Bishop Hill Climate authorities
Feb 5, 2012 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other Belgian climatologist Michel Crucifix has published an interesting post about climatologists' engagement with the wider world. There's a bit of a language barrier here - Prof Crucifix's English is in need of a polish - but he seems to be saying that we "deniers" (yes, he uses the d-word) should show a bit more respect because he's the expert.
I believe, as a climate scientist, that there is not benefit to be gained from engaging discussion with an individual or with a group if my authority is not acknowledged.
He is using the word "authority" in a different way to normal, so there is perhaps less cause for alarm than you might at first think. He defines it as a combination of "expertise" and "fairness". By the latter term I think he he means something like "objectiveness" - not being an advocate - and he spends quite a lot of the post discussing expertise, describing the complexities and the judgement calls involved in climatology - it's a post-normal science you see.
His demand to have his authority recognised is not, I think, a demand to accept his arguments.
Having authority does not protect against the duty of explaining how and why you arrive at this or that conclusion, and it does not guarantee anyone that all what you say is right.
What it seems to boil down to is this: if you front to Prof Crucifix and tell him he is wrong, he will not engage. If you ask him to explain he will do so.
I'm not sure that whether this is special pleading or merely a demand for courtesy. Either way, I think it's quite interesting.
Reader Comments (96)
Feb 6, 2012 at 4:39 AM | hunter
Since Hunter brought up the topic, I would like to inform the internet (as if they needed informing) that if you are in the USA and you are speaking down to another person and you are comfortable then you are not speaking to an American.
It is not a matter of egalitarianism. It is the profound feeling in each individual that he/she is sovereign. We behave in exactly the same way on the internet. We invite everyone else to join us in this profound human feeling. If you do not experience this feeling of personal sovereignty, please ask yourself why you do not.
In other news today, total output from all the wind turbines measured by NETA is 110MW or thereabouts, it goes up and down. That would be around 0.2% of our total generated. As Laing said, don't believe me, go and see for yourself
http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm
michel. It's now 68 MW or 0.1%.
"Crucifix has an ironical name for he comes over sounding like the Parish Priest" Indeed he is yer man in a soutane. And yet again the reformation is being played out. We here, essentially Protestants, saying that the evidence before our eyes, what we can see and read for ourselves, is good enough; against a more catholic community who insist we cannot possibly understand, only the experts can be the intermediaries between ourselves and Truth, and who are we to question them? A timeless human drama, on this occasion dressed in the clothes of Climate Change?
The climate change Inquisition is coming to a street near you.
Way too much verbiage. I am very suspicious when somebody appeals to 'social philosophy' or 'social psychology' to support his arguments in the physical sciences.
Interesting (revealing) list of referecnces:
- himself
- Oreskes
- Ravetz
etc.
1) I'd echo Richard Bett's sentiment - a first post in a second language. We are *far* too unforgiving in this respect generally
2) Even assuming Michel says what he means and means what he says, it's a honest position; you have a choice of whether or not to spend time and effort engaging with him. If you believe that accepting his (presumed) opinion is too high a price, just don't engage.
He's not the arbiter of whether or not your questions appear in public, just the arbiter of whether he chooses to answer them or not.
Hi all,
Barry - absolutely swamped, sorry I haven't responded to your request for comment
About Michel - some of you may remember that I was rather 'jumped on' when I first started posting here - e.g. some people took issue with parts of my online trail. Since then I've listened to criticisms and taken many on board...for example, actively discouraging colleagues from using the word denier.
Please be open-minded and allow Michel a bit of time before you write him off. And please, no more references to his nationality or name...
Tamsin
As a quasi-Belgian (I grew up there), I'm perpetually fascinated by the casual superiority that people in the UK assume when discussing anything to do with Belgium. It almost sounds like an argument from authority...
Anyway, on the interesting topic of authority in the climate debate, I recommend this much more balanced viewpoint from Judith Curry.
