Bishop Hill Betts off
Dec 10, 2014 Climate: MetOffice Richard Betts has kicked off a small Twitter kerfuffle today, taking umbrage at Matt Ridley's Times piece yesterday.
@ProfMarkMaslin Exactly. If @mattwridley wants to criticise climate policy then he's got every right, but attacking scientists is wrong.
— Richard Betts (@richardabetts) December 10, 2014Matt has responded on his own blog today and I'm taking the liberty of reproducing his comment here.
After this article was published an extraordinary series of tweets appeared under the name of Richard Betts, a scientist at the UK Met Office and somebody who is normally polite even when critical. He called me “paranoid and rude” and made a series of assertions about what I had written that were either inaccurate or stretched interpretations to say the least. He then advanced the doctrine that politicians should not criticize civil servants. The particular sentence he objected to was:
Most of the people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in their views on climate policy, which hardly reassures the rest of us that they leave those prejudices at the laboratory door.
He thought this was an unjustified attack on civil servants. However, if you read what I said in that sentence, it is that (1) people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in support of certain policies – which is not a criticism, just a statement; and (2) that we need reassurance that they do not let that consciously or unconsciously influence their work, which again is not a criticism, let alone an attack, merely a request for reassurance. Certainly there is no mention of civil servants, let alone by name, and nothing to compare with an attack on me by name calling me paranoid and rude.
Is the first assertion true? I had in mind Jim Hansen, who was in charge of GISS, a data set for which serious questions have been raised about adjustments made that warm the present or cool the past, and who is prepared to get himself arrested in protest against fossil fuels. I also had in mind Phil Jones, partly in charge of HADCRUT, who also is not shy with his views. I was not thinking of Julia Slingo of the Met Office, because I do not think of the Met Office as a collater of temperature data, but perhaps I should have been. And then there’s Australia’s BoM. And indeed the RSS data, whose collater, Dr Carl Mears, fumes at the way “denialists” talk about his data. Hardly objective language.
Is my request for reassurance reasonable? In view of the Australian episodes, the GISS adjustments, the USHCN story from earlier this year (see here) – all of which raised doubts about the legitimacy of adjustments being made to the temperature data – then yes, I think I am. Do I think the data are fatally flawed? No, I don’t. I happily accept that all the data sets show some warming in the 1980s and 1990s and not much since and that this fits with the satellite data. But do I think such data can be used to assert that this is the warmest year, by 0.01 degrees, a month before the year ends? No, I don’t. I think people like Dr Betts should say as much.
As of this writing, Dr Betts’s latest tweet is:
If @mattwridley wants to criticise climate policy then he's got every right, but attacking scientists is wrong.
Well, if by attacking he means physically or verbally abusing, then yes, I agree, but I don’t do it. I don’t call people by name “paranoid”, for example. But criticizing scientists should be allowed surely? And asking for reassurance? Come on, Richard.
The WMO “re-analysed” a data set to get its 0.01 degree warmest year. What was that reanalysis and has it been independently checked? I would genuinely like to know. I stopped taking these things on trust after the hockey stick scandal.
The thrust of my article was that the reputation of the whole of science is at risk if bad practices and biases are allowed to infect data collection and presentation, and that science like other institutions can no longer take public trust for granted. A reaction of bluster and invective hardly reassures me that science takes my point on board. For the moment, I remain of the view that
The overwhelming majority of scientists do excellent, objective work, following the evidence wherever it leads. Science remains (in my view) our most treasured cultural achievement, bar none. Most of its astonishing insights into life, the universe and everything are beyond reproach and beyond compare.
But Dr Betts’s reaction has weakened my confidence in this view.
I must say, this seems a bit out of character for Richard, particularly his retweeting of the "Ridley is wrong because Northern Rock" thing put forward by Mark Maslin (the latter declaring, "North Rock the ultimate failure of neoliberalism", thus rather making Matt's about politicised scientists for him). I always laugh when scientists try to poison the well in this manner. It does so damage their own credibility.
Reader Comments (338)
Brendan H says:
'Academia is not that agency. It has its own purpose and interests, which are not necessarily those of the government and public.'
Ain't that the truth, brother. As far as I can tell academia's purposes include: Publishing papers. Obtaining grants. Its own perpetuation.
Finding out the truth comes a very long way down the list. Huge credit is given for being 'original' and 'having an impact'. But 'being right' is barely considered as a factor in one's reputation/standing.
Neither Paul Ehrlich nor James Hansen have any substantial track record of being proved correct and yet they are lauded as great visionaries. And we all know the story of Mike Mann, his elevation to academic sainthood and his current attempts to balance on that precarious perch.
