Climate ’science’ not particularly scientific
Cliemate ’scientists’ seem to think that they are ’special’, that the accepted rules of scientific research don’t apply to them…
One might expect climate researchers to formulates hypotheses, then test those hypotheses by running objective data through models and comparing / evaluating the results..?
Even if this were the case climate ’science’ differs from REAL science in that the models used are far from objective and can be tweaked to produce vastly divergent results, however, as this extract from a recent article explains, it’s FAR worse than that in practice…
It’s quite emblematic of how climate science has been conducted over the past ten years. The Upside Down Data is fine anyway, we’re told, because we all know it’s getting warmer; it’s fine to use upside down data, because the data fits. It’s blessed as an OK thing to do.
What amazed me in your account is the testimony by one climatologist, D’Arrigo, who told the Senate that cherry-picking is OK, that if you get “a good climatic story” (her words) from the data, then you can throw away the data that doesn’t suit the results. Torture the numbers until they confess, you call it.
It’s one of those things where you do a double take and ask yourself ‘did she really mean to say that?’. And perhaps there is some explanation for what she said and we’ve all got the wrong end of the stick, but as it was reported, yes, she said cherry picking was acceptable. There are other people working in the same area who have said the same thing.
One paleoclimatologist called Jan Esper has said you can throw away the bits that don’t give you the right answer – and it’s an advantage ‘unique to climatalogy’. Yes, they say it, and seem to believe it.
This isn’t science, is it?
No, it isn’t science. This is something Edward Wegman, the statistician who did a report into the science said – it’s not science. The cardinal rule is you decide your methodology and data, and see what comes out at the end. You don’t decide what you want at the end, then choose the data and methodology that gives you the ‘right answer’.
Bishop Hill: Gonzo science and the Hockey Stick
Torturing the climate numbers until they confess
“You don’t decide what you want at the end, then choose the data and methodology that gives you the ‘right answer’”, but this is exactly what climate ’scientists’ are doing, and governments are happy to fund and promote them so long as they continue to make predictions which feed their political agendas.
A leftie AND a climate skeptic? You must get lonely.
Not sure what I think about climate change, really. Tend to accept it as vaguely legit, although the fiasco at the University of East Anglia was shameful. Not sure I can leap from that to a generalization about all climate scientists, though.
I’m not so much criticising the scientists as the discipline it’s self which I believe is following methods and procedures which are far from scientific ;oP
Are you getting paranoid in your old age?! Don’t join the sceptics/ conspirists and deniers…messgeboards are their home and they doth multiply in vast amounts!
A poll in 2009 by Pure Research in USA stated that 76% of scientists think that ‘News’ does not differentiate between ‘well formed logical arguements’ and ‘bullshit’ (I’m para phrasing here). Perhaps for 1 stupid mistake reported in the press there are 10 published papers (much more I think) that go unreported. As the vast majority of the public couldn’t give a toss about the statistical evidence from tree rings for global warming….but leaked e-mails hinting at a massive scientific global conscpiracy..??? Whoa you’ve got me there!!
I’m not basing my assertions on media reports or conspiracy theories, but purely on comments, criticisms and published papers from WITHIN the scientific community (of which I’ve read rather a lot as it happens).
Neither am I dismissing climate change theory as a whole, of course the climate is changing, I’m just suggesting that there may be other more significant factors, like the effect of that big fiery ball in the sky on the worlds oceans and atmosphere for instance..?!
Current climate models largely dismiss solar activity as a causative factor in recent warming on the basis that the sun has in fact shown slight cooling over the last 35 years while temperatures have risen, however, reputable studies have shown that there is an approximate 200 year gap between the action of solar warming on the oceans, and a related change in atmospheric CO2, basically the oceans are such a massive ‘radiator’ that it takes a couple of hundred years from adjusting the thermostat to seeing the related change in global CO2 levels.
The criticisms in the article extract I’ve used relate to direct quotes from ‘respected’ climate scientists and I’ve shown it here just to highlight one aspect of concern, the supposedly acceptable ‘cherry picking’ of results to produce a good ‘climate story’, something which has been widely criticised but continues to form part of the basis foe current projections. (The distinctive ‘hockey stick’ graph showing a recent temperature rise appears repeatedly still even though it has been largely discredited as a blatant manipulation of the data to show a less pronounced medieval warming period and more acute modern temperature rise).
A Recent paper by five eminent Japanese climate scientists was hugely critical of widespread methods, practices and conclusions that are now driving significant sections of national and international economic policy and concluded that human activity was likely not the main causative factor in modern climate change, and yet literally TRILLIONS of dollars in taxes, relief spending, carbon trading etc. depend on this science…
There is a LOT of contrary opinion, both within the field of Paleoclimatology, and from within related disciplines but it’s just not being heard or having anything like the effect it should have because the accepted ‘facts’ of climate science are challenged at the peril of any scientist’s reputation / funding.
I could write a more detailed critique based on specific published data but then ‘real’ scientists would just dismiss this blog as a ‘dodgy message board’, if ‘real’ scientist can’t get their object criticisms of climate science heard or taken seriously, what chance do I have?