Bishop Hill Tamsin and the hornet's nest
Aug 1, 2013 Climate: WG3 Climate: other Greens I've been otherwise engaged in the last 24 hours so I missed all the excitement over Tamsin Edwards' post at the Guardian's Political Science blog, in which she calls for scientists to steer clear of political advocacy.
I believe advocacy by climate scientists has damaged trust in the science. We risk our credibility, our reputation for objectivity, if we are not absolutely neutral. At the very least, it leaves us open to criticism. I find much climate scepticism is driven by a belief that environmental activism has influenced how scientists gather and interpret evidence. So I've found my hardline approach successful in taking the politics and therefore – pun intended – the heat out of climate science discussions.
Judith Curry has an excellent round up of the responses around the web.
Reader Comments (114)
I think Tamsin has precisely the right idea. She recognises the danger of advocacy infecting research and rightly guards against it. Fundamentally, Tamsin gets the scientific method - ie. both the method AND the purpose for it.
I don't have an issue with climate scientists having an ideological viewpoint, and I suspect that Tamsin probably doesn't either (and a few more words from her could add resolution). She disagrees with Schmidt, who uses the argument that to suppress or conceal your advocacy would itself be a breach of trust. For me, with Schmidt it's just an easy get-out clause to legitimise his blatant ideological bias. He's frequently seen using his NASA position to weight his ideological punch. That's unacceptable and undermines the science, just as Tamsin says.
Schneider made the point that, as a scientist, he had a duty to be honest and yet as an activist felt bound to tell a scary story in order to be effective. Schneider said he hoped you could do both. Tamsin's point is that you'd damn well better do more than HOPE you can do both, and that it isn't science (according to the scientific method) if you fail to prevent your science being contaminated by your socio-political advocacy.
I think it's wonderful that Tamsin has stuck her neck out. I know she has immense integrity as a scientist. I anticipate that there will be hell to pay from the alarmists for speaking out for the integrity of science. Let's keep that in perspective, though. If Tamsin catches flack from "97%" of the climate science community for speaking up for the scientific method (which is in truth all she's done here), there's something even more egregiously wrong with the "97%". i.e. it's "worse than we thought."
Not just the science but science in general. For me, my sceptical position on the current state of climate science has leaked all over what were previously pretty solid convictions. It's not just the science, it's the way that science has been promoted and advocated for political and financial reasons.
wrt the science/advocacy issue, I am reminded what Revkin advised Shakun after his highly embarrassing Yeah, Super hockey stick. Boom. Outa the elevator interview. i.e. "at the very least, speak in two sentences":
Shakun interviews Revkin (skip to 9 mins 20secs).
Take away government funding and climate science would be a minuscule field. Hence, if government directs the research and chooses the participants, only those who play ball with the politicians will be rewarded. Don't want to be an advocate -- then don't expect to be picked to play the game. Lindzen has written about this:
www.arxiv.org/abs/0809.3762
Tamsin, I just send you an email about a job idea, at the Bristol uni domain. It said you're away. It may be mad and I'm sure you'd not expect anything less from me! But just to let you know.
Shouldn't that be nunastic?!...
...I'll get my coat
Nuntastic may be pushing the joke too far. But I think you already did that. :)
If I might dilute the sagacity of this thread a bit, the problem is not with scientists speaking out of school, it is with our loss of trust that our politicians will do the right thing. I doubt that any of us has such trust, nor should we. But its assumption is what our two places run on.
Regrettably, there have been long periods in the past, dozens of years, when the political arrangements were unable to comprehend the problems of the day, in one example setting up those of us on the west side of the pond to run our own shop.
I suspect we are in such a period now.
I have a bit of a problem with all of this. On the one hand I want to say bravo to Tamsin for speaking out in favour of science. On the other, we still live in a world where ruinous policies have been based on the worthless output of computer models. So only a small step towards sanity. When Tamsin confirms that the models are not good enough to base policy on I will let out a little ‘whoop’ and throw my hat in the air.
I speak with the limited authority of a visit to Wikipedia and a couple of Google expeditions which seem to verify the Wiki version.
