Thoughts on Roger Pielke Jr. | Stand-Up Economist - Yoram Bauman

wikipedia.org - Childe's_Tomb

Thoughts on Roger Pielke Jr. | Stand-Up Economist - Yoram Bauman

As an economist, I found Roger’s lack of discussion of climate impacts to be extremely disturbing. If—totally hypothetically—the science said that hitting 450ppm would cause the planet to explode, I’m pretty sure Roger’s talk would have looked different. (At least I hope so!) The economic point here is that cost-benefit analysis has two halves—costs and benefits—and you can’t do it by just talking about one of the two halves. Why Roger failed to talk about both halves has me totally perplexed and leaves me questioning how much he actually knows about economics. (For the record, he’s not an economist, so I think this is a legitimate question, not an insulting one. He’s a political scientist, but his talk was not about the intersection of science and politics; his talk was fundamentally about economics.)

RPJr's rhetorical trick "there is a lot of misunderstanding and misrepresentation displayed in this post... Fortunately, my new book covers all of these points so that there should be no ambiguity in my views." is annoying.

As if a book is a tomb for the ideas of a public intellectual, and it makes them incapable of stating plainly their views in public forums.

Y. Bauman refuses to play ball:

"Okay, here are some questions: (1) What did you say about the tenets of climate science? (Then I’ll try to get a video of your talk and see if I owe you an apology.) (2) How would you quickly characterize the main points of your talk? (3) Since you note above that you “did not discuss costs or benefits”, I’m curious about why. Do you not think cost-benefit analysis is important? (4) How (if at all) would your talk have been different if the scientific consensus was that 450ppm would destroy the planet?"

Is RPJr so craven as to simply "hit-and-run" from this forum, now that the questions are specific?  Stay tuned!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Related posts:

• The Post-Email-Hacking phase of climate denialism
• Complicity and Sympathy for Comforting but False & Dangerous Ideas
• It is time for some humility - Oh Lordy...
• Is using the term "Denialist" unfair?

[Edit 7/31/10]

To my surprise, RPJr replied; his answers:

1. I used a “bathtub” model to describe the challenge of stabilization and I argued that everyone in the debate on all sides agree that CO2 has impacts. Where there are debates is when those impacts become dangerous (the height of the bathtub, e.g., 450 ppm) and the consequences of spilling over. Such debates are of course legitimate.

2. Three points: A. Targets and timetables for reducing emissions now being discussed or even enacted in law (e.g., in the UK) are not credible (I think I proved this), B. Stabilizing concentrations requires advances in technology deployment and innovation rather than GDP contraction (shown a bit, but largely asserted), C. Acccelerating decarbonization requires much greater public investments in technology (asserted not proven).

3. I’ve written a lot of CBA, and teach it as well. This talk was not about CBA, but policy evaluation. I am happy to discuss the topic.

4. I have no idea.

flickr.com/photos/psd/1806225034
"Moral Compass" by "psd"

My comments to (1): "Such debates are of course legitimate."  RPJr has a problem with the debate coming to provisional conclusion, on the side of the science and the moral question of future generations being left a livable world - a provisional conclusion where we begin work on drastically reducing carbon emissions and mitigate previous carbon emissions, where GDP takes a major haircut if need be.  RPJr's fretting and fussing is consistent with the moral question of future generations being left a livable world always taking a backseat to today's GDP/standard of living - but he doesn't have the guts to admit that, or he realizes that if his cravenness is so obvious, he gives up any chance of political effect.

My comments to (2): Actually, this is the first sensible thing RPJr has ever said, to my knowledge.  It is very true: we have exactly zero experience with asking citizens to voluntarily cut their standard of living for the moral outcome of  future generations being left a livable world.  "Warmists", it can be argued, don't have the guts to admit this, or they realize that if they are so truthful they give up any chance of political effect.

My comments to (3): Why talk to economists about policy evaluation without reference to cause and effect?  That was Y. Bauman's original puzzlement.

My comments to (4): Pathetic.  Again, RPJr cannot deal with science predicting catastrophe (catastrophe, because it is hard to imagine the moral monsters that could cheerfully leave future generations an unlivable world), because his goal is that he moral question of future generations being left a livable world always taking a backseat to today's GDP/standard of living.  That can be used to perfectly predict his reaction to anything.

