Bishop Hill A message to Will Hutton
Sep 21, 2013 Climate: sensitivity Greens Dear Will (if you'll forgive the familiarity)
Thanks for the link in your Guardian post - much appreciated. There's lots I could take issue with in your post, but let me focus on the bit quoted below (and not just because it mentions me).
Science has not helped its own cause. The open science movement, and even the Royal Society, has become concerned that the quest to win commercial funding has made a growing number of scientists too anxious to make their science unique. Too many scientific papers are published in which researchers make it hard for others to reproduce their lab experiments. Key data are omitted.
Compared with what is happening in some drug and cancer research, climate change science is remarkably honest, reproducible and subject to open criticism: the IPCC insists on the best methodology. But for climate change sceptics such as Andrew Montford, Bjørn Lomborg or Nigel Lawson's influential Global Warming Policy Foundation, this is an inconvenient truth. Climate change science must be greeted with the same sense that science in general is fallible.
Your suggestion that the IPCC insists on the best methodology made me laugh. I don't suppose the intracacies of Bayesian statistics are your cup of tea, but you really should try to get your head around l'affaire Forster and Gregory. If you are reading this, Will, it is an example of climate science using the worst methodology - a methodology without any support among reputable statisticians - and the IPCC rewriting the results of people who used the best methodology.
You need to to expand your reading I think.
But thanks again for the link.
Reader Comments (81)
The idea that climate science should be compared with real science is simply laughable. Climate science as highlighted by climategate is more like astrology. Will Hutton clearly does not know what he is talking about!
Signed a real scientist!
Compared with what is happening in some drug and cancer research, climate change science is remarkably honest, reproducible and subject to open criticism
Compared to Stalin, Robert Mugabe is a remarkably honest man, open to criticism. Some comparisons are worthless.
Compared to chemistry research, say, climate change science is a muddled mess, with irreducible results, skewed reporting and poor use of statistics.
Photo caption:
I am surprised to find that I am right-wing; according to the political spectrum, I am what I might consider startingly left-wing. So, your position in a scientific debate is what actually determines your political position. Who knew?
But Forster and Gregory were IPCC lead authors in AR4 - in fact Piers Forster was a Coordinating Lead Author, so was deeply involved at the highest level, writing the SPM. Although they had come up with an observationally-based estimate of ECS, they recognised that it was still only an estimate which relied on assumptions, and that the IPCC "likely range" was based on a number of estimates from different sources.
Attempt to read 'The State We Are In' by Will Hutton. I tried about 25 years ago then gave up after 47 pages and went to watch a boat trailer rust as a means of recovery. The man is a very dull writer and incapable of communicating his boneheaded ideas interestingly. It says a lot about the intelligentsia that a dullard like Hutton could rise to the top.
I dare any BH reader to read any of Will Hutton' books without the use of amphetamines.
Oh, no! Once more, peering into the Crystal Ball of Doom™! How can these “scientific” people make such dire predictions with such confidence?
Take heart, there are “far right” readers, still, judging by a few of the sceptical responses. Will the Groan take these rightwingers off their subs list?
What do you call a climate scientist with a prediction? Wrong.
A climate scientist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
The IPCC lead author asks the climate scientist, "What is the global temperature going to be in 100 years time?" The climate scientist gets up, locks the door, closes the shade, sits down next to the lead author and whispers, "What do you want it to be?"
Will Hutton has recently (17th July) become a director of a new company, called Big Innovation Centre, that was also registered on the 17th July.
The company has 3 action groups: Health, Big Data and Green Growth. The green growth action group describes itself like this:
A wonder how many grant applications, to various government funds, this company will make over the next few years.
Paisley Grammar. The best Scottish toadying education money can buy. See also Andrew Neil and Fred Goodwin.
Good spot, Terry. Chercher la wonga...
As Graham Stringer MP said:
At the UEA "there was a group of enthusiasts who were pretending to be scientists".
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2013/9/10/future-of-the-climate-change-act.html
(he starts at At 15:36:41, the quote is at 15:39:50)
Hutton had been wrong on just about every major economic policy decision in the last couple decades, from the benefits of the euro to the NHS to Labour's fiscal plans.
