Bishop Hill The Signal and the Noise
Oct 28, 2012 Books 
I've mentioned Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise before - Michael Mann took a fairly hefty pop at Silver for mentioning an unapproved (by Mann, at least) scientist.
I've now got hold of a review copy and I must say I'm very taken with it. In fact I would go so far as to suggest that it's a must-read for climate scientists.
Apart from the chapter on climate science that is.
Silver says that William Happer agrees that the world will tend to get warmer with increased CO2. Which is fine. But he then seems to spend much of the chapter trying to convince us that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. He tells us that the hypothesis deserves credit because it can be shown to have a cause. But this is to miss the point. The demand for a policy response is not predicated on CO2 being a greenhouse gas. It is predicated on it causing catastrophic warming. Sceptics mostly accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, we are arguing about how much warming and what the effects are and whether the whole thing is being hyped.
I was therefore interested to read about how critical climate scientists are of climate models, but this did make me return again to my observations about climate sensitivity. If climate scientists have so little confidence in computer models, how come the IPCC's estimates of climate sensitivity are based on models rather than the less alarming empirical measurements? I think we need to know.
So the climate chapter does not really help very much. But, as I said, the rest is really good - a fascinating tour through the science of prediction, looking at everything from baseball to weather forecasting.
Highly recommended.
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Reader Comments (33)
Sorry Bish but if he gets it so wrong on the climate issue then I wouldn't trust him on any other subject. Off topic but for those who thought that Owen Patterson would be their wind farm champion read this:
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/Environment/article1156687.ece
I've read the book. And I plan to read it again. The main focus of the book is to talk about predictions and he uses Bayesian ideas applied to many prediction areas. I don't share the Bishop's view that the chapter is all about convincing us that CO2 is a greenhouse glass. He touches on very many aspects of the climate forecasting issue which we all know is complex and diverse in all dimensions of science, technology, and politics. It's a well-written and thought-provoking book.
I recommend the book, despite what Dr. Mann says.
I can't understand how an insulator like CO2 can do anything, except make it cooler during the day and make the night cool more slowly.
Oct 28, 2012 at 8:02 AM | Paul
Your ST reference is paywalled, but is this article from the same interview:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/10/27/windfarms-backed-by-environment-secretary-owen-paterson_n_2029079.html
he could be keeping his powder dry, but:
1) Looking after his constituency.
"It was "idiotic" to erect wind turbines in areas with little wind - like his own North Shropshire constituency - where they could inflict environmental as well as economic damage, he said. It was important to take into account the views of local people, who were more positive about developments in windy areas where they can generate significant numbers of jobs than in other parts of the country."
2) Admitting that the climate has been changing (up and down; I hope the "for millions of years" will be disclosed at a later date!)
Mr Paterson told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is quite obvious that the climate is changing and has been changing for some years, up and down. It is obvious that there is a human element. There are all sorts of other things that affect climate change, like the sun.
3) Just stating the obvious:
""Some of the measures we might be taking to mitigate climate change might be causing more environmental damage. We might locate wind farms in the wrong place."
4) Implying that the "appalling level of food waste" is more of an issue than reducing carbon emissions:
"In my part of the world, where there is not a lot of wind, we don't save on carbon emissions at all. In my part of the world, it is other technologies, such as anaerobic digesters brewing up waste food - and we have an appalling level of food waste in this country - that are probably a more appropriate renewable technology.
5) Well, four out of five isn't bad:
"Asked if Prime Minister David Cameron agreed with his approach to the issue, Mr Paterson replied: "Of course he agrees with me. We agree we want renewable energy in the right place.""
6) And publically, he is still supporting the Climate Change Act 2008, 'green' taxes on fuel and heating.
This is some of the text from the Time article:
THE government is to push through plans that will nearly treble the number of wind turbines in the countryside, disappointing Tory supporters who hoped new ministers sceptical of the technology would curb their growth.
John Hayes, the energy minister, has disclosed that he plans to increase the amount of electricity generated by onshore wind to “up to 13GW [gigawatts]” by 2020. The current total is just 5GW. The mass building programme could see almost 6,000 turbines built to add to around 3,000 already in place.
Hayes’s commitment comes amid delays to a bill on the energy market, which is now unlikely to be published before the week of November 18.
