First, for the sake of context, I will present the exchange up through the comment to which I am responding. I will edit what was two posted comments into one (they were obviously split for reasons of length), and put the pseudonym of the commentator (reader #1482) up front, but make no other textual changes, in the exchange block-quoted, and after that I will be fisking the last comment (by reader #1482). I am copying from this post.
LBascom February 26, 2018 at 2:38 PM
One little quibble sir; I think the "biggest political hoax in the history of the Republic" still remains the whole global warming scam.
Other than that, spot on.
DiploMad February 26, 2018 at 5:33 PM
I stand corrected, shame-faced and glancing downward at my sneakers . . . .
One Brow February 26, 2018 at 6:14 PM
Why is conservatism so closely connected with hating science and distrusting expertise?
dearieme February 26, 2018 at 7:48 PM
In the case of global warming it's more a case of hating a junk science scam. As for expertise, so much stuff passed off as expertise is mere fraud. As Galbraith (was it?) said, economic forecasting was invented to give astrology a good name.
reader #1482 February 26, 2018 at 8:00 PM
There's nothing here about hating science. I'm not going to speculate on distrust of expertise.
At the heart of it, the global warming hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis. At this time, there is no scientifically valid way of testing this hypothesis. Without falsifiability, it's hard to consider it a scientific pursuit. This is as opposed to atmospheric science in general, which scientifically studies features and phenomena of the earth's atmosphere.
What global warming *is*, is a mathematical pursuit, much like the statistics of baseball or election forecasting like that done at the fairly-decent 'Fivethirtyeight' blog (while they threw pielke under the bus for financial expediency, they also were one of the few to admit that they and other journalism outlets have a clear liberal bias). But there is no prospective experimental validation in global warming, it is purely statistical fitting.
Can anybody here tell you with scientific certainty that global warming isn't happening? No. Can anybody here tell you with scientific certainty that mankind has had anything other than 'at least non-zero' impact on the global temperature of the earth? I don't think so either. There's simply a *very* complex system, not much evidence, and no mechanism of experimenting in a controlled fashion. I can say with some certainty that at least 95% of atmospheric science researchers are honest and dedicated scientists, I met quite a few in graduate school. But the biggest 'science activists' in global warming aren't atmospheric science researchers.
I've watched this change... I was first introduced to the greenhouse effect in 1991 in Kittel's Thermal Physics as an undergrad... and remarkably, physics college texts even as recently as 2012 (last time I taught a physics course at a university) showed remarkably appropriately couched remarks considering the scientific side of the question. But little has actually changed in twenty years in regards to global warming. We still have one planet under study, and only an additional 20 years of data, much of it having been constantly adjusted and re-adjusted. While I can find reasoning behind said adjustments, it's a warning sign that these adjustments were made because the measurements did not match expectations. In *any* scientific field, when that happens, everything is extensively redone to verify new assumptions. But with very limited data sets (satellites are expensive), it's pretty catastrophic to have to go back and rework your experimental data after the fact.
But compare it to LLNL's NIF. Huge laser, best laser and plasma physicists in the world, hands down, and it's a dud. I assume everybody knows this? Well lay people might not, because there is a stream of announcements coming out of it regarding 'energy gain' and 'neutron yields'. But it's a dud because the intent was 'ignition', the 'I' in the name, which never happened. And this is from an experiment with a testable hypothesis.
Billions of dollars and thousands of world class scientists can be wrong about an experiment that was actually be performed. How much veracity should I put into pronouncements from far less qualified scientists with no hope of producing an experiment in the next two hundred years?
Global warming cannot be experimentally verified, therefore it requires belief based upon faith, rather than experimental verification. It is a religion. Former IPCC head Pachouri's remarks were apropos when he stated that global warming was his religion in his leaving remarks.
There is pretty much *no* other discipline near the hard sciences in which I have a conflict with popular opinion.
We just don't know, and no amount of hyperventilation and alarm about the possible consequences of making the wrong prediction will change that. We're not comfortable with not *knowing* everything, because humanity has had a fantastic streak in pushing back the borders of the unknown. It certainly must seem unconscionable that there could still be something in this world that defies rigorous scientific study, so the answer has been to redefine rigorous scientific study to fit the desired answer.
So, let's look at individual pieces of this argument, and the various distortions it makes.
At the heart of it, the global warming hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis. At this time, there is no scientifically valid way of testing this hypothesis.
Actually, global warming is a measurement. It is a difference in calculated temperatures between time A and time B. That makes it a fact. Now, there are different ways of averaging temperatures, and when you do that, you can get different numbers for the amount of change. However, any analysis that takes in the globe as whole finds an increase in global temperatures over the last 100+ years.
However, perhaps reader #1482 was referring to the notion that human activities have contributed global warming. That is a hypothesis, but far from being untestable, it is one that has been tested and retested. The tests consist of looking at the individual effects of different atmospheric particulates, and making predictions based them of both what will see in the future and what we have seen in the past.
Not to mention you can conduct small-scale tests that verify how much light is reflected, heat is retained, etc., in a laboratory environment, using a few liters of atmosphere. So, there are laboratory experiments that can be and have been done.
But there is no prospective experimental validation in global warming, it is purely statistical fitting.
The validation is in the predictive ability of future events.
Can anybody here tell you with scientific certainty that global warming isn't happening?
This question contains an oxymoron. I am not referring to the joking oxymorons like 'military intelligence', but rather a contradiction of basic definitions, such as 'married bachelor'. In this case, the oxymoron is "scientific certainty". Certainty is anathema to the scientific process. Everything in science can be questioned, and anything can be cast into doubt with the right kind of evidence. Science can be reliable, demonstrated, validated, and explanatory, but it is never certain (nor proven).
However, as I pointed out above, in this case it is not a question of science, but of measurement. It's like asking about the "scientific" status of the temperature in a room, or the height of a person. Measurements do come with their own form of uncertainty, but that is not from some scientific status.
We still have one planet under study, and only an additional 20 years of data, much of it having been constantly adjusted and re-adjusted.
I might ask how many years would be required (the "additional 20" means something like 150 years), but the truth has often been 'more than we have', regardless of the number of years. As for the count of planets, I can't see how information from any other planet would be relevant to making predictions on this planet. That would just be meaningless noise. It would be nice to see a standard prescribed for the number of years, but usually the people who take this position are not interested in setting standards, but denying the findings regardless.
Also, this description in "years" obscures the number of data points. Temperatures are measured several times a day; a year's data represents thousands of individual measurements. By contrast, warming is something better measured in decades. A year is both too large and too small.
Further, the raw data is the raw data; it does not change. Adjustments can be made to determine a better average, but that is not changing the data, it is changing the process.
But the biggest 'science activists' in global warming aren't atmospheric science researchers.
If reader #1482 here refers to politicians, I agree, but so what? If not, I wish he could be more specific about who he means and why he thinks said person is not qualified. For example, while James Hansen has a Ph. D. in physics instead of atmospheric sciences, his first position seems to have been studying atmospheric conditions for NASA. You would certainly learn enough to be an atmospheric science researcher in that position, regardless of the title of your doctorate. After all, science is not some heavily slotted field where anything you learn in one discipline is completely useless in another. Chemistry uses physics (and vice-versa), biology uses both, etc. In addition, a doctorate in the physics of, say, the interaction of gasses would have considerable overlap with atmospheric sciences. Sans name and credentials, this is an empty criticism.
While I can find reasoning behind said adjustments, it's a warning sign that these adjustments were made because the measurements did not match expectations. In *any* scientific field, when that happens, everything is extensively redone to verify new assumptions. But with very limited data sets (satellites are expensive), it's pretty catastrophic to have to go back and rework your experimental data after the fact.
All you need to do is see if the new model is predictive of the past observations. Of course, this can have it's own pitfalls. One of the common issues in statistics is the inclusion of too many variables for the size of the data sets, which improves the matching of past performance while adding no predictive accuracy, so you do have to be careful there.
Global warming cannot be experimentally verified, therefore it requires belief based upon faith, rather than experimental verification. It is a religion. ... There is pretty much *no* other discipline near the hard sciences in which I have a conflict with popular opinion.
I have already pointed out that warming is verifiable. I find this an interesting standard, though. I have to wonder about experimentally verified hypotheses in the not-"near the hard" ('soft' ?) sciences; are these considered reliable or not? Does reader #1482 have a conflict with them? If so, why a difference?
Is evolutionary theory not "near the hard" sciences? Geology? Sociology? Epidemiology? All of them have theories that are not directly testable (geology even more so than climatology). All of them have models that are constantly being re-evaluated and improved. Are they all based on faith?