Calling "Climategate" for what it really is - Kerry Emanuel

Image by http://www.flickr.com/photos/ikaink/3858586716/ IkaInk (Julian Wearne) via Flickr

“Climategate”: A Different Perspective - July 19, 2010 By Kerry Emanuel

ClimateProgress: Kerry Emanuel calls Climategate “the latest in a series of coordinated, politically motivated attacks that represent an aggravated assault on scholarship” - July 20, 2010

Slams Lindzen, Singer and Happer as liars

ClimateProgress:

MIT atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel has been at the forefront of trying to explain many aspects of climate science to the public, especially in his field of expertise — hurricanes.  He has written a good essay on the hacked emails, ” ‘Climategate’: A Different Perspective [ http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doc_id=1444 ],” originally published at the National Association of Scholars [NAS] website.  Near the end, he notes:

While the climategate email authors are castigated for not being paragons of virtue, the sins of others go unremarked. In the summer of 2009, a one-page letter was sent to Congress, signed by one actual climate scientist and six physicists with little or no background in climate science, three of whom were retired.

Among other untruths, it contained the sentence, referring to evidence of anthropogenic global warming, “There is no such evidence; it doesn’t exist.” I confronted the sole climate scientist among the authors with this statement, and he confessed that he did not hold that to be the case. Last I checked, lying to Congress was a federal crime.

Emanuel doesn’t mention Richard Lindzen by name, but that is who he means (as is made clear here [ http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2010/05/16/global_warming_debate_makes_climate_tough_on_friends/ ]).  The laughable letter itself is here [ http://www.examiner.com/x-11224-Baltimore-Weather-Examiner~y2009m7d1-Read-scientists-open-letter-to-congress-You-are-being-decieved-about-global-warming ].  Emanuel is thus calling out his old friend Lindzen, plus William Happer and S. Fred Singer, as liars on climate science.  No argument here.

Kerry Emanuel:

"those interested in treating the issue as an objective problem in risk assessment and management are labeled “alarmists”, a particularly infantile smear considering what is at stake. This deployment of inflammatory terminology has a distinctly Orwellian flavor. It originates not in laboratories and classrooms, where ideas are the central focus and one hardly ever hears labels applied to researchers, but in the media, the blogosphere, and political think tanks, where polarization attracts attention and/or turns a profit.

But it turns out that there are not enough mavericks in climate science to meet the media’s and blogosphere’s insatiable appetite for conflict. Thus into the arena steps a whole host of charlatans posing as climate scientists. These are a toxic brew of retired physicists, TV weather forecasters, political junkies, media hacks, and anyone else willing to tell an interviewer that he/she is a climate scientist."

The whole Climate Inactivist circle-jerk:

"But, but, but... we must not hamper "spirited debate"... um uh... guilty of "stealth advocacy"... hurr durr...  let's be "Serious" and "Reasonable"... herp derp... over-zealous scientists are most responsible for a warming earth..."

Kerry Emanuel is a welcome remedy to prattle.

Is climate science unique? Do the scientists need to be protected from themselves?

I discussion of bias, or is it a license to dispense with scientific results that are displeasing?  Where are the outside mechanism to help scientists when they cannot help themselves, because of their own bias.

Why is the mechanism of publication insufficient, when in all other scientific fields it has been exactly the way that the scientific community/mainstream dispensed with invalid results and replaced them with valid ones?

Collide-a-scape » Blog Archive » Collide-a-scape >> The Unbearable Lightness of Bias

If these (don’t-you-dare-call-them-deniers) “bias-busters” could point to successes in other scientific fields for other scientific questions, all thanks given to their “bias-busting” scrutiny, a lot of people would see the benefit and drop suspicion.
Otherwise, we must pre-suppose that climate science is a “nonesuch” science — the only scientific domain where the practitioners must be protected from themselves.
Where is the rich history of success of outsiders providing “bias-busting” services for scientists? The outsiders that really help scientific progress get to know the practitioners and labs and journals so intimately, they end up having choices about how they ultimately publish and add to the literature — and that is, in fact, how it ultimately plays out successfully. And *not* by providing outsourced “bias-busting” services.


