Bishop Hill Another scientivist
Apr 28, 2014 Bureaucrats Corruption Greens Anthony points out the eructions of an Exeter University geographer named Stephan Harrison, who says that debating sceptics is like wrestling with pigs.
Ho hum - another day, another academic making a fool of themselves.
Nevertheless, Dr Harrison has an interesting CV. Apparently his research work on glaciers is centred on Patagonia although he previously worked on the Tian Shan mountains in Central Asia. Probably fair to say that he has a very large carbon footprint indeed. It's therefore no surprise to see that he is also an very keen environmental activist. He is:
- An invited member of the Environmental Research Group and the Climate Research Group of the Institute of Actuaries.
- An invited member of the Carbon Counting Group, an international group of economists, scientists, architects, politicians and environmental activists working in the field of mitigation and adaption for climate change.
- An invited member of the Climate Justice Programme
- An expert witness for the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide looking at the impact of mining on mountain glaciers in the Chilean Andes, and specifically the Pascua Lama mine.
And with a background like that, it's no surprise to see him involved with the Science Media Centre too.
So, another scientivist. One can bang on about these people, but I'm not sure it does much good. People in universities are obviously not accountable to the public, and are therefore pretty much immune to public criticism. It's perhaps therefore more useful if we ask ourselves what can be done about them. I have no problem with academics having political views, but in my view there needs to be a clear dividing line between research and political activism. Where such a line cannot be drawn, the public ends up paying half-wit academics to promote their often eccentric, immature and even extreme views. This seems to me to be entirely immoral.
So my question to readers is: Is it possible to formulate some guidelines that would at least make this kind of thing more difficult? Or is the answer just to cut funding to the universities?
Reader Comments (75)
Quoted from the Bishop's headline post
"So my question to readers is: Is it possible to formulate some guidelines that would at least make this kind of thing more difficult? Or is the answer just to cut funding to the universities?"
I have suggested this elsewhere and it will undoubtedly raise howls of horror in science circles.
The suggestion is that we "capitalise" most Science research.
The whole western science funding system is extremely socialistic along the lines of the old Soviet socialist system.
It doesn't matter too much what quality of science you churn out as long as you have the necessary contacts, are in the right and most fashionable science discipline and have the reputation and the influence and the supporters in high places and you will get a nice comfortable sized grant from the funding bodies.
In short like nearly every other sector of our capitalistic society has to do, scientists should be required to actually produce a product that the community / society wants and is willing to pay for and then and only then should a scientist as in the rest of our capitalistic society, reap their financial reward as a scientist.
Pay scientists a good "stipend", [ "stipend" is a deliberate use of that word as it means freedom of action and not just a payment for services ie ; work previously done as in "Wages" or "Salaries" ] to enable them to live at a average at least standard of living level and then they like everybody else in society and every budding business person or entrepreneur, if they are prepared to back their scientific acumen and skills, can go along to the banks and financiers and borrow the funds for their research projects, again like any would be business person has to do, and get on with their research project.
The papers and results as either interim papers or the end of project papers, would be written up and openly published on the internet for perusal and analysis and critiscm by any interested scientists and the interested members of the public over a period of say a couple of months to allow a full digesting and analysis and a dissecting of the work which can be, as we are seeing on the internet at present, bloody harsh for poor quality science.
. After which based on the levels of approval of the paper, the market value so as to speak after going through this process, the funding allocated to the project would be paid over and the scientists involved would then pay back to their financiers, their borrowed project funding.
No different in fact to the way any other income earning enterprise has to operate in a capitalistic system
The advantages would be;
1 / A rapid weeding out and elimination of bad and incompetent and along for the ride on the public purse, so called scientists.
2 / Therefore a significant lift in the quality of published science as the incentives would be there to maximise their potential income by providing science of a quality that has survived some very harsh scrutiny in the end of project paper's review process and recieving good funding for their efforts in return.
3 / Data and everything relevant to the research would be promptly provided as lack of data would kill the papers and research through the public's reviewing process of the papers and the unacceptability of papers and research with little or no supporting publicly available data to support it and therefore no funded rewards and a problem explaining to the funders of the project why you can't pay them back. ie; end of science career.
4 / Along with the elimination of an almost horde sized cabal of mediocre or incompetent and / or just lazy researchers across most popular science disciplines, the end of the project's publicly funded, science funding pool would be distributed to a much smaller group of scientists and therefore their end of project and it's approval through the open review process funds would, like any really successful business proposition, be very well rewarded witha much larger grant for the science done.