But compare it to LLNL's NIF. Huge laser, ... it's a dud because the intent was 'ignition', the 'I' in the name, which never happened. And this is from an experiment with a testable hypothesis.
That means new models will be created, and there will be new hypotheses to test. If this happens in a "hard" science, and you generally accept the results of this hard science, why doubt the results of climatology?
Billions of dollars and thousands of world class scientists can be wrong about ... pronouncements from far less qualified scientists ...
Again, why only apply this to climatology? Also, this is rank snobbery. Further, it's not as if there is some great divide of opinion between whoever you consider to the a genuine atmospheric science researcher and whoever you consider to be a science activist.
We just don't know, and no amount of hyperventilation and alarm about the possible consequences of making the wrong prediction will change that. We're not comfortable with not *knowing* everything, because humanity has had a fantastic streak in pushing back the borders of the unknown.
We will never know everything. If epidemiologists took that position, there would be no new vaccines. If geologists took that position, there would be no Theory of Plate Tectonics. If physicists took that position, there would be no Theory of Relativity. All of these theories have real-world consequences, and we act on these theories because they provide the best explanations we have for how the world works. Climatology should not be different; especially not when there are many other benefits of reducing emissions, and the harms of reduction have been greatly exaggerated by denialists.
It certainly must seem unconscionable that there could still be something in this world that defies rigorous scientific study, so the answer has been to redefine rigorous scientific study to fit the desired answer.
This has nothing to do with climatology, since the climate is subject to rigorous scientific study.
Posts
46 comments:
First off, I would say you should probably post a link to this posting on the original site when copy-pasting content. That might not be enough in some circles, but it would certainly be enough for me.
I think you may mistake my intent in a few ways. I do find it valuable to separate the hard and soft sciences because I have a strong antipathy towards studying phenomena which intelligently studies you back. It's the ultimate in non-linear science, and is fairly unreliable. I know sociologists and the like attempt to account for this, but I'm typically unconvinced. Electrons and other fundamental particles and their near composites do not do this.
I think it was Rutherford who said that the conclusion of social sciences can only really be "some do, some don't".
But on to your counter:
I don't want to get into a semantics discussion over the difference between meteorology and metrology, I just want to make my point of view clear, and it's not trivial or completely wrong, though it is debatable. For the purposes we are discussing, I do not trust the non-satellite temperature record, nor do I trust dendroclimatology. That is *not* because they are inaccurate, but rather because they are of insufficient reliability. And even if they were correct, they would not imply predictive power. Predictive power comes from testing hypotheses, not twisting many knobs and getting a model to match a curve. In much the same way, prospective medical trials are the gold standard for scientific study, though retrospective studies can be informative and helpful where prospective studies are unavailable.
Let's say, if I'm on a review board for a $5m grant, I trust dendroclimatology enough for *that*.
But I will not trust it to the point where I'm willing to stake civilization upon it.
It *is* the best science has to offer, but I'm sure we can agree that not all science is equal, even if some individual scientific pursuit is the best science in its field. This is effectively the crux of the problem. It's about this investigation being presented in a light such that its predictions are told to the lay population as being as reliable as 'any other science'. Would I bet our entire civilization that if I release a ball at shoulder height with an unobstructed downward path, that such is the path it will take? Yes. But that theory is extremely reliable and quite certain.
How many years? I'm really not certain that I *could* be convinced by the sole temperature record of this planet. If we study 100,000 planets with reasonably comparable atmospheres, then I would be more willing to take the science involved in this as comparable to the standards we use in physics.
The example of NIF was merely pointing out that the best minds in the world can still be wrong, even on a matter in which they are quite experts. But driving our civilization into mud huts (my characterization of the intent, imo) requires something more than experts and opinions. We put over $10b dollars into NIF, and that's an infinitesimal wager in comparison to this global economic restructuring. Outlandish claims which require outlandish actions require outlandish evidence. I am not saying this evidence is wrong, I am saying that it is not possible to make the call that we know sufficiently. We see this with the gradual dropping of couching statements. Ten years ago, nobody ever accepted a personal testimony that climate change was affecting their lives, because those who'd read anything about it knew that these were not locally/temporally observable effects. Now, this occurs regularly with no correction. Repeating the outlandish claims has deadened these responses, not because they are now correct, but because they've been repeated over and over, and are now familiar.
I'd like to be able to say that we can derive from thermodynamics, what the temperature distribution of the earth should be, and that measurements coincide with theory. That does not happen. All global temperature analysis is perturbative, and that is why the term used is 'forcings' and 'anomaly', because it is studying the anomaly, when we don't have a solid grasp of the absolute values. There is nowhere that we can find a physics derivation of the global temperature that is even close without resorting to heuristic fits. It's simply too complex of a system to perform such a calculation. What *is* done, is anomalies are determined from temperature records, and then fit to forcing observations, such as CO2 double, and solar intensity variations.
Now how is this remotely like some sort of hoax? This is something that I don't think a lot of people have paid attention to, even on the conservative side. The consensus and IPCC work on modeling climate are various amalgamations of temperature forecasting models. There are a number of models included in this modeling standard put out by LLNL. These models are submitted, run, and then essentially weighted and averaged together to get a model-based prediction. But what this does is more sociology than science. Now, many climate modelers (I think it was 20 groups) have components in the IPCC-referenced models, with a smattering of publications involved for everybody. This creates a distributed conflict of interest on the part of all researchers submitting these codes. Does this mean they're participating in academic fraud? No way. But in effect, it is buying people's cooperation with the currency at hand, authorship. To argue against these results (which are already quite flimsy), is to argue against one's own work, in part. Now I'm certain if *any* of these researchers found clear evidence that CIMP5 output is straight up wrong, they would say so. But due to the uncertainties of the field, that simply is not going to happen. Again, it's not a fraud, or a hoax, it's just (imho) mistakes made with poor motivations. These guys are trying to do the best they can, the only failure is in removing the uncertainties.
And remember... "warmest year on record" is *technically* "this year has the highest *chance* of being the warmest year on record"... that is because the temperature of the earth is not a single value, it is a probability distribution with a confidence interval and everything. The chances aren't actually all that high... they're just 'marginally higher than other years'.
Here's a good watch.. it's not intended to undermine global warming, but may do just that... I'd be interested in discussing if you'd do me the favor of watching it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVMsYXzmUYk
Much appreciated.
- reader #1482
oh, my apologies, I see you did put a link to the comments themselves.. much appreciated.. I had only seen the link to the diplomad site.... and I don't know that I'd call it 'far right', but it's definitely 'right of center'.
I'm following up with you here because I don't like the echo chambers that I can find in various other places. I don't think the referenced site is bad about that... but site authors cannot reasonably be responsible for commenters anywhere. Too many sites about global warming on either side are effectively monotheistic cults who simply will not countenance anything other than their preconceived notions. Even sites claiming to be 'skeptical', will often post articles claiming to prove that global warming doesn't exist, or that it isn't manmade, or what not. That... unfortunately... is yet another attempt to remove skepticism from science. There are a *lot* of things we don't know, even some twenty years after the popularization of the Internet. (shock) (gasp) :)
- reader #1482
Another example would be... if I were to state that I thought NIF was likely a waste of time when they were proposing it, because I felt the simulations coming out of the NOVA project were insufficient (too many simulation knobs with too much money on the line... reasonable position, but still quite debatable), would I have been a 'science denier'? No. I would have just been skeptical of the claims.
The *only* reason skeptics of the global warming (AGW) movement are labeled, is because that skepticism is in the way of 'saving the world' through social and economic upheaval. This has *nothing* to do with science.
I'm highly skeptical of a lot of other things... like the 'EM Drive', and whatever other "it's too complex for a PhD physicist to understand, you're just going to have to trust us" efforts make such claims. Would I put $50 from my wallet into an 'EM Drive' experiment? On a lark, sure. Would I suggest even $50k in taxpayer funds? Not on my life.
I'm no denier, but I am skeptical of the combination of these extreme claims and apparently poor methodologies. Repeating those claims seems to have turned them into a fait accompli, but that, again, is a social effect, not science.
- reader #1482
I think you may mistake my intent in a few ways. I do find it valuable to separate the hard and soft sciences because I have a strong antipathy towards studying phenomena which intelligently studies you back. It's the ultimate in non-linear science, and is fairly unreliable. I know sociologists and the like attempt to account for this, but I'm typically unconvinced. Electrons and other fundamental particles and their near composites do not do this.
I had read that one of the things we learned studying quantum mechanics is that there is an observer effect; any attempt you make to measure something interacts with what you are measuring, especially if it is an electron or smaller. So, I don’t see much difference there.
It’s quite possible to study some human behaviors without humans looking you in the face.
