Thread: Global Warming oops itself again

There was a prominent climate skeptic who commissioned a study of his own recently because he wanted to look at all the real data himself (like several of you he didn't trust the information being released). After the study was finished (confirming AGW) he changed his tune.

O_o

Strangely enough, there was a prominent proponent of anthropogenic global warming who was denied access to the real data. After the request was made public, he went out of his way to distance himself from models derived from that data in favor of other sources.

The "lost" data represents a serious problem if that's all you are going by regardless of your conclusions.

Seriously, that data is now polluted by bad science; you should stop trying to discuss the validity of climate change and causes thereof by means of that data.

Look more carefully at this thread; a good portion of commentators, agree or disagree with various conclusions, are complaining precisely because that bad science is being pushed as good science.

Soma

Originally Posted by phantomotap

O_o

Strangely enough, there was a prominent proponent of anthropogenic global warming who was denied access to the real data. After the request was made public, he went out of his way to distance himself from models derived from that data in favor of other sources.

The "lost" data represents a serious problem if that's all you are going by regardless of your conclusions.

Soma

I had to go back and read the CRU story, up until now I was a bit confused with the term "lost data". I agree it's untrustworthy, which sucks. Science has a pretty strong epistemological underpinning that generally catches such things. Most scientific hoaxes, or just limitations on measuring, were discovered by science itself.

As a lay person, I don't really have a base of knowledge on the methodology being used, I just have to use what I know of epistemology to determine if a thing is trustworthy. So it's good to know about this.

As a lay person, I don't really have a base of knowledge on the methodology being used, I just have to use what I know of epistemology to determine if a thing is trustworthy. So it's good to know about this.

O_o

What you are referencing is ultimately why I came off the fence on the "human is best explanation" side of the debate.

The scientists in that particular video managed to explain their methods of processing the data and problems with data, before and after processing, extremely well.

*shrug*

Sad really that a sufficiently clear explanation without "Oh. My. God. GLOBAL WARMING." was something motivating a change of opinion...

[Edit]
As in, that should really be the norm.
[/Edit]

[Edit]
>_<

I hope no one has interpreted my comments here as implying that I have enough of a background to rebuild temperature models from, say, the tree data.

I don't Earth science or Atmospheric science nearly well enough for that sort of thing.
[/Edit]

Soma

Originally Posted by Alpo

The media tends to distort science even when it's not a political at all.

The media is not the only one discrediting science. Other sectors of the society have been doing a good job at it. The political sectors for various reasons, but also the academia itself with their grant motivated so-called scientific studies of penises labs or that expensive wedding rings result in an higher divorce rate.

The media real problem is not so much that they exacerbate a declining scientific community. It is that by refusing to put research in proper context for editorial reasons (often to do with the fact they consider their readers ignorant idiots), the media ends up training their readers/viewers to look at science as a homogeneous community of "Them". And then these readers/viewers question why "They" make contradictory claims. Science is portrayed as a chaotic and unstable medium, which serves just nice in the hands of the "merchants of doubt"; usually, the political sector, certain economic interests, and various faiths.

The scientific community itself is responsible for this state of affairs. Not only it is being infected from within with so little work being done in the ways of discrediting bad science (because of good manners and so forth), but it is also losing and not renewing some of their best communicators. The academia is failing more so because it is training many of their future scientists in a culture of public figure and in irresponsible and inconsequential research. In fact, one of the most distressing elements of modern university research is how little it has to do with actual scientific research and how much it has to do with statistics. University labs must be the emptiest places in modern universities if we were to look at how many so-called scientific studies are about phoning, sampling and surveying.

Originally Posted by Nominal Animal

Is money the new God, then?

If money is not the new God, why would you even seriously consider that doing nothing is the best course of action?

There is no god.

No. There is no god. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that such a being exists.

We don't know what's out there, but it's certainly not a god.

True, "god" is a relative term. So what if your definition of "god", such that you claim that "gods" exist?
No religion I know of claims that we are "gods" to ants. Or dogs.

Originally Posted by Nominal Animal

I'm just sad that instead of discussing what we could do -- even if in the purely theoretical sense --, you've fallen into the trap of wondering whether there is any reason to do anything at all. That stance will only drive mankind toward eusocial insularity.

As opposed to group paranoia?

I don't subscribe to the view that we must discuss what we could do, when we don't even know what is going on and what's the severity level. And especially not when measures must be taken in a worldwide economic context which is far from being at its best. The debate around Global Warming exists exactly to establish a scientific background that can help better understand what can and should be done and what are the costs involved.

I find repulsive the whole notion that we must discuss what we can do to "save the planet". And your comparison to Semmelweis even more repulsive. While you link to a man that reached his conclusions through a rigorous application of the scientific method and was ignored by a non scientific establishment, you then conclude that we should ignore any scientific approach and respond on a basis of faith and "just in case". That's a profound contradiction, if I ever saw one, and history didn't repeat itself, as you claim it did. On the other hand your speech will play nicely on the hands of the doomsayers.

Originally Posted by Nominal Animal

If money is not the new God, why would you even seriously consider that doing nothing is the best course of action?

Money flows in a society through the application of economic models. Any course of action against Global Warming involves knowing the costs (direct and indirect) as well as the benefits. Without this knowledge you won't know whether the economic impact a measure can take will match its benefits. If you feel we should just throw in the cash without any regard to the consequences, or even whether that will actually do any good, I wish you luck trying to spread that doctrine in a world that depends on money to build a stable society and in a world where the impoverished nations are tired of global economic crisis created by the rich countries.

Originally Posted by Elysia

There is no god.

I'm an atheist myself, but saying there is no god is almost meaningless. The term God means whatever a person wants it to. In fact whenever I have to talk to someone about it, I always ask them to define what they are even talking about ("energy", "Universal constants", "love", and "You know what God is you idiot" are all pretty fun ones lol).

Originally Posted by MutantJohn;

We don't actually know where existence came from. After all, why should anything exist at all? Why do things exist and they are and not others?

This is a reasonable thing to wonder, but answering any of the questions with a supernatural mind begs the question. You start with, "Why is there something instead of nothing?", but that question applies equally to anything you could posit to explain it.

Besides that, it sort of assumes the default position of reality is to not exist. This requires a sort of inductive reasoning ( Everything we know has a cause, therefore everything we don't know must also ).