5 / There are many aspects to this suggestion that need to be thought through such as Science requiring very large infrastructure would obviously still need and get large lumps of public funding. However to get the best out of the public's very large and regular annual investment in science and to eliminate the corrupting trends and increasingly selective and biased funding of science projects that are steadily creeping into modern science funding, it is necessary to rethink the way most of science is funded and it's responsibilities to the public who provide those funds.
Capitalising science funding ie; adjusting and allocating rewards for effort, outcomes and public acceptability of science projects after they are completed and offered up for public scrutiny and analysis would go a very long way towards improving the current deteriorating quality of science coming out of science establishments by giving the incentives to produce good, well researched, data supported, well reviewed science that will further science's role in improving humanity's quality of life and advance further the levels of our civilisation.
And all this for less cost to the public and the waste of valuable public resources.
My two or was that ten cents worth.
The problem with university academics is the tenure system. It ensured that there was no bias in academic research freedom by removing the 'stick' but did nothing about the 'carrot'. Academics therefore can be persuaded by extra remuneration to 'bias their results. Indeed many have happily sold their ethics to the highest bidders. Therefore, the tenure system needs changing. It should as now ensure that academics cannot be dismissed for their point of view and provide academic freedom. However, it shold also limit remuneration from any source by reducing university remuneration to ensure that the academc remains paid the same amount. Should this reduction result in university remuneration of zero then the tenured post ceases to exist and the academic involved is assumed to have resigned their post to pursue outside acti vities.
Well academics must be free to express their opinions, even if some of them are stupid opinions. Otherwise the greater evil of censorship is introduced. If we didn't have stupid academics with stupid opinions, we would not ever have enjoyed entire cultural movements such as Psychoanalytics, Post Modernism, Marxism, Feminism, Apocalyptic Ecology, and whatever emerges in the years to come :-)
Brute: "The fact is that WE know who the skeptics are, that is, a (very) few folk mainly blogging, without any kind of direct say in policymaking or any demonstrable form of institutionalized funding. It is with this in mind that I remain in awe at how much attention skeptics apparently deserve. It is even claimed that skeptics are winning. Amazing."
I am not clear whether you are admiring or appalled. The obvious point is that most sceptics are so clearly more sensible than the fanatical enviros.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
So I will try and address the Bishop's questions - is it possible to formulate guidelines ... ...? Should funding be cut?, rather than exercise the politician's art of avoiding them.
(1) Guidelines
No.
There will be multiple ways of going about writing guidelines. But all seem doomed to fail. Obviously, you could try and write a comprehensive set that covers all university research, or separate guidelines for individual subjects. Or you could try and write guidelines for low-cost research and another for the more expensive stuff. And so on without limit.
Consider now the attempt to write sets of guidelines for different subjects. So now we have demarcation problems. For instance, taking a case close to the heart of this blog, we write one set for climate science and another for meteorology. And the guidelines say different things about a topic that could reasonably be included in either. So how do we sort that out?
Now consider the one-set-fits-all guidelines. Unwanted situations created by simple wording - research must be of benefit to the planet and its biomass - apparently worthy - might be held to exclude the speculations of Hawking, which many would want funded. So to avoid such problems the descriptions of this and that are changed from simple easily understood phrases to complex descriptions hedged about by qualifications couched in words that the dictionary shows currently have multiple shades of meaning. The guidelines themselves grow from a few pages to documents the size and precision of an IPCC report. Summaries for Executives in charge of Disbursement of Funds are required, and the guidelines themselves are forgotten.
Guidelines will not necessarily achieve any sort of objectivity, but would merely become the new battleground upon which the arguments that are now fought (and lost!) without them (But will there not now be guidelines?) would, after all the effort of composition, be fought (and lost!) again.
But although I know guidelines are not the answer, I fear I do not know what is.
(2) Should funds simply be cut?
Possibly, but ...
This is an altogether different question with only tenuous links to the background topic of Dr Harrison and his research. Presumably, if the country is going through lean times such as has recently been the case and maybe still is, then yes. Also if it is decided that university research, like QANGOs, have grown like Topsy. And if it is decided that more of the country's resources should be directed to matters of concern to artisans rather than thinkers. And so on.
Then, of course, all sorts of critical subsidiary questions arise: By how much is the funding total to be cut? How much is to be cut from each area of research? Difficult.
It seems that the most likely result of answering this question would be to provoke arguments that many, no doubt, would seek to prolong so that the cuts themselves would never eventuate.
