“This world is a strange madhouse. Currently, every coachman and every waiter is debating whether relativity theory is correct. Belief in this matter depends on political party affiliation.”
So wrote Albert Einstein in a letter to his one time collaborator, the mathematician Marcel Grossmann in 1920.
Jeroen van Dongen of the Institute for History and Foundations of Science at Utrecht University in Holland, writing in a recent edition of the journal, ‘Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics,’ describes the effectiveness of the movement that grew up to oppose Einstein’s theory. There are some striking parallels with today’s climate debate.
At a time when The Guardian just reported another poll showing a drop in concern about climate change, and a New York Times front page this week described Britons’ growing doubts about the science, its worth taking a look at that anti-science campaign, which was waged by Einstein’s critics because like today’s climate denial movement, the anti-relativity movement had some success too.
Van Dongen highlights:
“Anti-relativists… built up networks to act against Einstein’s theory in concert. This led to some success. For instance, the clamor about the theory in Germany contributed to the Nobel Committee’s delay in awarding its 1921 prize to Einstein and to the particular choice of subject for which he finally did receive it: his account of the photo-electric effect, instead of the controversial theory of relativity.”
He continues:
“Anti-relativists were convinced that their opinions were being suppressed. Indeed, many believed that conspiracies were at work that thwarted the promotion of their ideas. The fact that for them relativity was obviously wrong, yet still so very successful, strengthened the contention that a plot was at play.”
Van Dongen concludes:
“Conspiracies theories tend to do well in uncertain times: they create order in chaos….Just as there is no real point in debating conspiracy theorists, there was no point in explaining relativity to anti-relativists… Their strong opposition was not due to a lack of understanding, but rather the reaction to a perceived threat… Anti-relativists were convinced of their own ideas, and were really only interested in pushing through their own theories: any explanation of relativity would not likely have changed their minds.”
Despite the well-intentioned efforts of some climate scientists like Professor Rapley of the Science Museum, it’s not apparent that a repeated explanation of the basics of climate science is what will help in the face of the latest disinformation campaigns on global warming.
As I’ve documented elsewhere, prolific climate deniers such as Ian Plimer, James Delingpole and Christopher Booker who deliberately spread untruths on climate change can be wrong 99% of the time and right for less than 1% of the time and still ‘win the argument’ because the playing field simply isn’t level. Equally, the IPCC can be right 99% of the time and wrong less than 1% of the time, and they still ‘lose.’ As Dr. Robert J. Brulle of Drexel University, whom the NYT quoted last year as “an expert on environmental communications,” told Climate Progress:
“It is well known in both sociology and communications that public opinion is largely shaped by media coverage. So the shift in public opinion about climate change is linked to the nature of mainstream media coverage of the so-called “climategate scandal.”
It is not a surprise that public concern about climate change should have been dented following such a fierce media and smear campaign by a coalition of fossil fuel industries (well documented in the case of Koch industries and Exxon) and conservative ‘think tanks’ (covered extensively by Desmogblog and Climateprogress in a US context, and exposed to a less extent in the UK) which have peddled disinformation for decades to deny this fact.
As the US blogger David Roberts wrote for Grist in response to separate polls on US public opinion in relation to global warming:
“Polls about climate science get treated like the results of some contest between two ideological interest groups. It becomes a horserace story –”Democrats/environmentalists are losing” — rather than a story about danger to public health. It’s about environmentalists’ failure to persuade rather than the anti-scientific obscurantism that’s completely overtaken the Republican party, with financial support from large corporate interests….If I can’t convince a guy standing in a downpour that it’s raining, seems to me the dumb ass in the rain is the story, not my poor messaging.”
Who can disagree with Roberts’ conclusion?
“It may be helpful to understand these affective responses of the public, but they are no substitute for science and pragmatism in policymaking. Ultimately leaders are going to have to acknowledge the problem and deal with it. Waiting until all the polls line up is a gutless dereliction of duty.”
Climate change? Try evolution!
Could you give a fuller bibliographic reference? My academic library has the journal, but I can’t find Van Dongen’s article (or any article by a Jeroen Van Dongen), and your link doesn’t work.
(Here it is: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13552198. – Joss)
Great post.
Re: “Ultimately leaders are going to have to acknowledge the problem and deal with it. Waiting until all the polls line up is a gutless dereliction of duty.”
