Part of the confusion over Revkin's article is that there isn't one "climate debate." There are several. I'm going to taxonomize them in another post, but first I want to say something about the scientific one.
This debate, as many folks have pointed out, is pretty much over. The denialists are wrong and they've been completely discredited. Every serious person involved in the climate change discussion accepts the broad conclusions of the IPCC.
However, I worry a little bit about what you might call the Tyranny of the IPCC. Our own Andrew Dessler writes:
Not only are there not three sides to this debate, there are not even two. There is only one: the IPCC's.
That gives me some slight willies.
Sure, IPCC is confident about the existence and cause of recent warming, and I'm happy we can all stop rehashing that crap.
But there are other areas -- mainly around the effects of climate change -- where the IPCC says, in effect, "we don't know for sure yet." Does that mean all respectable people must stay silent about those effects until the IPCC ratifies a consensus conclusion?
According to John Fleck, what makes Al Gore one "side" of the debate, as opposed to squarely in line with the scientific consensus, is the fact that he makes assertions about hurricanes and sea-level that go beyond the IPCC. He uses "outlier science." But my understanding is that with regard to the hurricane issue, the IPCC just abstains from judgment. So there's some science showing amplifying effects and some science that casts doubt on such an effect -- pending an official consensus, isn't it all "outlier science"?
Because the IPCC, held to punishingly conservative standards of peer-review and consensus, is silent on the hurricane question ... does that mean everyone has to be silent? Al Gore chooses to pick a side, in effect predicting which way the chips are going to fall. In that he goes beyond the IPCC -- and beyond what the relevant scientific community is willing to label consensus -- but he doesn't contradict the IPCC. He uses his judgment to supplement the IPCC. And he's been right on this issue for decades, and understands it about as well as any layman on the planet, so I'm not inclined to brush his judgments aside.
It seems perfectly reasonable to me for him to say the following: "Based on some new and emerging research, and based on my sense of the direction of the science over the last 20 years, and based on my holistic understanding of the phenomenon, I believe global warming will increasingly make hurricanes measurably stronger and more destructive."
Yes, we have to leave science to the scientists. But science is not a priesthood that can or should impose quietude on the rest of us. Our informed gut feelings about how things will turn out are legitimate. People make statements beyond what's strictly supported by the peer-reviewed evidence all the time. For some reason, internet wonks seem to hold public advocacy on global warming to a strangely prudish set of standards. We don't impose these kinds of strictures in other areas.
Within the majority of people who accept the basic IPCC conclusions (that's a crucial qualification), I don't want to see "extremism" used as a club to shut people up -- or worse, used as a convenient slur against which to define oneself as the center.
What to make of the new climate poll
‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science
Comments
View as Flat
Andrew Dessler Posted 12:47 pm
05 Jan 2007
I am very leary letting Al Gore or anyone "supplement" the IPCC. If we let Al Gore inject his scientific expertise, then why shouldn't we let James Inhofe also make pronouncements on the science. Gore and Inhofe are both advocates, and their interpretation of the science clearly reflects their preferred policy choices.
I would therefore argue that science should be left to the professionals. I know that sounds elitist and I'll probably get flamed for it, but so be it.
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Andrew Dessler Posted 1:00 pm
05 Jan 2007
So here's what should be in my previous post:
I would add that, given the scientific community's opinion on a scientific issue, our society is still free to come up with whatever policy they want. Science does not dictate or determine policy.
If policymakers and the general public have a "feeling" that hurricanes are a big issue, they can and should take action on that issue, even if the scientific community is undecided on the issue. Uncertainty does not mean "don't take action."
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markbahner Posted 1:10 pm
05 Jan 2007
No, every serious person involved in climate change research knows that the most important part of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report--the "projections" of what will happen if governments of the world do nothing--are nothing more than pseudoscientific rubbish.
The IPCC's "projections" are completely without merit, as a very basic matter of science. They are completely unfalsifiable. Everyone who knows about science knows that falsifiability is an absolutely fundamental requirement for scientific predictions (or "projections").
But do you suppose anyone will ever read that in an Andrew Revkin piece in the New York Times (let alone from any of the Gristmill contributors)?
Mark Bahner
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Zarkov Posted 2:35 pm
05 Jan 2007
The hurricane after Katrina, Wilma, had the fastest spin up time ever measured..... Katrina oiled the waters of the Gulf for Wilma.
Oil on the sea reduces wave height, and allows higher wind (spin) speeds. (note the Gulf has a natural oil seepage...maybe a reason why hurricanes like that area.
This year there was little hurricane activity.
Hurricanes rely on the high local humidity in the atmosphere above warm waters. They draw and condense the water vapour in the surrounding air, forming the characteristic cloud structure and delivering massive rainfalls.
Why weren't there any major hurricanes this year?
It could be that the humidity level in the atmosphere above the waters of the gulf and its surrounds, did not get strong enough last year to allow a hurricane to form. Oil ?
Asia had many destructive typhoons last year.
I think in the future, hurricanes will form in "unusual" places, they may move poleward.
IMO the main atmospheric problem as the air dries out will be massive tornadoes and high intensity lightning.
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Andrew Dessler Posted 2:36 pm
05 Jan 2007
Oh, here it is. [Imagine me spraying Mark Bahner's comment] That should do it.
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EliRabett Posted 9:42 pm
05 Jan 2007
First because they are a year out of date the moment they appear.
Second because most people on these blogs only read WGI, and ignore WGII and WGIII, where the consequences and possible ameliorations/adaptations are identified.
Third because they do not identify which policy options should be taken.
Fourth, because not all science issues are settled. See three for implications.
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markbahner Posted 9:59 pm
05 Jan 2007
Ah yes, if one doesn't wish to discuss science--because science does not support one's positions--there are always personal attacks (if one doesn't have scruples against resorting to them).
Mark Bahner
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jjwfmme Posted 12:13 am
06 Jan 2007
That's kind of a flattening statement, isn't it? To say the least, it glosses over quite a bit?
And when there's credible, emerging science, there are reasonable ways to talk about what's happened over the past five years without having to cleave to every single letter of the 2001 report. I think that's being a bit puritanical.
...
Yes, Mark Bahner wants us to engage in lawyerly wordplay with the scientific language, which would be a tedious way to spend your Saturday morning...
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 12:37 am
06 Jan 2007
Science has excellent statistical methods for quantifying the degree of uncertainty of any finding. Scientists can tell us exactly how much uncertainty is inherent in any scenario or projection. And policymakers will set policy based on their judgment of the potential harms and the level of uncertainty in that potential.