The exciting dramatised version is that Snow was so convinced of his germ theory, and so frustrated at being ignored by the powers that be, that he took it upon himself to act unilaterally by removing the pump handle - thereby stopping the cholera epidemic in its tracks and providing a role model for heroic activist scientists everywhere.
The more accurate and prosaic version seems to be that he plotted his maps of outbreaks, interviewed the locals about which pump they drew water from - and took his results to the parish guardians who accepted them and had the pump disabled within 24 hours.
In other words he took his results to the public authorities who quickly agreed a simple, effective and low cost solution to the problem.
Had he been an activist climate scientist, of course, he would have demanded that all pumps in London be closed forthwith and a fleet of steam powered tankers of new and innovative design be constructed regardless of cost - so that millions of gallons of pure highland spring water could be shipped to London so that risks to the citizenry could be completely avoided.
Good for her. She writes well and wisely, but I fear that her moral quality is too high for her chosen field given the politicisation of such as the IPCC, and the tawdry exchanges revealed by the climategates. If her technical quality is also high, she will be wasted there if, as seems likely, computer modelling of climate using fluid motion equations is a fool's errand.
I mostly agree with Tamsin's position.
The difference is that I see no problem with sticking up my hand so say "There is a problem here, you need to consider doing something about it".
That said, you also need to differentiate between relatively solid scientific fact, on which you probably should have an opinion about the need to do (or not) something, and the "maybe" derivatives of those facts.
With climate, there is agreement amongst most people that CO2 is increasing and that it will induce some global increase in temperature.
The problems start in quantifying that temperature change. We see estimates of anywhere from 0.5C to 10C for a doubling of CO2 concentration.
Then there is the probable effects of any such increase. This is where we get into the "maybe" category.
A lot of the "maybe" predictions are patent garbage, but it is the maybe predictions which persuade politicians of the need to act. In itself, a rise in global temperature of ~2.5C (seems to be the current best estimate) has no real implications, since we see daily variations at least 5x that, and annual variations of 10x or more. It is only the predictions of the end of the world by catastrophes of biblical proportions that underlie political action (that, plus the vested financial interests in most of the proposed "solutions").
Scientists DO need to be involved in policy. But they need to only do so on solid science, and not stray outside their areas of expertise.
geoffchambers said:
The previously unseen practices of climate scientists and the corrupting influence of politics on the science makes telling the truth more than just a trivial recommendation. I haven't seen anything in Tamsin's article that suggests a voluntary code, legislation or any clamping down on freedom of speech. What I have seen is a desire for scientists to set a good example to each other through being clear to the public about what their science does and does not say.
Politicians and lobby groups are adept at picking up on the exploitability of science for their own ends and there are some scientists who clearly revel in being showmen. I don't think there would be any harm to scientific endeavour if scientists were more protective and assertive of their true conclusions - including how uncertain things are. Perhaps it is that latter part that causes some of the problems. Political pressures require certainty but with certainty comes the end of the line for your investigation. If the science of CAGW was as certain as it used to be presented we should no longer be funding it.
It is clear yet again from the reaction of many of her colleagues that saying anything that deviates from the official consensus line risks censure and condemnation for heretical thought. How has this unsatisfactory state of affairs arisen in the UK? The Bishop's recent appearance at the HoC Select Committee when he touched on the subject was memorable. A pin-drop moment.
I think the answer lies in the politicisation of the government's research funding, much reminiscent of Eisenhower's famous farewell address. The Bishop also noted that sceptic climate research scientists exist abroad, but only in the UK in perhaps 'closet scepticism' form. In other words the pressure, imaginary or real and fear for their job/income is very real.
The recollection of the David King incident in the Moscow Kyoto 2004 conference
http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Khandekar/bad_manners_at_the_moscow_kyoto_meeting.html
and the Annan $10,000 bet with the russian astrophysicists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Annan
and the admittance of widespread mainstream climate scepticism in Russia in an EU investigation
http://www.ieep.eu/assets/433/ecc_russia.pdf
leads me to the heretical thought (considering the past soviet repressions and Lysenko) that Russia may now enjoy a level of scientific research liberty in science research terms which we have all but lost, shackled to a different, but no less repressive political and environmental dogma.
