate-change/
If Sir Paul Nurse fails to explain fully the context behind "Mike's Nature trick" on tonight's BBC Horizon programme then he too will be accused of failing science.
My advice to Nurse is to remember the Royal Society motto "Nullius in Verba, - on the word of no one -".
Expressing faith in a flawed consenus and indulging in simplistic authoritarianism is no way for a self-professed 'sceptical agnostic' to behave.
I understand that Nurse will state tonight that climate change 'deniers' are on a par with people who don’t believe that AIDs is caused by the HIV virus. Is that a fact?
"A virus can cause a disease, and Aids is not a disease, it is a syndrome" - Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa.
"Billions of people of the world know as a matter of fact that the consequences of climate change – be it droughts, floods or unpredictable and extreme weather patterns" - Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa.
Is this another example of "the great tragedy of science", the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.
Sir Paul Nurse owes climate sceptics who are now the majority of the population an apology for such an insult.
What is the probability of the phrase 'scientific method' getting a mention?
The guardian is crowing that Nurse stumped James with the "dear relative was suffering from a fatal disease," question. 20:20 hindsight is a great thing but the way to answer is thus IMHO.
They often ask the medical dilemma question in a variety of forms but the answer is to point out that CAGW is not just one question with a yes/no answer and it’s certainly not a well established science like medicine. They are lying by pretending it is.
We have billions of human bodies to study and determine how they work. There are countless animals that can be dissected and experimented with to gain fundamental knowledge. We have been observing the human race in close detail for as long as we’ve been self aware and it’s taken us millennia to even scratch the surface. We are able to study a body from the cradle to the grave so we know what is a natural effect and what is abnormal. Yet only with the advent of equipment that can see the detail have we understood what is really going on. Medicine is one of the most legislated, documented and policed sciences going and yet there are still huge mistakes made. Some would say that medicine is still in its infancy.
When it comes to the planet most of the observation is yet to come. Our ability to study the planet is still very limited and some of the best observations are a mere 5 years long (eg ARGO). We haven’t examined more than the equivalent of a few seconds of the planet’s lifespan and all of a sudden we’re experts? It’s like the doctors you go to with your medical problem are on their first day at Uni and they’re still in registration but you’re expected to let them operate on you for a condition you’re not sure (and they can’t prove) that you have. Then you begin to listen to them talk and you realise they're arrogant, sloppy and at times stupid. Now they could be right but wouldn't you want to slow things down before you let them pick up the scalpel?
There is no comparison.
BBC Horizon clip.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00ddytr
It is interesting how Nurse puts emphasis on "trusting the evidence".
Here is an actual Battle of Ideas 2010 discussion: "Can we trust the evidence? The IPCC - a case study"
It involved Tony Gilland, Oliver Morton and Fred Pearce
http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/index.php/2010/session_detail/4086/
It makes for interesting listening.
James' problem is that he isn't prepared enough to take these people on in open debate. Look at the number of times that the "scientists" or their supporters have run a mile from discussing climate with anyone who really knows his stuff.
Your answer to the "fatal disease" question is right, TinyCO2; trouble is, Dellers doesn't need that answer now; he needed it when Nurse came to call. It's a fair bet that if he had been Spencer or Lindzen or McIntyre or even my Lord Bishop, Nurse would not have come within a mile of him and if he did would certainly not have used what is best described as a "have you stopped beating your wife?" question.
The fact that he did use that question suggests to me that he was briefed. It's a classic example of something to which there is no rebuttal of the concept that can be put into a soundbite.
Try it and see. If you can find one then let's all have it so we all know for the next time!
Which is why I mentioned 20:20 hindsight.
Sound bite - ‘When climate science is even half as familiar with the planet as medical science is with the body, I’ll listen without a murmur. You cannot compare the two subjects.’
That's a good soundbyte to remember, TinyCO2!
"Billions of people of the world know as a matter of fact that the consequences of climate change – be it droughts, floods or unpredictable and extreme weather patterns"
That's not even English!
There is absolutely no comparison between Nurse's question about medical intervention and climate. As others have remarked, the earth is a 'single body' problem, and there are not thousands of other worlds around that can be studied.
But it is interesting because the question could have been answered quite thoughtfully by taking medical consensus into account as a subject of historical enquiry. Within living memory patients drank radioactive salts to give them energy; TB patients were subjected to extreme cold in wards where the windows were left open - patients were even put on balconies in winter. We had ulcers being treated by surgery rather than by antibiotics. Not so long ago we had leeches and bleeding to drain off patients' blood, thus weakening them. In fact there was a whole panoply of interventions and poisons administered which did nothing but hasten the death of the patient and enrich the medical profession (and no patient surviving to complain, and relatives too grieved to investigate). The history of medical 'science' over the centuries is mainly a history of patient harm, and these were consensus views. Just read the history books: most of the medical interventions were harmful, when the best that could be done was to give free advice to take rest, diet and exercise. If you had no money, you were often far better off going to pray for healing, or going to a village healer (effectively for a placebo) if you had a little money, than was the rich man who parted with his fortune and his life at the hands of the physician, who in general would have done more harm than good.
The history of medicine is an excellent example of the danger of consensus 'science', when doing nothing would have yielded a better outcome. It's not been very long since medicine has been able to attack homeopathy (which in my view is quackery, but does no harm) on the grounds that it is no better than a placebo: until recently mainstream medicine couldn't even achieve the success rate of the placebo.
"Billions of people of the world know as a matter of fact that the consequences of climate change – be it droughts, floods or unpredictable and extreme weather patterns"
Almost English i.e. the consequences of climate [ DO ] change ... but they should be plural. (And it is arguable whether the consquences relate to climate or weather events.)
I'm the grit in your oyster, TinyCO2!!
I knew somebody would find the 'glib' answer. Have a gold star and go on to the next level ;>)
ScientistsForTruth, I fear the whole programme will be a series of unbalanced comparisons. Climate science v HIV/Aid, climate science v flat Earth. Science v nutjob theories.
Munchausen by proxy syndrome seems to describe the 'medical' condition. A relative who is perfectly well is presented to the doctor as someone who has a serious disease, confirmed by spurious temp. measurements. Despite reassurance the patient is presented again and again with even more dire symptoms which demand radical,ruinously expensive treatments. "Look at the temp. records, of course there is something wrong which must be fixed"
Outcome.
Referral of ' well-meaning' care to psychiatric colleague. (LOL)
ScientistForTruth: "until recently mainstream medicine couldn't even achieve the success rate of the placebo" [my emphasis]
I'm confident that if I rummaged through 1961 blogs, I could find someone saying the same thing. Likewise, the blogs of 1911 and 1861. There's no basis to privilege the present. At least, not where medicine is concerned. As I write this, there are GPs out there writing prescriptions for statins and HRT. Plus ça change.
Wyndham's letter is certainly superb - a superb example of a crude ad hominem attack. It contributes nothing to an objective debate on climate change. No respectable intellect would dignify such a letter with a reply any more than they would respond to someone throwing eggs at them in the street.
Judging by his pompous hectoring tone, Wyndham will take this as a sign of intellectual cowardice and consider that he has bested Nurse. He little understands that he does a disservice to any thoughtful sceptics by presenting them as red-faced members of the "outraged from Tunbridge Wells" tendency.
Sadly however, reading through a few posts on Bishop Hill's blog, I realise that his is a majority view among the sceptical community, with most coming over not as the intellectually rigourous sceptics, but as contrarians of the most red-necked variety.
As in all scientific matters there is a valid debate to be had, but this is not it.
Of course you must always trust what medical science says. A bit of morning sickness ? -Ah, I will give you a prescription for some thalidomide.