Hi Tamsin, thanks for popping in, I know you are busy. I don't know if you saw it but there was what Pharos described as a landmark post yesterday evening, on page two of the Leake on the Temperature plateau thread, by Dr Norman Page (Feb 5, 2012 at 8:01 PM).
When you can find the time I (and I am sure others) would appreciate your response to this, thanks. Richard Betts likewise, and ideally Michel (if he is willing). Thanks.
Hi Tamsin
Tone is everything and you are correct, perhaps Michael has not met some of the 'deniers' to realise like you described, that it is perhaps more complex than he thought.
Professor Judith Curry described - the Book - The Hockey Stick Illusion' - A W Montford as a litmus test,
As in a person's willingness to read it. As Richard Betts has, Mark Lynas borrowed Jonathan Jones copy, and I believe you have now started it. Well done..
My personal litmus test, is the response to the 'hide the decline' issue. which at the heart is, influencing policymakers (ie removing data that might confuse them) It is very well documented at Climate Audit (plus other declines, truncations of data, etc,)
I would at some point, when you have the time of course like to hear yours and Richard's opinion on this. (Michael's too, if he is interested)
Judith's thoughts:(expressed to Gavin Schmidt - of RealClimate)
Prof Judith Curry:
"Gavin, the field does not need any more summary graphs of this nature. They have done an enormous disservice to climate science and its credibility. Continuing to defend these kinds of graphs is beyond anything I can understand.
Leaving out that data and putting a “likely” confidence level on conclusions from that data is bad science, anyway you slice it.
If you don’t like dishonest, try misguided and pseudoscience.
There is no way this is defensible scientific practice.
I really hope we don’t see any more of these kinds of graphs, in the AR5 or elsewhere. I’ve tiptoed around this one long enough, I’m calling it like I see it."
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/#comment-45770
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Prof Jonathan Jones' thoughts on this are reproduced here.
http://www.realclimategate.org/2011/02/hide-the-decline-2-pictures-for-2000-comments/
"However, “hide the decline” is an entirely different matter.
This is not a complicated technical matter on which reasonable people can disagree:
it is a straightforward and blatant breach of the fundamental principles of honesty and self-criticism that lie at the heart of all true science.
The significance of the divergence problem is immediately obvious, and seeking to hide it is quite simply wrong.
The recent public statements by supposed leaders of UK science, declaring that hiding the decline is standard scientific practice are on a par with declarations that black is white and up is down. I don’t know who they think they are speaking for, but they certainly aren’t speaking for me.
I have watched Judy Curry with considerable interest since she first went public on her doubts about some aspects of climate science, an area where she is far more qualified than I am to have an opinion. Her latest post has clearly kicked up a remarkable furore, but she was right to make it.
The decision to hide the decline, and the dogged refusal to admit that this was an error, has endangered the credibility of the whole of climate science. If the rot is not stopped then the credibility of the whole of science will eventually come into question."
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Because of 'Hide the Decline' Prof R Muller will no longer look at these scientists work (CRU/Mann)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbR0EPWgkEI&feature=player_embedded#t=1801s
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UEA: Paul Dennis on 'hide the decline'
What concerns me about the hide the decline debate is that the divergence between tree ring width and temperature in the latter half of the 20th century points to possibly both a strong non-linear response and threshold type behaviour.
There is nothing particularly different about conditions in the latter half of the 20th century and earlier periods. The temperatures, certainly in the 1960′s, are similar, nutrient inputs may have changed a little and water stress may have been different in some regions but not of a level that has not ben recorded in the past.
Given this and the observed divergence one can’t have any confidence that such a response has not occurred in the past and before the modern instrumental record starting in about 1880
(originally produced at Simon Singh's blog - cant access it now?)
Reproduced here:
http://www.realclimategate.org/2011/02/has-the-bbc-has-broken-faith-with-the-general-public/
Paul Dennis:
"What concerns me about the hide the decline debate is that the divergence between tree ring width and temperature in the latter half of the 20th century points to possibly both a strong non-linear response and threshold type behaviour.
