Bishop Hill Testing scientific gullibility
Jul 6, 2012 Climate: other Many readers will be aware of Alan Sokal's famous hoaxing of the postmodernist journal Social Text (as well as the revenge of the humanities scholars some time afterwards).
Now, in an amusingexperiment, scholars at Imperial College have taken the hoaxing one step further:
What would happen if we took Sokal’s broad premise and turned it around onto scientists? Could we make scientists believe a hoax TV news story because it (a) employed familiar TV conventions and (b) it presented a flattering narrative of a lone scientist battling corrupt authority?
We set about constructing a four-minute TV news item about a visiting Japanese scientist called Shigeyuki Kagoshima, whose important climate-saving research had been thwarted by a cynical Chinese corporation. We studied science news clips on television to mimic common devices such as lab presentations and interview conventions. We presented our film to science undergraduates at Imperial College as a genuine news piece – and tested whether our audience could detect the content as fake. Finally, we revealed our hoax – and asked them for their reactions.
Find out what happened here.
Reader Comments (119)
Jul 16, 2012 at 3:26 PM | Marion
No he wasn't. Carter was using a figure which showed the data up to 2002, even though his book was published in 2010 and the data themselves had continued to be updated in the meantime (see here for the data)
It so happened that the 500hpa temperature in 2002 was about the same as in 1958, but if trying to use a temperature record to look at long-term trends (which Carter was clearly trying to do, since he commented about CO2 rise at the same time) then the conclusions ought to be robust to using different years a few years either side of the chosen ones. If the figure had only gone as far as 1998 / 1999 then using the end point would have indicated a large warming (but again that would be unrepresentative in the other direction, as it would have been using an unusually warm year rather than an unusually cold one).
Most years after the end of the figure used by Carter were warmer than 2002 in the troposphere - see here. (NB I think this is showing an average across several pressure levels rather than the 500 hpa level specifically, so is not directly comparable with the figure used in Carter's book, but it's fairly representative - and anyway you can get the 500 hpa data from the link I gave above and check for yourself.)
But regarding Karoly's comments on Steve McIntyre: I would not agree with Karoly in dismissing Steve as merely a "blogger", and if (as seems to be the case) Climate Audit did play a role in identifying the error in the Gergis et al paper, then I hope this is acknowledged.
My confidence in Karoly doing a good job in his role in the Gergis paper is based on his abilities as a scientist.
Next you are going to tell us Karoly and his crew are not looking for a specific result. With all the evidence that Gergis is an activist who is trying to make sure there is no MWP in Australia, and all the evidence not of the flawed method (which anyone might have done) but the proxy choices which seem determined to use anything in the SH which fits no matter how far from Australia and to ignore some a lot closer which do not fit. And in fact there are not enough proxies to really come to any degree of certainty in a conclusion, unless one's aim is to get a headline from the press release and get into the AR.
This episode is dodgy, Richard, and you are not wise to stick up for them.
Re: Jul 17, 2012 at 8:02 AM | Rhoda Klapp
"I am reluctant to ask too much of Richard. He has to deal with people like Karoly and the CRU. He can't be seen here casting doubt on their integrity and then go to meetings with them. He also has a limit on how much he can go against the position of his employer"
Now if only he would come back with a response on my purely scientific question about the Harries paper.. "
Rhoda,
I would have more sympathy for Richard's position regarding his colleagues in that
"He can't be seen here casting doubt on their integrity and then go to meetings with them"
if he didn't try to defend them by casting doubt on the integrity of other scientists/experts whom I do hold in high regard, such as Bob Carter in the above examples or for that matter Steve McIntyre to whom he posed the question of whether or not he was 'a gratuitous troublemaker'
and as Chris M. above has stated
"Richard's silence on Stephen's perspicacity and integrity remains deafening. What a sad state of affairs".
I agree with Hilary in that Richard's responses tend to be very informative even if they don't answer the questions posed.
For example his unnecessary emphasis in particular statements I think are an indication of his true position - ie
His response to whether or not he regretted signing the Slingo petition (with the misleading statements contained therein) - (BOLD emphasis mine)
"I don't FOR ONE MINUTE regret signing that petition"
Jun 26, 2012 at 11:07 PM | Richard Betts
despite his having read at least some of the Climategate mails before he signed it and the HSI since then, a view which appears to be very much at odds with that of emminent physicist Hal Lewis.