In the commercial world, being right is really the only thing that matters (see Piers Corbyn for an example). If you're not right the client/customer goes elsewhere and the work dries up as your reputation withers. Outside of IP issues, nobody gives a monkeys about exactly how you arrive at your conclusions, whose papers you read or whether you cut and pasted an introductory paragraph from another piece of work by a different author. They're not relevant to the central issue of solving the problem.
And people are free to argue/disagree/quiz you in whatever way they feel comfortable with. The mechanisms are not circumscribed by some arcane publishing convention reduces and dilutes contention and discussion until it is anodyne and painfully slow.
I'd contend that the robust and disputatious commercial model - personally uncomfortable tho' some may feel with its direct approach - is far better and quicker at getting to the heart of a problem and providing solutions than the academic can ever be.
Why anybody ever thought that academia would be good source of climate expertise is a bit of a mystery. Can anyone elucidate?
Brendan H
I'm not sure I quite understand what you are saying.
As I understand him, Mike Haseler is positing an organisation (let's call it the World Temperature Organisation) whose sole function is to read what thermometers say. Presumably the WTO would (or would have) established the number and siting of recording instruments and the means of interpolating, if they thought it necessary, where coverage needed to be sparse. They would also have control of satellites and the ARGO system and determine what adjustments might be needed to account for eg decaying orbits, and so forth.
To my mind, Mike is right and the biggest failure of climate science lies in the fact that such an objective, arms-length organisation does not exist.
You say that such an organisation "would hardly be desirable." Which, unless I am misunderstanding you, means that you are happy that the collection, collation, and manipulation (don't take that as meaning "fiddling", please) is in the hands of assorted academics with their own agenda, their own axes to grind, and their own political angles to pursue. Which in turn leads us to "on course to be the hottest year on record" etc., etc.
I dispute your "data doesn't speak" argument. Temperature is what it is. As I write the temperature outside is 6.0C. Nothing that Hansen or Jones or Mann do can change that yet we know that in 20 years time that temperature may well have been "adjusted" to, say, 5.8C for all sorts of "very good" reasons (and if you work for the Australian BOM, "nobody to know what they are").
There ought to be one organisation that measures temperature and guards that data with its professional life!
What academics do with it is another matter though I'm a bit puzzled as to why, all of a sudden, at the beginning of the 21st century governments need advice about weather, still less about climate. As Harry Passfield says above "Climate happens. End of". Time to call the bluff and stop pretending there is anything we can do about it.
I spent 15 years working for one of the most aggressive marketing companies in the world which in its core business had one major competitor in the UK. More product development came out of that head-to-head than ever came out of the genteel groves of academe.
The problem with the 'investigation' into CRU, was that it was controlled by CRU.
Latimer Alder , Mike Jackson
Many moons ago I was involved in a major engineering design project where we foresaw a potential lubrication/tribology issue. Large rotating kit not too dissimilar to the present day whirligigs.
We took our problem to the relevant (qualified, experienced) branch of academia who whilst clearly understanding the issue but had no concept of time = money. We felt this was not an insurmountable problem as a major part of our expertise was to get things done when folks didn't really want to do them - Project Management!
What actually drove us away from the academics was listening to how they proposed to elect he people to carry out the work. The main criteria being who might like to do it as "there could be a paper in it for them".
We left, found a commercial testing house, jointly designed a test rig and got timely and conclusive results. Unwelcome results, confirmed our fears but clear and unequivocal.
My thanks to those who responded to my earlier question about when global temperature data was updated.
Apropos expert opinion and its role in policy making I draw attention to this book "Expert Political Judgment - How Good Is It? How Can We Know?" by Philip E Tetlock, Princeton Universirt Press. The short answer is that experts are right about 50% of the time and wrong the other 50%. The man in the street is just as likely to get it right or wrong.
I do not find this surprising. In all walks of life there are so many unknowns and uncertainties there is no way anyone can be certain of an outcome when setting a policy. Policy decisions about the effect of climate change are no different from any other policy decision. On the climate debate I am with the Lawson approach of adaptation as needed. The current UK approach, embodied in the Climate Change Act and its related institutions laws and regulations, is in my view nothing less than an unmitigated and unnecessary disaster.
Serious question to those recent commenters. Matt Ridley's article is essentially arguing that there are scientists who are allowing their policy preferences to influence their research. Although I object to the framing of his article (and think that his examples or poor) there will certainly be some researchers who let outside factors influence their research. To those who think academia should be more like the corporate world (with targets and goals, I assume) do you think this would become more prevalent, or less (i.e., do you think researchers will be more likely to let outside factors influence their research, or less likely)?
ATTP
See Latimer Alder's comment, my reply and Green Sand's follow-up.