I think it was Rutherford who said that the conclusion of social sciences can only really be "some do, some don't".
I don’t know if a physicist from 50+ years ago is the right person to consult on the limits of sociology.
I don't want to get into a semantics discussion over the difference between meteorology and metrology, I just want to make my point of view clear, and it's not trivial or completely wrong, though it is debatable. For the purposes we are discussing, I do not trust the non-satellite temperature record, nor do I trust dendroclimatology. That is *not* because they are inaccurate, but rather because they are of insufficient reliability. And even if they were correct, they would not imply predictive power. Predictive power comes from testing hypotheses, not twisting many knobs and getting a model to match a curve. In much the same way, prospective medical trials are the gold standard for scientific study, though retrospective studies can be informative and helpful where prospective studies are unavailable.
I agree that measuring current and past temperatures has no predictive power; it would be a category error to think they could. Rather, all they could do would be to confirm or deny the predictive power of models working backwards. I agree with you on predictive power, and that can only come from future measurements.
As for medical trials, for the most part they offer very limited information. Gardasil went from being a concept to production in only 15 years, do you really think we measured its effect on the course of a disease that can 30 to manifest? It was seen that infection rates were lowered (something you can only gather retrospectively) and there were relatively few side effects. Again, if we applied your standard to medicine, we wouldn’t have vaccines at all.
Let's say, if I'm on a review board for a $5m grant, I trust dendroclimatology enough for *that*.
But I will not trust it to the point where I'm willing to stake civilization upon it.
Can we dial the drama knob back down to 11? Changing the sources we use to get power is not a threat to civilization. Comments like this betray that you are more than some disinterested skeptic on the issue. For some reason, you have an emotional investment in anthropomorphic global warming not being true.
Would I bet our entire civilization that if I release a ball at shoulder height with an unobstructed downward path, that such is the path it will take? Yes. But that theory is extremely reliable and quite certain.
Changing the composition of a gas changes its heat absorption properties. This is also extremely reliable and certain. In fact, you can even find science fair experiments to demonstrate this.
How many years? I'm really not certain that I *could* be convinced by the sole temperature record of this planet. If we study 100,000 planets with reasonably comparable atmospheres, then I would be more willing to take the science involved in this as comparable to the standards we use in physics.
How about 100,000 experiments using small-scale imitations, which is more comparable to the standards of physics.
Outlandish claims which require outlandish actions require outlandish evidence.
What outlandish claim, and what outlandish action?
Ten years ago, nobody ever accepted a personal testimony that climate change was affecting their lives, because those who'd read anything about it knew that these were not locally/temporally observable effects. Now, this occurs regularly with no correction.
I must disagree. You could see these statements about this or that being caused by global warming regularly 15-20 years ago, with no correction in the media.
Repeating the outlandish claims has deadened these responses, not because they are now correct, but because they've been repeated over and over, and are now familiar.
What outlandish claim?
I'd like to be able to say that we can derive from thermodynamics, what the temperature distribution of the earth should be, and that measurements coincide with theory. That does not happen.
True enough.
Now I'm certain if *any* of these researchers found clear evidence that CIMP5 output is straight up wrong, they would say so. But due to the uncertainties of the field, that simply is not going to happen.
Scientists are not sheep, they tend to be very focused on being the best. Everyone wants to the one who produces the best model. Science is a highly competitive field. If they even had a decent chance of proving all the other models wrong, most would leap on it.
And remember... "warmest year on record" is *technically* "this year has the highest *chance* of being the warmest year on record"... that is because the temperature of the earth is not a single value, it is a probability distribution with a confidence interval and everything. The chances aren't actually all that high... they're just 'marginally higher than other years'.
Marginally better than *which* other years? Any years before 1998 have a better than 0.001% change? Aren’t the four-five years with the highest chances all since 2010? If the five years with the best chance have all occurred since 2010, how is that not a sign of warming?
I have trouble believing you didn’t already know and understand everything in that previous paragraph before I wrote, yet you deliberately wrote something more evasive by focusing on the uncertainty of a single year. Why?
Here's a good watch.. it's not intended to undermine global warming, but may do just that... I'd be interested in discussing if you'd do me the favor of watching it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVMsYXzmUYk
Much appreciated.
I have to wonder if we were watching the same video. I saw a criticism of people who tried to pick one line of evidence, pick one point in time, and even then do some calculations incorrectly, in a way that would allow them to deny what other lines of evidence, other points in time, and other calculations clearly say.
I'm following up with you here because I don't like the echo chambers that I can find in various other places. I don't think the referenced site is bad about that... but site authors cannot reasonably be responsible for commenters anywhere. Too many sites about global warming on either side are effectively monotheistic cults who simply will not countenance anything other than their preconceived notions.
This is true, and it is an aspect of humans being tribal.
Another example would be... if I were to state that I thought NIF was likely a waste of time when they were proposing it, because I felt the simulations coming out of the NOVA project were insufficient (too many simulation knobs with too much money on the line... reasonable position, but still quite debatable), would I have been a 'science denier'? No. I would have just been skeptical of the claims.
The *only* reason skeptics of the global warming (AGW) movement are labeled, is because that skepticism is in the way of 'saving the world' through social and economic upheaval. This has *nothing* to do with science.
Denialism is a style of argumentation. It gets used by people all over the political spectrum, whenever their favorite idea turns out to be unsupported or their despised boogeyman is supported. It is used by anti-vaccinationists, the anti-GMO crown, anti-evolutionists, and global warming skeptics.
The formatting has gone to hell on this page, but you can see many of the types of arguments described. Their focus is on corporate-sponsored denialism in particular.
https://www.denialism.com/the-denialists-deck-of-cards/
I'm no denier, but I am skeptical of the combination of these extreme claims and apparently poor methodologies. Repeating those claims seems to have turned them into a fait accompli, but that, again, is a social effect, not science.
I don’t think you are a denier, but you have picked up a couple of their bad habits (I am not claiming immunity myself here, please feel free to point out where I’m acting like a denier), in particular over-exaggerating negative consequences and selectively presenting facts.
To our knowledge, particles ranging around uncertainty principle areas do not have individual motivations which might be dependent on the intent of an observer. Might be able to find pop-reference quantum mystics who'd claim some wacky stuff, but in terms of actual experiments... no. Examinations in sociology are necessarily of very limited reliability.
In medical/vaccine experiments, there are many identical subjects and lateral statistics are used with reasonably good math, to justify that a study of, say, 50,000 people over 10 years is similar to a study of 10,000 people over 50 years (or whatever equivalence probability theory would come up with there). And yes, if we had systems as complex as the earth's climate under study, we could do the same.
And an easy attack on my skepticism here is: "You leave no room to be convinced by any reasonable amount of evidence obtainable in this lifetime." Which is mostly correct. There's no mandate that something has to be provable to any particular standard. But as I mentioned, the lower the ante, the lower the evidence required. Science is never a binary switch.
I do believe the result of the conversion required to significantly change the anthropogenic contribution of CO2 will be immensely difficult for all of society, though less so for the wealthy. In a separate effort, Jerry Brown has found a way to close Diablo Canyon, which would seemingly inexplicably move California 'further' from his CO2 goals. What's the result of closing Diablo Canyon? Skyrocketing costs for energy (a basic living cost shared by the rich and poor) as some 10-15% of the state's baseline energy production goes offline.
As for the temperature and record distributions, the question is how much the confidence interval eclipses the signal. If the confidence interval is large (last article I looked at suggested it was so), then having the highest center-of-probability distribution means very little (yet still receives great press). When I see news reports.. I see just "warmest 5 years have been within the last X" and no mention of what that means. As a result, people consider it like reading their kids' temperatures, but it's not. For example, if you were measuring a bunch of temperatures and found values between 95.1 and 95.3, with confidence intervals of +/- 0.5, which is hottest? By the numbers, none. I will keep an eye out for this kind of analysis in the future and bring it here for your dissection or digestion.. whichever.
I don't really have a favorite in this race *except* that I am highly concerned about the reputation of science and of living up to that reputation.
What *I* got from that satellite video is: "We put up these satellites... took some data... it didn't match our calibration records on the ground, so we looked and found a factor (orbital decay) which explained the problem." This is all valid stuff... it's the best we can do in science. But it makes the data retrospective, not prospective. Doesn't mean it's useless.. it's not just nearly as useful as declaring your experiment and then showing your results to be consistent with your hypothesis. What happens if there's another adjustment that would cut the other way... perhaps due to a sensor mis-calibration? That would not trigger a rework, right? But that's a big problem for all expensive science. This discussion sadly ignores the immense value of these measurements outside of the AGW discussion.... there's a lot of great stuff going on in atmospheric science.