There is nothing particularly different about conditions in the latter half of the 20th century and earlier periods. The temperatures, certainly in the 1960′s, are similar, nutrient inputs may have changed a little and water stress may have been different in some regions but not of a level that has not ben recorded in the past.
Given this and the observed divergence one can’t have any confidence that such a response has not occurred in the past and before the modern instrumental record starting in about 1880."
-----------------------------------------------
My thoughts at the time:
‘Hide the Decline’ has always been a political issue…
Who were they ‘hiding the decline’ from and why
the question that is unasked, why the NEED to 'Hide the Decline'
That is the question that should be asked and why do they feel the need to hide the decline..
The answer is of course the policy makers…
Even policy makers can understand if the proxies for temperature don’t match thermometers, for some unkonwn reason…. HOW THE HELL can they be used to reconstruct past temperature reliably.
Thus, ‘unprecedented’ global warming, the claim that reconstruction show this, and it must (argument from ignorance) be due to humans.. Goes completely out of the window..
Politicians, CAN understand this…
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Yet - according to the great and the good in US climate science - to even mention 'Hide the Decline' is offensive...
Peter Gleick:
"His [Barry Woods] adoption of the language, often coded, of the denier/skeptic/contrarian community, his amplification of memes around “climategate,” “AGwarmists,” “hide the decline,” “the hockey stick,” the straw man of “catastrophic” climate change, etc. may have changed since I blocked his Twitter feed to me last year, but I simply don’t find his input to the debate helpful or informative, and I’m certainly entitled to both my opinions and to decide what part of the climate controversy comes to me through different media."
http://www.realclimategate.org/2012/02/clarifications-and-how-better-to-communicate-science/
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Until UK climate science can deal with this issue Publically and move on, loss of trust sadly remains:
Because anyone that signed this, (extract)
"That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method. "
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2009/science-community
whilst I imagine, most were totally unaware of the contents of any of the emails) is ultimately supporting Glieck's view of 'Hide the Decline' in my opinion, even if they do not realise it.
Sorry to be tough on this, if this was in business, we would not have danced around it for so long.
Do we have here a man who is puffed up with some sense of his own importance and perhaps subconsciously fears deflation - like some priest for a religious sect who encounters cheeky non-believers upon leaving the confines of his seminary? He is coming out into the world to preach a gospel he has been led to believe is deserving of huge respect. Sounds like someone with whom mischievous idlers could have a bit of fun. Oh cruel world!
there is either a technical issue, or some other 'problem', as the comment I made yesterday on Michae'sl blog has not appeared..
Maybe someone could ask him about it, or to check his 'blog filters' (anURL may have trapped it)
I was as ever, civil.
That said, I have a problem with one post here ( a few links included)- could Andrew check the spam filter, or did captcha - getme ?
The funny thing about Belgium people is that they get to speak three languages, but none of them intelligibly.
Professor Crucifix sounds like a creation of J B Morton. Is he related to Dr Strabismus?
Cruci fixus ex cathdra.
He knows what he means y authority.
It is the same authority with which high priests of any religion speak and which must always be acknowledged. Like Papal infallibility.
Yes indeed you can ask, my child, for clarification but when I speak I speak the Word which is the eternal Truth and may not be challenged.
Authority means they are infallible
The AGW pseudo-religion now has officious and as we see, pompous opinion makers. Crucifix may or may not also be a scientist, but he is definitely a pompous opinion leader who trades on claims of authority and position to control his message.
I have a Belgian living two doors away. he plays the saxophone badly on Sunday afternoons. I obviously cannot complain as I am not a saxophonist.
ssat
:-)
At least it's not Hengist and bagpipes...
Feb 6, 2012 at 8:44 AM | mrsean2k
"1) I'd echo Richard Bett's sentiment - a first post in a second language. We are *far* too unforgiving in this respect generally"
mrsean2k, I hear that the Obama administration will soon declare "English as a second lanaguage/American as a third language (covers Brits)" as a disability covered by Social Security (regardless of whether you have payed). Until that happens, I think we should be worldly enough to recognize that one's difficulties with language are in fact held against one. That is the way of the world and it is important that those of us who claim to be scientists should struggle to maintain contact with the world at all times.