reply to Hector M. #14
I don’t deny that some assert that climate scientists must be protected from themselves.  I am curious to learn of the historical cases where outsiders’ free-lance bias-busting was found to be successful.
Because similar arguments were made that a cabal of Darwinists suppress papers that show intelligent design, and a cabal of medical regulators suppress papers that disprove tobacco carcinogenicity, and a cabal of dentists suppress facts about fluoridation’s mild control properties.
If I could consider the historical cases of success of outsiders’ free-lance bias-busting, when scientific practitioners needed to be protected from themselves, I could discern between clear-eyed skeptics and delusional denialists, and see if the proposed cure fits the illness.
Much like the judgement of the need for carbon taxation may be informed by the history of regulatory prohibitions of  fluorocarbons.  (Or the regulatory prohibitions on the sale of alcohol in the United States, they don’t all have to be positive examples of regulation.)
I am genuinely interested to learn more about outsiders’ free-lance bias-busting in science, where it had an effect, maybe good, maybe bad.  You overlooked part of my original remark in your reply.


It would be much easier see the good intentions of these denialists, if they didn't demand that everyone assume that climate science is a nonesuch science.

[Ugh, more]

reply to Judith Curry #24

"Scientific biases are challenging enough, but when these are augmented by political bias and a policy agenda, then the bias issue becomes the overwhelming challenge for the science."

This is asserted, but not demonstrated.

As a process that embraces self-correction, it is hard to come up with examples of errors that science has allowed to let stand, for all time, because of political bias and a policy agenda. I can't think of any.

[Aside: The closest I can think of is the denying of the possibility of a numerical intelligence quotient in the polite company of scientist, even though it is at least as well established as the Big Five Personality model, which is uncontroversial. But does that even count? Nobody is barred from publishing and the truth is available to the motivated. I am genuinely curious - Are there any examples of errors that science has allowed to let stand, for all time, because of political bias and a policy agenda?]

Is there really a need for a unique outside agent to police bias in climate science, alone?  The same process of refereed journal publication, that serves the scientific community/mainstream in other fields to dispense with invalid results and replace them with valid ones, breaks down *only* for climate science?  And where is the model for successful outside policing of scientific bias?  Does one even exist?  That would be even more controversial than the already controversial remedy of carbon taxation, because there is already research on the economic effects of taxation, and a history of taxation to counter perverse externalities.

Or is the issue of bias - a bias so insidious science should not dare to leave the extermination to mere scientists - a red herring?

The demand to treat climate science as a "nonesuch" science is the rub.  How can I distinguish a prickly intolerance for the possibility of bias from an excuse to discard results that are unwelcome from an excuse to disregard consequences of status quo behavior?

Reply to Bill Stoltzfus #26

Part of the reason that Judith Cury's "Team B" idea went over like a lead balloon was that the name "Team B" had an unfortunate historical connotation to the "Team B", commissioned by Director of Central Intelligence George H. W. Bush, of "outside experts" who attempted to counter the positions of intelligence officials within the CIA.  In reality, the CIA failed to represent USSR as enough of a military threat for the liking of defense hawks, so Team B manufactured Soviet military capabilities from whole cloth.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B

I would rather 100% of published scientific results be attempted for replication by third parties, rather than 20% of funding be spent on fishing expeditions.  Because, if this is a mechanism outside of current scientific publishing guidelines, a group of outsiders would choose where the 20% was directed.  Leaving aside the issue that the comparative invulnerability to political and other agendas of this extra-scientific group is being simply asserted without basis.

Then there is the strange issue why science is singled out for hobbling.  What percentage of business, family, or personal decisions (the analog of scientific results) must be legislated for scrutiny by third parties?  Because is the track record of science worse than the tract record of business, family, or personal decision making?

[double ugh, even more]


Reply to Steve Fitzpatrick #29

I am looking for ways to distinguish accusation of insurmountable bias in climate science from such claims made against in evolutionary biology, tobacco carcinogenicity, vaccine research, etc.

You bring up FDA regulations, but then conflate the issue by stating "Note that these regulations exist in good part to eliminate as much as possible the influence of biases", when in fact these are strictly to try to prevent direct harm to patients by the treatment intervention under investigation.  Demonstrated by how they do nothing to prevent biases that don't strictly harm patients directly -- how else could the bias for over-reliance on pharmaceuticals stand?...  if these were, by design, to try to eliminate bias?