I note that the question: should Dr Harrison's funding be cut? - , which would be more easily addressed irrespective of whether one is a warmist or a skeptic, is not asked.
So I conclude that this attempt to be a good boy and do what I was asked to do produces just as much heat and maybe less light than the many politically adroit obfuscations that grace this thread.
I'd suggest that these days the word 'activist' is too nondescript. Depending on the person in question, I think they should be referred to as either a 'campaigner', an 'agitator' or a 'trouble-maker'. Most socialists are either agitators or trouble-makers whereas most normal people are campaigners.
Well he can ignore skeptics all he likes but he can't ignore the observations of nature. The only reason skeptics are paid any attention at all is because they have been proven correct all this time: To wit, the model-based analyses that produce all the alarm (and the only way of declaring that manmade warming even exists) are now proven to be ridiculously pessimistic due to rank bad initial assumptions about natural variability. Unless the global temperature increases substantially very soon then the house of cards will inevitably tumble and then I wonder if there will be a reckoning for those who have cost industry so much money.
"...the slippery slope..." - Anoneumouse
Careful - Jeremy Clarkson nearly came to grief with that one...;-)
JamesG
Given the recent pattern of temperature the current 15(?)-year pause will either continue or the temperature will decline for about a further 15 years after which it will start to increase again.
So if we can just cling on by the skin of our teeth until somewhere round 2025-2030 then all will be well, no?
With enough loud support from politicians, civil servants, useful idiots in academia and the NGOs, not to mention the BBC (best not to ment.......) who's to say that they won't get away with it. Fortunately the chances of my being here to see what happens are fairly slim!
Will Nitschke
on Apr 29, 2014 at 8:11 AM
"If we didn't have stupid academics with stupid opinions, we would not ever have enjoyed entire cultural movements such as Psychoanalytics, Post Modernism, Marxism, Feminism, Apocalyptic Ecology, and whatever emerges in the years to come :-)
Do I detect irony here?
The problem is not that they exist, as we do not know what developments may follow, it is that these movements burst onto a defenceless public who then end up paying for all the mistakes committed by the 'experts'. While the ideas remain within the academic sphere, the expense is usually minimal, but when they become national policies, it becomes expensive. It is the lack of discussion at the prototyping stage that is so wasteful, mainly because people do not risk their own money, but get remunerated according to how large the projects become.
They are paid to do a task: build windmills, not supply a reliable electricity supply. It's meeting tractor production targets, not ensuring reliable food supplies. And the bigger the project the better, so national plans are therefore the objective and being sponsored by political factions who have promised the 'Earth' puts the cherry on the cake! Whether it is the Climate Change Act and windmills or immunisation, comprehensive schools, school academies, health trusts, closing coal fired power stations, it is the lack of discussion with those bordering the discipline that allows it to happen.
It is happening everywhere: it is how much money is spent on Education or how many go on to university and not "do they leave school being able to read, write and add up" or "was the three years at university well spent".
Should the school leaver have thought more about the choice of subject studied, the type of course, what they hope to gain from three years study? What else could they do to give them a better prospects after they have graduated. It's slightly off the subject, but still within the problem of the task driven agenda and not taking responsibility for delivering added value, creating wealth!
It is how non-STEM graduates are able survive in management positions, especially in government, in a technological world.
It is encouraging to have accumulated, over the years, so many sceptics and so many successes in combating the political agenda. However, it can be overwhelming when so many questions overlap each other. Has anyone created a concise list of questions that have not been answered by the Alarmists, even if we think that they are unanswerable! We get waves of proclamations, and each one means that all our efforts to correct the previous falsehoods are buried.
I expect some of these buried points would include:
1) How is it OK for the UEA CRU to rely on their 'Adjusted temperature data', while not even recording the original values when they threw away the original documents?
2) What has happened to the Medieval Warm Period? Where is the evidence?
3) When the following papers (A and B) show no increase in hurricanes, why are the politicians (C, D and O), on the advise of experts (E and F) insisting the opposite?
4) Why has every accidental mistake by the IPCC made the situation appear worse, more alarmist? Statistically, one would expect that there would a few mistaken conclusions announced that would have suggested that the situation was not as bad as feared.
5) etc etc
Ike's farewell address is well know for his well-founded warnings about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. What is less well known that he also warned strongly of the dangers of a government funded technological elite. And how right he was about that as well.
Damn, I wish we had guys like him around still.