I know not everywhere is Oxford's dreaming spires and several universities have thrived on their tie-on with local industry.
My own view, for what it is worth, is that there is a fundamental difference in outlook (even 'psyche', if you like) between those who go into industry and follow practical degree courses in engineering and technology and those who opt for an academic route into pure physics and related sciences.
Green Sand points up this difference rather well. The academic atmosphere is different; research is its own reward and where government is funding that research there is a tendency (unconscious? subconscious?) to produce the sort of result that the government is looking for and so keep the money flowing.
This doesn't work with industry because there isn't an answer that industry "wants". What they are seeking is the "better mousetrap" and though they may be content to fund open-ended research into new materials or new drugs or even better detergents, they will expect to see progress and will be a lot quicker to demand that even if results are a way down the line.
With this discipline I would imagine that the danger of allowing outside factors to influence research should decline markedly, wouldn't you?
Certainly I would expect to see a lot less of the secrecy and "inventiveness" that was characterising the climatologists pre-Climategate because what we saw there was a completely misguided (in my opinion) view that the outcome of the research was their personal property.
I would add that (again in my view) Climate Studies — there is a fairly wide agreement, I think, that 'Climatology' is not a discipline in its own right — started as a par excellence example of an academic occupation, having virtually no practical application in the real world until its proponents invented one.
To quote what I said in my reply to Brendan H,
"As Harry Passfield says above "Climate happens. End of". Time to call the bluff and stop pretending there is anything we can do about it."
Mike Jackson
presumably your WTO would actually approach the question: 'in which orifices of the patient earth the various thermometers should be inserted' in a scientific manner rather than the ad hoc version that has been inherited from meteorologists.
Greensand
if you are still around. I suspect this comment breaches every blogging protocol under the sun but just wanted to applaud your wonderful comment #175 on Paul Hudson's blog "Climate Sceptics Feeling the Heat"
Comments are closed there hence my comment here.
Very clever! 10/10
It seems to me to be clear that one of the expected casualties of the overblown promotion of alarm over CO2 is science itself. If only our institutions, such as the Institute of Physics and the Royal Societies of Edinburgh and London, had been calmer and more reserved about the conjectures involved rather than largely taking them at face value and joining in the brouhaha, we might have enjoyed more detailed and thorough discussion, and perhaps even more funding for research into CO2 in the atmosphere using observation and experiment in more creative ways than we have seen to date.
Ridley's article draws attention to reports of blatant intellectual corruption in several areas of research:
and further down in the article:
Ridley does not, in particular, actually say that most of those in charge of collating temperature data cannot be trusted. The most relevant chunk of his article is this one:
This is consistent with a wide range of beliefs on the part of the author: for example that all such collators are intent on producing data that supports their preferred policies, or that none of them are. Ridley is merely suggesting, I think, that it is reasonable to wonder what the reality is - and that their vocal support of particular policies is by itself not reassuring. This is now an area of great political importance, and therefore independent checking of data adjustments would be appropriate.
The article is well-worth reading: http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/policy-based-evidence-making.aspx
@attp
In the professional commercial world, you get paid for doing a professional job - whatever that may be - solving the problem, designing a bridge, implementing an IT system. It's rare for you to actually care too much about what the answer is. If you do, then you're unlikely to get to the stage of 'trusted advisor' with your client.
But the key strength of the commercial system is that it focusses on the central issue. It doesn't/shouldn't get sidetracked into ridiculous matters of protocol and amour propre and politesse that academia revels in. Its contentious and rumbustious and disputatious all the way through.
A wise client on a big project will hold regular progress reviews and check that the project/problem is on the right track. They may employ a third party or a 'tiger team' deliberately to 'kick the shit' out of your work as you go along. The idea - as beautifully exemplified by the kerfuffle over Phil Jones' 'data' or Mike Mann's r2 value - that the practitioner can deliberately withhold their raw data or intermediate findings from those who pay the bills is ludicrous.
Documentation, due diligence and full disclosure are all part of a big project. They must all be completed and handed over to the client before payment is achieved. The idea that you work unsupervised for a couple of years, write a few hundred words on what you did, and then get a couple of mates to say it looks OK and that is the job done is equally ludicrous. Viewed from the outside 'peer-review' is a pretty shoddy and superficial QA process. It may be the best that academia can manage but by commercial standards it is unfit for any serious purpose.
Are, therefore, any commercial practitioners more or less susceptible to outside pressures than academics? I think I'd call that a draw. Human nature is fallible immaterial of place of employment. But the commercial world has far better, quicker, robuster systems in place to manage those fallibilities and to finish the task than the academic.