Sadly, I think you're spot on.
Since the advent of the IPCC, a minor backwater of science has become a worldwide political movement.
The hundreds of thousands of people who have been brought up in its fold, and earn their living from it, will never admit that the advocacy has far outrun the science.
Turkeys absolutely never vote for Christmas.
True,dat.
You have a very small scientific dog being wagged by a gigantic tail of international kleptocracy and many of the public faces of putative 'climate science' are in fact way out on the tip of that whip.
Tamsin's call for policy neutrality among scientists is welcome, and the size of the reaction only points to how radical the idea has become, and therefore how necessary the discussion is. Unfortunately for her, any desire for neutrality is rendered impossible by the fact that the major academic societies to which she belongs have been making non-neutral statements on her behalf for a long time. At this point, silence is consent, not neutrality.
A few years ago I made a brief post at Roger Pielke Sr's blog regarding the fact that economics associations have a strict policy against making statements on behalf of members, and arguing that the issuing of statements by scientific societies was a mistake:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2006/11/23/should-scientific-societies-issue-position-statements-by-ross-mckitrick/
The-AMS President Franco Einaudi replied:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2006/12/11/comment-by-franco-einaudi-president-of-the-american-meterological-society-with-respect-to-the-guest-welbog-of-ross-mckitrick/
His response was rather long, but came round eventually to the point that, lately, leaders of scientific societies were initiating statements on policy issues, and that one type of statement they were undertaking to make are:
He went on to say that their purpose may be
I suspect this view is now common across many major scientific societies, especially those related to climate. So at this point, for Tamsin to achieve her goal of carving out a policy-neutral space for her work, she needs actively to declare something to the effect that she speaks for herself and she does not endorse any of the policy-freighted statements made by societies to which she may belong for professional reasons. And I'd suggest she round up a few colleagues to say the same thing. Otherwise, as I say, silence is not neutral, it is consent to the very statements she says she does not wish to make.
I see where Dr Edwards is coming from and respect her for voicing her concerns. I understand why sceptics might agree with those views but I have to disagree. Silencing climate scientists on policy and/or advocacy only hides the influence, it doesn’t remove it. Changing policy isn’t just done by standing at a rally and demanding that a pipeline shouldn’t be built. It becomes real the moment science is used beyond the walls of the University. Those who create the science are partly responsible for what others do with it. Remember Oppenheimer’s "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"? Research without responsibility for action doesn’t make it more accurate it just removes a dimension of caution that might moderate uninhibited research.
Without the catastrophe hard liners, the issues of AGW would still be largely stuck in academe. It’s not fears of low end predictions of global warming that are fuelling people like Obama, it’s the 10ft sea level rises and Syfy Channel mega hurricanes. For those scientists who think that that level of ‘awareness’ is necessary, regardless of the more likely scenarios then that amounts to advocacy. When climate scientists keep quiet when key politicians make mistakes or are unduly influenced by the green campaigners then climate science is influencing climate politics. Signing up to a consensus when that consensus can be used to mean whatever the user wants, is advocacy by proxy.
At the moment we have no way of measuring how accurate climate science is other than taking the word of scientists. They might stick confidence levels on things but those figures don’t seem to mean much. Some might see scientist advocacy as evidence of confidence in their own work but do we then assume that silent scientists aren’t in favour of action? With the only official yard stick to rate climate science being peer review, how are we to know what is rigorous science and what is just Lew paper? As a subject, it has to come out of its comfy academic format and become a life and death issue. It should now be looking to adopt all the safe guards of something like highly dangerous chemical manufacture or viral research, or more because those areas can become complacent too. Scientists need to be fully conscious that the work they do has huge repercussions and they shouldn’t be insulated from them in the hope they will be more professionally pure.
At some point, scientists in chemical and pharmaceutical companies went from trustworthy to regulated. It wasn’t because they were corrupt or prone to advocacy or careless, it was because they were human and the stakes were high. It is important for those men and women to know that they are responsible for their work and what is done with it. It’s now climate science’s turn to feel the spotlight of public accountability.