Funny thing about democratic republics: we don’t really want our leaders to lead. We want them to follow the public will except in a few sacred spaces we call our rights. The best leadership in the US comes from persuasion not dictate. Even then persuasion depends heavily on the actual experiences of its audience.
An interesting follow up to this post would examine the broader policy consequences of relativist/anti-relativist debate on society. Climate change is about a lot more than theoretical constructs and hypothesis testing. I suspect policy decisions on global warming, pro or con, affect people’s lives much more directly in the short term than the relativity debate did.
So you are comparing belief in a theory with what is being peddled as indisputable fact?
Your appeal to the intellect is fooling no one. The veil has been lifted, the science faulty at best.
The people pushing this message have obvious alternate motives and you are acting either willingly, coerced or inadvertently on their behalf.
The ‘conspiracy theory’ against the IPCC holds more water with factual evidence than any of the models to date, yet you still attempt to rationalize this by posing with Einstein, claiming some kin to his efforts.
Shame on you and your ilk for this travesty. The most honest estimates of what climate change will actually be fall well within the range of the margin of error over the data sets they have mostly contrived.
A colleague that I really respect sent me a link to a website that explained his Global Warming denial beliefs. It was an adjunct to a website about West Virginia fossils that had graphs and links and quotes that made it look authorative but when the surface was scratched it was all easily refutable. Once again, the guy who sent it to me is a smart guy and he should have recognized that an obscure web site by an un-named author is not really reliable but it confirmed his beliefs so he bought it. The quote above sums my frustration about convincing a guy standing in a downpour that it is raining. What do you do?
Physicists were eventually able to devise experiments that enabled them to test and confirm the principles of relativity. However, anthropogenic global warming is not a testable hypothesis as it is currently constructed. As a theory, it is more comparable to the social sciences than any theory of physics, in that it attempts to predict future behavior (of the environment) based on a potentially incorrect historical record and a potentially incomplete set of variables about the behavior of global climate. It is far more reasonable to doubt in the present a theory that can only be confirmed with the passage of time, than a mathematically derived physical theory that is regularly and easily testable in the natural world, given the right equipment.
It is funny that people doubted relativity though.
What? Why must leaders deal with it? Human nature is to ignore a problem until it starts killing mass numbers then blame someone else for it.
@ James: Its number 9 here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13552198. I’m sorry the link broke.
Einstein didn’t hide data, didn’t lose data, didn’t attack sceptics, and (most importantly) used others to confirm his predictions in an open manner that anyone could replicate.
In other words, he was a scientist.
The general idea here is correct, but the application of it is uneven. Not only do conservatives tend by sheer political orientation to doubt global warming, because that conforms to various beliefs they have not just about the natural world, but about liberals themselves, but liberal also tend to believe in man-made global warming because it fits not just their political ideology and but a narrative they have about the evils of technology and mankind’s gluttony and self-destructiveness.In both cases the actual scientific evidence tends to be tilted heavily in the direction that supports their biases, and evidence to the contrary is ignored.
The problem is immediately evident in the characterization of skeptics as “deniers”, as if the hypothesis of AGW has ever been proven. Relativity theory was at least confirmed by a lot of experimental data, which is not the case with AGW, since it can’t actually be subject to experiment. It is a theory based on an interpretation of data, not a tested and confirmed result. Just because many scientists have built a consensus that it’s probably right, doesn’t at all mean it’s been confirmed to be right. In fact, the lack of confirmation is probably at this point a strong argument against it, or at least against the idea that CO2 is a strong driver of climate change that could lead to catastrophic warming. But many liberals will disregard that because it doesn’t fit with their particular world-view, and they will continue to label legitimate skeptics as deniers, simply because that fits their political argument rather than any scientific one.
Personally, I’m a very liberal leftist who is also a strong environmentalist, but I’m also quite skeptical of the science behind AGW theory. It seems strongly overstated and politicized. I feel that my fellow liberals are making a terrible mistake in jumping on this bandwagon, which I view similarly to the fiasco conservatives fell into by backing the invasion of Iraq and assuming the evidence for WMDs was a “slam dunk”, Obviously it was not, and this could have been seen before the invasion, just as the weakness of the case for AGW can be seen now, before the embarrassment which I think is likely to follow over the next ten to twenty years as the world fails to warm as warned.
conrag:
“The problem is immediately evident in the characterization of skeptics as “deniers”, as if the hypothesis of AGW has ever been proven.”