"But a more relevant question is “Are there examples of errors that science has allowed to stand for a significant period of time?”  A search for these kinds of examples might not be so difficult."   Then humor me.  The remedy, to fit the topic, must be an extra-scientific mechanism to eliminate bias that scientists are fundamentally otherwise unable to.  To best understand the beast being discussed, I would appreciate examples.  If it never existed, and never will, then that is the very definition of a red herring to discard results that are unwelcome and an excuse to disregard consequences of the status quo.  I would like to see this is a good faith argument.

I don't deny that the public demands more from climate scientists than protein folders.  But I want to see the distinction of the demand from the demands put on evolutionary biologists by members of the public, from the demands put on mathematicians by those who trisect the angle or square the circle, from the demands put on medical animal researchers by the property destruction and harassment by anti-vivisectionist protesters, etc.  Are the demands, for the most part, strictly to promote scientific truth found in the least time in the efficient way?  Or not?

Seth Roberts, wrong about doubting Climate Disruption Risk

Image via Wikipedia

Wanted to highlight Phillip Price's responses to Seth Roberts, on the existence of human caused risk of climate disruption.

Seth Roberts, wrong about doubting Climate Disruption Risk:

"
Phil Says:  May 11th, 2010 at 12:26 pm

Seth, as you might imagine I disagree with almost everything you say here. But let me give just one example. You say:

“Here’s what I would consider reasonable evidence for serious human-generated global warming:

1. Temperature higher now than in the past.
2. Temperature increasing at a higher rate now than in the past.
3. Good (= verified) model shows serious human-generated warming.”

But in fact, neither of the first two would be reasonable evidence of serious human-generated global warming if they are true, and the absence of them does not indicate absence of serious human-generated global warming if they are in fact absent.

Here’s the key fact that you seem to be unaware of (but that scientists who study this know very well): MORE THAN ONE PARAMETER AFFECTS THE TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH. It’s not all about carbon dioxide concentrations.

If high temperatures in the Medieval Warm Period were due in part to higher solar activity, then those temperatures don’t tell us much about climate sensitivity to CO2. So your point 1 doesn’t really make sense. The issue with point 2 is pretty much the same, except with regard to the derivative of temperature rather than temperature.

And for the models…you assert that the models aren’t good enough to estimate temperature sensitivity, but you’re wrong.

Yes, I know that scientists, like everybody else, tend to be overcertain. But I don’t think that means that nobody knows nuthin’.

I asked you before, more than once, to give YOUR estimate of climate sensitivity (defined as the steady-state change in global average over preindustrial levels in response to a doubling of CO2 over preindustrial levels). You still haven’t answered that question. But it seems that for some reason you put very little of your probability in the range that almost all climate researchers think is most likely. So who is being overcertain?
"

Phil Says: May 12th, 2010 at 2:55 pm

Check the IPCC report, chapter 8: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter8.pdf there is an extensive discussion of climate modeling and why it is good enough to be sure that anthropogenic climate change is real and why the key parameters are likely to be not extremely far from the (admittedly wide) range of estimates.

But what I am taking issue is with much larger than your three assertions, though I think they are all incorrect.

You are criticizing people for being “overcertain” because their estimate of climate sensitivity has an uncertainty of “only” 6C, but your own estimate has less uncertainty than that, in addition to being centered much lower than the experts think is reasonable. I do not think you have any basis for having a narrower confidence interval than the experts do, and I do not think you have any basis for having a much lower central estimate than the experts do.

[ Edit 05/13/10; Michael Tobis weighs in ]

Michael Tobis Says:  May 13th, 2010 at 12:10 pm

To your first two points, there is nothing that says that warming has to be simultaneous with greenhouse forcing. Under present circumstances we in fact expect the contrary: the thermal inertia of the oceans and the masking of industrial dust mask the committed warming. So your proposed tests simply aren’t valid.

Also, climate models make effective predictions of many things, not limited to global mean surface temperature. As a particular point, they show and have shown since the 1980s that greenhouse forced warming is a near-surface phenomenon, accompanied by stratospheric (upper atmosphere) cooling. They also show a pattern of warming that concentrates on land areas in continental interiors. These long standing predictions did in fact emerge. So your claim that climate models are without skill are without foundation.