Mike,
I agree, broadly at least, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Academic research is not the same as industrial research. Academic research typically involves trying to gain understanding, not develop a product. Both are important.
Well, the evidence suggests that this is clearly wrong. We are influencing our climate. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Our emissions have increased the atmospheric concentration by 40% in just over 100 years. We're warming and it's mostly us. Clearly we can do something about this if we really wanted to. Whether we choose to do something or not is a decision that needs to be made. It's one thing to argue that we shouldn't do something. Arguing, however, that there is nothing we can do, however, would appear to be ignoring swathes of evidence suggesting that it is our actions that are causing the climate to change. If we're the ones who are causing our climate to change, we clearly have the power to stop doing this. To be clear, though, I'm not suggesting that it's easy or that it won't have consequences, simply that the suggesting "there's nothing we can do" is wrong.
(i.e., do you think researchers will be more likely to let outside factors influence their research, or less likely)?
Dec 12, 2014 at 11:36 AM | Unregistered Commenter...and Then There's Physics
I don't know. But I did some work for a large US company years ago. They told me they had commissioned some research by a university but then they had terminated it. They had noticed, when they analysed the results and looked at the statistical distributions, that some results had been weeded out. The researchers had consciously or unconsciously suppressed results that they imagined the company did not want to see.
Latimer,
That doesn't really answer my question. Do you want to try again? Maybe think of the following before you do, though. If you want to build a bridge, or develop a car, or a plane, you know what outcome you want and your research is focused towards achieving that goal. Is that the same as might be the case in academic research, or not?
Martin.
That also doesn't really answer my question. I have no doubt that there are plenty of examples of companies engaging in projects with universities where they haven't been happy with the outcome. That doesn't mean, however, that academic research should become more like corporate research. If anything, it probably means that we should stop trying to force corporations and universities together as they often - not always, though - have completely different motivations.
@attp
' Academic research is not the same as industrial research. Academic research typically involves trying to gain understanding, not develop a product. Both are important.'
I'm struggling to think of examples were you could 'develop a product' without gaining understanding of the product itself, and the environment in which it will operate. It is a fallacy that 'gaining understanding' is what academics do, while industrial research is different.
Many many years ago I worked in a very junior capacity researching the properties of the 'size' that is put on glass fibres to give them different properties in use (all glass fibre comes from the same furnace..its differing sizes that make it suitable or boatbuilding or car repair or DIY or whatever). We knew and learnt a huge amount about the chemistry of silanes and the differing polymers that we attached. It was bucket load chemistry and we got through a huge amount of actual tests.
The only real difference between our work and a uni research lab was that our conclusions became known when our new products came to market rather than in a paper. Ours are used by many thousands around the world every day. An academic paper might have been read by 100 people over 40+ years.
Latimer,
Again, you appear to be missing my point. I didn't say that developing a produce didn't require understanding the product itself. Just this once, try to actually think about what you're saying and what I'm saying.
Again, you've interpreted me the wrong way round. My point is that academic research typically doesn't have some well-defined goal, such as a product. It typically involves gaining understanding, but doesn't involve defining upfront what that increased understand will produce (other than an increased understanding). Industrial research, in a sense, does both. Of course you need to understand the processes associated with developing a product, but you do have a product in mind when doing the research.
So, let me ask again the question you have completely failed to answer (unsurprisingly I will admit). Do you think that academic researchers would be more or less likely to be influenced by outside factors if academic research was conducted in a manner more similar to corporate/industrial research?
@attp asks:
'If you want to build a bridge, or develop a car, or a plane, you know what outcome you want and your research is focused towards achieving that goal. Is that the same as might be the case in academic research, or not?'
Not necessarily true. The problem you are trying to solve may be a very ill-defined one indeed. It doesn't have to be one with a tangible physical outcome. But it needs to have some form of problem definition so that it can at least make a start in roughly the right direction. Often the first step in the project is to do the work (which may be quite extensive) to clearly state the problem(s). And, of course, just as in academia, doing the work itself may turn up new stuff which sends you right back to first base and casts a whole new light on things. That's fine.
And I'm sure that academic research must have a similar process of goal setting too.
I doubt that a good Professor goes to his funding board and asks for 5 years money with the pitch that he'll just sit around and maybe play with some climatey things every now and then and maybe something interesting might turn up. But he hasn't a real clue where to start or what he's going to look at yet . Maybe inspiration will strike him next week or next month or next year or never. But he'll come back in 5 years and tell you all whether it did, and meanwhile he promises to send a holiday postcard from exotic climes once a year.
I very much hope that there is something a bit more formal than that for the vast majority of our publicly-paid academics.