And he always errs on behalf of increased centralization, regulation, taxation and bureaucratisation.
So how in a sane world does he become a director of an outfit focused on innovation?
(When it really does just the opposite.)
"climate change science is remarkably honest, reproducible and subject to open criticism: the IPCC insists on the best methodology."
Well, Will, Thank the Lord but don't find myself uttering an Amen.
Spin CG09 anyway you want but don't offer it up as anything other than a glimpse into some rather dark mind-sets.
Yup, by all means do take some comfort in that climate science is subject to open criticism but don't take umbrage when that criticism results in demolition of the honest and reproducible claims.
As much as you may wish it to be, this is not a battle between Left and Right; it's just a pi**ing contest with certainty on one side and questions from the other.
And as for RB, the claim that "and that the IPCC "likely range" was based on a number of estimates from "different sources." conveniently appears to ignore that the different sources were carefully filtered to exclude 'consensusual' outliers.
Truly I am gripped with nausea welling, the world shudders and Will Hutton speaks....................................
A bloke who studied sociology, who is a 'writer' so called speciality in economics, a guy no less who also worked for the bbc.
I've never, ever been so convinced in all my life, thank you, as you are and Will sitting up there with the Gods, for coming down off your cloud and holding forth to the little people, we doff our caps onto our knees - prostrate and capless if you like - in grateful mesmerized appreciation.
Will Hutton, says; "we're all doomed,
that, "the world is warming and God Help you - it's all your fault!"
Will says, it must follow cos sez Will, that, the IPCC is right. Purely because he says so......... and er oh .........those noted scientific perfectionists - sticklers are they for
scientific empiricismthe disciplined rigour of computer modelling. Will swears in conjunction; the IPCC is recognized by a bunch of crazy sociologists up at the UEA CRU and all of those government civil servants at the Hadley centre, plus all of the progressive political elite and endorsed by naturally the single most corrupt institution [UN] on the planet - and probably anywhere else. And Rajendra Pachauri is in charge [that swings it for me!].Finally Will says, "its frightening, anybody and who opposes the green agenda is so obviously: a right wing nut job"
"l'affaire Forster and Gregory"
Do you mean "the Forster and Gregory affair"? If so, why not write it in English?
Athelstan.
The Guardian's fundamental position on AGW is that those who oppose it are right wing nut jobs.
The GWPF are indeed right wing nuts. That's why they get coverage. Delingpole vs Nurse is a scenario not even the most spaced out Hollywood screenwriter could invent.
All the political name calling is tiresome.
An ignorant git is still an ignorant git with *any* colour of rosette on his/her lapel.
and remember - Will gets paid (handsomely) to spout this twaddle - to what's left of my mind - that says more about his paymasters than him.
All this mapping AGW to the axes of the political orientation diagram is just ... eeragh....
...Compared with what is happening in some drug and cancer research, climate change science is remarkably honest, reproducible and subject to open criticism...
It should be noted that medical research is famous for the level of detected fraud and retractions of papers - the RetractionWatch site offers numerous examples.
Comparing the IPCC with medical research is indeed similar to saying that Stalin wasn't so bad when you consider Hitler. But it's a strange jump from that to praising it...
Will Hutton? You'll have to help me out here. Who is Will Hutton?
As someone with experience with drug research and recent interest in climate change, I can guarantee that the standards practiced by drug researchers are far higher. Drug approval agencies usually require two double-blind, clinical trials showing efficacy with p<0.05. The clinical trial protocols and data analysis methods are chosen in discussions with the agencies, and agency statisticians receive all the raw data and perform independent statistical analyses. Before clinical trials are begun today (but not a decade ago), a data depository for the trial must be opened containing fields for all the data to be collected and anticipated deliver date for that data. The data will be released to the public at a preset time in the future, whether or not the scientists conduction the clinical trial have finished their publications. It is no longer possible to hide negative results.