All of this is silly; it treats “global warming” as a falsifiable theory, a claim of a causation that is either true or false. This is foolishness. The underlying phenomena, (thermal radiation, absorbtion and reradiation in gases) is two hundred year old physics that is as well established as anything in science.

What’s at issue is not “whether” but “how much”. As Phil correctly points out, those who call themselves “skeptics” are not making an argument from ignorance, they are making an argument from certainty. If we really had no idea what the sensitivity was, we should be more concerned than ever. The attitude suggested by people who claim to be “skeptics” is utterly inconsistent with a lack of confidence in the underlying science. It is a claim that the the sensitivity is certain to be much less than all prevailing evidence indicates.

(Phil’s a bit pessimistic; I’d say the consensus range is 2 C to 4.5 C per CO2 doubling. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v1/n11/abs/ngeo337.html )

And what if it were zero? Would we be out of the woods? No, even with a global sensitivity of zero we could have huge forced climate change, say, warming the poles and cooling the tropics. There is no doubt that the amounts of CO2 and other gases we are adding to the atmosphere change the way energy flows through the system, a system which at heart is fluid and easy to change. Even in the absence of knowledge and a low global sensitivity there are huge risks.

And then there is ocean acidification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

Sorry. We have to deal with this.

[ Edit 05/13/10; my comment added ]

Seth Roberts says:

seth Says: May 12th, 2010 at 2:47 pm

[...] I’ll provide you my confidence interval in a few days.

It will not be forthcoming.  This was all a predictable exercise in the Art of Controversy.  But it is good to document how these each can be swatted down with minimal effort.

Rest In Peace, Hockey Stick

Image via Wikipedia

We will start with the quote from Ian Jolliffe, and work backwards to unpack.

"http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/472646295/i-am-by-no-means-a-climate-change-denier-my"

“I am by no means a climate change denier. My strong [impression] is that the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick. It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence and that a group of influential climate scientists have doggedly defended a piece of dubious statistics.”

- Ian Jolliffe"

My comment:

I am surprised to hear, today, that considered authoritative option thinks that the "hockey stick" is bad statistics, and that people who believe in global warming should admit this error, strive to be more rigorous, and move on with the other overwhelming facts of global warming.

I will modify my view.

Lets now work backward.

Ian Jolliffe's comment to Tamino: "http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-21873"

Tamino blogs at "http://tamino.wordpress.com/"

Jolliffe requests an apology from Tamino, because he feels words were placed into his mouth, to give full liberty to any use of the statistical technique of "decentred PCA" when a different origin is considered to be meaningful, even though he did no such thing. "Decentred PCA" is the technique that Mann used to bring the hockey stick into clearly resolved existence.

A reasonable starting place, from a moderately skeptical point of view, for information on Michael E. Mann's "Hockey stick": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy"

Tamino apologized (also at "http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-21873"), re-iterated that "It also seems to me (and I'm by no means the only one) that the origin in the analysis of MBH98 is meaningful" and ended by emphasizing a part Jolliffe's reply - "... the evidence rests on much much more than the hockey stick. It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence ..." - which can be interpreted as back-tracking.

This has allowed some merchants of obscurantism to make hay: "http://climateaudit.org/2008/09/08/ian-jolliffe-comments-at-tamino/".

[Edit 04/16/10]

The above applies only to the original Mann hockey stick, for an overview of the evidence from all available sources of evidence of possible climate disruption see:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm

It is time for some humility - Oh Lordy...

Image by Perfesser via Flickr

"it is time for some humility, concludes [a deservedly humble man]"

http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2010/03/statistically-improbable-phrases.html

The sheer nerve of a request for "humility" against those who put their reputations on the line by publishing, under the burden of responsible science.  A request for humility by a humbug.

My comment:

That piece is clearly not a book review (too short and too shallow), and it is not a piece of higher criticism because advances no thesis (concern trolling is the opposite of advancing a thesis).

It is a piece of opinion placed in a corner of Nature where the editors don't have to take any responsibility for the opinion.  And quite a shabby bit of opinion making.