It is in no way unprofessional to set policy according to that procedure. In fact, nearly all long-term policy is based on projections and scenarios that are uncertain. It's part of the job -- politicians are used to it -- and using uncertainty as an excuse for inaction is either cowardice or pandering to corporate interests.
If policymakers decide that economic interests of the present outweigh environmental interests of the future, let them argue their position forthrightly. Falling back on the uncertainty excuse is just whining.
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jfleck Posted 1:02 am
06 Jan 2007
The problem with this line of argument is that as soon as you sanction what Al Gore does here, you've sanctioned a general type of argument: "I believe, in this particular area of scientific uncertainty, the likely outcome of ongoing research is likely to be X, and we should therefore base our policy response on X." I don't think Inhofe is the best example, but the case of Benny Peiser's obsession with solar influence might be a better one. Benny's happy to cherrypick research on one side of this question (big solar influence on warming) and use it, based on his years of expertise, to argue that that's where he thinks the science is heading. As soon as you sanction Gore's use of the tactic, you've no grounds on which to argue against Benny's use of the same line of argument.
That's precisely the recipe for gridlock on "scientized" policy debates, which Dan Sarewitz has so eloquently demonstrated:
http://www.cspo.org/ourlibrary/articles/EnvironControv.ht...
Andrew Dessler is absolutely correct that we really have no choice in these debates but to try our best to identify and work within IPCC-style consensus.
Unfortunately, Sarewitz's argument and my own personal experience as a journalist covering these controversies convinces me that the sort of thing we're talking about here - picking outliers that support one's value positions - is an inevitable state of affairs. Your willingness to do it, and endorse it, despite the obvious sophistication of your understanding of the issues, is one more bit of empirical evidence in support of what Sarewitz is saying.
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Sam Wells Posted 2:31 am
06 Jan 2007
That doesn't make it Truth with a capital "T". No way! To call it uncertainty is a little misleading, since there are some guidelines for causation, plausibility, multiplicity, contamination of variables, and lots of other muck. Yes, there are statistical measures for uncertainty, such as Monte Carlo, but I think most people are just plain uncertain when they say they are.
This brings us to the discussion of what I call Global Smarmy, since a lot of people want to profess they really DO understand what is a very complex mechanism, when they don't. It turns out that while CO2 and methane are very important, ozone, aerosols, and other trace gases can have large impacts, too. For example, the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season was slow because of aerosol from Saharan sand, in addition to mechanical wind sheer, even though temperatures and CO2 levels were at all-time high levels.
I might sound like I know everything but heck, I'm just Joe Six-Pack here, enjoying a Saturday! Sam
Onward through the fog
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jjwfmme Posted 3:03 am
06 Jan 2007
jfleck said: picking outliers that support one's value positions - is an inevitable state of affairs. Your willingness to do it, and endorse it, despite the obvious sophistication of your understanding of the issues, is one more bit of empirical evidence in support of what Sarewitz is saying.
But why not cover emerging science as emerging science? Complete with the caveats. There are many ways to report this story.
To me, a good question is: Are we going to let our new paranoid style of American news whip us until we're no longer reporting what's important and true, but what's easiest to report? What are we going to do when NewsCorp buys the Wall Street Journal? Will there be even more pressure to find journalistic paths of least resistance?
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jfleck Posted 3:43 am
06 Jan 2007
We're talking about policy advocacy here, not journalism. The use of emerging science by policy advocates is very different than its description by journalists.
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jjwfmme Posted 4:23 am
06 Jan 2007
One thing worth noting is that despite the fact that policymakers occasionally use outlier science, the political conversation usually takes place on a much higher, less technical level.
For instance, this Barak Obama speech mentions tornadoes. There is very little science linking tornadoes and climate change. But I think the attacks on this speech didn't pick that up. Of course if someone was actually making policy directly related to storms and climate change, it would be a different matter... Not that accuracy isn't important, but with matters as complicated as this, it's not surprising when there's an occasional misreading of the science...
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jjwfmme Posted 4:31 am
06 Jan 2007
Well, at least the previous posts that mentioned Revkin's article were about journalism. Sorry, carry on...
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SMLowry Posted 4:46 am
06 Jan 2007
With regard to going beyond IPCC, it's essential. Not due to any fault with IPCC but because of the nature of their process. I've been following this issue for almost 20 years now (though not as a scientist and I don't claim otherwise, I simply try my best to understand and translate for others) and there were always scientists (and others) who went beyond IPCC in their analysis of the research and especially in their predictions/implications of it. Now IPCC is saying some of the same things those folks were back then. We can't afford to toe any party line here. There's way too much at stake.
By the way, it's close to 60 degrees here in Maine today, the grass is green, my perennials are growing (and will probably die because eventually it will get cold again), we just got over a half inch of rain with more predicted in the next three days. Last night on the news they finally mentioned climate change in the context of this unseasonably warm weather in New England. But just barely and no none dared to go out on a limb and say, "yes, climate change is impacting the weather". Instead they noted the trend. I know, I know, what's happening today in any one place on Earth isn't proof of anything. But still . . . if this trend continues with no backsliding to anything nearer normal, people in this region are going to be royally screwed, and really, really soon.
So we can debate and we can argue about what the real science says, but in the real world something's going on.
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sunflower Posted 5:31 am
06 Jan 2007
Relevant to me are frontline reports on methane melting in permafrost, dying plankton, mass extinction from the Permian era. The IPCC is dated the day it comes out and is not broad enough to include many positive feedback loops, which could become more significant than anthropogenic CO2e.
Global warming threatens the end of civilization and mass extinction, a threat of unknown probability. If the risk were 1% then the FDA would not allow fossil CO2. The IPCC is not cause for marginalizing policy advocates.
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jjwfmme Posted 5:34 am
06 Jan 2007
A Boston Globe story mentioned climate change in its front page weather story, but it was several paragraphs down and the quoted scientist spoke very carefully, doing a so-so job framing the science, I thought. It was technically correct, but could have been less ambiguous...
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Bart Anderson Posted 5:37 am
06 Jan 2007
Andrew Dressler argues that that science be left to the scientists
YES to Andrew, if he's saying the scientific process should be left to scientists. YES, if he's saying that we should give more credence to peer-reviewed research from reliable sources than to lay people.
However, I think there are several problems with Andrew's argument.
First, Andrew mis-states the situation. On the one hand, Al Gore and environmentalists have exaggerated some details to make their case. On the other hand, there is an administration which squelches climate research and statements by scientists. An active disinformation campaign isorchestrated by PR firms and financed by fossil fuel companites.