TerryS’s discovery of Will Hutton’s involvement with the Big Innovation Centre is a most interesting scoop.
And then it says it again. And again. And again.Their “about us” page says:
It’s a cross-party circle jerk by ambitious nerds from the media and academia, financed by our biggest private companies, providing its participants with a nice little earner and a foot up into the dizzy realms of policy making. It has a blog (of course) to give it that modern stakeholder participatory feel, with about 180 articles and no comments.
Every time you dig into the thin layer of Green compost which covers our socio-political landscape you hit the bedrock of the dense skulls of the brain-dead, feeding off the real economy in some parody of ecological niche activity, like those beetles which perform some obscure useful service tucked away in a rhinoceros’s bottom.
Tim Worstall always makes fun of Hutton. His latest one is good:
"Then again there are many things that can make Willy Hutton look a little foolish, starting with the man himself and moving on to most of his economic and social pronouncements. It’s just especially gratifying to find his latest one being disproved quite so quickly by the incredible sales of Grand Theft Auto V. Which is, as of this moment, the fastest selling entertainment property ever and most certainly the first to reach a billion dollars in sales in only three days."
I can't get the hang of links -
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/20/grand-theft-auto-v-is-fastest-selling-entertainment-property-ever-which-makes-willy-hutton-look-pretty-foolish/
He would say that, wouldn't he? He has to maintain the standard we have come to expect from organisations involved in political causes and unethical practices.
IPCC Climate Science is undoubtedly a very good example of how to conduct government sponsored therefore politically-motivated research. Indeed we have in its current stage a prime example of research at its best.
This what I call 'Pachauri's Demon'. It is a device which miraculously carries the hottest water molecules from ocean surfaces to the depths. The IPCC then claims that the 'missing heat' which should be heating the atmosphere has been accumulating where it can't be measured.
Now, the really incredible aspect of this is that the mechanism only works when the atmosphere is cooling.
Funny that..........
So, hands up who has been involved in drug and cancer research...??
Well, I am one, Will Hutton. And I can tell you that every single person I met involved in this field had far greater professional integrity than some very familiar names associated with the IPCC and the disgraceful attitudes revealed in the climate-gate emails. Names that have had rings run round them by people like Steve MacIntyre at Climate Audit, exposing their low intellectual and ethical standards.
And I DID buy Hutton's book The State We're In. I thought it quite good at the time. Perhaps I was young and naive, or now I'm just a right wing nutter who has never yet got round to voting for a right-of-centre. But I might do.
What I will not do, is buy another of Will Hutton's books unless he ups his game.
Will's piece is basically religious proselytizing. This may seem a very strange thing to say but if you want to understand Climatism you have to place it in other examples of its type. With the withering of institutional Christianity we have had a number of movements which appropriated the trappings and feelings of organised religion. Some of these were political - if you watched Marr's programme on Merkel the other night you would have seen mass rallies complete with darkness, torches, flags, banners happening in the former East Germany in a very familiar spectacle. You'd have seen crowds of the young raising their arms in an uncannily familiar way. And you'd have recognised the forms of a religious service, everyone saying or singing the same thing together, making the same movements en masse, publicly confirming shared beliefs.
Some of the movements however instead or in addition are science based. Or purportedly science based. They appropriate the attitudes and feelings of religion, not necessarily its theatrical elements, to propositions which are at bottom scientific. Eugenics was in this category. Marxism had a supposedly scientific basis, and also supposedly predicted the future.
Climatism is in this category, and we can see it clearly in Will's piece. The giveaway is two things, the presence of totally unevidenced alarmist apocalyptic predictions, and the refusal to admit that any rational dissent from the writer's views is possible. There is another common but not universal feature: the vagueness about what exactly has to be assented to to be saved. This greatly helps as it avoids any argument about truth or falsity of specific propositions, and it allows the argument to be put in terms of 'in or out' - basically, tribe or cult membership.
Someone on this thread talks about 'opposing climate'. On the Guardian you will commonly find talk about people who are 'anti-science'. Or about deniers of climate science, as if there was one clear thing to assent to or differ from.