It is of course true that some of our most distinguished thinkers can be paid for doing exactly as I describe. But they are few and afar between. And in attempting to understand climate, getting hands on down and dirty with it is surely the best way for the vast majority
@attp
For me to better answer your question, you will need to give me an example of what you mean by 'gaining understanding' that did not involve having some goal in mind to begin the quest.
Even Einstein was said to be trying to answer a definite question 'what would the world look like if I sat on a beam of light?' when he came up with relativity.
What you describe as 'gaining understanding' seems to me to be more like a religious conversion than a serious piece of work
ATTP
What you are doing is systematically ignoring any evidence that contradicts the claim that .... forgive me if I don't waste fingering time by reciting the warmist mantra yet again ...I'm afraid we're never going to make progress if every time anyone suggests that climate is not a problem you revert to "I Speak Your Weight" mode. It suggests that you are not thinking about what is being said. Pavlov would have been proud of you!
I'll repeat my last statement (still only a personal opinion, you understand, but not unique to me):
The joke about Mann-made global warming is not all that far off the mark. Pretend that nothing happened for 1,000 years until, whoops! it all started going uphill in the 20th century. Deny the raft of reports in the heavyweight journals and the quotes from the "usual suspects" in the 70s that it was a new Ice Age we needed to worry about (though some were talking about global warming and at the same conference, for heaven's sake). Brush aside the current plateau by shouting at the top of your voice that the 00s were warmer than the 90s, conveniently forgetting that even the sceptics are not necessarily disputing that and that the two are in no way contradictory (and that even if 2014 does turn out to be 0.01 (+/- 0.1) warmer than 2010, so what!).
I am not challenging "the science" but I am challenging the warmists' interpretation of much of the data (which in a way brings us back to Mike Haseler's point about independent data collection) and an academic cast of mind which, to take one possible example, assumes that CO2 behaves in a chaotic atmosphere in exactly the same way that it behaves in the laboratory. All allied to an assumption that they know it all and are beyond challenge which is the sort of behaviour which may well typify academia but for which there is no place in the real world.
Which just happens to be where most of us pass our time!
Latimer Alder: "It is a fallacy that 'gaining understanding' is what academics do, while industrial research is different."
The difference is that academic research sees "gaining understanding" as an end in itself (albeit it's now a means to get paper's published), whereas industrial research sees understanding as a means to an end and that not understanding why something happens is not in itself bad so long as the required end is achieved.
To use a very simple example, we once used zener diodes at a fraction of their specified current. It turned out that their temperature coefficient changed from positive to negative. We did the tests, worked out the variance and how that would affect the circuitry - and that was enough because we didn't need to know why the temperature coefficient had changed.
However, in an academic environment, first they would have little interest in the variance, because they had not need to use them and know they would work and second, you couldn't possibly print a paper unless you came up with some explanation for the change in coefficient.
[From memory lower voltage Zeners had +ve and higher ones had -ve, and we used a 5v1 which supposed had a negative coefficient but at the 1ua(?) current the voltage was around 2.7V and it had a positive coefficent (+ve & -ve might be other way around) - I assume the dominant process changed - I suppose these days a quick check on the internet would find the answer.]
@attp
' Do you think that academic researchers would be more or less likely to be influenced by outside factors if academic research was conducted in a manner more similar to corporate/industrial research?'
I doubt that their individual response to outside influence would be changed one iota. But the far more rigorous and regular scrutiny that their work would be put under means that succumbing to such influences in the completed work would be much harder.
At the moment, the only academic QA process is peer-review. An unpaid, voluntary unstructured, unaudited, unauditable way of somebody spending a little time looking at a paper and giving an opinion on whether it should be published or not. The basic assumption is that the researcher is accurately describing the work, the data and the conclusions. But if they were not to do so - under outside influence or not - peer-review is not a good way of detecting that.
As Phil Jones - author of 200+ papers so memorably said when quizzed in Parliament about how often his peers had asked to review his data and methods 'they've never asked'
It is not hard to drive a coach and horses through peer-review. And once published, the work is considered sacrocsanct unless the errors are so egregious as to cause withdrawal/retraction.
The commercial/industrial model improves matters in this area hugely.
Latimer Adler
Your assumption that sea level rise will be constant may not be the case. Several recent papers have described processes which have accelerated melting and will destabilise the West Antarctic ice sheet.
There is even talk of a volcano on sceptic websites. Whether politically correct or not, melting is melting. :-)
Brendan H
Mike Haseler: ‘I would therefore suggest this role is carried out by an organisation which specifically bars its employees or the organisation from making any utterance about the "meaning" of the data.’