Also in his response to my queries re David Karoly -
"this does not AT ALL reduce my confidence that David Karoly will ensure that a good job is done in the revisions to the Gergis et al paper"
Jul 16, 2012 at 11:49 AM | Richard Betts
I would prefer to think otherwise but have come across no instances of where Richard has actually gone "against the position of his employer", his stance rather seems to faithfully reflect theirs on embracing social media to communicate the 'science' as described in their annual accounts.
I was struck by how his article on communication in Nature
http://blogs.nature.com/soapboxscience/2012/01/18/climate-science-%e2%80%93-moving-beyond-a-single-issue
where he talks about
"the risk of loss of trust in scientists as objective advisors"
was in some aspects so similar to Judith Curry's article back in Feb 2010 which was ably summarised by Willis Eschenbach as
"Climategate has destroyed the public trust in climate science. Initially skepticism was funded by big oil. Then a climate auditing movement sprang up. They were able to bring the climate establishment to its knees because people trusted them. Public and policy makers don’t understand the truth as presented by the IPCC. To rebuild trust, climate scientists need to better communicate their ideas to the public, particularly regarding uncertainty. The blogosphere can be valuable in this regard."
I feel there can be no better response to Richard than that of Willis Eschenbach to Judith ie -
"....The problem is not how climate scientists have publicly presented their scientific results. It is not a communication problem.
The problem is that 71.3% of what passes as peer reviewed climate science is simply junk science, as false as the percentage cited in this sentence. The lack of trust is not a problem of perception or communication. It is a problem of lack of substance. Results are routinely exaggerated. “Scientific papers” are larded with “may” and “might” and “could possibly”. Advocacy is a common thread in climate science papers. Codes are routinely concealed, data is not archived. A concerted effort is made to marginalize and censor opposing views.
And most disturbing, for years you and the other climate scientists have not said a word about this disgraceful situation..
...The solution to that is not, as you suggest, to give scientists a wider voice, or educate them in how to present their garbage to a wider audience.
The solution is for you to stop trying to pass off garbage as science....
And you wonder why we don’t trust you? Here’s a clue. Because a whole bunch of you are guilty of egregious and repeated scientific malfeasance, and the rest of you are complicit in the crime by your silence. Your response is to stick your fingers in your ears and cover your eyes....
The key to restoring trust has nothing to do with communication. Steve McIntyre doesn’t inspire trust because he is a good communicator. He inspires trust because he follows the age-old practices of science — transparency and openness and freewheeling scientific discussion and honest reporting of results....
You want trust? Do good science, and publicly insist that other climate scientists do good science as well. It’s that simple. Do good science, and publicly call out the Manns and the Joneses and the Thompsons [or the Karolys for that matter!!!] and the rest of the charlatans that you are currently protecting. Call out the journals that don’t follow their own policies on data archiving. Speak up for honest science. Archive your data. Insist on transparency. Publish your codes.
Once that is done, the rest will fall in line. And until then, I’m overjoyed that people don’t trust you. I see the lack of trust in mainstream climate science as a huge triumph for real science. Fix it by doing good science and by cleaning up your own backyard. Anything else is a coverup...
my congratulations on being willing to post your ideas in public.... I respect you greatly for it"
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/25/judith-i-love-ya-but-youre-way-wrong/
"The lack of trust is not a problem of perception or communication. It is a problem of lack of substance."
I've asked repeatedly for the 'best evidence' in support of the Slingo petition but have yet to receive a satisfactory response so would certainly be interested in his reply to your "purely scientific question about the Harries paper.."
Somehow I suspect we will be met with a further 'lack of substance' and I'm afraid my sympathies lie with others who are the victims of policies based on this particular brand of science, the other Thompsons!.
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/the-thompsons-fight-on-from-the-usa-a-business-ruined-by-green-tape-and-the-australian-carbon-tax/
Jul 17, 2012 at 10:06 AM | Richard Betts
Disappointingly disingenuous, Richard. Carter was quoting from the published science ie Thorne et Al. 2005 - the radiosonde data was only available from 1958 as Carter explained in his book and I have quoted above and the end date may be simply what was available to Thorne et Al. at the time they commenced writing their paper. One wonders how long it took Carter to complete his book "one of the first scientific books to be published challenging the veracity of anthropogenic global warming" [Professor Robert M.Carter, Climate: The Counter Consensus], indeed how long it took to get published, given the bile it was bound to receive!!