The conclusion that follows from this is that falsification of any number of scientific propositions will not lead to the collapse of the movement. Any more than the discovery that union pension funds were the main shareholders of some companies (had it happened) would have led to the collapse of socialist movements.
What we are dealing with here is a movement that has come to define itself as a tribe of believers, and falsification of the prophecies of its priests is only going to reinforce the beliefs of the followers. Paradoxically, more so than confirmation.
Didn't people like Kevin Trenbreth and Michael Mann state they were Nobel Laureates! And Will Hutton thinks these people should be trusted!
Sep 22, 2013 at 6:19 AM | geoffchambers:
OK, Geoff, that's an accurate overview of the well-meaning but waffly Big Innovation Centre - a body that covers many of the nostrums that Will Hutton has pursued for years. However, be fair: climate change is hardly mentioned anywhere on its substantial website - and then only in passing.
PS: well said, michel (8:27)
The quest for "commercial" funding. Funny how political funding, especially the monopoly funding of climate science, that unfailingly advances the cause of Bigger government, never gets mentioned in far-left publications like the Guardian.
Michel, that is a very good piece of work by you. Respect.
So Climatism is a faith. Faith: maintaining a belief regardless of contrary evidence. As distinct from Reason: Holding a worldview according to the available evidence and amending it according to fresh evidence.
Agreed, then, that this is the fault line which separates the two tribes. Question: how are Rationalists to wrest decisionmaking from the Faithful Ones? Our normal practice is to let the facts speak for themselves: "the truth will out". From what you're saying that approach will not work. The Huttons of this world will never say, "Oh, I get it now! Mea culpa. I was wrong, I owe my readers an apology. Better to swallow my pride and attempt to regain your respect through my humble integrity."
Regarding the qustion above: "Who is Will Hutton?", I confused him with another overintellectual man, Will Self. It takes a very bad communicator to leave his readers bemused and incomprehending. Some of my work consists of writing process instructions in a manufacturing business. When I ask my blokes, "Do you understand this", the greatest compliment they can pay me (or rather my writing skills) is "Of course I bl**dy well do. I'm not thick!". A badly written instruction elicits the reply: "These words are written by some very clever bloke. I can't make head nor tail of them."
I used to read a Will Self article called Psychogeography. Merde de taureau more like.
Geoff Chambers said:
"Every time you dig into the thin layer of Green compost which covers our socio-political landscape you hit the bedrock of the dense skulls of the brain-dead, feeding off the real economy in some parody of ecological niche activity, like those beetles which perform some obscure useful service tucked away in a rhinoceros’s bottom".
ha ha, classic.
'the Royal Society, has become concerned that the quest to win commercial funding has made a growing number of scientists too anxious to make their science unique. Too many scientific papers are published in which researchers make it hard for others to reproduce their lab experiments. Key data are omitted.'
An issues which is rampant and well documented in climate 'science' , and yet Will sees none of it .
As for the RS, its guilty of the same approach 'concerned that the quest to win commercial funding' which is way if sold out its idea of 'take nobodies word for it ' to 'trust me I am scientists' And once again Will sees nothing .
Truly there none so blind as those that will not see.
Well, it's not all bad. On the one hand, we have Hutton's specious self-serving flummery, but on the other we have had some very entertaining and enlightening writing here in response to it.
Apart from the wonderful irony of this from The Guardian of all papers: "Right-of-centre newspapers are now edited ruthlessly to make their readers think what their editors and proprietors want – on immigration, welfare, Europe, tax, political affiliation or whatever", I wonder if Hutton has ever read Donna Laframboise's articles on the IPCC. She has of course also pointed out the negligent reporting of The Guardian on failing to identify the dishonesty and bias of that organisation.