. . . sceptics mostly accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas
I'd argue that we can safely - should - ignore those who don't. Even allowing for the fact that "greenhouse gas" is a colloquialism and a bit of a misnomer, anyone who by and large accepts the discoveries of 20th Century physics has little scope for debating whether increased levels of CO2 tend to make the earth's atmosphere warmer. They do: the debate is over quantum and what forces counteract that tendency.
For as good a popular explanation as any, see:
http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page10.htm
I'd no more pay serious heed to anyone who argues differently than I would to those who belittle the notion of evolution on the grounds that the Good Book says different or that it has been invoked in times past to "prove" the intellectual superiority of ethnic Caucasians.
The description reminds me of a Martin Gardner puzzle where a good story can be made too complex. There is no prize for ther reader who sends the solution, but it IS worth remembering that some deepish philosophy goes with this - as was not uncommon with Martin Gardner, who is here thanked in earlier appreciation.
http://www.geoffstuff.com/GardnerB.JPG
Andrew, congrats on your new book. Hope you will write one too eventually about Steyn vs. Mann.
Meantime, *OUCH*
The fraudulent Nobel Laureate:
http://www.steynonline.com/5264/the-fraudulent-nobel-laureate
Steyn is turning Mann into a laughing stock even BEFORE the case has gone to trial :D
I read somewhere recently that Mann's legal fund is being backed by George Soros, which would be another interesting angle to investigate. This would probably explain why Mann is so keen to sue his critics; maybe Soros is encouraging him to do so in order to protect his Green Investments based on the CAGW lie.
Unfortunately, Mann picked the wrong guy to try and bully--yet another instance that shows Mann doesn't even bother to do basic research. If he had, he would have realised Steyn is like a porcupine with razor sharp quills that no one in his right mind would want to go near, let alone roll around with in a courtroom!
Is it available in Italian ?
DaveB
You will not be paying serious heed to this post and so can safely ignore it.
Anyone who believes that CO2 will always warm our climate has his head firmly buried in the sand or even perhaps in a more smelly place.
The Greenhouse Effect is a theory and is not proven. However there are many empirical observations which show that at the very least we do not fully understand it and at the other extreme that maybe it is totally wrong.
1) Current events.
The world is not warming but we are pumping out ever increasing amounts of CO2. Richard Betts on this blogg stated that the Met office did not know why the warming had stopped.
2) Experimental proof.
There is no experimental proof! However an experiment by Berthold Klien appears to show that in todays atmospheric conditions and also at much higher levels of CO2; there is no Greenhouse Effect.
You can find the experiment here http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/1923523?currentPage=2 but it is wrongly described as an experiment by Nahle. Maybe you can point out the weaknesses in the experiment?
3) Climate History.
Our current Holocene Interglacial started about 12,000 years ago when the planet warmed sharply from ice age. Roughly 800 years after the warming started, levels of CO2 began to rise. At a certain point the warming stopped and the Earth's temperature plateaued or in fact began a gentle decline towards our current levels.
In terms of the Greenhouse Effect, my question is; since levels of CO2 continued to rise for 2000 years, why was there no further warming?
In my opinion there are only 2 possible explanations:
1) The GHE is real but (in line with the view that the effect is logarithmic) does not hold true above a certain atmospheric level of CO2 (say 200 ppm).
2) The GHE is not real.
Dung
I confess (frequently) to being an ignoramus in these matters but I find myself, yet again, asking basically the same questions as rhoda:I'm on your side on this one.
I don't dispute the "greenhouse effect", so called, since it appears to be shorthand for an environmental system that keeps the earth in a condition and (broadly speaking) at a temperature which is capable of supporting life.
But the analogy very quickly breaks down since the mechanism whereby a greenhouse gains, maintains, and loses heat is not the same as for the earth's atmosphere.
As for proof, I followed your link to rhoda's discussion thread — which was a mistake because I've been there for the last half-hour!
But I did come across this from Ronaldo (replying to you):
1. Is this interpretation of the behaviour of CO2 (and presumably other gas molecules) correct?
2. Is there anyone out there prepared to say it's wrong and if so how, where and why it's wrong —preferably in language that a retired jobbing journalist (and an Oxfordshire housewife) can understand?