And as for Karoly's 'ability' as a scientist - just why has the Law Dome data been ignored despite its importance as "the highest age resolution (approximately 10 years) of any ice core record in existence"
http://climateaudit.org/2012/06/03/gergis-two-medieval-proxies/
At least since the first batch of ClimateGate emails emerged one could say about climate science(TM!!?) also what was said recently on another occasion, namely LiborGate, as Paul Tucker, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England told Members of Parliament:
I asked a few questions, especially after ClimateGate. But in most cases I got, for example from Richard, no answers. One might wonder why so few questions were asked by other scientists or the official "investigators" or "journalists" after ClimateGate. It turns out that it is apparently for the same reasons Marcus Agius, Chairman of Barclays, gave in LiborGate. Agius:
For example Hans von Storch resigned once as - relatively new - editor of a journal after the Soon et al. "affair" because, as von Storch wrote analogously, important questions were not asked during the peer review process. Sadly, only a few scientists are interested in answering questions about ClimateGate, the peer review processes and so forth; questions that seem to be important for the interested public and other scientists. It seems that it shall look like it is impossible to get answers from the relevant scientists/investigators. It seems the silence of most of the involved scientists/"investigators"/"journalists" is a try to sit inconvenient questions out, a try to keep dead quiet, to pretend the questions doesn't exist, to play dumb. It definitely seems to me to be delaying tactics by consensus activists/scientists/journalists, who want to be the ones who rock our world - without any questioning.
Apart from my questions I posed above and elsewhere on this blog I have no further questions so far.
Well, sometimes silence is meaningful too. I don't envy RBs position, but he is at least here for us to question. I just do not expect him to be able to answer in every case. Pity he hasn't come back on a simple question of science, I will come to my own conclusions, and if that is the best evidence, the accused is going to walk. CO2: Not guilty!.
Marion
You know, I'd be really grateful if you could just drop the animosity!
I've answered your questions in good faith, backing up my opinions with the reasons behind them. It was you who brought up Bob Carter and insisted that I comment on Karoly's review of his book - I'd never read anything of Carter's before then. I genuinely think he has interpreted and presented the HadAT dataset incorrectly, and I have explained why I think that - I don't think my explanation is "disingenuous".
On this meme of me "asking Steve McIntyre is he is a gratuitous troublemaker" - well, yes I did, but I specifically put "gratuitous troublemaker" in quotes because someone else had previously said he was called that. Steve had given me some frank feedback about the Met Office, which was fine, and I felt that it was OK to ask him frankly whether what the other person had said was true or not. Steve did not seem to take offence. See my comment and surrounding discussion on Climate Audit.
As Rhoda Klapp says, at least I am here for you to question. But if you were me, and all your answers got thrown back at you as being "disingenuous" or a "diatribe", well, would you feel that it was even worth bothering to answer the questions?
Similarly, Hilary, sorry if you interpret my attempts at remaining cheerful and good-humoured as "flippancy". I can be rude if you prefer!
Chris M, September 2011, please can you let me know if you can still access the "Warming Guide"? (Either version)
Rhoda Klapp, I'm sorry I missed your question about the Harries paper, perhaps you can re-post it on the "What's your best evidence?" discussion thread started by the other Rhoda? There's already discussion of it there, and I have difficulty keeping track of so many parallel conversations!
Thanks
Richard
Re: Jul 17, 2012 at 11:26 PM | Richard Betts
If you recall Richard, it was you who commended David Karoly to us and said
""I know David Karoly and am confident he'll help ensure that a good job is done."
I simply provided the evidence as to why I didn't believe this to be the case, ie his review of Carter's book -
"David Karoly's critique of Bob Carter's book "Climate: The Counter Consensus" was nothing short of disgraceful. To my mind his misrepresentation of his colleague's book should come under academic misconduct.
This for example -
"Lets fall through a rabbit hole and enter a different world: the “Carter reality”. In that world, it is OK to select any evidence that supports your ideas and ignore all other evidence....
In the Carter reality, “there has been no net warming between 1958 and 2005.“ Of course, in the real world, there is no basis for this statement from scientific analysis of observational data. The decade of the 2000s was warmer than the 1990s, which was warmer than the 1980s, which was warmer than the 1970s, which was warmer than the 1960s.