Robin Guenier (Sep 22, 2013 at 9:11 AM)
Note how he’s slid “ecosystem” and “sustainability” into a slab of jingoist “make Britain great again” blather. Anyone who disagrees is both unscientific and unpatriotic. As Hedegaard pointed out recently, once you’ve got the ecologically correct sustainability message established as the only possible one, global warming no longer matters.True, climate change is hardly mentioned at Hutton’s blah fest. Just as you can sit through many a “Thought for the Day” without hearing the word “God”. (thanks Michel for the admirable analysis). But climate change underpins the whole programme of science-based expertise selling waffle to decision makers. Look at this from Will Hutton’s vision statement:
Nobody takes the slightest notice of Hutton any more, surely? Long past his sell by date.
Sep 22, 2013 at 9:46 AM | geoffchambers
====================================
Thought For The Day? Isn't that for Muslims? Seems to be whenever I turn it on.
Geoff Chambers' last sentence (9:46 am) has knocked me for six, or out for the count, or something linked to suddenly seeing the awful truth stated so succinctly.
Considering that WIll Hutton is so easily debunked by amateurs like Andrew and Tim Worstall it's surprising that he hasn't given up already. He must have a thick skin (and a thick head) to put up with being shot down every time he speaks. Either that or he doesn't care as he milks the idiots who pay his wages.
Richard Betts
So what are you saying, precisely?
That Forster and Gregory didn't use a good statistical method?
That someone in the IPCC didn't rejig their paper so it fell in line with the paradigm?
That if you are lead authors that doesn't prevent other people from screwing around with your work if it doesn't suit?
That if you are out on a limb you don't get severely leant on (no matter who you are)?
I'm not pointing the finger at pure scientists but there are plenty of politico-scientists and activo-scientists (not to mention non-scientists) in the IPCC, starting with Pachauri and working out from there for whom the Summary for Policymakers is the be-all and end-all.
Let's just see what happens this week, shall we, and find out the extent to which the most recent "science" is finessed, ignored, "re-interpreted", or just plain lied about in order to keep the gravy train on the rails?
Geoff et al: by all means attack Will Hutton for what he said in that Guardian article. But I suggest it's a mistake to make too much of his association with an organisation that espouses views he's been expressing for years; especially when its (extensive) website hardly mentions climate change. To do so is IMO little more than the adoption of a favoured but feeble tactic of the warmists.
Is this the same Will Hutton who lined his pockets to the tune of £180k/year as boss of his own fake charity?
And does Will Hutton truly believe that the "97% consensus" extends to his own spittle-flecked rants?
michel and geoff chambers - I tips me hat.
Here are the evil environmentalists making the green compost.
International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)
The biggest lobbying group at the biggest global climate conference, Copenhagen was the International Emissions Trading Association which was created to promote carbon trading more than ten years ago.
Its members include :-
BP, Conoco Philips, Shell, E.ON (coal power stations owner), EDF (one of the largest participants in the global coal market), Gazprom (Russian oil and gas), Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley..
http://www.ieta.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=19%3Adefault&id=168%3Aour-members&Itemid=82
Will Hutton isn't a human being, he is a journalist. He has no opinions. He writes what he is told.
The Guardian is a central pillar of the global establishment like the BBC. The reason is that for the last 10 or so years,. liberal Americans have gone to its website looking for an alternative to their own media.
If you're going to make a cutting retort, get the spelling right: 'intricacies'.
Mike Jackson
DNFTT ;-)
Mike Jackson
I'm saying that Forster and Gregory were happy with how their work was incorporated into the "likely range" estimate. This was done in Chapter 8 of the WG1 report, and their were contributing authors on that chapter.
Incidentally, I see the Observer have decided to be as unscientific as the Mail on Sunday last week, but in the other direction, and are talking about a "runaway greenhouse effect" at 2 degrees C global warming. This is total poppycock, and completely unsupported by the science (and they even say that this is not in AR5 - yes, of course it isn't, because AR5 is based on science).
IMHO this kind of journalism is as irresponsible as the Mail's. Yes, anthropogenic climate change is real, and yes, it is a problem we are clearly going to have to address in some way, but scaremongering about an imminent "runaway greenhouse effect" is just ridiculous.
We shouldn't be surprised by Hutton cuddling up to the 'Global Warming' crowd. Every single one of his predictions has been wrong, too. They have much in common.