Even if it were possible to create such a function, it would hardly be desirable. Data doesn’t ‘speak’. Governments and societies need the interpretive and explanatory function of an agency that is beholden to the body politic and charged with the function of providing advice about matters such as weather and climate.
...
And is it possible to make a strict separation between merely ‘presenting’ the data, and talking about the ‘meaning’ of the data? Here is a recent comment from the US agency, the National Climatic Data Center of NOAA.
You touch on a valid point. If we accept my hierarchy:
1. data boffins - no comment on science - mostly engineers measured by "quality of data"
2. Theories and idea - no comment on politics, they just try to understand what's happening and develop theories for general use
3. Interpretation of the theories for society
4. Politicians
Given the complexity of modern society, there may as you suggest need to be a group of people who are "scientists" but also "activists" (my words).
And as someone who has worked for free in this area because there is no funding whatsoever from public sources I am very aware that we are lacking in a means to ensure this bridge between science and society is carried out by scientifically and politically aware people.
Unfortunately, before us sceptics came along this role was taken on by "greenspin" campaign groups. When they were "fighting" fossil fuel companies on oil spills, there was a degree of balance in the debate. Unfortunately, as greenspin became a business in their own right and as they aligned themselves with fossil fuel companies who got into wind energy and when everyone else jumped on the bandwagon of global warming doomsday (including me), the public "debate" was entirely one-side and the science wasn't being scrutinised at all.
So, academia already has a host of people who will broadcast its views:
1. The media,
2. BBC
3. NGOs
4. They form groups like IPCC
5. Royal society
So on the issue of climate, it is just utterly wrong to suggest academics needed to get involved in promoting the science when they had so many other people willing to do it for them.
However, I can see that in other areas where the NGOs have no interest, the media either aren't interest or are hostile, there would be a need to create people like sceptics who are familiar with the science and familiar with the wider needs of society.
However, once someone starts campaigning, even if they try, they start convincing themselves that they are right just as they try to convince others. So campaigning inevitably leads to confirmation bias and those who campaign are unlikely to be able to do impartial science.
I don't know how far I've got publishing the results of the survey on "participants of the online climate debate" on Scottish Sceptic, but I think it's already published figures showing sceptics have about 1.5 degrees >16 years experience most are engineering and science based and that from the average age they are at or near retirement.
It would seem to me, that you really could not get a better "jury" of people who are scientifically literate enough to understand the science - who if retired have the spare time to get involved - and who clearly have the interest to contribute their views and discuss subjects.
And if you add the sceptics to the "warmist" sites, eventually despite the wholesale bias of public funding only going to one side of this debate and the same side being wholly supported by commercial interests .... eventually through the altruistic contribution of a lot of retired engineers and scientists, this subject - at least in the science - now has a degree of scrutiny and public review which could only be dreamed of by most other subjects.
So, the problem is not that the academics are being fettered, but that the academics joined the fray on line and now we've got almost no one left manning the "impartial science".
Dec 12, 2014 at 1:46 PM Mike Jackson
(which in a way brings us back to Mike Haseler's point about independent data collection)
More than four years ago, there was a BH post called "The Climate Code Foundation, Sep 3, 2010".
In the ensuing thread, a commenter, "Green Sand", said:
How about a universal agreement on station network, location, inclusion, exclusion and standard equipment, also standard procedures for the collection, storage and real time publication of the RAW data?
Sep 4, 2010 at 3:50 PM Green Sand
About 1 hour later I made the following suggestion (which, however, fell on deaf ears):
Exactly.
But who would do the individual tasks?
Task (a) universal agreement on station network, location, inclusion, exclusion and standard equipment - Royal Air Force meteorologists?
Task (b) standard procedures for the collection, storage and real time publication of the RAW data - Royal Navy meteorologists?
Task (c) set up a secure base where tasks (a) and (b) can be housed - SAS HQ Hereford?
Sep 4, 2010 at 4:59 PM Brownedoff
In order to see if such a team could be assembled in 2014, I went to "The Meteorological Office at RAF Marham"
http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafmarham/aboutus/metoffice.cfm
where I found out that there is a team of Royal Navy staff, but no RAF staff, and United Kingdom Met. Office civilian staff, .. [... ] .. and their information is transmitted to "the Met. Office HQ at Exeter in Devon for onward transmission around the world."
Thus if (a) and (b) are now reduced to depending on help from you know who, my idea is demolished four years later.
So, we are back to square 1 - Green Sand's request from 2010 remains unanswered, similarly, I suspect, your World Temperature Organisation and Mike Haseler's suggestions made at the end of 2014 will remain unaddressed.
The GreenBlob rules.
There are many kinds of research some more basic than others.