It seems to me that this topic will not gain traction until a skeptic takes on a climate scientist who has gone far beyond scientific method and who has the audacity to argue that he has the right to be there. I am the skeptic. The climate scientist is Mann. In an article in the New York Times some two years ago, Mann argued that climate scientists should be treated in the same way that physicians are treated. Mann's claim would make him physician to the climate and justify advocacy for major surgery on the planet. I will explain his egregious error for the purpose of illustrating the differences between a scientist acting in accordance with scientific method and a physician acting on behalf of his patient.
The physician who "invented or discovered" angioplasty was acting beyond science. When he decided to cut a hole in his patient's leg, insert a tube with an inflatable balloon on the end, and thread that tube until the balloon rested in an artery near the patient's heart, his actions were justified by the fact that all known treatments for his patient had failed and that his novel approach promised relief from suffering to his patient. The physician was not conducting an experiment to confirm a scientific hypothesis and would not have been justified if successful confirmation had been his goal. The physician acted beyond the demands of science or scientific method. The physician no doubt used the best science of his time in planning his novel approach, but that science did not point to the novel approach or justify it.
In his NYT article, Mann held that climate scientists should be given the same latitude as physicians in treatment of their common patient, Gaia. But climate science is not like medicine. In climate science, we do not have a record of many decades of successful therapies for problems such as blocked arteries and we do not have a rich context of medical practice that can be called upon to address particular problems. In climate science, we are attempting to gain sufficient understanding of the climate that we can begin to address particular problems and create therapies for them.
Gaining understanding of climate is a matter of creating hypotheses which purport to explain observed facts in the climate, testing those hypotheses through experimentation, weeding out the false hypotheses, and building upon the hypotheses that prove to be reasonably well confirmed. All of this work takes place in the context of scientific method.
For climate scientists to go beyond the goal of gaining understanding of the climate, to embrace particular problems and solutions, is not only premature but departs from the context of scientific method altogether. Confusing the practice of science with the desperate search for therapies that relieve pain undermines both science and therapy. The climate scientist is pushed to abandon his pursuit of understanding and the therapist, the policy maker, is encouraged to push ahead of scientific understanding. The policy maker in a democracy inevitably finds himself pushed to fund Gaia therapy over Gaia understanding. The policy maker is pushed to sacrifice science for real world action.
Scientists must tenaciously cling to scientific method. The democracies in which they live will push hard for the scientist to become therapist and advocate. The scientist who puts aside the strict demands of scientific method leaves himself open to the same manipulations faced by a community organizer.
Pharos
I followed the last of those three links you gave (I'm not about to follow the first one again; that has got to be the worst piece of behaviour by a British delegate to any international conference in my lifetime!) with a view to finding out who were Joana Chiavari and Marc Pallemaerts and what qualifications they had for — in effect — telling the Russians off for not behaving in a proper EU-approved way over global warming.
Pallemaerts turns out to be an "environmental" lawyer (an occupation which conjures up some interesting pictures, none of them flattering) while Chiavari's profile (from ieep.eu) tells us
She focuses on climate change and energy policy; no surprise there.So here we have two international lawyers — one Belgian, one Italian — one of whom also has two environmental-related degrees, neither of whom appears to have any scientific qualification relevant in any way to climate but apparently qualified to write a paper on 'Energy and Climate Change in Russia.
Weird.
' P.S. My funding is running out fairly soon: anyone have a job
going?'
I don't think there are many bishop hill readers who can provide funding in climate research. It can't be that hard to cone by though as virtually all my former colleagues from Reading are still there are or at the met office. Did you get bored with particle physics or just run out of funding.
Tamsin's points deserve further articulation and elaboration.
In a situation where respectable scientists see policy and politics involvement as damaging to their reputation, the field is left wide open for unscrupulous charmers and salesmen among their kind, who would then take the ball and run with it unopposed. Stephen Schneider describes situations where his colleagues viewed him as a media-whore but kept their silence or were tightlipped.