"2) Even assuming Michel says what he means and means what he says, it's a honest position; you have a choice of whether or not to spend time and effort engaging with him. If you believe that accepting his (presumed) opinion is too high a price, just don't engage."
What an interesting proposal. Let's all decide not to engage with him and use all our efforts to encourage all others not to engage with him. Sort of a Gleick approach.
The above should be read as a weak attempt at humor sailing under the flag of sarcasm.
Let's be charitable this time and assume that any unfortunate phrasing is related to language difficulties.
But perhaps he should consider having subsequent contributions read by a native English speaker to iron out any misunderstandings beforehand.
Feb 6, 2012 at 8:29 AM | Patagon
I am shocked that a person who calls himself a scientist would reference the work of Ravetz, unless the reference is for the purpose of dismissing that work. Ravetz is not just mistaken; rather, he is wholly uninformed about his topic. The truly important contributors to our understanding of metascience in the last sixty years include Carl G. Hempel, Israel Scheffler, W.V. Quine, Nelson Goodman, Karl Popper, Wolfgang Stegmuller, Isaac Levi, and a host of their students. You will not find one paragraph about the work of any of these thinkers in Ravetz. What you get from Ravetz is that tired old "social construction of reality" meme whose proponents use Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" as an excuse for departing from careful analysis, logic, and everything resembling empiricism. Kuhn's work offered a wonderful set of puzzles that served as an exercise for graduate students in metascience. But it contributed nothing beyond that exercise.
Ravetz's work confuses metascience and public policy. In somewhat more academic language, the work confuses the topic of scientific reasoning and evidence with the topic of decision making under uncertainty. Today this confusion is crystallized in the belief that Bayesian reasoning forms part of scientific reasoning. Bayesian reasoning is absolutely wonderful if you are trying to learn about your weaknesses at the gaming tables in Las Vegas. Obviously, it can be extended to public policy making. However, it can tell us nothing about the evidence for scientific claims. Scientists who use statistics should follow the lead of the Population Geneticists who offer a clear account of objective statistics.
Scientists who travel the "social construction of reality" path deprive themselves of the tools for objective evaluation of scientific claims. This leaves them prey to anyone who would promote the tools used for "decision making under uncertainty" as the tail that wags the dog of science. Such scientists have come full circle to William James' "The Will to Believe" which equates scientific belief and religious belief as comparable societal goods. Sound familiar?
ssat
Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone, was a Belgian. Not many people know that.
While I am prepared to be charitable and thus ascribe M Crucifix's statements about his 'authority' to his being educated in the European academic system where 'authority' comes with the various academic titles, the highest authority of course being a 'professeur', it is worth pointing out that M Crucifix is a physicist, and not a biologist.
Therefore, his remark that climate is a biologically controlled system shows me that he's stepped into an area where he not an authority. In fact, to quote a famous physicist, he is 'not even wrong' ...
As for the rest of his essay - sigh. It is the old argument re-packaged in French academic language, with a tough of 'philosophy', that we, the peasants need to be made to 'believe' by use of sociological techniques. In plain english - more, better and mor clever propaganda is all that's needed to turn us into authority-following believers.
Not on your nelly, M crucifix!
Over at Tamsin's website, All Models Are Wrong - but Peter and Steve don't want to give people the wrong impression... :-) , Michel and Anteros were engaged in a very interesting exchange about climate models and if their results were being oversold (IIRC) and Michel said something that caught my eye. I can't remember the exact quote but he said something like... One of the reasons I am very concerned about climate change is that politicians and industrial leaders are very concerned about climate change... He seemed to be saying that it did not matter what the models suggested about future climate because all the really important people already believed. I am not sure if this is niave or disingenuous. I thought Anteros would be all over this but he was all over many other things.
KNEEL BEFORE ZOD!