I'd say climate change research is not basic at all, rather finalised at figuring out how badly anthropogenic emissions will change the climate and what can be done about them.
I see it akin to pharmaceutical research in companies who have a product and want to find a way to use it. Not a great way to learn about the world. There's no space for other climate change mechanisms, or for beneficial effects.
Entropic says:
'Your assumption that sea level rise will be constant may not be the case'
Sure. There's a huge number of assumptions built into that prediction. But they have the virtue of all being based on measurable (in one way or another) quantities in the real world. And if one or the other should change its not hard to plug in revised figures. But so far, they've not, so the sensible thing is to go with what we do know, not with what others might speculate about.
So, can you please try your best to persuade me and others that we should dampen our underwear, even a teensy bit, about sea temperatures in 2114 being 0.5-0.9K above where they are today, and the sea level being 9-12 inches above today's level? Thanks.
Latimer Alder : "The commercial/industrial model improves matters in this area hugely."
The big difference is that in commerce if you make a mistake. people can be injured or die you can lose your job (as the firm goes bust), and you can as a consequence end up in court with your career in ruins.
In contrast, academics used to avoid getting into anything where they were directly responsible for any actions. So, it was not as critical that their work had every i dotted and t crossed. This used to allow academics a huge degree of freedom and this allowed the free flow of ideas which was in itself useful.
Then academics decided that people should do what they told us to do. And in so doing, they not only became legally liable for any loss if that advice is wrong, but they also came under huge public scrutiny from outside.
And the one thing none of these academics seems to understand is that they are personally legally liable if their advice is wrong - you can't tell people to take your advice without baring the repercussions if that advice is wrong. In the private sector people know that bad advice ends in court - these public sector academics don't seem appreciate that
What is more, they don't even seem to be hiding behind some wall of anonymity. This thing has cost some $1,000,000,000,000 of money and if their models are provably wrong - as I expect them to be - it only takes one of the 1000s of millions of people to take legal action and this whole thing will end in court and well-meaning academics could have their lives ruined.
Brownedoff
There was nothing the matter with the Met Office until the government turned it into another quango and it turned into an advocacy group.
The lesson that the government never learned was that the minute you privatise something or make it responsible for finding its own funding or turning a profit it will behave like the commercial organisation you have made it and prioritise the bottom line.
(Though we must remember that after Lamb left, scientist-activists managed to get their feet under the table, as they did in other places as well, before the politicians or the hoi polloi realised what was going on!)
I agree with your idea except that the same standard needs to be applied world-wide which I suppose is a pipe dream, cetainly in the present situation.
Summary:
Academic model places high value on originality and conformity to academic protocols. But little on being right.
Commercial model places high value on being demonstrably right, whether original or not. No credit for conformity to academic protocols.
In climatology (=applied statistics) the commercial model will get us a lot further.
And whoever thought academics were the right guys to work on it needs their bumps felt. The nature of the problem is not well suited to academic investigation.
Latimer Alder (Dec 11, 2014 at 10:35 PM): "Is the generalisation of ~10^-4 still valid for the coefficient of expansion around 4C where, I seem to recall, water is at it densest and the coefficient between 0C and 4C is actually negative?"
Although that's buried a page or so behind, I wanted to make a pedantic correction. Fresh water has maximal density at 4 C, but sea water's density [at normal salinity] increases with colder temperatures down to its freezing point. Thermal coefficient of expansion also increases with pressure (depth). At salinity of 35, 3000 m depth, temp=2 C, this source gives a thermal coefficient of about 1.5E-4.
However, as EM pointed out, the abyssal temperature change is pretty small, so its contribution to sea level rise is minimal whatever the value of the coefficient of expansion. For a back-of-the-envelope estimate, it's fine to use a constant.
Latimer,
So, in your model - where being right is all that matters - what would you do first, build the time machine, or build all the other planets?
And the one thing none of these academics seems to understand is that they are personally legally liable if their advice is wrong - you can't tell people to take your advice without baring the repercussions if that advice is wrong
Dec 12, 2014 at 3:46 PM | MikeHaseler
Mike - I'm not sure that is correct. I can offer advice, free of charge, to anybody but it is their problem if following my advice turns out to have results they don't like.
However, if a contract exists, by virtue of my having agreed to receive payment specifically for giving the advice, then I think that, under common law, I'll be liable for the consequences (unless I took care to disclaim such liability at the time the contract was made).
@attp
Lost me there sport. No idea what you're on about. Would Google translator help?
Latimer,
No, I'm trying to establish how you could build a research programme in which you could be determine if you were right, without using a time machine, or building lots of planets on which you could experiment (which would also probably require some way of speeding up time too). You claim to be the expert, so maybe you can convince me how else you could do it without simply saying "in my experience in industrial research we were so much better at solving problems than silly academic researchers" (which I would envisage you saying in a really pompous voice, while drinking brandy at your club).