So, leaving the field altogether would remove the very inhibitory influences that would control and temper rogue elements and the celebrity scientist culture from taking root.
Advocacy cannot be completely eliminated, and probably must not, either. However, it must be constantly reminded that it is a distant second to scientific integrity.
Advocates ruin their own reputation initially and soon enough drag the whole enterprise down. As with everything, advocacy in science provides diminishing returns. The pioneers might see unopposed prestige and access to power. The following hangers-on will see damage to the basis of the trust placed in science. There is little question this is happening in climate science. It is part of a larger trend seen to affect several scientific disciplines, including medicine which possesses faster, more robust feedback loops.
So the solution is (ta da) to be politically savvy but yet channel the energies in stewardship of one's own discipline (rather than fall into a Messiah complex and try to 'save the planet', 'cure cancer' etc).
The crass behaviour of the British delegation at that conference was indeed shocking, and I share your dismay with it Mike. It does provide a powerful example of the politicisation of science and scientists, however, as well as of dreadful manners. The link given by Pharos is incomplete. Here it is again http://meteo.lcd.lu/globalwarming/Khandekar/bad_manners_at_the_moscow_kyoto_meeting.html.
A key quote from another report is
See: http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-policy/politics/illarionov2004-5.php
I meant to say more in my last comment, but I got called away by the boss. So, let me try to recapture my line of thought.
There was this additional reference which contains Illarionov's statement quoted from above, but also extracts from Booker's book 'The Real Global Warming Disaster', and this gem in the second-last footnote of a post by William Shepherd:
Source: http://climate.blog.co.uk/2011/06/06/alexander-ilarionov-11274934/
Earlier geoffchambers said:
To which, after some pondering and waffle, I came up with:
On further reflection this seems to be pertinent.
What are the appropriate limits for distinguishing the primary work of scientists from their personal opinions?
It doesn't seem that we have an unwritten rule like the other professions I mentioned.
So is geoffchambers right when he says they are as free to speak as someone with no other authority?
Gareth Aug 1, 2013 at 4:29 PM
Couldn't agree more.
TinyCO2 Aug 1, 2013 at 5:58 PM
I would also add, for those scientists who might be tempted to retire behind the barricades, that I would still examine the work of 'Handcuffs Hansen' despite his love of American jails. His activism doesn't make him wrong but it does give me a starting point from which to view his work.
The problem 'environmental/climate science' has is that it lies somewhere between the hard sciences and the fashionable opinion pieces dressed up as science. (G=xxx.yyy and the Loo-paper "9 out of 10 Cats prefer a faked moon landing"). The more one might gravitate to the latter, the more 'science' becomes an all you can eat buffet. Pick and choose as you feel fit. For every opinion there is an equal and opposite opinion. The only way to judge the merit of the paper then involves looking up the scientist concerned and examining her 'Politics'.
I would prefer that a given 'scientist' does speak out. As I say, it doesn't invalidate their work but it does help the 'lay reader' assess the work in relation to other, competing, work.
Hiding the bias doesn't remove it.
Thanks, Foxgoose. Yours is the version I've always adhered to/printed. I was worried there had been some new debunking of the whole episode, and I hadn't heard.
I get the impression that, at least...and perhaps in a small way...Dr. Edwards is asking some of her more aggressive compatriots not to be so goddamned disagreeable.
The nuclear industry is always on the lookout for good computer modellers. You'll just have to learn all about quality management systems and you can only use models that have been validated against experimental data. Oh and you aren't allowed to use fudge factors or make assumptions. And pal review doesn't work - everything has to pass hostile review.
Aug 1, 2013 at 9:55 PM | Registered Commenter Phillip Bratby - Ouch!
Phillip, (and any other grid savvy readers) I have a meeting with a retired Planning Inspector/Reporter in few days, he is seeking some credible studies/reports which detail/quantify how windfarms do not save CO2 emissions, due to grid managers needing to keep CCGT sets spinning, lest the wind drops. Do you have any such papers or links? iirc you should have my email but if not let me know and I will send to you. He is of the opinion that if such evidence could be presented at a public inquiry, the reporter/inspector would not be able to ignore it, and as such would reject any wind farm proposal on the grounds that there would be no environmental benefit to offset the landscape degradation etc. All subsequent applications would also be vunerable. Let me know if you have anything, thanks.