This is not an abstract debate about facts. It is more to do with financial interests and cultural inertia.
Scientists are helpless when it comes to a political slugfest like this.
As a whole they are terrible at persuasion and and conveying information to a large population. Their training encourages them to be obsessed with details, accuracy and probabilities. Not a bad thing for the normal workings of science, but terrible when it comes to communicating with the public.
It's indicative that "An Inconvenient Truth" was made by a layman, and that it has had more of a public impact than the work of scores of excellent scientists.
Andrew's assumption is that if we are more careful and scrupulous about details, then skeptics will be impressed with our conscientiousness, attacks will cease and wise policy will follow. Politics and social change do not take place that way.
Scientists need communicators/advocates, and vice-versa.
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Kit Stolz Posted 6:21 am
06 Jan 2007
He hints that emissions reductions measures aren't helping much by quoting Jerry Mahlman on the difficulty of reducing the build-up of greenhouse gases. And, at least to date that's all too true, unfortunately. But Revkin doesn't put the idea of "insurance policies" against global warming to the same test. He doesn't even glance at the question.
This week this nation's premier expert on hurricanes and preparedness against same, Max Mayfield, did talk at length about how we as a nation are failing to do anything to keep people out of the paths of hurricanes. In his retirement address, Mayfield all but predicted a hurricane-caused disaster killing ten times as many people who died in Katrina in the next decade or two, and pointed to the 7 million coastal residents of Florida as being in harm's way.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-h...
The idea of "insurance" against global warming (or "global heating," as James Lovelock calls it) deserves attention. But with that attention should also come the realization that we as a nation are failing as badly at this approach as we are at reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases.
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caractacus Posted 6:48 am
06 Jan 2007
http://www.stabilisation2005.com/programme.html
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Zarkov Posted 7:28 am
06 Jan 2007
But a scientist can help himself!!... and that is where a scientist has a massive advantage. They can leave the pack behind.
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caniscandida Posted 8:59 am
06 Jan 2007
How truly predictive are statements made by scientists, by individuals (outliers?) on the one hand, and by a consensus (and strictly speaking, "consensus" = 100%) on the other?
How prescriptive (i.e., dipping into ethics: "This is what we ought to be doing") are such statements?
How are non-scientists supposed to receive the statements of scientists, anyhow?
The latter has been for a long time a big sociological problem generally (think "evolution"). In the context of the present discussion, it would be useful to have a bit of exegesis of David's interesting sentence, "Our informed gut feelings about how things will turn out are legitimate." One might begin by asking, Why is "informed gut feelings" not an oxymoron? And, What does "legitimate" mean? Who gets to decide what is and is not "legitimate"?
And then, David quotes a very interesting sentence by the elected POTUS of 11/2000: "Based on some new and emerging research, and based on my sense of the direction of the science over the last 20 years, and based on my holistic understanding of the phenomenon, I believe global warming will increasingly make hurricanes measurably stronger and more destructive." "Sense of the direction of the science" is, I guess, clear enough. But "holistic understanding" is rather more opaque.
The sentence itself presumably counts as a fully satisfactory disavowal of the suggestion that Al Gore was using US-striking hurricanes, especially Katrina, as a way of "over-representing" the climate crisis by getting shocking images for his slide show.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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dave eaton Posted 9:15 am
06 Jan 2007
Extrapolation and examination of absolute worst-case scenarios is useful. Al Gore may go off the deep end here and there (not necessarily in his movie...) but his voice puts the ball in play. If Al exaggerates, someone will point it out, and the idea he needs the UN IPCC imprimatur before talking is repugnant. No scientific body, however august and careful, is free from the need to bow to the truth, and must not develop the conceit that they already have it in final form. Unless someone makes him emperor, I don't fear any roughness around Gore's edges, nor do I fear him or anyone else deviating from the climatological catechism of the IPCC. By the same token, by being so out in the open, the IPCC won't get away with anything fishy, so I don't fear them having an axe to grind, either.
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David Roberts Posted 9:18 am
06 Jan 2007
All of which is to say that "gut instincts" do not deserve the derision they often receive. They certainly cannot substitute for scientific conclusions -- the scientific process is built around strict requirements that all conclusions be public, explicit, and subject to replication or refutation -- but they play a huge role in science as actually practiced, and a larger role yet in cultural and political decision-making. If we disavowed them entirely society would grind to a halt. We can't live together and organize a society based on the strictures of the scientific method, however much certain scientists and wonks would (selectively) encourage such a thing. We are not, and never will be, and shouldn't want to be, entirely rational creatures. We evolved to have strong affective responses for a reason. They guide rationality in ways that cannot be explained by the methods of rationality itself, and thank god. We'd be in a hellish situation otherwise.
I apologize to all my professors for the gross simplifications above, and to the 98% of readers who nodded off midway through the first paragraph.
www.grist.org
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SMLowry Posted 9:28 am
06 Jan 2007
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markbahner Posted 10:13 am
06 Jan 2007
Perhaps you should spend your Saturday morning(s) learning about science.
Science is all about what is true and what is false.
Andrew Dessler wrote that the IPCC Third Assessment Report wrote that it was "likely" that the warming from 1990 to 2100 would be 1.4 to 5.8 deg C. That was false.
I made the true statement that the IPCC TAR does NOT say it's likely that the warming will be 1.4 to 5.8 deg C. (And if anyone, including Andrew Dessler, thinks that his statement was true and mine is false, I will give $40 to the first person to show my statement was false...i.e. to show where the IPCC TAR says that the warming of 1.4 to 5.8 deg C is "likely.")
Then I made a second statement that was also true:
Even if Andrew Dessler's statement WAS true (which it isn't) it wouldn't be relevant from a policy standpoint because it makes a huge difference whether the warming will be close to 1.4 deg C or close to 5.8 deg C. (The truth is that the warming will be much, much closer to 1.4 deg C.)
Mark Bahner
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sunflower Posted 11:15 am
06 Jan 2007
Journalists seem to be catching up to the gut feelings of millions of people already very concerned about global warming. Australian droughts, closed ski resorts, winter blossoms, bark beetles, longer growing seasons, plant and animal migrations, Arctic ice, polar bears,... people think global warming. It comes from the gut.
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atreyger Posted 1:15 pm
06 Jan 2007
The IPCC's "projections" are completely without merit, as a very basic matter of science. They are completely unfalsifiable. Everyone who knows about science knows that falsifiability is an absolutely fundamental requirement for scientific predictions (or "projections").
Huh? I don't understand how in eight years of my college education with two scientific degrees and a third one forthcoming, I have not heard one person (out of dozens) suggest that a scientific prediction has to be falsifiable. You either read the wrong thing somewhere or got something messed up along the way.