3. Is there anyone out there (to get back to rhoda's original plea) who can devise an experiment to prove or disprove it.
It seems to me that rhoda made an excellent point on that thread when she challenged BBD with the proposition that no-one wanted to ask that question because they were frightened of what the answer might be.
You will not be paying serious heed to this post and so can safely ignore it.
Don't be too sure.
Anyone who believes that CO2 will always warm our climate has his head firmly buried in the sand
I never suggested it would. Such a claim is absurd.
. . . or even perhaps in a more smelly place.
If we can't be polite, let's at least not be vulgar or, if you have to be, be funny with it.
The world is not warming but we are pumping out ever increasing amounts of CO2.
True but irrelevant.
Maybe you can point out the weaknesses in the experiment?
Maybe I could, maybe I couldn't but, as you didn't format your explanation properly, I found it unreadable at the time and don't plan to try now.
In terms of the Greenhouse Effect, my question is; since levels of CO2 continued to rise for 2000 years, why was there no further warming?
I'm not clear what you mean by "the Greenhouse Effect" but note that I wasn't discussing it, merely suggesting that the notion that "sceptics mostly accept that CO2 is a greenhouse gas" was questionable. I'd argue that anyone who doesn't accept that CO2 is a GHG is hard to take seriously and that the Bishop was perhaps being too polite.
That said, like pretty much everyone else, I accept definitions of "the Greenhouse Effect" on lines similar to that given by the source I cited earlier. See e.g.:
http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/page8.htm
There's nothing there that either precludes a cessation of warming or undermines basic physics. Given that the author is a physics professor, that's not surprising.
In my opinion there are only 2 possible explanations:
I never knew it was so simple. (I'm no mathematician but can I take it you mean "inversely logarithmic"?) It is surely unarguable that the various feedback mechanisms also play a critical role - in my view, the evidence that they are generally negative is powerful.
That said, I recall a post by Judith Curry in which she showed that many (including me, certainly at the time and probably still) over-simplified the notion of "positive feedback" and so misunderstood what serious climate scientists meant by the term. She made a fair point.
I am surprised that AlecM has not yet made either of his 2 stock postings on this thread.
Re Dave B concerning CO2.
The main belief in GHGs really lies in the claim that the earth is some 30K warmer that it would be without these gases.
We need to note the assumption here. No one has ever measured the earth's temperature WITHOUT the presence of so-called GHGs. The 30K temperature increase is based on theoretical calculations of what it would be without GHGs.
OK if they are correct, but unfortunately they cannot be.
The same method of calculating surface temperature was used for the Moon. But what do you know? Temperature Instruments left after the Apollo missions showed up a strange fact. The Moon's average surface temperature is also some 30K above the calculated temperature and there are no gases of any kind - the moon has no measureable atmosphere at all.
Re Paul and Owen Paterson.
Remember, politics is the art of the possible.
DaveB
The post which I attempted to respond to started with the proposal that "we" could safely ignore all those who do not accept that CO2 is a Greenhouse gas. Since I have to admit and tried to explain; I fall into that category and therefore considered myself insulted ^.^
You said:
Wiki describes the GHE thus:
Wiki later goes on to refer to AGW and states Wiki is thus plainly stating that adding extra CO2 is an increased radiative forcing which further warms the planet.
This Wiki explanation is quite plainly saying that there is no dispute and that more CO2 will always have a warming effect.
Therefore if there is a GHE then during the 2000 years of rising CO2 starting at the end of the initial interglacial warming, one would not expect to see gently falling temperatures.
If there is no GHE then describing CO2 as a Greenhouse Gas is irelevant.
Wiki again: A logarithmic scale is a scale of measurement that displays the value of a physical quantity using intervals corresponding to orders of magnitude, rather than a standard linear scale.
is what you said in your last post but in your first post you saidThe supposed relationship between CO2 and warming is described by IPCC AR3 as logarithmic, the word needs no additional qualification since inverse is included.
Regarding the Berthold Klein experiment which you refuse to read because it is not set out properly, I copied everything from the only description on the internet that I could find, so sorry to have offended you.
Perhaps you would like to revisit these words and consider how they might be received by others.