"I became a climate scientist because I care about the environment"
That is the problem. They don't realise they are extremely biased. A Guardian employee on CIF replied to me "what is your solution to the imminent global catastrophe ?"
Pardon ?
If Mike Hulme is sane, I am a seagull who thinks he is an Airbus A380.
"The idea of climate change should be seen as an intellectual resource around which our collective and personal identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate change can do for us."
Hulme then goes on to suggest that all climate change arguments should include at least one of the following four "myths" (being a motivational story).
1. Lamenting Eden - To give the idea that the world was stable until man turned up. And we broke it.
2. Presaging apocalypses - Where you should use phrases like "impending disaster" and "tipping point". This is despite having the knowledge of such predictions (as Hulme states) but should because it "capitalizes on the human inbuilt fear of the future."
3. Reconstructing babel - Appealing to our fear of advancement and technology. As though anything modern is inherently bad.
4. Celebrating Jubilee - Balancing the cosmic unfairness of the world where well off inherently make this worse for the poor and the balance should be readdressed every 25 years.
In other words, to lie like professional con men.
esmiff
I wanted to take this chance to apologise to you.
In another thread you quite rightly said Matt Ridley had been Chairman of Northern Rock when it went under, and I very rudely insulted you. I had mis-read your comment and thought you were saying he was responsible for the whole banking crisis.
I was wrong, you were right. And I was rude. Sorry. It was my reading and comprehension skills at fault.
To clarify:
The sentiments expressed by Tamsin Edwards are admirable, but they’re just that - sentiments. Gavin Schmidt’s suggestion that everyone should should “state [their] preferences to avoid accusations of having a hidden agenda” is equally admirable. And Gavin is surely right that climate scientists are “likely know far more about the issues involved in making policy choices than [their] audience”, not because they have the words “climate scientist” inscribed on a brass plate, but because, unlike 97% of the general public, they have a command of the statistical tools necessary for sensible discussion.
Tamsin is free to make her own decisions on how she approaches discussion of policy. I certainly hope she doesn’t “practice monastic silence ... and argue that others should follow her example” as Richard Tol suggests. The whole point about monastic silence is that it’s imposed by rigid rules.
This whole discussion is beset by a certain naivety about how opinions are formed and transmitted in a complex society such as ours. Outright espousal of catastrophic positions by scientists is rather rare, but it’s not necessary. Climate scientists are guilty of a thousand sins of omission that make them complicit in a grotesque lie.
Mark Lynas writes a book saying: “Six degrees! Help! We’re doomed!” The Royal Society gives him a medal. And no fellow will be so ungentlemanly as to object. That’s the kind of unspoken co-operation between environmental campaigners and the science establishment, repeated day after day in the media, which has got us into this mess, and Tamsin Edwards’ dignified silence will do nothing to counter it.
Stuck-Record
Thank you.
Ridley was living dangerously, but Robert Peston and senior BBC management were directly responsible for the run on Northern Rock.
//
And Gavin is surely right that climate scientists are “likely know far more about the issues involved in making policy choices than [their] audience”, not because they have the words “climate scientist” inscribed on a brass plate, but because, unlike 97% of the general public, they have a command of the statistical tools necessary for sensible discussion.
//
Nope - apart from the obvious lack of statistical skills in "climate scientists" that SteveMc, Lucia and others have consistently highlighted, they know nothing about succesful policy formulation.
As far as Gavin's own skills and abilities in sensible discussion go, just watch him in action with Roy Spencer:
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/5/14/climatologys-nutcracker.html
not banned yet
Gavin’s statistical skills may be less than McIntyre’s or Lucia’s, and his debating skills less than those of the Wizard of Oz facing Toto, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong in his opinion which Tamsin quotes.