- reader #1482
On the marginal front, there is hope that technology can 'reduce the ante' without cursing those less fortunate. It's not right now. Today, I have many friends who put $10k into their roof, and will not pay an energy bill again for 20-40 years. When the sun doesn't shine, they get their government mandated credits back from the power company.
The power company *still* needs to maintain all of its equipment and generating capacity for those calm, cloudy days. Who foots the bill? The people who can't afford $10k on solar. Some companies do leased solar, but often at rates at or more than the utilities.
Could it help? Yes... if it really is cheap enough and priced properly. But when government incentives and subsidies distort the market and rates keep rising for non-solar people, I really wonder.
If the solution is cheap enough, I don't have to trust the modeling... and I must confess, I'm a modeler.. physics.. very different regime from atmospherics, but still. Lack of self-confidence? Maybe. But it's not just my modeling that I inherently distrust, and it's not just me. A colleague noted that an experimentalist can give a talk at a conference for 20 minutes, no impeaching/challenging questions. But if you put a model up in your presentation, there will be a hundred. Models invite skepticism, as they should.
- reader #1482
Examinations in sociology are necessarily of very limited reliability.
Describe what you mean here by reliability. That the result is not repeatable, that it doesn't mean anything, something else? If you don't trust experimental examinations in sociology, what do you trust more? Do you just say that you have no idea about how society behaves?
And an easy attack on my skepticism ...
As long as you are consistent in your standards, I don't find that to be an attack at all. What I see is that you demand for evidence for something like climate change than you do for vaccines or the orbit of Pluto.
In a separate effort, Jerry Brown has found a way to close Diablo Canyon, which would seemingly inexplicably move California 'further' from his CO2 goals.
I read up on this. I can understand the worries about Diablo Canyon on both sides. Apparently, many of those "science activists" share your opinion that it should remain open. Hopefully the energy will be replaced in the next 7 years.
For example, if you were measuring a bunch of temperatures and found values between 95.1 and 95.3, with confidence intervals of +/- 0.5, which is hottest? By the numbers, none. I will keep an eye out for this kind of analysis in the future and bring it here for your dissection or digestion.. whichever.
At that error size, I agree, but you are off from the actual error size by an order of magnitutde.
GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP)
Assuming that the other inaccuracies might about double that estimate yielded the error bars for global annual means drawn in this graph, i.e., for recent years the error bar for global annual means is about ±0.05°C, for years around 1900 it is about ±0.1°C. The error bars are about twice as big for seasonal means and three times as big for monthly means.
If I am looking at a difference of 95.1 and 95.3 with an error bar of ±0.05, then 95.3 is larger.
What *I* got from that satellite video is: "We put up these satellites... took some data... it didn't match our calibration records on the ground, so we looked and found a factor (orbital decay) which explained the problem." This is all valid stuff... it's the best we can do in science. But it makes the data retrospective, not prospective.
The satellite data, you mean. The ground data was not adjusted similarly. Starting about 7:30 in the video, there were 6 or so different types of data collected on the ground that were in agreement (including direct temperature measurements), compared to the one, indirect type of data from satellites. It’s not as if all the data is being adjusted to fit the model, rather, the indirect data collection was adjusted to fit the direct data collection.
Could it help? Yes... if it really is cheap enough and priced properly. But when government incentives and subsidies distort the market and rates keep rising for non-solar people, I really wonder.
You say that as if the market supporting oil, gas, and coal was not distorted by various government benefits, and even more so by not paying for external damages. When coal plants start paying for the health problems of the people who live downwind, then it will be commesurate to discuss subsidies for solar and wind.
What is the likelihood of year X being 'the warmest year in the satellite record era'? I would personally never like to see the 'warmest on record' claim without that estimate, and +/-0.1 is a range of 0.2, which is pretty significant in 'warmest in satellite record' challenges, iirc. Is +/-0.1 big on a 100 year scale including our old manual temperature records? Nope. Is it big on a 'warmest in the satellite record'? Probably. Am I prepared to say that satellite temperatures should be the same as paper records? No... certainly not to the point where I'd want to calibrate on them. These are basically crowd-sourced records (with some exceptions). Never were these measurements intended for this kind of inquiry. (I like the quote: If you torture your data, it will confess to anything.)
This comes to a bigger point, because global warming was *supposed* to be 'runaway'. Now, all the claims are for continuing mostly-linear growth by retrofitting data (Karl et al, kind of called pejoratively as 'the pause buster' paper). Another example where researchers are going back to figure out why the predictions are off, and correcting the data to fit the projections (call it like you see it, but that is what happened to the satellite data, even if the purposes were well justified, it's the difference between prospective and retrospective studies). A lot of science has this problem, I suspect NIF/NOVA/OmegaEP among them.
It's like the famous hockey stick graph. I watched An Inconvenient Truth and I got worried. But that graph is two different data sets with one data set truncated where the data doesn't work (conflicts with the modern satellite record.. so the satellite record is adopted and the conflicting data dropped).
I was pretty astonished by that. Nobody does that. We graph two data sets, but we don't just splice them together and ignore a big important chunk.
Now if this was just some graduate student, fine. Reasonable bet. But what's being wagered on global warming is not the typical 'science wager', ie a professor's funding, or even a major experiment.
There have certainly been a number of environmental catastrophes due to fossil fuels (and that monicker may not be accurate for all, as LNG apparently has both biotic and abiotic origins, thus far, unlike oil and coal.. but we can include them). Those need to be addressed. Some of them cannot be, but may be mitigated, ie substituting nuclear/hydro/solar/wind for coal and strip mining if we can't isolate those effects. The environmental catastrophes from so-called renewables (it's all solar, effectively, in the end) are still to come. Very few people thought nuclear was going to have serious environmental concerns requiring enhanced design and mitigation when the reactors started churning out, are we so confident that our current moves are so much better? This effort to rid us of nuclear power is probably among the most fishy of the global warming movement. Or am I kinda off base there? We need to design and build *better* reactors, not just wash them out to bump energy prices. Who benefits from that energy price bump?
One big piece of the question is the insertion of the reputation of science, and the glossing over of differences between very solid science (gravity) and very speculative science (global data/temperature modeling). If I am skeptical of global warming claims, I am called out as being akin to a flat earther. Not your words, but they are words of very high profile 'science advocates' and activist scientists.
This is often excused by the "if we're right" argument. Why would we want to be rigorous and take the typical time and effort the scientific method does, when "if we're right", the end of civilization will be upon us? This is a great excuse for saying the science backs up the claims when it doesn't... because we just don't have time to wait for it (if it's even possible, which I doubt). As a result, you get Bill Nye and Al Gore taking shortcuts and effectively faking video demonstrations of the greenhouse effect. What's so terrible about that? It tells anybody who looks at it that science and scientists cannot be trusted (even though neither are remotely scientists).
When I was discussing with a fellow student about my concern over scientists becoming activists in the global warming realm, he replied "what would you do if your science indicated an end to civilization if things weren't changed?" Well, I would not become an activist. I'd publish my findings, and be available to policy makers who wanted my input, but in my view, science must be dispassionate, even with 'the end of the world' on the line.
One way of looking at it is that It's not a science issue at all, it is a public policy issue and science is being used as a bludgeon. I'm a skeptic, and a whole lot of the public discourse on this subject has reinforced a need to remain a (lowly, unimportant) voice of real skepticism here. Do I use a different yardstick for global warming? No. But that yardstick necessarily has different dimensions based upon what actions are expected. What's my scientific threshold for putting a kid with refractory progressive epilepsy (maybe like Lafora disease) on a novel drug that's never before been tested in humans? Nearly zero. What's my threshold on jacking up energy prices and a bunch of other disruptive regulation? Very high.
Boy do I apologize for the length... just... too much unexpressed. :)
- reader #1482
What is the likelihood of year X being 'the warmest year in the satellite record era'? I would personally never like to see the 'warmest on record' claim without that estimate, and +/-0.1 is a range of 0.2, which is pretty significant in 'warmest in satellite record' challenges, iirc.
You can find the data, if you want. It’s more significant that the warmest five have all been since 2010.
Am I prepared to say that satellite temperatures should be the same as paper records? No... certainly not to the point where I'd want to calibrate on them.
If I had to pick a gold standard for temperature measurements, it would be the surface measurements. They seem to be the most direct and easiest to convert into temperatures, since they are already temperatures. Then, if satellites fell out calibration with surface temperatures, and all of the predicted effects occurred at the pace indicated by the surface temperatures, I would take that as an indication to adjust the satellite calculations. How about you?