Some might consider the disappearing Arctic ice sheets as just one item of proof.
it’s intellectual relativism. The weak, the stupid and the bourgeois no longer pay respect to actual scientists and thinkers.
I am a climate skeptic and an economic conservative – because of this, paying extra for the social marginal costs of our production and consumption is a moral, economic and intellectual given.
The right-wingers are selling out their own values and the honor and moral integrity of the entire Western world in their pubescent desire to spite left-wingers and scientists who puncture their neo-liberal religion.
“Just because many scientists have built a consensus that it’s probably right, doesn’t at all mean it’s been confirmed to be right”
Do you know how they built this consensus, conrag? By being more intelligent, skeptical, rigorous, well-educated and hard-working than we are.
If we stop being so incredibly stupid and weak, we can indeed become economically and ecologically balanced without abandoning economic growth or our precious consumer goods. The problem is that we are a species like all the others, and we are capable of creating systems that are too large and complex for us to handle.
I really don’t see any of your misgivings and considerations about the anthropogenic climate change idea holding water. It’s just common-sensical complaints based on parodies of the left and of the scientists in question that flourish among those who are served the intellectual relativism of the media.
But, then again, those who argue in bad faith (like the people who have smeared scientists and left-wingers) don’t actually care if they are rebuked, so it is no wonder that they’ve been able to stubbornly pound stupidity and half-cooked narratives into your head.
@ Glen Cooper 28. May, 2010 at 11:08 pm
and
@ evan 28. May, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Succinct and accurate.
@Joss
Shame on you for such a ridiculous post. You have taken a rather straightforward article about opposition to the theory of relativity- a testable theory and pivotal scientific event that may shape our concept of reality but had little immediate public policy impact – and linked it to opposition to the all encompassing public policy direction advanced by the AGW crowd.
The AGW “science” is entirely dependent on models that themselves are based on data that has been manipulated in a destructive and opaque fashion and continues to be further revised to fit the predicted outcome of the models. 1934 gets colder every year.
The tendency to lump all questioning of the policy imperatives of AGW advocates into the “crackpot” or “tool of Big Oil” categories is both dishonest and unhelpful. I would accept as a reasonable assertion that more nutty right wing creationists doubt AGW than nutty left wing granola eaters. But this is not the same as doubt=fascist or belief=communist and the slander approach does not help.
Similarly, I have no doubt that Exxon or Shell would see fit to spend money on propaganda campaigns, but the meme that any opposition to AGW religion approved policy orthodoxies exists because of generous oil company funding is ridiculous. If this was true there would be a lot of pissed off believers in the scientific method like evan wondering when they were going to get their check from OPEC.
Look, I think it is perfectly plausible that the Earth is warming, and if so that human activities contribute to this of which Carbon emissions would likely be a factor. But to assert this as gospel truth based on tiny samples of regional tree ring measurements, adjusted temperature graphs and models that neither predict nor explain the past does not cut it.
Even less compelling is that we should all push reason aside and embrace an economically ruinous carbon credit ponzi scheme as the answer to the problem, and that we can’t wait to actually think this though.
I could go on about how even if the science is true, there are better ways to spend money to reduce harm than carbon credits and that the whole binary notion of belief vs denial is nonsense, but maybe instead I should just link to some completely unrelated academic article on the behaviour of smug propagandists and suggest that it explains the Joss Garmans of the world.
@ John Q 29. May, 2010 at 12:06 pm
from National Snow and Ice Data Center at http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
May 4, 2010
April sea ice extent near average; Arctic temperatures above average
During April, Arctic sea ice extent declined at a steady pace, remaining just below the 1979 to 2000 average. Ice extent for April 2010 was the largest for that month in the past decade. At the same time, changing wind patterns have caused older, thicker ice to move south along Greenland’s east coast, where it will likely melt during the summer. Temperatures in the Arctic remained above average.
Overview of conditions
Arctic sea ice extent averaged 14.69 million square kilometers (5.67 square miles) for the month of April, just 310,000 square kilometers (120,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average. The rate of ice extent decline for the month was also close to average, at 41,000 kilometers (16,000 square miles) per day. As a result, April 2010 fell well within one standard deviation of the mean for the month, and posted the highest April extent since 2001.