Dung: "In terms of the Greenhouse Effect, my question is; since levels of CO2 continued to rise for 2000 years, why was there no further warming?
In my opinion there are only 2 possible explanations:
1) The GHE is real but (in line with the view that the effect is logarithmic) does not hold true above a certain atmospheric level of CO2 (say 200 ppm).
2) The GHE is not real."
There is another explanation which says that the earth's temperature is dependent upon many factors including infra-red active gases, water vapour, methane, CO2, aka 'greenhouse' gases, but that the individual quantities of the component infra-red active gases are not relevant. The global temperatures have long since reached an equilibrium point, where increasing quantities of IR gas in the past increased the temperature, but up to the point where feedback from increasing levels of water vapour in the form of clouds, prevented the temperatures from getting higher. If the temperatures get no higher, the quantity of atmospheric water vapour will not increase, but will tend to stabilise.
In order to reach this equilibrium, the atmosphere requires a certain quantity of IR gases, but it does not matter whether they are CO2 or methane trace gases, or the most abundant IR gas, water vapour. However, water covers two thirds of the planet, and is also available in quantity from the land, and through precipitation. Thus, even if there were no CO2, the global temperature would be the same, because water vapour would fill the gap in the IR active gas feedstock equilibrium quantity.
Other factors such as cosmic ray induced cloud cover, oceanic circulation, changes in the ouput of the sun, or severe volcanic activity can change the equilibrium point. However, one IR active gas is as good as another and if we have a hugely dominating quantity of water vapour compared to the others, then the changes in quantity of the small amounts of CO2 are not relevant.
DaveB,
I'll chip in and save myself time by broadly agreeing with Edward Bancroft.
Just about every living Chemistry-graduate has probably taken at least one laboratory IR measurement. Depending on the instrument and substance being measured, they might be able to see absorption due to CO2 in the spectra obtained.
There is CO2 in the atmosphere. What next? Somewhere between 0% and 100% of IR emitted from the surface of the earth may be absorbed somewhere in the atmosphere for some amount of time and "thermalised" {before AlecM needs to say so]. I have no problems if somebody says that is the "Greenhouse effect".
But if the same person then says [put in the usual IPCC blurb here], I will say:
"Hang on! Just when you did first solve the truly colossally complex problem of how the entire geosphere [atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, and every-other-sphere] dynamically distributes energy between its various compartments?'
And then there's that great-big-frickin-yellow-sphere up in the sky complicating matters. All that is most definitely NOT the "Greenhouse-effect."
As you were, Edward...
Edward Bancroft
Hello :) and I agree with pretty much everything you say. I tend to think Svensmark's explanation is the most believable and plays a big part.
I do not believe CO2 is currently affecting our climate so in terms of your explanation I guess I am saying the same thing as you; there comes a point at which the addition of more Greenhouse Gases ceases to have any effect.
I have not previously seen your "IR active gas feedstock equilibrium" before ^.^ so where can I read more about that?
It has to be said that Philip Foster's points above are also compelling and it may be that the final word was had by Mr Hart:
I believe that Navier Stokes also failed to solve those problems hehe.
Mike Jackson,
"3. Is there anyone out there (to get back to rhoda's original plea) who can devise an experiment to prove or disprove it."
In answer to your question, there may be no experiment that will satisfactorily answer the question.
Having said that, some data I would like to see might take the form I will try and describe. Some of this data probably does already exist.
First up, I would like to see temperature measurements taken continuously, at a single unchanging site, at a given date [=time of year], immediately after sunset, under clear skies, in still air, at known constant humidity, [preferably zero humidity], at known [constant] CO2 concentration. The initial temperature decline, to my simple mind and memory of heat transfer, would fit to a fairly simple exponential decay. [Probably need to modify this for different physical locations. And then move on to water !!]
I would then require the same data recorded on another occasion at a [presumably increased] CO2 concentration, starting from the same temperature, etcetera, and examine it to see if the initial rate of fall in temperature now exhibited a measurably slower decline. I would predict that it would be observable, given enough time and locations. [Then debate how much expected!] Ideally, of course, 'coupled' data points would be collected on the same date of the year with all other variables except CO2 being the same, giving a theoretical maximum of 365 independent data series at each location. This could be performed for each and every day of the year when the above conditions were met [<<365 in practice], and then continued over a period of years as the atmospheric CO2 concentration is observed to vary [which it also does throughout the year]. And also repeated at many other locations that might regularly approach this ideal. Desert locations would appear most suitable.