This comes to a bigger point, because global warming was *supposed* to be 'runaway'. Now, all the claims are for continuing mostly-linear growth by retrofitting data (Karl et al, kind of called pejoratively as 'the pause buster' paper).
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/climate-model-projections-compared-to-observations/
The older models are still holding up pretty well. Measured warming is within the provided confidence intervals of the old models.
…, and correcting the data to fit the projections (call it like you see it, but that is what happened to the satellite data, …
So, when the video you linked to says the satellite data was adjusted to fit the surface data, you think the guy was being misleading?
It's like the famous hockey stick graph. I watched An Inconvenient Truth and I got worried. But that graph is two different data sets with one data set truncated where the data doesn't work (conflicts with the modern satellite record.. so the satellite record is adopted and the conflicting data dropped).
I was pretty astonished by that. Nobody does that. We graph two data sets, but we don't just splice them together and ignore a big important chunk.
There have been a number of hockey stick graphs formed by different people at different times, not all sharing the same defects.
There have certainly been a number of environmental catastrophes due to fossil fuels (and that monicker may not be accurate for all, as LNG apparently has both biotic and abiotic origins, thus far, unlike oil and coal.. but we can include them). Those need to be addressed.
Not just the catastrophes, but the everyday negative health consequences as well. Clean air regulations have helped reduce them.
The environmental catastrophes from so-called renewables (it's all solar, effectively, in the end) are still to come.
All solar and geothermal, anyhow.
This effort to rid us of nuclear power is probably among the most fishy of the global warming movement. Or am I kinda off base there?
As I pointed out previously, many of those I think you call global warming activists opposed the shut-down of Diablo Canyon. More generally, they see nuclear as a way to transition from carbon-emitting to entirely renewable.
We need to design and build *better* reactors, not just wash them out to bump energy prices. Who benefits from that energy price bump?
I generally agree.
One big piece of the question is the insertion of the reputation of science, and the glossing over of differences between very solid science (gravity) and very speculative science (global data/temperature modeling).
I think the solidity depends on the model you are using. Last I heard, there were issues with gravity (that is, general relativity) that have not yet been reliably solved. There are issue with global warming that have not been solved. Both also have many experiments to show the effectiveness of some constituent parts.
If I am skeptical of global warming claims, I am called out as being akin to a flat earther. Not your words, but they are words of very high profile 'science advocates' and activist scientists.
I think you have a habit of exaggerating the relative assuredness of gravity versus global warming.
This is often excused by the "if we're right" argument.
The "if we're right" argument gets used by kooks of all kinds. I agree that we need something better than that.
I'd publish my findings, and be available to policy makers who wanted my input, but in my view, science must be dispassionate, even with 'the end of the world' on the line.
If you were facing a well-funded campaign to discredit your work, would you refuse to defend it publically? Might you ever promote it to get the correct story out?
What's my scientific threshold for putting a kid with refractory progressive epilepsy (maybe like Lafora disease) on a novel drug that's never before been tested in humans? Nearly zero. What's my threshold on jacking up energy prices and a bunch of other disruptive regulation? Very high.
You are certainly allowed your own thresholds there. However, the harms of untested treatments can make the life of the kid with epilepsy much worse than it already is, and drain the pocketbook of the parents, to boot. By contrast, if you change the regulations, I trust in American (and human) innovation to keep making things better.
That is descriptive of non-linear temperature growth? I mean... we could certainly draw a line between that much uncertainty, or an exponential.... but the differentiation is non-existent. If there is runaway temperature growth, it is not currently measurable.
I'm okay with surface measurements *since* the deployment and of argo and perhaps near predecessors.
But that's kind of besides the point... we still end up with a data set from one run.
And while that's good enough for justifying a bigger experiment, it's not a calculation upon which I would build the foundation for a house, much less an economic model.
Note also that the more-matching (ie, linear) (series C) is much closer to the observed and was predicated upon a large change in forcing. So we did match well, for something that didn't happen. But of course, one could choose B or C, because.. well... we still only have one run of the experiment! But then welcome to the Adjustocene Era. :)
As for the satellite... I don't know that the guy was *being* misleading, but he certainly was misleading people. Whenever you have to go back and adjust your data and have no mechanism by which to rerun your experiment, you are in pretty deep water, imo. Maybe we'll just disagree on the importance of prospective investigations. This is not very uncommon in science, but does need to be addressed, particularly when there's important stuff at stake.
And for hockey stick graphs.. no.. there's just one... really... when it comes down to it, there's only one hockey stick, and lay people know the graph in question.
And yes... environmental regulations have helped deal with the 'tragedy of the commons' scenario. I do not dispute this. But that fact does not influence the science of global temperatures.
Environmental (or rather, ecological) damage due to solar and wind are still to come.... hydro has lost favor due to ecological concerns, wind - probably mostly ecological, and solar will have both environmental and ecological impacts.
As for nuclear, I really have only seen a very few high profile global warming proponents who opposed the shutdown of Diablo Canyon. This is some place where I would be more likely to be quite wrong, as it's a matter of political opinions of high profile/influential personas. My impression was that accolades came in from most global warming activists for Jerry Brown when he got it done.
And no, I would not 'fight back against discrediting'. No need. If I can achieve a scientific result, I fear no PR attack, because some other researcher will simply rerun my experiment in their own lab and reproduce my scientific result. But I wouldn't work on a project that doesn't satisfy the basic requirements of the scientific process, because then I'd have to advocate for my results. :)
if it works in animals, it's fine for lafora... if the parents can't afford it...take my money! But the purpose of the analogy was the extrema of evidence or lack thereof required for various things. There are extrema at which I'll accept a medication that's completely untested in humans, or maybe blacklisted for clinical trials due to early results...
I checked out your profile... it suggests you are a progressive Christian mostly working in ministry of some sort?
I'm pretty naive to progressives in ministry, as I see a lot of ministry efforts that attempt to be apolitical, and many that (unfortunately) are quite political. What would you say are the operating principles of your ministry? I'm certain even the political attempts at ministry I see out there attempt to claim their ministry is 'just the Bible'... but I'd be asking a question a little more specific or detailed than that.
thanks,
- reader #1482
You bring up another good point in suggesting that the model vs actual is 'pretty close'... yet that's nowhere near the precision we use for just random everyday engineering.
Yes, it's 'the best we can do', but just because it's the best we can do, doesn't make it 'good enough'. 'Good enough' depends on "for what"? And the existing work on global warming is 'good enough' for academic research. It's not something upon which bridges can be built, much less massive economic changes can be made. Yes, this is a matter of personal opinion, but 'they' don't get me on board by gradually removing couching statements even though the data hasn't changed in any significant way and ratcheting up the alarmism.
- reader #1482
If we have linear temperature growth, then the growth is still not under control. Taking until 2100, as opposed to 2050, to reach certain level is still bad when you hit that level.
Argo improved the surface ocean data, but didn't change much for the land data.
We were overall between B and C, sometimes closer to one, sometimes the other. We have also had some reduction in the rate of increase in the forcings, but not a large change, somewhere between the levels for B and C.
You said "adjust your data and have no mechanism by which to rerun your experiment", but there is no experiment, just the measurement. When they looked for the precession of Mercury, no one thought it was necessary to make Mercury redo some previous orbits in order to choose a better model.
If you look at the Wikipedia article on hockey stick graphs, you will see that there were several created. One of them is more famous that the rest, but it is not the only one.
Do you have any predictions for what the ecological impacts of solar will be? Proper cell disposal, possibly habitat concerns?
You seem very concerned about the impact to the economy. If we could find a satisfactory resolution to electrical storage (I hear there are promising things happening with capacitors), what other impacts do you foresee?
I'm sure you'd fear no scientific discrediting, but some other scientist confirming your results in some other lab is not going to persuade politicians to take action. It was decades before the tobacco industries were required to acknowledge the damage from tobacco, and that's not because the science was bad.
I appreciate you have different values. I see it as the potential harming of a human body needs better evidence than the potential we'll have to limit our ability to view a cell phone or a TV, but that probably feels like an unfair characterization to you. Then again, you have offered no details on the types of economic harms you see from acting on emission reduction.
My father is a conservative Christian, and at one point had a ministry he wanted a web page for, so I helped him with that. That's why the page is in my profile. His ministry was doing one-man shows for Biblical narratives (Sampson, Simon Peter, etc.), with no politics mixed in that I ever saw (and I believe I would have noticed :) ). He has moved on to other projects since. I'm an atheist, but more of a 'everyone has their own stupid beliefs, including me, so who am I to judge' kind of atheist.
To you, does "massive economic changes" equate to some negative outcome? Because I would venture that we will be seeing massive economic changes in the next 20 years with or without efforts to control emissions, so why not with?