Ice extent remained slightly above average in the Bering Sea and Sea of Okhotsk, and slightly below average in the Barents Sea north of Scandinavia, and in Baffin Bay, where ice extent remained below average all winter.
Now I could get into all sorts of editorializing including how the scientists in this field acknowledge that wind and currents are causing more melting than average this year. I do not contend that in spite of this, the fact that Arctic Sea Ice extents are around average for the last 40 years disproves AGW.
But i would suggest that it does put a bit of a hole in the convenient “Some might consider the disappearing Arctic ice sheets as just one item of proof” line.
Now back to our regularly scheduled irrelevant photo of a swimming polar bear. Quick, we have to do something! Anything! A polar bear is in the water!!!!!!
Please. Can you please do me a favor? If you want me to read your article and value your opinions/points of view as relevant, then can you please write in an objective voice? By labelling people as climate deniers you are demonizing them through the laws of propaganda though you do not even realize it and mistakenly think you are objective.
There is no such thing as a climate denier, ok? And those who do not believe that global warming is real are ABSOLUTELY NOT denying science. If you could pull your head out from under the fog of propaganda that you are infected with you might realize that the only thing that is worth writing about on this topic is which side of the debate you fall on, and what is the scientific reasoning behind your opinion. PLEASE STOP CONFUSING THIS ISSUE BY LABELLING PEOPLE! Just because someone does not agree with the popular opinion does not mean that they are a part of some group that some idiot made up.
So for those of you really interested in talking about facts and science, if you believe that such a thing as global warming is in fact real and taking place, and I surely do not, then why don’t you stop quoting other people and talking about scientists in agreement and whether or not this website is reputable or trustworthy or not, and talk about what scientific facts support your belief? Do you even know any? Most people who claim that global warming is self evident at this point do not even know why they think this is true, they just believe it because they are told over and over again that ‘all the scientists believe it’.
The truth is, there is no consensus at all that global warming is true. In fact, there are thousands of scientists who do not accept it as plausible or based on sound science. Yet these scientists are dismissed and labelled ‘climate deniers’ so their opinions are not valued.
The other fact is that there is no actual evidence that global warming is happening and for those who have investigated it on their own it is clear that the temperature of our planet is most directly affected by the SUN. The theories that Al Gore put forward in his junk science movie are demonstrably false and are merely a result of skewing statistical time periods to create graphs that support his theory.
Please, just watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOLkze-9GcI
The idiot attacks on relativity aren’t over — look, for instance, at the Conservapedia article on that topic.
“Some might consider the disappearing Arctic ice sheets as just one item of proof.”
Those who did would of course be wrong. Arctic ice sheets disappearing is evidence of something, but what? Are they disappearing because it is warmer in the arctic? Possibly, even probably. However, must scientists studying the matter conclude that the change is mostly due to changing patterns of sea currents and wind, not some dramatic warming in the arctic in recent years. The further question is, what is driving those changing currents and wind? Is is increases in temperature? Or is it just a natural cyclic phenomena of climate? Back in the 1940s scientists were also observing what they called “catastrophic loss of arctic ice”. But it came back, as cycles do. Is this any different? And finally, is the fact of this change in the arctic in any way proof that CO2 is the cause of any of this? Of course not. It’s a small piece of a very large puzzle, and pointing to this as “proof” is more than jumping the gun. It’s unscientific. Skepticism isn’t just looking for holes in the argument. It means genuinely looking to see if there we have really looked at the whole picture and actually differentiated causation from correlation. Just because these changes have happened at the same time the CO2 levels have increased in the atmosphere doesn’t mean they are caused by that, any more than short skirts cause economic booms.
Regarding Einstein’s theory, it’s pretty common knowledge in the physics community that relativity theory is “wrong” in not providing a complete and accurate description of how gravity works. There are experiments and observations which have shown this to be true, and physicists have been actively looking for a replacement theory for a long time now. One of the most telling observations is the orbital trajectory of the Voyager space probe, which is now so far off from its relativistically predicted path that there’s no reasonable explanation other than that gravity works differently than Einstein described. This of course has nothing to do with philosophical or political reasons for doubting Einstein. It’s just science. Wait around long enough and almost every theory will be disproven and replaced by something better. We don’t drive model T’s anymore, and physicists don’t drive around in 1917 era theories either. They’re trying out newer models. Nothing against Einstein, it’s just how it goes.