Next, can you explain to me how you create your predictions, or how you can possibly use Michael Crichton's predictions to suggest one scenario or another? Can you model? Do you know a computer language (HTML does not count here, FORTRAN or C++ would work) and have you built a model, which would include climatic parameters and forcing functions acting upon the global climate to actually base your predictions on? I know Cr(ap)ton has not, because he is a writer, not a programmer. And even if you have built a model, can it compare in complexity to the current climatical models, such as HadCM3 (Gordon, C., C. Cooper, C.A. Senior, H. Banks, J.M. Gregory, T.C. Johns, J.F.B. Mitchell and R.A. Wood, 2000: The simulation of SST, sea ice extents and ocean heat transports in a version of the Hadley Centre coupled model without flux adjustments. Climate Dynamics 16: 147-168)???
In the minute chance that you are a crack programmer and climate scientist (self taught?) and you have, please outline your assumptions and present your flow diagram.
Untill you present both of those as evidence of your predictions' legitimacy, please STFU on matters regarding science.
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Zarkov Posted 5:17 pm
06 Jan 2007
Science really is conjecture based upon a foundation of accumulated facts. The scientific theories are really best explanations,.. they don't claim to be true, or even remotely true. They are models that serve as a matrix to lay in all the factual observations. These are then used to make predictions. Truth is never known, only falsity is accepted.
Technology is true or false, it works as planned or it does not.
One step up the spiral!
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caniscandida Posted 9:29 pm
06 Jan 2007
Do not worry about the Ph.D. right now. You have young ones, who want you to read stories to them; and there can be no higher calling than that.
SMLowry, I am always glad to read your messages. You understood David's expression exactly as I did. My instinct was to analyse it a bit, but only in order to defend it, ultimately.
Our president, for example, at least before the election last November, made a boast of how he was guided by his "gut feelings" on the one hand, and on the other totally ignored such sources of information as TV news and newspapers. So in the context of W.'s administration, the expression "informed gut feeling" looks mighty questionable.
Sunflower, please be assured, it was not at all my intention to attack our friend David. On the contrary, I only wanted to point out where there might be a weakness in David's articulation.
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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markbahner Posted 11:46 pm
06 Jan 2007
Science is the relentless PURSUIT of truth, and the relentless identification of that which is false.
"The scientific theories are really best explanations,.. they don't claim to be true, or even remotely true."
This issue has nothing to do with a scientific theory. Andrew Dessler wrote that the IPCC TAR said that it was "likely" that the warming from 1990 to 2100 would be 1.4 to 5.8 deg C. That was FALSE.
I wrote that Andrew Dessler's statement was FALSE. The IPCC TAR does NOT say it is "likely" that the warming will be in that range.
Andrew Dessler's statement was false. (No surprise there.) Mine is true.
If you think I'm wrong, PROVE it. Find the place in the miserable IPCC TAR that says that the warming of 1.4 to 5.8 deg C is "likely."
IPCC TAR
THAT'S science.
Mark Bahner
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amazingdrx Posted 12:43 am
07 Jan 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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atreyger Posted 2:36 am
07 Jan 2007
Mark,
From IPCC TAR Section 9.3.1.3 Marker scenario experiments (SRES), paragraph two:
The average temperature response from nine AOGCMs using the SRES A2 forcing (Figures 9.6a and 9.7b, top) for the 30-year average 2071 to 2100 relative to 1961 to 1990 is +3.0°C with a range of +1.3 to +4.5°C, while using the SRES B2 scenarios it amounts to +2.2°C with a range of +0.9 to +3.4°C. The B2 scenario produces a smaller warming which is consistent with its lower positive radiative forcing at the end of the 21st century. For the 30-year average 2021 to 2050 using the A2 scenario, the globally averaged surface air temperature increase compared with 1961 to 1990 is +1.1°C with a range of +0.5 to +1.4°C, while using the SRES B2 scenarios it amounts to +1.2°C with a range of +0.5 to +1.7°C. The values for the SRES scenarios for the mid-21st century are lower than for the IS92a scenarios for the corresponding period due to differences in the forcing.
Also, I would urge you to stay out of scientific discussions until you present at the very least your assumptions and your flow diagram for your (snicker) climate model.
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jjwfmme Posted 2:40 am
07 Jan 2007
3.8%, 1%, whatever. Would you let your kid play in the road if he only had a 3.8% chance of getting hurt there? Or 1%? You could slice up the the odds for temperature increases all sorts of ways to make for some "fun" lawyerly rhetoric to draw us all in here...
The fact is that even 1.4 degrees C would have consequences, and our representatives in government haven't done squat to stop any of it.
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markbahner Posted 12:24 pm
08 Jan 2007
atreyger responds,, "Huh? I don't understand how in eight years of my college education with two scientific degrees and a third one forthcoming, I have not heard one person (out of dozens) suggest that a scientific prediction has to be falsifiable."
I don't understand either. I don't understand how you could be so ignorant. Not only is it well-accepted that a scientific prediction must be falsifiable in order to be science, it's fairly easy to see, just as a matter of simple logic. For example, if I told you that, "It may or may not rain where you live tomorrow"...would you consider that I've made a valid scientific prediction?
But don't just take my word for it. Go to trusty (;-)) Wikipedia:
Wikipedia
Or from University of California, Riverside Physics Department website:
UC Riverside undergraduate physics course
Heck, even the kids in Mr. Stanbrough's class at Batesville High School in Indiana are learning about the necessary requirement of falsifiability:
Batesville (IN) High
If you had any doubt about whether a prediction requires falsifiability to be scientific, why didn't you do a simple Google search such as, "Must scientific predictions be falsifiable?"
"You either read the wrong thing somewhere or got something messed up along the way."
No, the problem is that you are apparently completely unfamiliar with a well-known and well-accepted aspect of the philosophy of science.
P.S. Why don't you email Dr. Wudka at UC Riverside to tell him that he "read the wrong thing somewhere or got something messed up along the way"? He should get a good laugh about that. (At your expense, of course.)
Jose Wudka, UC Riverside Physics Dept.
Mark Bahner
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Andrew Dessler Posted 1:07 pm
08 Jan 2007
>>>>
Mark-
The mistake you continue to make is that you conflate scientific assessments with science. Scientific assessments are sometimes referred to in the literature as "transcientific documents" --- they summarize science, but are not themselves experiments, nor do they attempt to produce new knowledge. Your insistence that they be "falsifiable" therefore makes no sense. I note, however, that assessments are entirely based on falsifiable peer-reviewed publications. You might try to "falsify" the IPCC by showing that it misrepresents the underlying peer-reviewed literature. Of course, multiple multiple reviews have repeatedly shown that the report adequately reflects the scientific consensus (see, for example, the NAS review).