And why this fringe voice chosen?  (Bjorn was caught out misrepresenting sources, the Superfreakonomics chapter was a hash, so RPJr steps up to the plate...  And RPJr's tack will run out quickly as well - it seems to be entirely based on the idea that facts can be "contaminated" by scientists who have a preferred policy outcome.  Because politics is a human activity, and scientists must not be human.)

An disreputable opinion published predominately without risk to reputation. Shameful.  If the self-described "reasonable voices" see the issue not as a matter of scientific fact but as a political or economic one, then commission a paper from a publishing political scientist or an economist.  Instead of publishing potshots and bobbing and weaving and concern trolling.

Was this garbage technique used before against other science that pained industries?  Is there a history of this technique used for tobacco or pharmacological marketing?  Or is energy policy widely understood by "the people who matter" to be all encompassing?

Obviously, industry funds a lot of research.  Is this garbage based on many industry voices among the circle of acquaintance of Nature's editors saying that the economic replacements for carbon fuels are just not ready yet, so the scientific question of human culpability in global warming has to simmer on the back burner for a while?  (Sadly, the industry concerns are probably more cynical than this - an indirect demand from those who get paid today that they deserve to get paid tomorrow, oil rigs or not, refineries or not.)

John Mashey did a bang up job tracking the pitifully few scientists who promote obscurantism against climate science, but I don't recall the editorial boards of top journals being included in his analysis.  And he didn't write about the techniques used in those journals to promote the Art of Controversy against uncomfortable scientific findings.

Andrew Gelman and Climate Change Concern Trolling

Image by Dunechaser via Flickr

Andrew Gelman's blog [ http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/mlm/ ] has some of the best writing on climate change when Phillip Price submits a post [ see http://manuelmoeg.blogspot.com/2009/12/talking-about-climate-change-publishing.html ] and has some of the worst writing when Andrew Gelman himself posts.

Andrew Gelman seems to be sympathetic to conspiratorial thinking about the scientific culture around climate change.  My feeling is that in his own field of statistics, Bayesian techniques have been actively suppressed and misrepresented, so Gelman is open to the idea that investigators who don't see human global warming could be actively suppressed and misrepresented too.

Which is fine, if the arguments were not so lame.

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/02/stabilizing_fee.html
(Anonymous concern troll says any paper contradicting Arrhenius' 1896 climate model is likely to be self suppressed. And if this is not the point of the anonymous question, what is?)
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009/12/how_do_i_form_m.html
(Before Andrew Gelman steps onto a subway train, he ponders that the civil engineers that designed the train might be laboring under thoughts so stupid that they can only come from some aspect of the civil engineering consensus in a particularly ugly undigested form. And he is paralyzed by fits of panic. And if this is not the point of Gelman's "Beyond my limited sphere of scientific compresension, I dunno", what is?)

It could be more convincingly argued that:

(1) human activity is making an ice age less likely

(2) global warming skepticism and preference for inaction plays a semi-rational role in the debate, not because of the poor quality of their arguments, but as a brake against premature solutions:

Image by Auntie P via Flickr

Al Gore holding up a mercury light bulb in "An Inconvenient Truth",
Ed Begley, Jr. installing semiconductor solar panels to all exposed surfaces of his home,
the US government giving loans to Tesla electric cars

... all of which are very likely contributing to burning *more* fossil fuels, not less, because the total costs over those product's entire lifetime (including manufacturing plants that themselves burn fossil fuels, including safe disposal of wastes) are unrepresented by the relatively small price charged to consumers.  Better to tax fossil fuels in rich countries and spend that money on research placed in the public domain so even the poorest countries can benefit.  At a gradual rate of increase, so as to have minimum harm to productivity.

But, instead, we get lame concern trolling about scientific conspiracies.  I get the tiresome feeling that the global warming skeptics need to be saved from themselves, to have the people convinced by the scientific consensus to make their best arguments for them, because they cannon help but simply echo the last thing they heard from someone with a direct financial link to oil companies.  Tiresome.

My reply to the anonymous concern troll:

> If the prediction of a climate model is very much outside the consensus predictions, it is not likely to be published.

More arguing that climate science is a nonesuch science.  Taken to the logical extreme, we can argue that Einstein's papers on Special and General Relativity are not likely to be published (and that is why we still use epicycles today).  Taken to the logical extreme, we can posit that Alex Rodriguez is not likely to swing for the fences.  The blockbuster behavior of the players in the 99.999% percentile is poorly predicted by the tentative behavior of the average player.