The level of ignorance displayed on the AGW anti-science side here is both amusing and frightening. Let’s have a look at one point, the point about models:
+++++
The AGW “science” is entirely dependent on models that themselves are based on data that has been manipulated in a destructive and opaque fashion and continues to be further revised to fit the predicted outcome of the models. 1934 gets colder every year.
++++++
Let’s look at the actual evidence.
1. The atmosphere consists of 5 layers. The top four layers are all cooling — the bottommost layer where humans live is heating. No effect of sun or earth could heat 1 out of 5 layers without heating the other 4. We know this from direct measurements of temperature, and also from the fact that cool is shrinking the upper atmosphere and jiggling the orbits of GPS satellites.
2. The change therefore must be due to some change in the bottom layer, the troposphere. The only change that can trap heat is the increasing CO2 in that layer.
3. The C02 increase in the troposphere is due to humans. This is known from studies of isotopes in existing and current CO2 samples.
4. CO2 has been known to be a greenhouse gas since 1824.
5. The earth has been heating since the industrial revolution began. This is known from direct measurements of temperature and innumerable proxies — tree rings, corals, lake varves, etc — as well as from the changes in the seasonal patterns of local ecologies and organisms.
Note that none of this involves “models” from baked data”, but empirical results from measurements of actual reality. AGW deniers, like creationists, simply haven’t a clue about the science they are criticizing.
Because this case is so open and shut — (97% of all climate scientists affirm AGW, as do 80% of all scientists, and all the world’s major scientific organizations) the only route left to deniers is to claim that all the world’s climate scientists are engaged in a massive conspiracy. This is entirely similar to the current claims on Creationism.
Virtually all world’s life scientists treat evolution as a fact
Virtually all world’s climate and related scientists treat AGW as fact
All world scientific bodies are evolutionist
All world scientific bodies hold to AGW
Few scientists not religiously committed support creationism
Few scientists not in pay of fossil fuel firms deny AGW
Satan is controlling the scientists in a giant global conspiracy
Environmentalists are controlling the scientists in a giant global conspiracy
No valid Creationist model to explain actual data from earth history
No valid Denialist model to explain current alarming warming trend
Large, well-funded, primarily right-wing network of bogus institutes and think tanks pushing Creationism
Large, well-funded, primarily right-wing network of bogus institutions and think tanks pushing Denialism
Real life scientists must operate in the shadow of ongoing program to discredit their work Real climate scientists must operate in the shadow of ongoing program to discredit their work
We don’t want to face philosophical implications of being just damned dirty apes
We don’t want to face lifestyle changes because we’re roasting the world to death
Unremitting repetition of false and long-discredited “facts”: Dinosaur tracks and human tracks together, all known non-human skulls are just apes, the eye could not have evolved…
Unremitting repetition of false and long-discredited “facts”: global cooling since 1998, warming is due to urban island effects, global cooling was predicted in the 1970s….
Constant repetition of: New discoveries cast doubt on evolution!
Constant repetition of: New discoveries cast doubt on AGW!
Ver. 1.0 Creationism (Earth is under 10,000 years old) morphing to Ver. 2.0 (Intelligent Design)
Ver. 1.0 Denialism (global warming isn’t happening, is hoax) morphing to Ver. 2.0 (there is global warming but it is natural so go ahead and drill baby drill)
“Christianity”
“Free Market”
Piltdown Man
Email Scandal
It is also a replica of Mormon claims on North American archaeologists, who clearly are doctoring their data to prevent people from discovering that North American’s prehistory is exactly as described in the Mormon bible. Homeopaths claim the same thing about modern medicine — that Big Pharma doesn’t want competition from Homeopathy. All anti-science propaganda falls back on this claim: the scientists are cheats and liars.
If AGW were a fantasy it could easily be exploded — if the “data” really were doctored, then it would be simple for fossil fuel firms to save money on political propaganda by sponsoring studies to gather “real” data. But of course they cannot, because the methods and data are sound. The only route left is a constant barrage of propaganda aimed at sowing doubt and discrediting the scientists.