Assessments summarize what we know and how confidently we know it. The lack of probabilities in the temperature increase does not invalidate the report, as you alone seem to think --- but I agree that policymakers should take that into account when they consider policy alternatives.
regards.
>>>>
It's amazing that you're still hung up on the same trivially incorrect argument.
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markbahner Posted 10:57 am
09 Jan 2007
"Your insistence that they be 'falsifiable therefore makes no sense...The lack of probabilities in the temperature increase does not invalidate the report,..."
You're right, I don't understand. Just last week, you said that the IPCC TAR said there was a 66 to 90 percent chance that the warming would be between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C:
"Warming is likely to lie between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C."
Which is it? Does the IPCC TAR say warming is likely to lie between 1.4 to 5.8 deg C, or does the IPCC TAR not have any probabilities for its projections?
Mark Bahner
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Andrew Dessler Posted 2:35 pm
09 Jan 2007
To all lurkers: Note that Mark completely ignores the substance of my last comment. He does not say whether the IPCC is misrepresenting the underlying peer-reviewed literature.
Is it, Mark? Or does the IPCC accurately summarize the published literature?
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Bart Anderson Posted 3:51 pm
09 Jan 2007
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markbahner Posted 11:18 am
10 Jan 2007
A week ago you wrote, regarding the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR):
"Its last report detailed what the scientific community has concluded about climate change:
3. Warming over the next 100 years is likely to lie between 1.4 and 5.8 deg C"
When I pointed out your statement was false, you first engaged in childish name-calling. (Not very impressive for a professor at a major university. Especially a professor of atmospheric sciences, who one would expect to be very interested in a scientifically accurate and precise characterizations matters of atmospheric science.)
Now you write, "I was using 'likely' in a colloquial sense,..."
But you were supposedly reporting on what the IPCC TAR said. So why would you use likely in the "colloquial" (i.e., meaningless) sense, when the IPCC TAR has a very explicit and precise definition for likely (i.e., 66 to 90 percent probability of occurrence)? Were you ignorant of the IPCC TAR's very different and very precise definition for "likely"? Or were you just careless? Or were you intentionally trying to confuse or deceive?
Then you state, "Note that Mark completely ignores the substance of my last comment."
It's very tough to address your comments when they contain so many mischaracterizations and flat-out falsehoods. I spend all my time addressing those mischaracterizations and flat-out falsehoods. And it definitely doesn't help that you virtually NEVER admit your mischaracterizations and falsehoods (correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't think of a single case). Instead, when I point them out, you simply change to new mischaracterizations and falsehoods. Not to mention engaging in childish name-calling.
Finally, you conclude: "He does not say whether the IPCC is misrepresenting the underlying peer-reviewed literature. Is it, Mark? Or does the IPCC accurately summarize the published literature?"
Unbelievable. You seem very confused about how to conduct a scientific debate. I wrote:
"The IPCC's `projections' are completely without merit, as a very basic matter of science. They are completely unfalsifiable. Everyone who knows about science knows that falsifiability is an absolutely fundamental requirement for scientific predictions (or `projections')."
When atreyger questioned whether predictions needed to be falsifiable to be considered scientific, I provided overwhelming evidence to back up my assertion (I pointed out that even high school students learn this is so).
Now, you are asserting, regarding the IPCC TAR, "assessments are entirely based on falsifiable peer-reviewed publications." But there's just one tiny little problem. You have never provided EVIDENCE to support your assertion that the IPCC TAR scenarios and temperature projections are based on "falsifiable and peer-reviewed literature."
In fact, way back in November 2005, I told you to point me to the peer-reviewed and falsifiable paper that supports the A1F1 and A2 scenarios. You (of course) never responded to my request.
Please point me to all of the literature--or at least a handful of papers--that YOU THINK are falsifiable and peer-reviewed, that support the scenarios and temperature projections that are in the IPCC TAR, particularly the A1F1 and A2 scenarios. If you can't point me specifically to that literature, I will with proper scientific skepticism assume that it exists only in your imagination.
Mark Bahner
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Andrew Dessler Posted 1:12 pm
10 Jan 2007
it was written by scientists
it was peer reviewed by scientists
it was reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences and endorsed
endorsed by the AGU, AMS, AAAS
I think that shows pretty clearly that it accurately portrays the peer-reviewed literature.
Now, it might be that none of the thousands of scientists involved understand how science works, while you do (even though you're not a scientist). Or it may be that you don't know what you're talking about.
Hmmm. I wonder which one it is.
PS: in the unlikely case you actually have a legitimate argument that the IPCC misrepresents the peer-reviewed literature, now would be a good time to roll it out.
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jjwfmme Posted 1:22 pm
10 Jan 2007
And you say that you can't correct all his "mischaracterizations and falsehoods," so evidently you had a lot to choose from, but you sure like his use of the word "likely." What kinds of words did the IPCC use to describe the probabilities instead? "Probably"? "In most scenarios"?
And thank you for correcting all those IPCC scientists from 150 countries, who they thought they were working with "falsifiable and peer-reviewed literature," but you told them. You should contact them and warn them. I'm sure their phone number is on their website.
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amazingdrx Posted 12:27 am
11 Jan 2007
Ever seen a weather report Mark? Or do you ignore them since they only provide a likely prediction. Probability is the best science can do. Science cannot appeal to the word of gaawd (or Bill Kristol)or some other mystical faithbased "certainty".
You are the one touting the falsifiable nature of scientific theory. Do you know what that actually means?
It means that any theory that could not be proven false, were data established that challenge it, says nothing new about the real world. It is tautological, true by the definition of the terms involved.
The theory of anthropogenic GHG caused global climate change could be proven false if evidence countering it were established. It meets the test.
Our side has established overwhelming peer reviewed scientific evidence supporting the theory. You side has established no peer reviewed evidence opposing it. Period.
Provide evidence, it's just that simple. You can't? Why not?
With 10s of millions in cash from industry sources they couldn't find even one scientist that would publish peer reviewed research based on scientific evidence countering the theory?
Scientific theory is always open to countervailing evidence so any time you are ready please provide evidence. Meanwhile the rest of us will focus on solutions.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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markbahner Posted 11:40 am
11 Jan 2007
So, does Andrew Dessler provide me with a list of papers he thinks are falsifiable and peer-reviewed, that he thinks support the scenarios in the IPCC TAR, particularly the A1F1 and A2 scenarios? Of course not.