I think "maybe B or C" is nowhere near the precision stated, though I do agree with you that those two possibilities would roughly line up for this very limited data. Linear growth means that the fundamental statement is wrong, as our global emissions were as predicted for model A, and model C was the "acting to save the planet" scenario. We definitely didn't do 'C', even though that's a reasonable fit (as well as B).
My point is that we simply don't know enough.... and the only argument to make is "but we can't wait until we know enough." That is not a scientific argument (I think we already agreed on this).
The astronomical data regarding the precession of mercury did not need to be revised in order to line up with general relativity. That's my main concern with the satellite temperature record. Please do not misinterpret me, I do not have any reason to believe the adjusted data is wrong, it's just that the methodology is questionable and that brings into question the reliability of the data. This is not addressed in that clip, but it's an important scientific issue.
Yeah.. my *first* issue is the reputation of science. I really do care about that... and when global warming is portrayed as a scientific conclusion and equated with gravity and the like, I feel like it's an assault on the entire discipline. If the study was as solid as it's represented, I would be fine with it.
I last taught physics at the university level a few years ago. There was one particular student (who was pretty good student, I'll say) who was absolutely indignant over the fact that I wouldn't use my position as a professor to make a statement on the conclusiveness of the AGW theory and IPCC work. I told the class that they could rely on the physics textbook (standard non-calc-based first year physics) to provide an accurate summary of the state of the investigation into AGW. I had already read and agreed with this section, which was from an absolutely correct scientific point of view. This student was absolutely livid about me effectively contributing to the problem of people not acting on global warming.
My secondary concern is the economic restructuring, and that is necessarily involved in the question of motivations when the science is pretty inconclusive. Who's going to gain from this massive industrial change? Large oil companies have been investing in wind & solar like crazy... maybe it's not their preferred route to money, but they're going to make sure they make the money either way. This, again, has nothing to do with science. But it's clear this route will not be taken without convincing the public that the science says something. So these things are linked.
anyways... best of luck
- reader #1482
Ahh.. the one thing... by 'atheist', do you mean 'agnostic'? Because I think at one point, I considered myself atheist, but then someone asked some probing questions and pointed out that I was actually agnostic, particularly because I didn't believe I could definitively rule out the existence of some entity which created the universe and may have insight into it in some fashion.
But I traded that all in a few years ago for Christianity, where I joke "yeah, I brought 40 years of atheism to the Starbucks counter and handed it over, but it was still $4.25 for the coffee." :)
- reader #1482
https://www.skepticalscience.com/Hansen-1988-prediction.htm
If we go with what we actually observed, we produced at about the rate of B, with results slightly lower than B, but higher than C (both are reasonable fits within error bars, but there is an actual observed graph that is between them). So, within the error range, B was prediction, and not wrong. They have been improving the error bars over the last 30 years.
To say 'global warming is true' more the equivalent of measuring the speed of descent of an object than it is to gravitational theory. To discuss the effects of human activities on global temperatures is more like a theory.
I have no doubt that, whether we use oil or solar, energy companies will make money. However, I can't see that as a argument for not using solar, or a description of "massive economic changes". If anything, it's an indicator of a lack of change.
The definition of atheism is not 'being able to definitively rule out God', it a lack of belief. I have no belief in any particular conception of any God/gods, therefore I am an atheist. I was just about 40 when I traded in my Christianity, and that also did not save me on the cost of a butterscotch milkshake. :) Should a truly convincing argument for the existence of a God/gods arise, I'll look into the discussion. For example, when Dr. Feser suggested I would find such an argument in his first(?) book, I went through that argument piece by piece, but found it wanting. I've looked at other arguments, as well, and have no reason to believe.
Yeah... that is more or less the statement of what faith/belief is. If there's a repeatable experiment proving that one faith is objectively correct, it's now science.
Agnosticism is the expression that the existence of God is unknown or unknowable. Generally a more detailed/accurate characterization of most claiming atheism. An agnostic is an atheist, but an atheist is not necessarily an agnostic, I suppose. I *think* only way I could strongly separate atheists and agnostics is for the atheist to say that they positively know that no creator or such exists, but I'm not certain on that.
As for 'why' the GW predictions don't match up as expected, the reasons are already in the link you mentioned, though perhaps poorly supported. We made no changes to address the issue, yet it abated. The prediction on emissions was apparently wrong. Sounds like a failed prediction either way. If it'd managed to match up, there would've been no question as to why it did, and a mistake in the projection on emissions would've been ignored. This isn't just a GW thing... I had a colleague who tried *desperately* to publish findings countermanding an existing experimental result. The detector used was basically going to provide the result published whether the phenomena explained existed or not. But there's no value to one's career in publishing refutations. This is an ongoing problem in many sciences, particularly the softer sciences, where reproducibility has come under severe scrutiny. There's a very high profile effort that's been launched, both in medical and social/psychological fields, to determine how much of publications are real, and how much are irreproducible. It hasn't bled over to the harder sciences, and I *believe* that they will be much less impacted, but this is the kind of stuff that causes.... NIF... a $10b+ dud laser.
- reader #1482
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-05/economic-equality-is-key-to-solving-climate-change-report-shows
... but global warming is much like economics... so it kind of makes sense that people would link the two, even though neither are actually science (obviously excepting sub-regions like rigorous atmospheric science).
- reader #1482
While I thank you for describing what you believe most people think regarding atheism, I hope you'll understand that I only take that as a description of what you felt when you were an atheist. Saying the existence of God is unknown or unknowable is like saying the existence of unicorns it unknown or unknowable. There are many definitions of unicorns, and many definitions of God. Some of those definitions for either can be ruled out completely, some are technically possible yer completely without evidence, and some twist the understanding into something possible, but not very close to the general image. So, it's not true I can say "unicorns positively do not exist", nor can I say "God positively does not exist". Let's refine the concept first, and then we can talk about existence.
Nor do agnostics necessarily lack all belief, many of them are almost indistinguishable from deists. Some say there there is an impenetrable (at least, to us) barrier between the material and the spiritual, so that in principal we can never learn anything about a God they nonetheless make a provisional acceptance of.
It's true that Hansen's 1988 model was imperfect, just like Newton's model of gravitation. Both have been replaced with better models. I find your division of science there to be convenient. Economics, I agree with a little more with you.
I'd still like to hear what your feared "massive economic changes" are, the ones that would prevent us from moving forward relying on the best knowledge we have.
Newton's model of gravitation is correct within an *extremely* wide range of phenomena. It took hundreds of years to come up with a model that described the precession of Mercury, and even then, it was not accepted immediately because a new theory attempting to explain an already observed phenomenon, is not nearly as persuasive as a new theory explaining something that has yet to be tested. There were other attempts to explain the precession of Mercury, but general relativity explains a very large body of measurements which eliminate many other models. It was those other measurements which provided actual veracity to the theory, as proper as its derivation looked.
In comparison, Hansen's work was atrocious at best.
Economic restructuring has no motivator... as with all of economics, it's impossible to prove macroscopic effects, but there will certainly be massive changes and likely a lot of collateral damage and movement of wealth. I am deeply suspicious of the motivations for moving a great chunk of wealth out of existing hands for trumped up reasons.
Now *if* certain energy sources become more financially feasible... fine... I'm all for lower energy rates for those having a hard time paying their bills already. But if instead it comes with a massive carbon tax and jacking up gas taxes (regressive), then... no.
But even if we switch entirely to renewables because they're cheaper, we still have a scientific snafu that needs to be resolved... ie, the overstatement of results based upon alarmist predictions.
afaik, (number of deities) <= { 0 -> atheism, 1 -> monotheism, >1 -> polytheism, ? -> agnosticism }
but I suppose it doesn't really matter the words used really.
- reader #1482
There will be massive changes, collateral damage, and movement of wealth in the next 20 years, whether we address emissions or not. Also, earlier you were pointing out that the same energy companies using fossil fuels today were also preparing to cash in on renewable energy, so I don't see a great chunk of wealth being moved out of existing hands for this reason; it just changes how they generate wealth.
Hansen was putting together what he could, if you have a better model from the 1980s, what is it? I don't see why we have to make the perfect the enemy of the good here.
I agree the words don't matter. Sometimes they confuse rather than clarify.
The public conflation of "reasonably the best that science can provide" with "accurate enough to make major changes for no other compelling reason (because it's 'science')" is a primary flaw of AGW proponents.
Again, this is the type of argument that could be (and is) used by vaccine deniers. The science is no better for Gardasil than for global warming. Both are supported by minor, controlled experiments that have to be projected into complicated, long-range models that declare their effectiveness.