Nifty piece and sound comparison — another arrow for the quiver. Thanks!
Michael
These comments are insane. No evidence for anthropogenic global warming? What’s next, no evidence for a round Earth? The existence of parrots an international government conspiracy?
Michael Turton:
Virtually all those skeptical of AGW theory (which is not at all demonstrably proven, regardless of your claims to “open and shut”, which reminds me of Dick Cheney’s “slam dunk” on WMPs) acknowlege that:
1. The earth is warming, but not out of line with historical variations
2. The cause of this warming is not known, but greenhouses gases are certainly expected to be a part of any explanation.
3. The increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 150 years is due to human activity
4. These activities have contributed to the warming of the atmosphere to a modest, but unthreatening degree.
5/ The earth has certainly been warming since the beginning of the industrial revolution, but this is a correlation, not causation. The cause of this warming is no more known than the cause of the previous cooling period is known.
6,. Regarding climate models, you are simply lying when you say that AGW theory doesn’t rest upon them. To make predictions about how, why, and how much warming will occur as a result of human activity, models are the ONLY means known. The AGW skeptic crowd does not doubt that some warming results from CO2 increase, but that it is small and not at all a catastrophic threat. It is only through climate modeling that any serious danger is predicted.
7. The actual physical warming predicted by the simple greenhouse effect of CO2 increases is limited to, at most, 1C per doubling of CO2. This is agreed to by most climate scientists. The IPCC and AGW predictions of a 3C warming (or greater) is due to climate model predictions based on the theoretical existence of positive feedbacks without counteracting negative feedbacks and general climate sensitivity being a very high value, one that is not backed up by actual observation and data. There is no consensus on these feedbacks, positive or negative, because there simply isn’t enough knowledge of the mechanisms of climate to describe their workings accurately.
8. Regarding the variants in warming and cooling of the various layers of the atmosphere, this is all very recent data without any ability to compare it to historical patterns, and you are greatly oversimplifying. One of the big problems with the climate models that try to describe this is that none of them get it right, and the pattern of warming they do predict, not just in the layers of atmosphere but at different latitudes simply doesn’t occur. If we really understood how and why the earth warms and cools, and could tell what was causing it, the models ought to reflect that understanding, but they do not. It is jumping the gun to point to a correlation and assume it to be a causation, especially when the details of the correlation don’t match up.
9. Science is about making detailed predictions based on a precise understanding of the phenomena in question, not rough estimates based on vague general principles with a range of error so great that they cannot be falsified. AGW scientists have a reasonable hypothesis to test, but they have not passed the tests. A consensus without any full understanding of the underlying mechanism is meaningless, a mere educated guess. These sorts of things commonly turn out to be wrong for all kinds of unexpected or ignored reasons. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In the case of AGW, the claims of catastrophic warming in our near future do not even have ordinary levels of evidence to back them up, much less extraordinary. As Jones from Hadley CRU admits, there hasn’t even been any “statistically significant” warming over the last 15 years, meaning warming that is outside the uncertainty of our measuring methods.
It’s hardly unreasonable or unscientific to remain doubtful of the predictive value of AGW theory. Other theories about warming that do no rely on greenhouse gases are as good or better in their predictions of recent warming and the current leveling off. They tend to base their predictions on the variations in ocean currents and other natural cycles of climate, and they predict a cooling trend over the next few decades. We will see which way this pans out. In any case, for the time being there is no serious reason to give the catastrophists the benefit of the doubt. Warming patterns such as we have seen over the last 150 years have come and gone in the past many times, and we are nowhere near the warmest period of the recent holocene. Even Jones now admits that the MWP was probably at least as warm as the current temps. Those warmer temps did not lead to any positive feedbacks that propelled the earth into a catastrophic temperature rise, so there’s no reason to think those kinds of feedbacks would result to any increase due to greenhouse gases, even if that were the driver of the current warming.
10 Be reminded, skepticism of AGW theory is NOT about the basic science of greenhouse gases, but about the extreme predictions of catastrophe being made by some climate scientists. Conflating the two is a very old trick meant to discredit critics and buttress and inflate all fears, when it is the catastrophists who are making extreme claims outside the bounds of scientific evidence.
Dear Mr. UR Dumb,
As a science teacher, I see this a lot.