Can't point to something that doesn't exist, can you, Andrew?
As I've already written, "If you can't point me specifically to that literature, I will with proper scientific skepticism assume that it exists only in your imagination."
You finish with the hilarious:
"P.S. in the unlikely case you actually have a legitimate argument that the IPCC misrepresents the peer-reviewed literature, now would be a good time to roll it out."
There IS NO peer-reviewed **FALSIFIABLE** literature that supports the IPCC TAR scenarios and "projections," Andrew. The IPCC TAR scenarios and "projections" are nothing more than pseudoscientific nonsense. Exactly like the 30-year scam of the Limits to Growth series of books. Which were also done by some of your "scientists."
Mark Bahner
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markbahner Posted 12:10 pm
11 Jan 2007
The IPCC TAR explicitly does NOT estimate any probability that the temperature increase from 1990 to 2100 will be in the range of 1.4 to 5.8 deg C.
They don't do that, because anyone who has looked at the matter carefully knows that there is about a 50 percent chance that the warming will be less than 1.4 deg C.
Instead they say, "Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts."
Same old scam...just more money involved
It's the same old scam that the Limits to Growth "scientists" have been running for the last 30+ years. You invent a bunch of ridiculous scenarios that have no chance of occurring (including maybe one that is slightly reasonable). Then, when none of the ridiculous scenarios actually comes to pass, you say, "Well, they we're predictions or forecasts. They were projections."
"Probability is the best science can do."
Yes, that's absolutely correct. Tom Wigley and Sarah Raper actually wrote a paper in Science that DOES contain probabilistic estimates of future warming. Their conclusion was that there was a 5% chance of warming less than 1.7 deg C, a 50% chance of warming less than 3.1 deg C, and a 95% chance of warming less than 4.9 deg C.
Wigley and Raper, Science, July 2001
So they at least they developed probabilistic projections.
The problem with what they did is that they assumed that ALL the scenarios in the IPCC TAR were equally likely to occur. That is just a ridiculously unrealistic assumption. A much more realistic assumption is that scenarios like the B1 scenario are much more likely to occur.
That's what I did when I developed my own probabilistic predictions:
Probabilistic predictions
The theory of anthropogenic GHG caused global climate change could be proven false if evidence countering it were established. It meets the test.
"Our side has established overwhelming peer reviewed scientific evidence supporting the theory. You side has established no peer reviewed evidence opposing it. Period."
Your "our side" and "your side" is nonsense. I'm on no one's side. I'm on the side of science. As you can see from my probabilistic predictions, I think it's almost certain that the year 2100 will be warmer than the year 1990, due to increased concentrations of CO2 and methane. The only question is how much warmer. And the answer is that the warming has about a 50 percent chance of being less than the IPCC TAR minimum of 1.4 deg C.
Mark Bahner (environmental engineer)
Mark Bahner
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Andrew Dessler Posted 12:22 pm
11 Jan 2007
Please provide proof.
You also do not explain why the entire scientific community has somehow missed the fact that the IPCC is rubbish.
Clearly you are not going to ever admit your ideas are nonsense. I hope that lurkers out there can identify a troll when they see one.
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markbahner Posted 12:34 pm
11 Jan 2007
Yes, I do. Here is a very short list of quotes of Andrew Dessler that are mischaracterization or falsehoods:
1) "assessments are entirely based on falsifiable peer-reviewed publications."
I asked him to provide me the falsifiable peer-reviewed publications on which the IPCC TAR scenarios were based, PARTICULARLY the A1F1 and A2 scenario. He hasn't.
2) "the lack of probabilities in the temperature increase does not invalidate the report, as you alone seem to think"
He knows that I've already repeatedly pointed him to the words of Jesse Ausubel, who called the IPCC TAR scenarios "unscientific" because they lack probabilities, and has further said:
"Most of the forty scenarios are unbelievable. The fact that the authors as a group were unwilling to attach probabilities to them is important. After all, weather forecasters are willing to say there's a 40% chance of rain nowadays. The fact that the group could do no more than say that every one of these scenarios is equally valid was pathetic. And there are internal contradictions in many of the scenarios. Richer is cleaner, and the idea that you could have a scenario in which a society was very wealthy would not choose sanitation, industrial sanitation, whatever you want to call it, is preposterous. When you get that rich, you can afford a hydrogen-powered home. A lot of the scenarios are Brezhnev-ite. We might think of some other name than Brezhnev-ite, but they are strange, incompatible combinations of things."
Jesse Ausubel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University
3) Andrew Dessler claimed that the IPCC TAR had "no evidence" that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 would peak circa 2050, even though there are 3 scenarios in the IPCC TAR that do so:
B1 , A1B, and A2 peak circa mid-century
I could go on and on. But Andrew Dessler's mischaracterizations and out-right falsehoods are too numerous to list even a small percentage.
Mark Bahner
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Bart Anderson Posted 12:40 pm
11 Jan 2007
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markbahner Posted 12:43 pm
11 Jan 2007
Heh, heh, heh! Good one.
YOU asserted that, "assessments are entirely based on falsifiable peer-reviewed publications."
I responded, "Please point me to all of the literature--or at least a handful of papers--that YOU THINK are falsifiable and peer-reviewed, that support the scenarios and temperature projections that are in the IPCC TAR, particularly the A1F1 and A2 scenarios."
You haven't pointed me to any of the literature, because it doesn't exist. Now you want me to provide evidence the IPCC TAR misrepresents literature that doesn't even exist.
You made the assertion. You provide the evidence.
Just like I provided the evidence when atreyger demanded to see evidence that predictions must be falsifiable in order to be scientific.
The only problem is you can't provide evidence to back YOUR assertion, because the literature you claim exists doesn't.
Mark Bahner
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markbahner Posted 12:52 pm
11 Jan 2007
Everyone who knows about the subject knows that the IPCC TAR projections are rubbish.
Mark Bahner
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jjwfmme Posted 1:24 pm
11 Jan 2007
I hesitate to comment, because it just speaks for itself, doesn't it?
The scientists from the 150 countries participating in the IPCC are obviously victims of orbital mind control lasers operated by the Bavarian Illuminati...
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Laurence Aurbach Posted 1:38 pm
11 Jan 2007
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markbahner Posted 2:15 pm
11 Jan 2007
You need to read the IPCC TAR. It very clearly says, ""Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts."
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/025.htm
...
If they want sea ice in the summer, they'll make enough during the winter so the ice won't all melt in the summer. They'll certainly have enough money to do such silly things.