As you may well agree, this is already quite a demanding set of criteria to satisfy regularly, even at the Mauna Loa measuring station. Some of the variables such as atmospheric motion and humidity at altitude above the site will likely have much greater variance than can be easily measured. It is possible to make many other valid criticisms of these criteria, but hey, that's science. [For example, in Antarctica at the South Pole, the weather may change much faster than the sun sets!]
The thinking behind this approach is that it is designed to remove the "noise" that arises from
(a) Weather, and
(b) Differences between locations.
Crucially,
(c) To observe an effect it is not necessary to have global coverage. More sites is better, but each is independent of other sites.
(d) Also note that this method rests on measuring rate of change of temperatures, NOT absolute temperature. [Put another way, the temperature “anomalies” just after sunset are only relevant to what happens minutes earlier or later in the same location. An assumption being that weather changes are not happening on this time-scale.]
Such an approach has a huge advantage over trying to measure at various sites around the world, cobble together some global "average" by somehow ironing-out all the vastly greater inhomogeneities, and then making up what some 'think-the-data-should-be' in areas where there is no coverage. With the 'consensus' approach, all of the data points are jointly and severally liable for the errors that contaminate the quality data.
Mike Jackson,
Sorry for the length of the answer, but there was bound to be something I forgot.
To whit, for the advanced experiments, I would jet around the globe setting up measuring equipment in locations where there is about to be an eclipse of the sun. That way, given a sufficiently large travel grant, I could achieve higher quality data by measuring the effect more than once in one day.
This latter idea quite excites me, and there is more to it. I would go into more detail here but, as I think Phil Jones once emailed Steve McIntyre, the margins of this page are too small to fit it in.
Dung: For information on the IR active gas equilibrium, see the paper by Ferenc M. Miskolczi, http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/The_Saturated_Greenhouse_Effect.htm .
michael hart
Not possible, is it?Thank you for that reply — correction, those replies.
I think you have demonstrated in (relatively) few words why the whole climate change debate is a sham.
[Please note, every one, I said sham, not scam]
Yes, the only way to get meaningful climate data is as you describe:
And even assuming it were, you have a perfect set of figures for ... three feet east of the willow tree beside my garden pond — and nowhere else in the world!
Fair enough, a certain amount of extrapolation is possible and if you have a couple of hundred reliable stations in the UK and the same number pro rata in every country in the world you can draw some reasonable conclusions — and then we can start on the oceans!!
But even this isn't going to give climatologists the answer they claim to have found because even with that number of observations the noise is going to exceed by far the signal they say they have identified and it is doubtful that the compiled readings would give anything better than an accuracy of +/-1C.
And then there's UHI!
But let me know if you can get us the grant (I assume you would need an assistant) for the eclipse-chasing expedition.
I was pleased to catch Edward Bancroft's contribution before I went to bed last night because I had a chance to mull over it and it seems to be another useful contribution to the debate. (I have to say that anything that casts doubt on the pre-eminence of CO2 is useful because it pisses off the eco-fanatics!) There doesn't seem to be any particular reason why the whole chaotic system which is the planetary atmosphere should differentiate between one IR-absorbing gas and another.
So the conversation goes like this:
Rhoda: Show me.
CAGW supporter, Look, CO2 absorbs IR in the lab and in the wild.
Rhoda: OK, what happens next?
CAGWS: The earth gets hot, the seas rise, we all die unless we get rid of CO2.
Rhoda: Can you show me an empirical measurement of that actually happening?
CAGWS: Look, tree rings.
Rhoda: Can you show an experiment showing the heating, in the lab?
CAGWS: That is too difficult.
Rhoda: Can you show an outdoors experiment to measure the effects you claim?
CAGWS: That's too difficult too.
Rhoda: There's supposed to be an extra 2 watts/sq m arrivng now, can you show me that?
CAGWS. No, it's too small to measure (even though it is like a 60watt bulb over a 3 metre radius circle, and I reckon I could see that) but I have this computer program what I wrote which shows it plainly.