Maybe Einstein houldn't have studied relativity as he couldn't possibly travel himself near the speed of light. Maybe all mobile phone industry isn't unworthy of our attention because they haven't built time machines to deliver data on time. Or whatever else attphys is implying.
What seems to typically happen is athetp writes a comment full of errors, refuses to acknowledge these errors, and then complains when people get quite vocal in their criticism. Maybe we could avoid the latter if he acknowledged his errors in the first place. Additionally, maybe if andttp doesn't like the way people are responding to his comments, maybe he should avoid implying that thinking people (and climate skeptics in particular) have a problem with corruption and malpractice.
Latimer your vision of academics is outdated. Money rules there too, and ability to get it is more important than results. As I said climate change science is commercial but its funding comes from people who live out of scaring other people. Not sure who would make money being right about the climate of 2050
Omnologos,
Huh? Was what I said too complicated for you to understand? (you can treat that as rhetorical if you wish)
aTTP:
You are not alone, there – there are many, many people who are misunderstood, and it’s all everybody else’s fault! Usually, though, they are teenagers, but – hey! – ain’t life harsh.Perhaps you should put some effort into understanding what others are trying to say, then try to put your point across in a way that others might understand.
Radical,
Of course, but I'm not trying to put a point across. I was trying to ask a question that - as yet - noone has actually answered. Admittedly, that is no great surprise, so I shall leave it at that.
aTTP
If the maths and science is so simple, how come the computer models and predictions are so wrong?
It often comes across better to say something like "I'm sorry, I cannot have explained myself as well as I should have".
Martin A.
True, but I'm afraid I have little interest in advice about how best to behave online from people who are regular commenters here.
Golf,
I don't believe I ever said it was simple.
@attp: Having totally derailed this thread with your tiresome pedantic trolling, why don't you toddle off back to your own securely censored and moderated play-pen?
You're not "leaving it at that", again, ATTP, are you? You don't half get a mite precious sometimes!
Perhaps you would like to ask your question (what was it again? something about planets and time machines — that everyone else round here took to be a bit of point-scoring; tsk! silly us) in a way that we can give a proper answer to.
You seem to be demonstrating your usual reluctance to see anyone else's point of view or even engage with them.
Did you read my suggestion that an academic cast of mind assumes that CO2 behaves the same under lab conditions and under chaotic atmospheric conditions. You don't need another planet; all you need is a model, isn't it? Seems to me, though, that the answers that the models are giving are all a resounding "no". Yes?
Simpler than you think.
And just in case you're about to say that models are better than nothing, if they're all wrong then they're worse than nothing because they're leading you up a blind alley.
And there I will have to leave it. See you all next week!
Mike,
The question I'm referring to was at 11.36am.
Ahh, me saying "I'll leave it at that" was simply intended to indicate that I'm not interested in playing the standard "answer my question" type games that some like to play. If you don't want to answer the question, that's fine. I wasn't actually expecting anyone to do so.
@attp
'(which I would envisage you saying in a really pompous voice, while drinking brandy at your club).'
Is it too late to get a refund from your charm school? If not, your attendance there was clearly wasted. And the book club that sent you 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' was deluded that it would make a difference to you.
FWIW those here who know me in person will attest that I have a pleasing baritone, am teetotal, and the only club I attend is my local football team. I tend to drink diet coke - no brandy
On the question of being right I'd sure make sure that every step along the road of 'understanding' was robustly researched and tested and had the shit kicked out of it before I relied on it. Junk like the now rightly ignored hockey stick would not be allowed to pollute the discourse with its dodgy statistics, dubious graphics and egotistical promoters. A good QC review would have found the problems in a first interview between its authors and a proper statistician. And that illustrates my point.
Another way to look at the difference between academic and commercial work is that in commerce you spend a great deal of effort on quality control. Its pretty true that good QC leads to good outcomes. In academia you pay some sort of vague lip-service to it, but don't really care. the height of your ambition is to achieve publication. Whether the content is any good doesn't really bother you..or if it does you collectively haven't evolved the processes that help to guarantee it.
They aren't new or particularly difficult to implement. But they do require some resources (time, money, commitment) to do. That academics choose not to do them speaks volumes. You do not place a high priority on getting things right.
Mike,
What's an academic cast of mind?
No, they don't. Why would you possible think that they did?
No.
Latimer,
What made you think I was trying to charm you, be your friend, or influence you?
Let me guess, you have no formal experience with academic research, do you? Am I right?