If you also claimed that science supporting vaccines was insufficient, then I could respect your consistency while disagreeing. However, you seem to support vaccine science while deriding climate science, which I see as inconsistent. Then again, we are allowed to be inconsistent, I suppose.
Vaccines are most definitely on a case-by-case basis. All my kids are vaccinated (though health complications required an alternative schedule for one), but I still don't think the state should compel vaccinations.
Again... different levels and motivations... it's okay to not have everything fit into a nice blanket rule.
I find vaccine evidence for most vaccines quite compelling, but I don't consider the herd immunity to be compelling in and of itself, and yes, I've had a child going an extended period of time with an immune compromise. The value in vaccines is high enough for each individual, that very few who don't vax (not that many people really that crazy, imo, at least of those who are here and legal/documented), and outbreaks are very quickly found and addressed. What I haven't seen, is an anti-vaxxer squarely responsible for the infection of an immune compromised child. Would be interested to see that. I spent a long time looking, but I only read threats and speculation, and I suspect the odds are so small that it just doesn't happen. Immune compromising medications or conditions are pretty uncommon, and many children affected in such way aren't mainstreamed in education already.
Honestly, I'm hoping the "force anti-vaxxers to vax their kids" movement can just go away with a shift of education to improved technology. Schools are pretty outmoded now. I live in a 'top' school district, but my kids learn their reading, writing, math, science, and history from books and selectively chosen apps. Supposedly kids should go to school to learn how to socialize, but I've found that to be just a euphemism for "learn how to bully others".
My opinion: to many parents are too busy maximizing their careers to care about how their children treat others. I suspect you may be in general agreement with me on this sub-point, even if we disagree on the larger picture.
best of luck
- reader #1482
It took all of five seconds to google an example of an immune-compromised woman who got measles, and died, after an outbreak among the unvaccinated. She was in a medical facility at a time one of the unvaccinated people would have been infectious.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/GeneralInfectiousDisease/52473
http://reason.com/blog/2015/07/08/immune-compromised-woman-dies-of-measles
If you really want to understand the vaccine debate, I would humbly suggest the blog Respectful Insolence. It's devoted to promoting science-based medicine.
By near-definition, immune compromised people can nearly only contract measles from an unvaccinated person. That's typically how measles spreads: person to person, perhaps through an object or ventillation.
But there's no indication the person who was infected and transmitted measles was an anti-vaxxer. The article did include an admonishment against anti-vaxxers, which is why it shows up in a 5-second google search. I do support efforts to make sure vaccines are available to and encouraged for everybody.
I have not read of a case where an anti-vaxxer (somebody who deliberately refuses vaccines for themselves or their children, typically based upon misinformed medical assumptions) caused transmission of measles to an immune-compromised person. Anti-vaxxers are rare.. unvaccinated people are common.
My point is that herd-immunity theory is not compelling for government purposes at this time, and there's no reason to believe it is an impending threat.
The downside of accepting herd-immunity theory, is that it transfers medical decisions from the parents of a child to the state. Having personally ignored state certified doctors only to have a procedure done at a top medical research university in a different state that even stanford doctors have congratulated us on making 'the correct gut call', I don't want the right of medical decision-making usurped by the state without *compelling* reason. Again, I can be convinced, but it's an uphill battle, and that battle would *start* by showing cases where it's a problem.
Having had the same kid be immune-compromised, we took extreme precautions and assumed that many people are unvaccinated or insufficiently vaccinated, even if they're not anti-vaxxers. Any other assumption is dangerous, though I do very much like it when parents of other children volunteer their kids vax status!
- reader #1482
Perhaps there is some confusion of terms here. Since the measles vaccine is only 97% effective with two doses, you can acquire the measles from a vaccinated person form whom the vaccine schedule did not take.
However, even if the infection did not directly occur through an anti-vaxxer, it is the anti-vaxxers who are responsible for the ability of a disease to have an outbreak to begin with.
Vaccines have been the standard of care for over 50 years (since I was a an age to be vaccinated). Who are all these people who did not get vaccinated but are not anti-vaxxers? People who never saw a doctor as a child? Do you have any evidence they are much more common than those who refuse to vaccinate, given that measles outbreaks have been occurring in relatively well-off, suburban areas?
Measles was eliminated in the US (12 months without a single case). Then, anti-vax fever took hold, and now it is back. Even though there are few deaths, hospitalizations and encephalitis does occur. Measles has a cost to everyone, even if we don't get it ourselves. It raises our insurance rates (for those using private insurance) and our taxes (to pay for Medicaid/Medicare).
I don't know anything about your correct 'gut call', but I find the safety of the immuno-compromised and the money out of my wallet to be good reasons for requiring vaccinations.
'Money out of my wallet' is justification for anything, including denying my kid a chance to walk, or banning motorcycles. I suspect you kind of threw that in there, as I can see how there's a value in having these things connect to us personally, even if tangentially.
You really only mentioned it at the very end, so I'll assume this is mainly about the safety of the immune-compromised.
Yeah, I suspect outbreaks of measles are predominantly surrounding undocumented/illegal immigrant interfaces, as those numbers have been growing significantly and these are people who typically don't have access to healthcare.
That would be a political firestorm of a study, even if such a study purported to show no difference in vaccination rates.
I still think anti-vaxxers are a nearly immeasurably small minority, which is why I think the discussion is really about state intrusion into the parent-child relationship more than actual public safety. My impression is that this intrusion is an ongoing effort, even if not directed by an intelligent entity.
Discussing the outbreaks of January 1–August 24, 2013:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6236a2.htm
Most cases were in persons who were unvaccinated (131 [82%]) or had unknown vaccination status (15 [9%]). Thirteen (8%) of the patients had been vaccinated, of whom three had received 2 doses of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Among 140 U.S. residents who acquired measles, 117 (84%) were unvaccinated, and 11(8%) had unknown vaccination status. Of those who were unvaccinated, 92 (79%) had philosophical objections to vaccination, six (5%) had missed opportunities for vaccination, 15 (13%) occurred among infants aged <12 months who were not eligible for vaccination, and for four (3%) the reason for no vaccination was unknown (Figure 3).
Of those 146 cases, 79 (over half) were anti-vaxxer.
Yeah, I suspect outbreaks of measles are predominantly surrounding undocumented/illegal immigrant interfaces, as those numbers have been growing significantly and these are people who typically don't have access to healthcare.
Mexico is almost measles-free. Most of the Central/South American countries have vaccine rates comparable or better than ours. You can suspect anything you want, but that is not where the data leads.
I do think it's quite good news that it's the anti-vaxxers who are mostly getting measles. If the opposite were true, we'd certainly be in a pickle! But it's also not necessarily true that those 'philosophically opposed' to vaccines are anti-vaxxers. A good chunk of those are likely of a certain religious subset, probably similar to those who refuse blood transfusions (and have always done so, such that this is no recent difference or cause of some theorized new measles threat). I think the anti-vaxxer monicker has generally been reserved more for the 'conspiracy theorist' bent (ie, believing vaccines cause autism because this british Wakefield idiot published this.. stupid... retracted... piece of crap).
This is a thinning process that's already removed the general population and is thus only analyzing those who have had measles (and probably only those who have been hospitalized by it or have been willing to risk going to a hospital for it).
Good data, but doesn't really talk about undocumented/illegal immigrants. The question also isn't whether mexico, guatemale, honduras, el salvador, or whoever has good vaccination rates. Perhaps the outreach efforts to that group in the US is effective. Perhaps they report incidents like the rest of the population. I do know that there's been numerous reports of problems within California where undocumented/illegal immigrant children cannot be ascertained as to their vaccination status, as asking such questions tends to get them pulled out of school. That's a problem with having 'illegal' people in the first place.
I certainly appreciate you challenging me on this, because I think it's boiled down my concern with regards to state coercion of immunization such that I can describe my position better:
---
I'm concerned that the patent unfairness of the 'free rider' effect creates an emotional response in many people that clouds their objective analysis of the issue.
---
I'm not saying this applies to you, or perhaps anybody in particular, but I'll now be on watch specifically for pundits expressing their righteous indignation about free riders in calling for coercion of vaccinations.
Here's a wikipedia graphic showing response to vaccinations in elimination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#/media/File:Measles_cases_coverage_eastern_mediterranean.jpg
It's not clear to me whether vaccination rates or time is the dominant driver there.
I do think it's quite good news that it's the anti-vaxxers who are mostly getting measles. If the opposite were true, we'd certainly be in a pickle! But it's also not necessarily true that those 'philosophically opposed' to vaccines are anti-vaxxers. A good chunk of those are likely of a certain religious subset, probably similar to those who refuse blood transfusions (and have always done so, such that this is no recent difference or cause of some theorized new measles threat). I think the anti-vaxxer monicker has generally been reserved more for the 'conspiracy theorist' bent (ie, believing vaccines cause autism because this british Wakefield idiot published this.. stupid... retracted... piece of crap).