There’s an unspoken quid pro quo in Tamsin’s proposal: “I’ll lay off the policy (and advise my colleagues to do likewise) if you’ll lay off the science”. We shouldn’t even begin to consider it.
Geoff - keep the goalposts still.
What you are saying is that, even though they are visibly proven wrong time and again on their claimed area of expertise and that they demonstrate a complete inability to evolve a position through open debate, we should give credence to their utterances on policy.
No thanks.
Ps - I don't see anything to support your post hoc unspoken quid pro quo but, if you have it, please share it.
@ Aug 1, 2013 at 10:47 AM | Disko Troop
maybe a tad hard here and there, but I generally agree with you ...
"hard" ... there is some slight global warming, but at least since sometime in the 18th/19th century (see e.g. the extent of Glacier Bay, the length of the Glacier Blanc in the Massif des Ecrins which has been recorded since 1815, or the fact that Otzi has only recently been discovered ...)
"agree" ... we can't be too soft on "repenting" "climate scientists" ... as time will demonstrate more and more that they have been deceiving the world with their "knowledge", they will try to save their souls, their reputations and their livelihoods by admitting to this very slowly, and proposing to just spend half of the billions that are spent now ... that is, as you state correctly, still a half too much ...
not banned yet
i wouldn’t give Gavin Schmidt credence for the time of day, especially if he was talking to me from out of sight behind the door, which is his preferred position when talking to sceptics. But I still think he’s right that people should state their political position, wherever it’s relevant.
Tamsin claims she doesn’t, or won’t, then goes right in saying: “I became a climate scientist because I care about the environment”. Meaning what? That those of us who aren’t climate scientists don’t care about the environment? Her position is meant to sound principled, but in fact it’s incoherent, or trivial. She’s free to shut up when people ask her a question, and Gavin is free to spout off, or hide behind a curtain, or do both at once, but to suggest it’s a policy others should adopt is already to enter into discussion of policy.
Saying “scientists should be honest, and not biassed” is not worth an article on a political science blog, unless she’s really saying something else, or more. I’m suggesting that she wants to do a bit of demarcation. She’s willing to forfeit her citizen’s rights to discuss policy in the interest of improving our trust in the science. That means she won’t debate policy, and we’re not supposed to debate the science, as if there was some magic line between the two.
Geoff - this is what you originally stated, with the introduction that it was a "clarification", so presumably it resulted from your considered attention:
//
And Gavin is surely right that climate scientists are “likely know far more about the issues involved in making policy choices than [their] audience”, not because they have the words “climate scientist” inscribed on a brass plate, but because, unlike 97% of the general public, they have a command of the statistical tools necessary for sensible discussion.
//
Do you still claim this?
Having read through most of the comments on the Guardian article and the post here I'm not sure who I agree with but I think I understand Prof Edwards' point about trust, it's all very well certain groups advocating policy but an area which demands billions if not trillions in taxes are spent demands absolute transparency if the public are going to put up with it. So Prof Edwards believes climate change is serious and she wants the science to be taken seriously, fair enough.
In addition I wouldn't be surprised if this article is also in response to pressure exerted on Prof Edwards such as that by Gleick so hats off to her for the guts to tell it how she sees it, even if she is wrong :-)
not banned yet
I’m not supporting Schmidt’s postions, except on this one narrow issue of free speech and openness. My mention of 97% was meant to make a distinction which I should have explained - not theirs between peer-reviewed-climate-scientists and the rest of the world, but between those with the basic mathematical understanding necessary to read a graph and the others.
So yes, Schmidt does have more understanding than the average punter. Which is why his support of e.g. Marcott is so unforgivable.
In a new article at
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/aug/02/climate-change-contrarianism-not-skepticism
Nuccitelli uses the Marcott hockeystick to illustrate the fact that “we're on a path for dangerous climate change even in the best-case scenario”. Gavin might just possibly be persuaded to admit that this is not a reasonable deduction from “the science”. What would Tamsin do? Maintain a discreet “monastic” silence?
Whatever Geoff - your "Gavin is surely right" assertion is just supporting more of the same "climate scientist claims but does not demonstrate expertise" nonsense.