So where does Carter’s statement come from? In the Carter reality, he finds a hot year early in the period and a cold year much later, and says there’s been no warming. This would be like saying that winter is not colder than summer because a very hot day in winter might happen to have much the same temperature as a very cold day in summer, ignoring all the other days." "
http://theconversation.edu.au/bob-carters-climate-counter-consensus-is-an-alternate-reality-1553
when Carter was commenting in his book on figure 9 (lower) of Thorne et al 2005 ie "Revisiting radiosonde upper air temperatures from 1958 to 2002"
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadat/HadAT_paper.pdf
How can you possibly then defend Karoly's description as you have done in your answer above
against my statement that
"Far from selecting two 'individual' years as Karoly, and now it seems you, appear to claim, Carter was using the start point and end point (as used in Thorne et al 2005) of the then available radiosonde data (unlike so many Climate scientists who tend to 'truncate' the use of data)."
with your response -
"No he wasn't. Carter was using a figure which showed the data up to 2002, even though his book was published in 2010 and the data themselves had continued to be updated in the meantime (see here for the data)"
As I said "Carter was quoting from the published science ie Thorne et Al. 2005 - the radiosonde data was only available from 1958 as Carter explained in his book and I have quoted above and the end date may be simply what was available to Thorne et Al. at the time they commenced writing their paper. One wonders how long it took Carter to complete his book "one of the first scientific books to be published challenging the veracity of anthropogenic global warming" [Professor Robert M.Carter, Climate: The Counter Consensus], indeed how long it took to get published, given the bile it was bound to receive!!"
'
Sorry Richard but I really don't feel that the term 'disingenuous' ie 'failing to reveal the whole story or full truth' is unfair comment for Karoly's description and your support of it.
Jul 17, 2012 at 11:26 PM | Richard Betts
Richard,
Michael Mann does "animosity". Peter Gleick does "animosity". Trenberth does "animosity". Your friend Karoly and his colleague, Gergis, do "animosity" - as do the other members of the "in-crowd". Marion doesn't. Certainly not in anything I've ever seen her post.
Unlike Karoly - who provides absolutely no evidence in support of (for example) his recent false and defamatory claim that Steve McIntyre is a commentator with "no scientific expertise ... [who has] repeatedly promulgated misinformation" - when Marion has observed that your response is "disingenuous" or that you have responded with a "diatribe", she provides evidence in support of her claim.
In this regard, you asked the question:
First of all, it is far from "all your answers" which have resulted in such descriptions. But that aside ... has it occurred to you that perhaps you are asking the wrong question?! If this is, in fact, your perception, perhaps you should consider asking yourself: "What is it about the answers I'm providing that are causing such unfavourable responses?"
Btw, there are several problems with your response on the Karoly-McIntyre front:
I'm not sure if you chose this particular Caspar Milquetoast wording because you failed to grasp the full extent of Karoly's defamation, or if you were playing to the lurkers - in the hope that most will have missed the actual words and context of your very watered-down précis of the problem.
Your choice of phrases would certainly lead an unsuspecting and uninformed lurker to wonder: "Gee, why would someone have any concern about being "dismissed as merely a 'blogger'? It's no big deal!"
Your comment on this continued:
As anyone who has actually followed the discussions at CA would clearly know - notwithstanding Karoly's much belated and creatively ambiguous E-mail to Steve - Climate Audit did far more than "play a role in identifying the error".
In the interim, Karoly's public statements regarding the "on hold" status of the paper have been conspicuously silent on the role of Climate Audit.
Karoly has now escalated his activist-antics by adding further insult to the injuries he's chosen to inflict by publicly declaring (again providing no evidence whatsoever) that he had "just received a threat of legal action from Steve McIntyre". When - in fact - he had received no such thing, although - at least in this instance - this would explain why he provided no evidence.
In light of the above, I am at a complete loss to think of any possible reason you might have to "hope" that Climate Audit's role will be appropriately acknowledged in the revised Gergis et al paper.
But speaking of Climate Audit ... I'm glad you provided the link to the thread in which you had (for reasons probably best known only to yourself) posed a question to Steve that I found to be both ignorant and insulting (and a diversion from the main topic of the thread: Boulton and IPCC secrecy). Your question was:
Setting aside the quasi-angelic halo which you chose to bestow upon those who were attempting to denigrate Steve ...