Again, measles were eliminated from the US for 6 months back in 2000, and since then they have been up-and-down. We had all those religious subgroups back in the 90s and 00s, what changed was the rise of the anti-vaxxer movement.
Good data, but doesn't really talk about undocumented/illegal immigrants. The question also isn't whether mexico, guatemale, honduras, el salvador, or whoever has good vaccination rates.
Where do you think most of the undocumented/illegal immigrants come from?
Perhaps the outreach efforts to that group in the US is effective. Perhaps they report incidents like the rest of the population. I do know that there's been numerous reports of problems within California where undocumented/illegal immigrant children cannot be ascertained as to their vaccination status, as asking such questions tends to get them pulled out of school. That's a problem with having 'illegal' people in the first place.
More accurately, it's a problem with them being constantly afraid of deportation.
I'm concerned that the patent unfairness of the 'free rider' effect creates an emotional response in many people that clouds their objective analysis of the issue.
Possibly true in my case, I have to admit.
Here's a wikipedia graphic showing response to vaccinations in elimination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity#/media/File:Measles_cases_coverage_eastern_mediterranean.jpg
It's not clear to me whether vaccination rates or time is the dominant driver there.
Time alone can't be the driver. If not vaccination rates, it would be something else.
Here's an article that evaluates *some* of the basic maths.. then says "but networking effects kill this analysis" and calls for 100% vaccination on that basis (flimsy) and 'ethical/free-rider reasons'.
http://theconversation.com/herd-immunity-and-measles-why-we-should-aim-for-100-vaccination-coverage-36868
I agree with facts, but come to a (maybe) different conclusion.. namely, that even if it's a good idea, it doesn't rise to the standard of government compulsion. I say 'maybe' because the article doesn't clearly call for a universal mandatory vaccination law. It's roughly inferred, but i'm not going to put words in their mouth. That last point about free-riders is indeed what I think clouds the objectivity of people performing this kind of analysis. It's offensive to think about free riders who a) are not taking the same risks as the rest of us (there *are* risks to vaccinations, they're just minuscule in comparison to the anti-vaxxer perception) and b) potentially putting immune-compromised people at risk. It makes sense that this would make people angry, but that doesn't change the science behind it and is no excuse for overhyping the anti-vaxxer threat.
- reader #1482
The question is how much value there is in stepping on the rights of people to determine their own medical decisions.
If a vaccination rate of 90% eliminates a disease in about the same time frame as a 100% vaccination rate, and misinformed anti-vaxxers and others failings to get vaccinations represent 2% of the population, then there's no value to invoking the jackboot thuggery of government coercion, except to invoke government coercion, which sometimes has its own purpose.
- reader #1482
The article also failed to discuss vaccine failure, where a portion of the population who are immunized are still susceptible to the disease.
I appreciate you think of "government coercion" as an evil in and of itself. However, I don't what requiring vaccinations does to improve anyone's life from the standpoint of government coercion. The market is competitive enough that vaccines are low-profit, the CDC gains no extra budget, etc.
Also, since government coercion is basically an argument about values, morals, and choices, and opinions on free riding are also about values, opinions, and choices, why does removing the concept of free riders from the discussion suddenly make it more objective? I would say your own feelings about government coercion are no more objective than other people's opinions on free riders.
I intended my point to indicate that when people are discussing this particular topic, they should recognize that the free rider effect is very emotionally charged and may obscure the objective, scientific discussion.
I think that in pointing this out, people at least attempt to address it, rather than have it possibly motivating a slanted view of the actual underlying science. That's kind of how this topic ties in to global warming. There's a lot of emotional content that doesn't belong in an actual scientific discussion. I see this with university students *all* the time. Nobody gets indignant if I'm not convinced that dark energy exists. But not being convinced that global warming is manmade and going to be a disaster for life on earth, that's sacrilege to students now, and has been for the better part of a decade. I'm not saying this is how *you* approach it, it's just something very common that shouldn't be happening when invoking 'science' in a discussion.
- reader #1482
Anti-vaxxers, themselves, as very small in number and not an actual threat. We can avoid creating precedents where the government usurps family medical independence and leave that for the UK. :)
- reader #1482
Let's be honest about this: arguments like "usurps family medical independence" and "massive economic changes" are emotional arguments, as well. People with these emotional outlooks also have a slanted view of the underlying sciences. After all, that is human nature, and we are all human. The desire to act now (regarding global warming) under the current level of certainty is an emotional desire, so is the desire to not act.
Measles was at one point eliminated in the US (that is, no cases of transmission in the US), and has been in Mexico. Whatever you think of the anti-vaxxer numbers, they are large enough that we now get hundreds of cases of measles transmitted, including to some who are immune-compromised. Perhaps that's not a threat to you; the immune-compromised may feel differently. Again, the decision to require vaccinations, or not to require them, is an emotional decision.
Our government was formed as a 'limited' government. To me, staying in that spirit means not invoking government coercion of the people when it's not clearly necessary.
Vague claims and scare tactics "Anti-vaxxers are threatening our immune compromised, and you can't conclusively prove they're not!" is not satisfactory to me.
Some people have more trust in the government and I can see them being more okay with pushing regulation further into people's individual lives. I'm not sure it's a good idea to trust an institution that interned an entire ethnicity, nuked a couple cities, made even worse conventional examples of others, and tortures enemies all across the globe. These acts are just fine as a government protecting itself, but none of them inspire trust that I would want it as anything more than the 'limited governance' that was originally envisioned. Those examples aren't representative of a negative opinion of the US government by me.. it's just a recognition that the US is a dangerous tool and, like any weapon, must be respected and used very carefully. That's just my perspective of it... others will have theirs.
- reader #1482
I respect your opinions (and emotions) of the intended scope of our federal government, although there has been debate on that even before the Constitution was ratified. However, that's a little misplaced here, as mandatory immunization laws are state laws, and under the founding documents, states had *more* power over there citizens than they do today.
The argument is actually that anti-vaxxers are the best explanation for measles having returned to the US after having been eliminated. We can see that in the historical pattern and the current spread of the disease. If you have a better explanation, I am listening. Of course, if "best explanation" means the same to you as "can't prove otherwise", and you want to equate "spread by anti-vaxxers" with "garden fairies", not much more for me to say on that.
I agree that we need to have limits on federal power, but again, this is an issue for the states, not the feds. I suppose you could say the same about most state governments, to a degree.
Yeah, I do commend the federal government, thus far, from staying out of it. It's a big temptation for them to step in, and they haven't. That concept goes all the way down though. It's not "the state can never interfere with the individual or family", but "the state has to tread most carefully when interfering with the individual or family".
If the theory is: "anti-vaxxers who have traveled abroad are bringing measles back into the country", then... well.. I'm going to be very skeptical of that conditional probability working out.
Anti-vaxxers, in my experience, aren't so smart or educated, and are unlikely to be traveling internationally. Certainly there may be some, but ... again... nobody is providing numbers on anti-vaxxers (as a distinct sub-group of unvaccinated).
Is it impossible that there are anti-vaxxers bringing measles in from underdeveloped countries? No.
It seems more likely to be typically unvaccinated/under-vaccinated people who aren't actually anti-vaxxers.
I do have a concern that is both logical and emotional with regards government coercion, but I do not conflate that emotional response with science. I'm also not saying you do this, but I am saying that it is a common thought-syndrome for people to get upset about the 'free-rider problem' and then overstate the legitimacy of herd immunity with respect to populations of apparently very unknown size, like anti-vaxxers (as a distinct sub-group of unvaccinated people, again).
That's kind of all I'm saying... people shouldn't overstate the science, or abuse its name to back up their emotionally-charged positions. I've made the same mistake before, and been thankfully called out for it, as unappreciative as I might've been at the time. It happens, with vaccines and global warming among other things. People should be on guard for it.
- reader #1482
I agree the state, and the school boards (who are usually the ones making the vaccination requirements, though this probably varies), should tread lightly, and a vaccination requirement is lightly treading.
While some outbreaks may be from traveling, unvaccinated, US citizens, other outbreaks start from visiting, unvaccinated foreign nationals visiting the US, and are spread among the unvaccinated.
Vaccine outbreaks tend to occur in the upper-middle-class suburbs, to my understanding. So, perhaps not so smart, but often well-educated, to the point of being more vulnerable to the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I agreed with the need to for caution on emotionally charged issues, when arguing for either direction.
Post a Comment