You may use the word ‘theory’ in conversation very differently from the way we do in science. Often, in conversation, non-scientists use ‘theory’ synonymously with ‘hypothesis’ or ‘guess’.
This is very wrong.
A hypothesis is a testable answer to a question or explanation to a problem.
A theory is so well accepted by communities of scientists, as to be accepted as just about the best answer that we have.
Hence, the ‘Theory of Evolution by Means of Natural Selection’ is not just a guess, it is accepted by any reasonably person as the best model for explaining how gene frequencies change within populations change over time.
Thanks,
Mr. I
*above should read ‘any reasonable person’. Apologies.
Mr. I,
I agree with your description of the difference between theory and hypothesis, but this only raises the question, does AGW actually rise to the level of a theory? I would say the answer is easy – no, it does not. Why? Because it does not make unique, verifiable predictions that have passed observational certainty, it does not understand the underlying mechanisms upon which its proposals are based, and it is hard to point to any falsifiability in the arguments for it. This last issue makes it questionable as to whether AGW as it is currently proposed is even a valid scientific hypothesis, since it is not currently falsifiable. Virtually any pattern of temperature and climate can now be attributed to AGW, regardless of which side of the range it is on. If temps go up, it is due to AGW. If temps go down, it is either due to AGW, or it is due to some other unknown factor “masking” the AGW effect. AGW predicted a decrease in snow, and yet when an increase in snow was discovered, that too was attributed to AGW. Any “theory” which cannot be falsified by false predictions is not a theory at all, it’s a matter of faith. And at this point that is what the “consensus” amounts to – faith in this particular explanation, in lieu of genuine scientific verification.
The same is not true of other, genuine theories of science, such as evolution by natural selection or relativity theory. Trying to conflate the AGW hypothesis with these other theories that are strongly supported by data and experiment is a classic example of the con man’s bait and switch.
neumann103, quoting the NSIDC: “April sea ice extent near average; Arctic temperatures above average”
that didn’t last long, though. it’s now tracking below 2007 (the lowest arctic sea extent on record): http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
the long term trend is down down down too: http://nsidc.org/sotc/images/mean_anomaly_1953-2009.png
evan, conrag, neumann103, and anyone else suggesting that AGW isn’t a scientific theory because it can’t be be subject to experiment:
by that standard, astronomy isn’t a science either. neither are geophysics and huge swathes of biology and astrophysics.
science isn’t about the ability to perform experiments, it’s about the ability to make testable predictions.
for the record, AGW (or more precisely, the 150-year-old work in radiation physics that it’s a consequence of) has made a number of tested predictions. just a couple from the top of my head: stratospheric cooling coupled with tropospheric warming. increased infrared backscatter from the sky, at ground level. changes in the radiation spectrum of earth as measured from space.
ligne,
Astronomy does rely on experiment and data to either confirm or falsify its theories. I don’t know who told you otherwise. All science does. And they also make predictions, not merely about the future, but about what observations will find, that either confirm or falsify their theories. Early confirmation of Einstein’s theory of relativity was obtained because he predicted that gravity would bend light waves, which was found to be the case in a famous observation made during a solar eclipse in 1919. These are precise descriptions of observations that can actually be confirmed, unlike AGW theory, which makes no such precise predictions, but instead simply relies on multiple “scenarios”, any of which might or might not be true, and no clear or unique description of climate and atmospheric conditions which can be confirmed or falsified. This is because, unlike relativity theory, it has no theoretical understanding of the actual mechanisms of climate. It makes an educated guess that greenhouse gases drive climate changes, but it doesn’t understand the complex underlying mechanisms well enough to make genuine predictions that can confirm or falsify this guess. So it’s not a real scientific theory yet, it’s just a developing hypothesis, one of many possible guesses that people have come up with to explain current climate trends. That it’s more popular than others does not make it scientifically valid. Science is not a popularity contest.