You could easily have done some homework and found the answers you were ostensibly seeking. And you could have been somewhat more responsive to Steve's gracious, thoughtful and lengthy reply, which included:
Yet, rather than "engage" any of the points Steve had raised, you simply said 'thank you' ... and promptly changed the subject ... to that which he'd merely mentioned as an example in passing: "mines"
Not only that ... but here you are, almost six months later, a member in good standing of the "non self-policing ... climate community" appearing to do everything you possibly can to avoid criticizing Karoly's unscientific, unprofessional and unacceptable conduct.
YMMV, but that's the view from here :-)
To repeat what another commenter said earlier:
I'd like to think that that comment was a good signal to end the persistent inquisitorial questioning. One can repeat the same argument so many times and push it only so far.
Besides, there are other threads that are more relevant and appropriate for questioning the Met staff who are kind enough to actually come and engage directly with the BH community even though they are under no obligation to do so.
Time to move on. It's absurd to accuse Richard Betts of scheming or worse, just as it's absurd for Richard to attempt improbable defenses of people like Karoly, whose private persona with trusted colleagues is obviously not the nasty crybaby half-freak Karoly has chosen to become when McIntyre or Carter are mentioned.
If I were Karoly's friend I'd implore him to stop circling the wagons because nothing destroys one's long-term scientific reputation like circling the wagons.
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
and who can deny that evil is being done when large swathes of the population are being plunged into fuel poverty or denied the ability to make a living as in the Thompsons case. (links I have already provided but will do so again upon request)
As I have shown it is actually Met Office policy to use social media to 'engage' with the public,though it is arguable whether this is to explain the 'science' or merely to divert from its 'lack of substance' . Perhaps you would like to review Richard's answers to see if he actually effectively responded to any of the substantive questions put to him and
Omnologos, please do identify any occasion where I have accused Richard Betts 'of scheming or worse', one shouldn't put such accusations without providing evidence!
Marion! Who's being disingenuous now!!!
You're constantly on a warpath with Richard. A warpath with examples, still a warpath.
If you haven't noticed it, then it's going to be hard to discuss the argument further with you.
Re: Jul 18, 2012 at 9:52 AM | omnologos
So .... still no actual examples of "where I have accused Richard Betts 'of scheming or worse' "
but a simple retreat. The questions put to Richard were legitimate ones
Perhaps you would care to download his slides on the subject
http://www.exeter.ac.uk/btg/newsandevents/archive/title_220045_en.html
As requested I've restated my questions about Harries on the Best Evidence thread. This one is on page 2 now, and we are off the topic and getting nowhere so I suggest somebody picks a more accurate topic and take it to discussion.
"Chris M, September 2011, please can you let me know if you can still access the "Warming Guide"? (Either version)"
Richard, I can confirm that the link you provided no longer functions. So thank you again. I would like to think that ultimately we're all on the same side and will arrive at the same rational destination, whatever our starting points in this debate may have been. :-)
Unfortunately Chris by the removal of the link to the 2009 09/0050 'Warming Climate Change - the Facts' brouchure we have lost the context of what the Met.Office was pushing as the 'science' before they sent round the Slingo petition which Richard, Tamsin and 1700+ other scientists signed.
Although perhaps Richard can provide a link to the archived copy :-)
However the propaganda remains - particularly in our schools
http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/tackling-climate-change/2050/3670-2050-schools-toolkit-pdf-version.pdf
Yes Marion I agree entirely that alarmist propaganda aimed at schoolkids is totally unacceptable, which may be part of the reason Richard arranged for the removal of the offending brochure, unrequested; he is of an age when he is likely to have children of his own still at school. So I am relatively happy with one small step at a time where the Met is concerned.
As I have implied elsewhere Richard is constrained to some extent in what he can say, due to his role as a civil servant. I strongly suspect however that he is a benign and moderating influence within the Met Office, which hopefully will eventually contribute to a shift in governmental CO2 mitigation policy. If he sometimes gets it wrong, as with his defence of Karoly, well we all do.
Thanks for asking, Richard. Yes, it's gone, thank you once again.
(I'm not sure: Did the image of the two hockey sticks included for example error bars? ...if you still read this discussion...)
Is there eventually another booklet or brochure by the Met Office -- especially for lay persons -- , which you like to recommend in particular on the topic of climate change?