IMO the "average punter" is “likely [to] know far more about the issues involved in making policy choices than" the "average climate scientist" who generally show themselves to be out of touch with the complexities and subtleties of effective policy formulation.
The point is not about free speech but competence to discuss and make policy recommendations (Tamsin's piece is headed: "Climate scientists must not advocate particular policies") and you are being disingenuous to try to shift the discussion away from your original claim. Throwing in lack of responses Marcott's scientific incompetence does not undermine this fundamental point - it reinforces it. Nor do I see your stretch to your imagined quid pro quo - the next "Marcott" will inevitably get short shrift from those with the skills to demonstrate its shortcomings regardless of whether or not Tamsin, Gavin or anyone else is discussing policy.
There are two weaknesses with the totally monastic approach. One Ross McKitrick outlines in typically lucid style: with silence you are taken to agree with the statements of the learned societies. The other is exemplified by what Geoff writes here:
The problem comes in with the value-laden word dangerous. Note that addition of this word was exactly what Richard Betts, to his credit, corrected after that notorious tweet from (the weaselly, deniability-laden account of) Barack Obama about Cook's 97% paper in May. But that in a sense was easy. The Cook paper didn't claim to show that 97% thought that climate change was dangerous. Nuccitelli's interpretation of Marcott is doubly wrong but less simple to put right in 140 characters.
These two weaknesses in what's become known as the monastic approach are very real. That's why I suggested that Tamsin's contribution was crumbs, not the whole loaf. But I still say courageous for a young climate scientist given an unexpected opportunity to 'speak to the nation' by Alice Bell. Not everyone begins with the stature of a Richard Lindzen in 1988. And even Lindzen can't correct everything.
Tamsin Edwards - "I became a climate scientist because I've always cared about the environment…"
We might ask ourselves if caring about something should automatically disqualify a person from having any official access to it. In an age apparently obsessed with caring, it's worth considering what the word means - or what it can mean within the scope of its definition.
As the origin of 'care' is in 'grief' or 'to grieve', we could view a person who wants to care as someone in search of something to grieve over… especially so if grieving if felt to bring with it a more complete - or perhaps, a more 'authentic' - sense of oneself (the pleasures of mourning, of course, is that it sanctions a period of detachment from the hum-drum frustrations of everyday living… so much so that it can become quite addictive).
By locating the object of one's grieving in 'the environment', what might we - in the same stroke - be withdrawing it from? In other words, what licence does over caring about one object give us when it comes to directing a level care towards other objects? And how much more resourceful and reciprocal would a care for those other objects require us to be?
Unlike people, of course, the environment doesn't answer back. That is to say, it has no way of responding that it does not want or need the incontinent caring it is being doused with - and would much rather be getting on with a more mutual and more mutually fulfilling relationship... should the carer ever care enough (or rather, stop caring enough) to participate.
Richard Drake quoting Geoff re: Marcott:
"What would Tamsin do? Maintain a discreet “monastic” silence?"
Please explain how this rhetorical question on Marcott's scientific incompetence is related to Tamsin's views on policy advocacy?
nby: Point already taken I think. There was lots of junk science to correct in Marcott. But Geoff was quoting from Nuccitelli using Marcott to talk about danger. That's what Tamsin would call value-laden I think. But who knows. What an almighty mess.
Perhaps advocacy could be allowed in science but with one irrevocable caveat, that being if any research or science is created/falsified/misrepresented/etc to support the advocacy and is misleading then that so-called scientist's “license” to practice science be revoked. In a nutshell it's very simple, advocate dishonesty and you are done. There would be a lot less advocacy. There would be more “real” science. There would be fewer so-called “climate scientists” today. Science may regain trust that it should deserve.
I think that's very good eyesonu. Both freedom and responsibility underlined. And if the Royal Society were to pronounce on policy on such a basis then it would have its Royal charter and top tier of managers removed.
This might sound far-fetched right now but the public reaction to the CAGW/renewables crock and its impact on household bills could just provide the energy. Well worth mooting.