In all my enquiries I never found a suggestion of a decent proof of what happens to link the IR absorption, which I acknowledge, to the claimed effects. And those who claimed to know how it works can't show it happening.
I hate the term ''greenhouse gas'' because the atmosphere does not in any way resemble a greenhouse and the GHG effect is questionable because non of the predictions made by the GHG theory can be found.
1. The mid troposphere temperature anomaly is absent.
2. Recent rising atmospheric CO2 levels have not produced a temperature rise, indeed some data sets show a slight drop in temperature.
3. Spacebound radiation is supposed to fall with rising atmospheric CO2 levels. It remains the same as in 1979 when the first measurements were taken.
4. Rising atmospheric CO2 levels should increase the frequency and energy of tropical storms. Storm frequency has fallen, despite Sandy.
I agree that CO2, H2O and other gasses, react with IR but this actually reduces the energy reaching the surface not increases it. I still question claims that inbound IR measured contains a percentage of re-radiated IR since we do not accurately know the magnitude of the emission band energy. All the LIR energy we are measuring at the surface may be as a result of insolation, the more likely scenario.
John Marshall
A warming planet, we are told, will disperse its heat from the tropics towards the poles which will reduce the temperature gradient.
The temperature gradient, we are told, plays a major part in the creation or otherwise of tropical storms (or is it all storms?).
So in a warming planet, the climate should become more equable rather than less.
There appears to be a part of the chain of events missing somewhere here.
Perhaps it's the CO2 that's not behaving quite in the way the enviro-nuts need it to in order to push their anti-civilisation message? Tsk.
Mike Jackson.
Remember there is little mixing between the NH and SH. One is mainly water the other mainly land so both react to energy in different ways. The planetary tilt also means an annual difference and rotation changes the face towards the sun from 90% water to 70% (ish) land daily. So a constantly changing scenario. Then throw in clouds and no wonder the models do not work especially if they assume that solar radiation is a fixed quantity. I agree that a warmer planet could be a calmer place but my argument is with the GHG theory that predicts otherwise. Some of the worst storm to hit the UK were during the LIA but that does not mean that it will be calmer during warm periods. The Humber region in the UK suffered dreadful flooding during the MWP killing hundreds. Current low storm frequency may be due to the cyclic chaotic nature of the atmosphere not temperature
Nate Silver is working as a poll analyst for The New York Times, and his work there is similar to climate science. Giving weight to polls he likes, and disparaging those with unfavourable results. All with a veneer of professionalism and science. He even builds an election model based on empirical poll observations and historical evidence.
The diligence of readers in sticking to the point is to be rewarded. I posed a Martin Gardner puzzle above and now repeat the question with the answer.
I was trying to make the point that one can go down many blind lanes before finding the simple path. There are many logicians here, I hope some have a chuckle after having torn hair out..
http://www.geoffstuff.com/GardnerAnswer.jpg
So now I know where the Sky Dragon loons have gone - they're reading Bishop Hill. If I was trying to write seriously about climate change, and this was the quality of reader I was attracting, I'd close up shop.
@ MarkB - why not try to answer just one of Rhoda's questions?
If the CO2 AGW thesis is as sound and settled as its advocates believe, you would not have to
resort to ad hominem and label people who ask legitimate questions as loonies.
Or as I would have put it:
Rhoda: Why won't anyone answer my legitimate questions?
CAGWS: Because you are a loony.
Rhoda: Why do they call me a loony and still don't answer the questions?
CAGWS: Because the science is settled
Rhoda: Did they say back radiation or change of altitude at TOA and lapse rate? How did they settle that?
CAGWS: You are a loony.
We're always happy to debate on here so why not join in or bugger off, eh?
BH, I think there's some small disagreement as to how effective Silver's models are. Even in Baseball where statistical analysis fits best, and has a tremendously long history of that, there has been a problem or two.
Specifically where there are not quite enough input data for a true reading result.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/11/04/tarnished-silver-assessing-the-new-king-of-stats/
If his current political project turns out as I believe it will, you see him scrap the model once again.. Supposedly he fell on his face in 2010.. So we'll be back where we started .. looking for the right species of trees in which to count rings.
Not saying his IP has no value.. but it is a construction of man... thus ego involved, if not intensive.