Mark Bahner
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markbahner Posted 2:20 pm
11 Jan 2007
No, the IPCC and the rest of the "climate change community" simply don't feel the need, nor have the integrity to provide honest predictions. Like I've written, this isn't some big secret.
It would dramatically cut the funding that fuels the climate change gravy train, if honest predictions were made.
Mark Bahner
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markbahner Posted 2:24 pm
11 Jan 2007
This is what I wrote:
But regarding the ice at the North Pole: it's quite likely that most or all of the sea ice at the North Pole will be gone in the summer by the end of this century.
But that would probably be true if the world reduced CO2 emissions by 50 percent or more in the next 2-3 decades. Since there is no way in the world that developing nations like China and India would ever be part of a plan that would reduce emissions that severely that fast, sea ice is likely to be gone in the summer by the end of the century, even if the U.S. cut emissions by even 80 percent over the next couple of decades.
Given that every person on earth will probably be a millionaire by 2100 (not to mention having a healthy life expectancy of far more than 100 years), I doubt they'll be terribly upset:
Why every person will be a millionaire by 2100
If they want sea ice in the summer, they'll make enough during the winter so the ice won't all melt in the summer. They'll certainly have enough money to do such silly things.
Mark Bahner
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Zarkov Posted 2:24 pm
11 Jan 2007
>> There IS NO peer-reviewed *FALSIFIABLE* literature that supports the IPCC TAR scenarios and "projections," Andrew. The IPCC TAR scenarios and "projections" are nothing more than pseudoscientific nonsense. >>
Indeed the CO2 scenario is a load of twaddle, all based upon NATURAL cycles from the past
Today the changes are completely man made.
No data from the past can be used to support the assertions of the experts about the future.
In fact as this unwinds you will find they are totally out of their depth... (global cooling will be/is the outcome) or they are in leagues with ExxonMobil and just confusing this very serious issue... for money?????
Madness IMO..
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Andrew Dessler Posted 2:25 pm
11 Jan 2007
You know (or should know) that the IPCC scnearios come from the IPCC's peer-reviewed "Special Report on Emissions Scenarios". You're probably not familiar with it, so you can find it on the IPCC's web site.
So, again I ask you to show me where the IPCC misrepresents the peer-reviewed literature. I suppose your inability to do that is a tacit admission that you're wrong. As is your repeated attempts to shift the burden of proof to everyone else.
I think it's also telling that you're unable to ever convince anyone else that your ideas are worth taking seriously. I wonder why that is? Perhaps because your ideas are simplistic and obviously without merit.
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markbahner Posted 2:32 pm
11 Jan 2007
I asked you to provide me what (you think) are the FALSIFIABLE peer-reviewed publications that support the IPCC TAR scenarios and projections, particularly the A1F1 and A2 scenarios.
Do you think the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios is falsifiable? How is it falsifiable?
Mark Bahner
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Andrew Dessler Posted 2:54 pm
11 Jan 2007
Of course, if you disagree with that, then please point out where you think the SRES is not supported by the peer-reviewed literature.
You really should read the SRES. Of course, if you do, you'd find out you were wrong. So maybe you shouldn't.
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Zarkov Posted 3:01 pm
11 Jan 2007
a game being played maybe with Nero.
LOL... love is wonderful
<gone>
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jjwfmme Posted 9:34 pm
11 Jan 2007
As long as we're all smart enough to elect the Libertarians, right Mark?
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markbahner Posted 11:51 pm
11 Jan 2007
Bwahahaha! Hilariously typical Andrew Dessler! First you say that the SRES contains the (falsifiable) peer-reviewed literature that supports the IPCC TAR. When I ask you how the SRES is falsifiable--because you and I both know it's not--you say it's some OTHER literature that's falsifiable.
I've asked you since NOVEMBER 2005 to point me to the FALSIFIABLE peer-reviewed publications that support the IPCC TAR scenarios and projections, particularly the A1F1 and A2 scenarios. You haven't, because no such publications exist.
Then you say, "You really should read the SRES. Of course, if you do, you'd find out you were wrong."
Bwahahahaha! Again, that's hilariously typical Andrew Dessler. I HAVE read the SRES. I've quoted from it several times even in this very discussion. That's because, unlike you, I provide evidence to support my assertions (i.e., that the SRES and the IPCC TAR scenarios and resulting projections are unfalsifiable):
"Scenarios are images of the future or alternative futures. They are neither predictions nor forecasts."
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc/emission/025.htm
...
So much for your claim that the underlying publications that the SRES references are falsifiable.
Andrew, the fact that you would write, "You really should read the SRES" even after I've repeatedly QUOTED from it merely gives evidence of the depths of your ignorance and/or dishonesty.
Mark Bahner
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markbahner Posted 12:20 am
12 Jan 2007
jjwfmme responds, "As long as we're all smart enough to elect the Libertarians, right Mark?"
No, that will happen even if the U.S. continues to elect generally economically ignorant Democrats and Republicans.
As for your "discovery" that I'm a Libertarian. Well...duh. You're a search engine genius.</sarcasm> As anyone can see, I've hardly kept that a secret. I'm a Libertarian...at least I was until the power-hungry Democrats and Republicans enacted such strict ballot access laws that third parties like Libertarians and Greens can't even get on the ballot. The Secretary of State of North Carolina forcibly revoked my Libertarian registration, and switched me to "Independent."
Finally...the world certainly WOULD be a better place if more or even all politicians were Libertarian. One need only look at the record of the Honorable Ron Paul of Texas (Republican, former Libertarian Party presidential candidate, and lifetime member of the Libertarian Party) to see that this is so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul
To give only...
Peter McWilliams, killed by Democrats and Republicans
Mark Bahner
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jjwfmme Posted 12:49 am
12 Jan 2007
Right. And the next few sentences read:
Rather, each scenario is one alternative image of how the future might unfold. A set of scenarios assists in the understanding of possible future developments of complex systems. Some systems, those that are well understood and for which complete information is available, can be modeled with some certainty, as is frequently the case in the physical sciences, and their future states predicted...
With other scenarios of course, you can't. Uncertainty: that's why the IPCC predicts a range of temperatures. They use something called statistics, which tend to be pretty reliable, despite some people claiming that they have their own math.
Of course, you could bet the whole family farm on the small sliver on the roulette wheel that says that business-as-usual will be A-OK, cowboy. I can understand, motivation-wise, why a Libertarian would argue that. But for me, no thanks. I'll stay over here at the grown ups table, thank you very much.