@theogoodwin
I'm not really familiar with it, but I understand that at one point, American political candidates were "accusing" their opponents of being able to speak a second language. Wish I was guilty of that.
Also I think you can get a decent amount of mileage talking about someone and their claims even if you can't talk with them.
Gleick is an interesting example; having seen him in action online in a few places, I personally feel you'd have to check every reference he offers and I'd only engage with him in 3rd party venues where he has no editorial control.
Spot on, Theo Goodwin, Feb 6, 2012 at 3:12 PM
I made the observation on Tom Fuller's old blog that climate scientists were afflicted with hubris. Bart V said I was the one guilty of hubris as it took hubris for me to reject the findings of the scientific experts.
Feb 6, 2012 at 5:46 PM | mrsean2k
Don't I know. Spent my whole life with them. Oy Vey.
Loving this "cut-him-slack-cuz-he-is-not-english" idea.
Let's extend this idea. Lousy statistics are OK if it's not your field. Lousy programs are OK if Fortran is not your first language. Lousy graphs are OK... Lousy record-keeping is OK... Lousy essays are OK...
In fact we could invent an entire pseudo discipline where everyone was excused because they were outside their original field. Wait a minute ...
Perhaps he should just have posted in his native language and rebutted any criticism in the same way.
But honestly, there's a middle-ground between deferentially tugging at your forelock and going for the jugular. At least have a couple of exchanges with the man.
> Belgian climatologist Michel Crucifix has published an interesting post about climatologists' engagement with the wider world...
Following the link now brings up this message: "Sorry, the blog at mcrucifix.blogspot.com has been removed."
Last time I looked there was one critical posting, and an exchange between us which I thought was very civil (even veering into possibly useful territory). There are quite a few non-nefarious reasons for it to disappear - maybe it'll pop back into existence in a while.
It seems more likely that he's taken it down himself. Professeurs do not always take kindly to contrary opinions.
The blog is back now (the format looks a little different - maybe a new template?). Your exchanges with him are interesting, mrsean2k. I guess I did not understand why people here were so aggressive towards him, as his phrasing was clumsy rather than offensive to my eyes. He wrote that people should accept that he had some authority, but went on to explain:
This seems to me like fair comment. To some extent, we should defer to the expertise of people like him, Tamsin, Richard Betts, and so on, because they simply have spent much more time thinking about climate, in technical and less technical ways, than most of us here have. We're not obliged to agree that they are right on every judgement call or even every technical matter (this is especially true to those experts like Hansen, Trenberth, Jones or Mann who have demonstrated that they approach some topics in a less than even-handed way). But it does mean that we should accept that they are more likely to be right about uncontentious technical matters than a random commenter on a blog. I think that is all that Michel is saying. But I guess that in the blogosphere, the chance of having one statement seized upon and the caveats ignored is such that he should have been more careful in what he wrote.
Jeremy Harvey writes:
"This seems to me like fair comment. To some extent, we should defer to the expertise of people like him, Tamsin, Richard Betts, and so on, because they simply have spent much more time thinking about climate, in technical and less technical ways, than most of us here have."
Aren't we doing that? What is eager attendance at Tamsin's blog if not deferring to her expertise?
Some learning of relative thickness of skin must take place. I had no intention of offending Dr. Crucifix and have none now. But I could not have anticipated the attitude expressed in some of his comments. He did equate the quality of his work with that of CERN scientists. I will happily walk on eggshells around him and simply ignore his little problem with self image.
We really should not ignore the elephant in the room. Climate science is criticism-phobic. The extremely well documented fear of criticism among climate scientists is the number one problem facing climate science. It is their problem not ours. They have the responsibility to address it. Otherwise, they can just stop calling themselves scientists.
It is really disheartening to visit a new blog that promises to reveal much about the role of models in climate science and find that half the posts express fears of criticism of climate science. It is really disheartening to find that the same old pathology dominates every new undertaking by climate scientists. Will there ever be a breath of fresh among climate scientists?