Secondly, science publishing is not the only market for climate modeling.  Commodities traders and the reinsurance market for hedging risk on multi-year massive construction projects have a need for accurate climate modeling, because on those time scales a long range weather report would be worthless.  Those players are willing to leave millions on the table just so their hired gun scientists can parrot safe results that are unlikely to rattle tea cups at the next faculty function?  Unlikely.

I beg your forgiveness for the following snarkiness.  Can your anonymous concern troll name a single branch of science that has remained on a strictly linear trajectory since 1896?  Besides phrenology.

[ Edit 2/15/10 ]

The goalposts have been moved in the comments is Andrew Gelman's post on February 12.  It moved to always having the models subjected to a growing set of data, never casting out past data (good, good).  It moved to meta-analysis of all available models, over time (good, good).  It moved to the variance of published models compared to the subjective guessed distributions of the individual practicing scientists (fine, fine).  But where happened to the original claim "If the prediction of a climate model is very much outside the consensus predictions, it is not likely to be published."?

My comment submitted:

Marc Levy

> They find that if you ask climate experts to characterize their subjective best guess as to the distribution of key climate change parameters, you observe far more variance ... than you observe when you look at the distribution of all the climate model outputs.

This is to be expected, because no one would represent *any* model as perfectly describing reality - if it was perfect, it would no longer be a model, anymore.  Only pure mathematics has the benefit of being able to switch the analysis to a proved isomorphism that is easier to compute.  Every model is an adequate simplification, over a domain, and it is hoped the failure modes are understood so the model is not misused.  But the option of "proving" the model a perfect representation of reality is not available.

Useful scientific models typically give sharp results - sharper results than field readings, even counting for input precision or rounding in iteration, etc.  The models are useful *because* they give sharp results - or else you would have the perverse consequence of improving the usefulness of a model by adding slop into it to increase the variance.  A bound on the error is useful to track, but no one would actually mix in slop in a model to force the variance wider, even if the model's variance doesn't match field readings.

Any expert would know very well all the possible failure modes and other limitations of a particular model, that so their subjective guessed distribution would have greater variance than the considered model because of that knowledge.  The scientist possess what humans value as knowledge, the documented model cannot (and so scientists cannot be replaced with the models of their creation).  Why else might the variance be greater?  -- perhaps the scientist is in possession of they consider to be a better model, not yet published.  Or perhaps, the scientist is simply aware of the possibility of a better model.

The relatively uncontroversial model of satellite orbits is informative.  They are tighter because they, of course, consider fewer particles than Mother Nature is able to consider.  So they can consider events in the future, because they run faster than reality, and so they can run on economically available hardware.  No one would consider their tighter variance than the variance of observatory readings to be surprising, much less consider it a failure of the model.  Only if there was misrepresentation of best knowledge of the model's error bound, or failure modes, or applicable domain, and then, it would not be a failure of the model, it would be a misapplication by a human agent.

Can I note that the goalposts have been moved?  The original issue was "stabilizing feedback" and the original question contained the assertion "If the prediction of a climate model is very much outside the consensus predictions, it is not likely to be published."  There are other interesting issues to consider, but only after the parties admit that the goalposts have been moved and the focus of the argument shifted.

How do I form my attitudes about scientific questions? - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

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Andrew Gelman at Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science.

How do I form my attitudes about scientific questions? - Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science: "
It's not that the scientific consensus is stupid, it's that some statements are so stupid that they only come because the speaker has processed some aspect of the consensus in a particularly ugly undigested form.
...
...To me, it's another case where the existence of the consensus has switched off people's brains.
"

This point is valid, and well put, but if you read the whole post, I think Andrew Gelman is being far too pessimistic.

> "What do I recommend you all do? On subjects where Phil and I are the experts, I suggest you listen to what we have to say. Beyond that, I dunno."

This is very pessimistic and skeptical of considered consensus, and contradicted by Andrew Gelman's daily life. Before I step into a subway train, I don't form opinions about the quality of considered consensus of civil engineers, and Mr. Gelman does not either.

Commenter "jonathan" makes the point:

> I think you've raised two separate issues. One is the process by which consensus builds, entrenches, shifts, etc. The other is how rational people make rational decisions about information.