Also, while AGW theory has made some predictions that have turned out to be true, it has made many others that have turned out to be false. As Einstein once said, no amount of observation can prove his theories, but it takes only one to disprove it. By those standards, AGW theory has been disproven multiple times. Because of the chaotic nature of climate, we do have to be more forgiving of any climate theory, but for the same reason we also have to be highly skeptical as well. Other theories of climate have also had their successes and failures. Even the stratospheric predictions you cite are offset by the failure of AGW’s “hot spot” signature to ever be observed in the layers of atmospheric warming. One can’t only cite evidence to support a theory, and ignore evidence that counters the theory, if one is to do real science. 150 years of radiative physics still doesn’t account for actual climate observations, unfortunately, because the real world interactions of climate aren’t understood well enough yet, and there is far more to climate than radiative physics. Obviously AGW theory has huge and serious flaws in it that don’t lead to real predictions about the real world. Currently, virtually none of the famous model scenarios mesh with actual climate trends, but endless excuses for this are made in any case, adjusting various things in the models to back-fit observation, or “hiding the decline” to make the past look more favorable to the theory.
“The IPCC and AGW predictions of a 3C warming (or greater) is due to climate model predictions…”
Except for, y’know those pesky empirical observations – the ice cores which allow us to reconstruct paleoclimate for the past several hundred thousand years and look at how the forcings have played out to equilibrium, the observed ‘fast feedbacks’ to Pinatubo, the work Tung has done on responses to C20th changes in solar irradiance etc
Multiple independant lines of empirical evidence. All clustering around a sensitivity of 3 degrees/doubling and consilient with the estimates derived from the models.
“…based on the theoretical existence of positive feedbacks without counteracting negative feedbacks”
Hmmm – the theoretical existance of positive feedbacks such as water vapour perhaps? Or ice albedo? The methane that is frozen in the (melting) tundra? The gigatonnes of clathrates in the deep ocean? Theoretical like those?
Whereas the counterbalancing negative feedbacks are mostly either accounted for (and don’t come up to scratch – see aerosols, black carbon, land use changes) or haven’t shown up when we’ve gone looking for them (see Iris Effect).
The only ‘known unknown’ left is the undertainty around cloud dynamics and that’s sufficiently open that it could be a positive or negative feedback term. There’s always the possibility of a black swan ‘unknown unknown’ of course, but as scientists map out the territory there’s less room for those to hide in (and they can break either way as well of course).
Regards
Luke
conradg:
“However, must scientists studying the matter conclude that the change is mostly due to changing patterns of sea currents and wind, not some dramatic warming in the arctic in recent years.”
Alternately there is Polyak et al in Quaternary Science Reviews, March 2010 – quoting the final lines of the abstract:
“The current reduction in Arctic ice cover started in the late 19th century, consistent with the rapidly warming climate, and became very pronounced over the last three decades. This ice loss appears to be unmatched over at least the last few thousand years and unexplainable by any of the known natural variabilities.”
This (putting together proxies for esimates of paleohistorical ice extent) is an area of active research and the state of our knowledge is likely to change quite rapidly over the next few years. So watch this space.
Regards
Luke
There’s only one teency wheensy problem with this bit of revisionist history that is trying to equate those skeptical of climate science and those behind it’s agenda.
As has been found out over time and written in numerous history books, Einstein was an egotist. He thought his science should be accepted at face value even though he had one missing piece of evidenciary conclusion.
He pushed and pushed at one house of Academia after another. It wasn’t until almost 40 years after he begun that an English Mathematician trying to finally prove or disprove Einsteins “theory” that Einstein finally found the missing piece to the puzzle.
There were numerous scientists who tried to steal Einstein’s work and one English Mathematician who was in charge of a telescope site stumbled upon some information and passed it along to Einstein.
Einstein took it from there and pushed through to finally break the barrior of relativity.
Just like the celebrities in Hollywood who complain about crazy fans and paperazi that have made them famous and rich. Einstein complained about the scientists and common man talking his theories but if it wasn’t for them he never would have completed his theory and turned it into factual science.
To equate AGW skeptics to those who chastised Einstein to prove up or shut up is to have a sad lack of history. To say those that stood up against Einstein were anti science is absurd.
AGW skeptics are purely saying one thing and one thing only, before you take my wallet and my freedom, you better give me better science and some actual proof which the alarmist side has failed to do.
Mr I.
that’s a nice fantasy of modern scientists but not really true.
It’s nice that you feel that you can change the words and meaning of scientific method as they have stood since their origination.
If your comments about theory and hypothesis were true then why was Einstein hounded by academia for 40+ years to finish his hypothesis to make it complete and true?
We have revistionist history and now we have revistionist science. Must be nice to make up ones own fantasy world and have others play inside it with you.