Pardon the typo,
Will there ever be a breath of fresh air among climate scientists?
Hi Theo,
Half the comments on my blog? I didn't get that feeling - or at least, not that it was half of them.
I'm really wanting to write a post to start the scientific discussions but I have three rather late things hanging over my head...frustrating! (though it is my job...)
Tamsin
Feb 9, 2012 at 3:45 PM | Tamsin Edwards
Tamsin,
My criticism is not directed at you but at commenters. Please recall the "tweets" from Gleick that you published at your blog. There is in climate science this incredible urge to control the conversation, even on blogs. My count is probably higher than yours because I include posts such as those by Jeremy Harvey as attempting to control the conversation. (And please notice that commenters have begun calling other commenters trolls.) I realize that Mr. Harvey is very judicious in his statements and reasons very well but the bottom line is that he wants to excuse Dr. Crucifix's outrageous statements such as the statement that climate science compares to the search for the Higgs Boson undertaken by CERN scientists. Is it not clear that if such a statement is allowed to stand then anyone who criticizes climate science is quite simply an idiot? Having implied that sceptics are idiots, people such as Dr. Crucifix then blame us for their very unscientific reticence. Genuine scientists are obsessed with explaining their work. It is difficult to get them to shut up. It is difficult to get climate scientists to show up.
As regards your blog, I have the highest hopes for it. I am there to learn from you and do not anticipate criticizing your posts at all. I set out my major worries about models and you acknowledged them. That is all I ask.
As regards comments on your blog, I am disheartened. Without referring to particular individuals, I will say that it seems that we are headed down the same old road of "you have to offer some extraordinary explanation of your post if you criticize climate science or climate scientists." Why is it that climate scientists cannot see that this is an unprecedented phenomenon in the history of science?
Do not be concerned about the timing of your posts. What you are doing is a gift to the rest of us and I am quite happy to wait at your convenience.
Still looking at this thread so a couple of points: thanks, Theo, for saying I'm judicious! As to my attempt to control the conversation, some soul-searching reveals that that is probably true in one sense at least: I don't personally think that the aggressive way in which many sceptics engage conversation with climate scientists, e.g. Michel in this case, is productive. So I do occasionally seek to encourage people to be more polite - quite a lot of comments here engaged in Belgian-bashing, which I thought was rude and uncalled for. But OK, there are people who try to control the conversation far more than I do (simply because they comment far more than I do) - and I don't think I can be said to be trying to control the conversation on Tamsin's blog - I've barely commented there at all.
About your more general point: yes, climate scientists often seem to be very defensive. But isn't that human nature? You suggest that to call yourself a scientist, you have to be immune to all criticisms of your work. I'm sure a lot of us would aspire to that - but it isn't what I see around me... Whenever anyone criticizes any of my science my immediate reaction is to be upset - and then hopefully after that I'll try and work out if they were right or wrong. A degree of individual defensiveness among climate scientists seems bearable to me. The problem is the "corporate" defensiveness that shows up in people like Peter Gleick trying to ban Tamsin from running her blog the way she wants to, or people trying to ban people from talking to sceptics etc. I don't see too much of that in comments on her blog.
Feb 9, 2012 at 5:42 PM | Jeremy Harvey
Thanks for your comment, Jeremy. I hope it is clear that I do not consider you offensive in your blogging behavior. I agree with what you just said, namely, that your behavior is quite natural. We all do it. Your postings are remarkably judicious.
Theo, Michel's point was that climate scientists have a greater responsibility to explain their work:
I'd say this statement, and his other contributions to my blog, showed his intention to communicate - and therefore it would be better to keep the conversation open rather than to attack him. Dialogue is better than shutting the door.
By the way, having come from particle physics (Fermilab) I can say that Michel is absolutely as excellent, honest and rigorous a physicist as any I encountered in that field.
Tamsin
Tamsin,
I did not mean to question Dr. Crucifix's abilities. It is time for all of us to move on. Thanks for addressing my specific concerns. You are toooo kind.
Best,
Theo