> It's interesting to me how in a few notable areas the two are lumped together: the idea that biologists are maintaining some (evil) consensus in favor of evolution and that climate scientists, etc. are doing the same with regard to climate change.

> ...

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If you step back and compare "Skepticism of Human Activity Causing Global-Warming/Climate-Change" to established cases of motivated obscurantism, like denying evolution and natural selection, and tobacco carcinogenicity, and the Jewish Holocaust of WWII, and the efficacy of the polio vaccine, and perhaps less established cases of motivated obscurantism like controlled demolition taking down the Twin Towers and HIV/AIDS, you see familiar patterns and similar techniques and motivations both sinister and innocent-by-way-of-ignorance/gullibility. It will seem like bad form to the self-described "Skeptics", but they could bring doubters into their fold by work - the work of authoritatively publishing their opposing immutable thesis, and welcoming that to be subjected to the highest standard of scrutiny. And what are we to make of the "Skeptics" doing everything _except_ that work?

The considered consensus of the scientific experts, here, is slowly growing and publishing an opposing authoritative immutable thesis - far too slowly and too messily and with too much initial unwarranted speculation for an impatient world - but at least they are building something up for possible future champion to knock down. And if it resists being knocked down - we have a consensus where it would be "perverse to withhold provisional consent", using Sagan's phrase.

Image by sbisson via Flickr

As for motivation within this possible case of motivated obscurantism, how can I discount the astroturf and sympathetic goodwill David Koch has purchased and does purchase?

If you draw the boundary of consideration small enough "I dunno" seems like honest skepticism of considered consensus. But what is the compelling reason to draw the boundary of consideration so small as to ignore case for motivated obscurantism?

Scientific software quality and Global Warming

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Very well written response by Michael Tobis to this question from Jon Pipitone "Do likely bugs in the software of climate models cast doubt on the scientific consensus on human factors in global warming?"

jon pipitone: Scientific software quality: what would it take to convince software engineers?: "

Michael Tobis said...

regebro asks what looks like a reasonable question, but it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of a question that is roughly equivalent to what the difference between weather and climate is. We have very little skill predicting one year out, even assuming no volcanoes and such. Most of the predictability of the detailed state atmosphere vanishes in three weeks or so. But at a multidecadal time scale the problem changes character. Technically, we are no longer dealing with an initial value problem but with a boundary value problem, even though the underlying dynamics are the same. We are not in that case looking for details in any specific year, but for the statistics over an extended period. In a mathematical sense that is an 'easier' problem; it is more constrained by energy balances than by nonlinear fluid dynamics. The messy stuff basically averages out and the residual is what we try to predict. In fact, maybe I'll use that as a definition of climate. It's 'what you can say about the system after the messy unpredictable part gets averaged out'. That's the basis for climate change modeling.

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As for Jon's question, the models are wretched pieces of engineering. No commercial shop would release anything nearly as balky, hard to deploy, or prone to failure. It makes open source look good. And that has almost no bearing on whether they are suitable for the purpose. In fact, sometimes models are used well and sometimes they are used badly. This in turn is a scientific, not a software question. All this said, I desperately wish the software were better, and I think we could address many more scientifically meaningful problems much more effectively if it were. Finally, if you think the question is 'global warming, yes or no' the large models in question are much less relevant than many people would have you believe. The answer to that question is yes, to the extent of about 3 degrees per CO2 doubling. The idea that such a conclusion comes from complex models is wrong.

"

I will forgive Mr. Tobis for the dig against open source software ;) I maintain the difference in quality between the very best and the very worst engineered open source software projects makes it very difficult to say anything sensible about the totality.

Also, metrics in software development cannot predict the quality of output of any particular group working on a particular problem - too many confounding issues. For example, the developer with the highest bug count tends to be the best developer on the team - nobody else is trusted to tackle the hardest coding issues.

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Another issue is the issue of making scientific computations reproducible. Even more basic than if a particular computation is correct is making sure that computation can be reproduced by another group.

Making scientific computations reproducible

Computing in Science and Engineering archive

Volume 2 , Issue 6 (November 2000)

Pages: 61 - 67

ISSN:1521-9615

Authors

Matthias Schwab

Martin Karrenbach

Jon Claerbout

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=369555