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atreyger Posted 1:25 am
12 Jan 2007
All you can do is give predictions on future warming out of thin air. The numbers that you provide are one hundred percent meaningless. Get out of the game until you learn the rules of modeling. You should stop your asinine attacks, and if not then you are a troll. Period.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:49 am
12 Jan 2007
Given a 50% chance of rain people might not take their umbrella to work. But if there is a 50% chance that the icecaps will melt and the ocean will flood coastal cities, people will tend to want to sell their property and move inland long before that is widely predicted.
Why? Because only by selling now before the market incorporates that risk and home prices drop precipitously can they preserve their savings.
I have a friend who sold her home in New Orleans a short 2 years before Katrina. She got full price because she sold before the market perceived the risk. What would have been the probability of a hurricane breaching the levies at the time she sold? Less than 50%? I think so.
What would she have gotten if she waited until Katrina hit to sell?
The time to act to halt human created GHG global climate change is now, before Manhattan is flooded by a huge hurricane traveling up the east coast. Waiting will take all our savings.
We are already so far in debt from these oil wars and paying through the nose for monopolized energy, federal bankruptcy (the Reagan revolutionary plan) is right around the corner.
Invasion of Iran and Syria would complete the plan. Then we the people will be permanently relegated to corporate feudal serfdome.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Andrew Dessler Posted 5:31 am
13 Jan 2007
I wonder if he ever thinks that he's been arguing this for over a year and can't convince anyone.
I was giving a briefing on Capitol Hill yesterday and was talking about how the IPCC was the gold standard of what we know and how confidently we know it, and the audience's reaction was "Yeah, of course it is."
Mark, you should quit this ridiculous argument while you still have a shred of dignity left. Ooops, just re-read your comments ... the shred is gone.
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Zarkov Posted 6:28 am
13 Jan 2007
You guys don't get it do you!
The game is
If I have enough money, I think I will survive, LOL, I can buy a lifeboat... who cares about the death of billions of plebs....
But don't tell anyone the truth because then there may be no lifeboats for sale.
If the people rise up and scream and smash all the lifeboats then even the rich are in trouble.
This, at the very least would bind us all together and a solution may be found.... but only if the correct global warming cooling scenario is accepted.
I say RISE UP and scream, get them ALL to tell the truth. Tomorrow really is/was too late.
The so called experts really are presenting total BS to the public.
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Jason Peterson Posted 3:28 am
15 May 2007
"Let's tell some stories and show some pictures, of things we don't know well and data we don't have, so we can use our intuition."
The SRES seems mainly about a paragraph of information turned into a paper. So what are scenarios?
"Models are blended with Stories to create Scenarios." (Paraphrased paragraph)
Given that, it doesn't seem they are in and of themselves "scientific", and factually they are not based totally upon science and therefore one could (and I believe should) argue they are not science. Especially given what the IPCC itself says in the SRES:
Future levels of global GHG emissions are the products of a very complex, ill-understood dynamic system, driven by forces such as population growth, socio-economic development, and technological progress; thus to predict emissions accurately is virtually impossible.
"We can't predict emissions accurately in the future because there are so many uncertain variables."
They themselves list the uncertainties contained in the scenarios and the source materials, themselves:
Choice of Storylines.
Authors Interpretation of Storylines.
Translation of the Understanding of Linkages between Driving Forces into Quantitative Inputs for Scenario Analysis.
Methodological Differences.
Different Sources of Data.
Inherent Uncertainties.
"We could have gotten everything wrong, please excuse our guesses if they're not correct -- there are a lot of factors here."
This both supports that the scenarios are not scientific, per se, and that we could agree that not all are equally weighted as to possibility:
Sometimes GHG emissions scenarios are less quantitative and more descriptive, and in a few cases they do not involve any formal analysis and are expressed in qualitative terms.
"Some of these are more guesses than others."
And some of it all is so vague as to be meaningless:
Their plausibility is based on an extensive review of the emissions scenarios available in the literature, and has been tested by alternative modeling approaches, by peer review (including the "open process" through the IPCC web site), and by the IPCC review and approval processes.
One could ask:
How plausible?
How extensive and by whom?
Which emissions scenarios?
What exact literature?
Which alternative modeling approaches?
Peer review of what?
Peer review how, like the SRES or like a science paper?
How much of the web site "open process"?
How much of the IPCC review and approval process produces results that are the biases of the people running them and are mainly political and social in nature, and how much does not?
Especially telling is that one line that tells me what the scenarios are for; clarify feelings (the intuition spoken of) so as to create and direct a dialog about the issue:
Good scenarios are challenging and court controversy... {and} used intelligently they allow policies and strategies to be designed in a more robust way.
My point of all this is that the authors tell you what the SRES is for, and what it is, in the SRES itself.
Given all that, I don't see what this argument is about. Although it has been interesting to read.
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Jason Peterson Posted 3:58 am
15 May 2007
I didn't mean the entire SRES was a paragraph of info (obviously it's far more complex than that), although once you know what the scenarios are and what they're meant to do, you can take that into account if and when you read them.
Let me see, page 1.2.... Something like this:
Scenarios are attempts to summarize what might happen under various circumstances, and are mostly variously overlapping combinations of models and stories. In a way, they could be called "scientific fiction." Some contain no models, while others are based mainly upon models and should be more reliable. However, the stories chosen, the interpretation of the story by the authors, and other factors greatly affect the scenarios and their degree of certainty. The primary purpose of scenarios is to illustrate alternative futures on an intuitive level. This is done to create controversy and therefore dialog, the intelligent use of which can hopefully assist in a robust design of policies and strategies.
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markbahner Posted 12:07 pm
18 May 2007
I also put these comments on my blog.
The IPCC TAR projections represent scientific fraud
In order to determine whether the IPCC "projections" are scientific fraud, several questions need to be asked and answered. I will provide my answers. Let me know if you disagree with my answers.
1) Are the IPCC projections scientifically valid?
ANSWER: No, definitely not. They are not falsifiable, which is a widely accepted fundamental requirement for projections to be scientifically valid.
2) Does the IPCC know that their projections are not scientifically valid?
ANSWER: Of course. How could an organization of more than 1500 people be so ignorant as to not know that projections must be falsifiable in order to be scientifically valid?
3) Does the IPCC misrepresent their projections as being scientifically valid?
ANSWER: Of course. Where in the any of the assessments or IPCC communications to the public have they ever clearly stated that their projections are not scientifically valid?
Based on those three questions and the answers to them, it seems inarguably true that the IPCC projections represent scientific fraud. It is fraud for scientists to pass something off as scientific if they know it's not.
Mark
Mark Bahner
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