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm
"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded."
Harrison is a taxpayer funded activist, and I find it obnoxious that my taxes contribute to this nonsense.
Jeremy Poynton on Apr 29, 2014 at 11:45 AM
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
We are currently captive of a non-scientific, non-technological elite that prospers because of it's ignorance of Science/Engineering practice and unaware of the Philosophy underlying them.
By the way, what does the first 'P' in PPE stand for?
Just privatise the lot of them.
MikeJ
Certainly it's difficult to see how a standard brain can perrform the gymnastics required to imagine that a plateau of 15+ years somehow means that global temperature is still increasing and that the models that predicted an increase are therefore still correct. That journalists are not even slightly skeptical of this makes me now doubt almost everything reported in the news. T
They've already lasted 5 years longer than I expected and I guess that is due to the dumbing down of science journalism. Yet all it takes is one major figure in climate science to break ranks and admit they haven't a clue about climate and it will all unravel. Hence the reason they can't give even an inch of ground to skepticism - to the weird post-normal point of presenting contradictory opinions as facts and real facts as denialism.
People over-interpret change they are able to witness. Mark Lynas visits some glaciers in the Andes and sees them retracted. He becomes convinced of the power of CO2. Scenes like this are described in his 'High Tide' book.
Harrison says "People often say 'well why do you debate with the sceptics'. And I usually say '...mud wrestling with the pigs . blah .blah . publish in scientific literature'. The interviewer cannot apparently suppress her amusement.
The questions were a set-up. He fell for it.
Harrison is now 'walking back', if you can call it that, from his pig statement. He says he didn't mean Anthony Watts and Andrew Montford are like pigs because they are 'lukewarmers'. It is the skeptics who are pigs.
http://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2014/04/28/mud-wrestling-with-a-pig/#comment-20581
It is a difficult one - funding Uni's.
As Matt Ridley said yesterday in the thunderer, "The steam engine led to the insights of thermodynamics, not vice versa".
So, why bother with Uni's?
Some thoughts.
There are far too many institutions laying claim to being places of 'higher' education - and what passes for a degree these days probably wouldn't have earned you a mediocre grade at 'A' level during the fifties/sixties.
Ideally, English Universities, by their very nature are elitist, they should be places of learning and areas where like minded students and professors develop minds and theorize in the abstract at advanced level.
Therefore only students who have reached and passed advanced level studies should be awarded places. These institutions should be small and insular and along the Cambridge/Oxford model - a whole but made up of individual colleges.
Funding to be decided by the treasury [only ie no DECC involvement] but inevitably, government, external and private funding introduces bias and advocacy. In the end truth and reason always prevails but what damage is caused along the road in seeking the truth.............. Lastly, keep all tertiary institutions secular - ie no outside funding from gulf Arab states.
As Gove is doing, beef up O and A levels and make them thoughtfully difficult or better yet - very difficult. The crass idea that 'everyone passed' and of retakes and modules and course work - is equality dogmatism at the limits of lunacy.
Then, bring back the tech + engineering colleges for people who want to do stuff, make stuff and earn a living at it.
End of the day though, clever people can lie and free speech is a must in a democratic society. It is funny though and as they are won't to present themselves as the martyrs of green. All of them, from politicians to university lecturers and non governmental organizations besmear, cast wild accusations and wish to silence the realists, the naysayers and that tells you everything you need to know about the Archpriests and zealots of greenery.
What do you expect from Cornwall, may even be Truro.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
A second bite at the cherry ...
(1) Rare thanks to Chandra for reminding me of - analogy.
In formulating guidelines analogies are often useful. One writes one's guidelines with the predominant circumstances in mind. "When this happens do this." And then - no more. So what is our operative to do when something a little different happens? He has to use his common sense.(!) "When a situation occurs that is not directly covered in these guidelines, a course of action that will achieve the results equivalent to those specified ... ... shall be implemented." The virtue of this approach is that it will usually easy to write the guidelines in the sort of language that will be readily understood. Disadvantages, which are considerable, are (1) that not everybody will be blessed with common sense in which case the person responsible for appointing this person has, prima facie, failed, and (2) that not everybody will apply common sense in the same way. Which may not be anyone's fault.
IMHO analogies should more often be the preferred approach, rather than the Oh! so frequent over elaborate attempts to address every eventuality that so often result in streams of instructions of such byzantine complexity that arguments about actual meaning are inevitable and/or that an interpretation document is required.
The disadvantages described above would appear to render any recommendation to use this approach in respect of disbursements of university research funds completely inappropriate.
(2) The Bishop's need for a clear dividing line between research and activism.
Not always possible, and in Dr Harrison's case, at a guess, of course not, because, like the folk at the UEA, is he not funded by government to further the warmist cause? (I don't know whether he is or not funded for that purpose, but it would not surprise me one little bit if he were.)
Also, the Bishop may complain that he meant research to mean just that. But the funding agency - government - effectively concealed their requirement that the UEA promote the warmist cause under a contract for research and so, IMHO, very well demonstrated that instructions to undertake research can actually mean anything the funding agency want. So, for all practical purposes, you cannot distinguish between research and political activism and the line cannot be drawn.
And that, in this and in the majority of these cases that cause us to complain - Lew, the UEA, Pigeon and so on - it is bad decisions by the funding agencies, whether as a result of adherence to guidelines or not, that are most commonly the root cause, rather than the frontline folks themselves that are so often the recipients of our disapproval.
Just a thought - is there a record anywhere (a video would be ideal) of Stephan Harrison actually debating with sceptics..?
Or is it just that he doesn't much like the idea of defending the indefensible..?
I wouldn't bother cutting funding to the Universities.
We have noted before how Local Authorities, when faced with budget "cuts" (translation: reductions in the planned rate of increase) will close the kiddies' paddling pool etc, while somehow managing to maintain the Chief Executive's bonus and pension top-ups.
The Universities would no doubt behave similarly.
Athelstan +1
IMO it's not elitist to regret the passing, of the standards for higher education of yesteryear. I remember statements from my youth, in the early sixties in the UK.
Being told by one of the upper sixth masters, "there are university places for about 3% of a school leaving year" and "within the hard sciences and engineering one third of university entrants will fail and be eliminated after the first year". A highly competitive and unforgiving system. It matched my university experience.
One suggestion regards the Bish's question would be to institute a performance based pay system within higher education. I'm sure I don't need to expound on what this would achieve. The "how" and "what" of performance criteria is not simple, but if one works from the premise that the primary purpose of higher education is to do just that, educate, then it should be eminently achievable. The model could and perhaps should be expanded to taxpayer funding of universities.
Bish: I disliked Andy's and your non-specific posts on Dr. Harrison. (Apparently the man was open-minded enough to have corresponded at ClimateAudit.) If he has done something in particular that you wish to criticize, please do so. If he can't see the problems with climate change and makes a living working with activists, that is his right as a free citizen.
The problem doesn't lie with his opinions (which are his right), but with the sources of funding that allow so many people make a living off of climate change without really contributing to a solution. To the extent that the government is funding propaganda that encourages citizens to support mitigation, government funding is extremely problematic. But the problem goes further than government funding. How many dollars intended for education get spent on climate change activism? Or from scientific societies? The AGU, for example, has an external affairs department with a VP who was a former lobbyist from Greenpeace (or similar organization) and staffed with perhaps 10 journalists (not scientists).
Funding is a better target than people. If you don't offend them, people can and do change their minds. However, the slush funds supporting climate change activism won't dry up without exposure.
I am amused to see the realisation that very few skeptics actually deny CO2's status as a GHG or that things are warmer now than in say 1850.
Soon we will all be at a pig roast singing Kumbaya and exchanging educated guesses as to sensitivities ranging from .8 to 1.5 and wondering how Mann and Co managed to lead us into error.
Higher education, in whatever form, comes with INDEPENDENT thinking.
So ALL of our modern-day madrassas , still euphemistically called "universities" where they steal a term of more glorious days, do -NOT- engage in higher education.
They do a lot with kowtowing to gender issues, gerbil wormism, how to organise social dissent to make Alynski and chomsky proud, islamism and the like.
Foremost they serve to sedate and fatten up leftist phd's and bloaten their self opinions to unknown levels.
What they do NOT do is : higher education.
One gets more higher education reading some specialists blogs than spending time in the univissitti.
let's not forget these are the places of Bronks-Ramsey shtasticks. Good for pestering historians with , but I shudder at the thought they would use any of this "high education" crap in qa of , say, jet engine widgets.
I feel that it's possible that the decline in the public's consumption of media is as a result of better education standards and better quality of debate: the public understand better now that "experts" are as fallible as themselves, and that the journalists who filter the experts' output are even more fallible. So I wouldn't despair too much about the public. Or we risk becoming like the liberals and end up wanting to control what the "proles" read, eat and do "for their own good".