As we know the IPCC has been rocked by scandal – ClimateGate, GlacierGate and so on. Pat Michaels suggests IPCC-gate, and some wit I saw in a comments thread suggested FloodGate. The New Scientist has an editorial discussing these issues and the IPCC.
So let the IPCC embrace such debates, rather than retreat from them in the name of spurious consensus. Climate scientists have felt under siege from critics, as leaked emails last year amply demonstrated. But that is no reason to dismiss all criticism as necessarily unwarranted, uninformed or politically motivated.
Some argue that the views of an untutored blogger, or even a scientist from another discipline, should never carry the same weight as those of someone with a lifetime’s expertise in a relevant field. But if occasionally the emperors of the lab have no clothes, someone has to say so. The wider review of science made possible by the blogosphere can improve science and foster public confidence in its methods. Scientists should welcome the outside world in to check them out. Their science is useless if no one trusts it.
No nitpicking – I think that’s fair enough.
What I want to draw attention to these two sentences.
The IPCC was established before the internet revolution. Like it or not, its closed world of peer review is no longer possible, let alone desirable.
Is the New Scientist suggesting that the IPCC abandon its own peer-review process (something it looks like they have already done, without telling anybody) or that the IPCC abandon its reliance on peer-reviewed literature (something it looks like they have already done, without telling anybody)? I am not convinced that were they to do so that the IPCC would be adding any value. Without the peer review process the IPCC become just another lobby group. While I’m not opposed to lobby groups – debate, discussion and dispute play a very important role in the market for ideas – I can’t see why we would then place any credence in yet another UN lobby group (financed by our tax dollars).
I am impressed and pleasantly surprised by New Scientist.
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Peer review, by which I mean the formalised procedure, ie three reviewers and an editor or some variant, is not a key plank of science. It’s an administrative system that was set up as a quality control.
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No doubt it will remain a widely used administrative tool. However, declaring “peer review” to be the boundary of what constitutes a scientific finding and what does not was an over-reach and was never true.
daddy dave
30 Jan 10 at 11:15 am
I don’t think the problem here in fact had any thing to do with peer review. The problem with the IPCC is that it presented a tendentious view of the available literature; in other cases ignoring it entirely and employing ‘grey’ literature in order to promote its own view point. The IPCC was essentially ‘captured’ by a group of very influential climate scientists, etc. most of the former were exposed in Climategate as being very questionable individuals, who promoted their own work, and work of others they considered favourable to their own intellectual positions, while obscuring the work of those that were either critical or exposed other lines of inquiry, other than their own.
The problem, for me, so far as the IPCC is concerned, is whether in fact there ought to be an institution that authorises the speculations and endeavours of climate scientists to their colleagues in the climate science community, to other scientists, to policy makers, and finally, to the general public. I think the only answer to this can be, No.
dover_beach
30 Jan 10 at 1:17 pm
I think New Scientist was saying the case for Anthropomorphic Climate Change has well and truly been established. The science is settled, if you will and their main role in the future will be assess the science affecting climate policy; how fast change is occurring and how effective we are at slowing it.
“However, the IPCC’s heroic days are probably over. The case for anthropogenic climate change has been established; the Nobel prize is won. So it is time for a rethink of where the IPCC is going, and what its future role should be.”
The IPCC role in synthesising this peer reviewed science would still be important, just any argument should be robust and open.
AndrewL
30 Jan 10 at 2:20 pm
Last week the inmates were hooting over the failure of the IPCC to peer review an article in the New Scientist.
This week New Scientist opinions are worthy of serious discussion.
Its a funny old world
rog
30 Jan 10 at 7:28 pm
rog – you’re in no position to be pooh poohing any magazines right now.
But New Scientist has its place, being the source of information for IPCC reports is not that place.
Sinclair Davidson
30 Jan 10 at 7:32 pm
Sinclair, that last comment has to be an own goal.
rog
30 Jan 10 at 7:42 pm
How so?
Sinclair Davidson
30 Jan 10 at 8:05 pm
That New Scientist is not the source of information for IPCC reports
rog
30 Jan 10 at 8:24 pm
I still don’t understand your point. The New Scientist is entitled to its opinions but is not a peer reviewed journal. An article that appeared in the New Scientist is the ultimate source of the GlacierGate fraud. I don’t see how agreeing with its opinion validates the corruption of the IPCC process. In fact the New Scientist itself thought this was inappropriate. I agreed with that opinion too.
Sinclair Davidson
30 Jan 10 at 8:37 pm
I just didn’t read either of the two conclusions that Sinclair got out of the article. I read it as suggesting the whole process be debated in a more public forum than currently exists so uncertainities can be understood. The peer review system only refers to the process of writing.
I didn’t think it said anything about using or not using peer reviewed science.
I know Pachauri has been criticised for calling the Indian Geographic Survey report “Voodoo Science”. hAs anyone come out to support its findings? It did seem at odds with most peer reviewed reports.
AndrewL
30 Jan 10 at 10:40 pm
Without purporting to know anything about climate science, the IPCC looks like John Howard in 2007 – it may be the best available, but people have stopped listening. No country with growth ambitions is going to commit to meaningful sacrifices. Doing so not only requires you to accept “the science”, but the absurdly low discount rate adopted in Stern and a belief that governments (or academics for that matter)are capable of managing anything of substance. I don’t see how the IPCC could recover its reputation now.
Sleetmute
31 Jan 10 at 12:27 am
New Scientist conceding there are grave problems is indicative of how badly the IPCC is going. It’s similar to when George Monboit called on Phil Jones to resign.
It’s now heaps of fun to go over and watch Quiggin and the LP folks say how nothing is wrong.
The question of what to do next is difficult. Do you try and salvage the IPCC or set up a new body?
Pedro X
31 Jan 10 at 10:26 am
Once I got used to the fact that a pack of donkeys might hold the fate of the world in their hands I decided to sit back and watch the show with popcorn. What can ye do? Gave me a great idea for a story.
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It’s an administrative system that was set up as a quality control.
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Cool. Can anyone design a better system than peer review? Surely peer review is better than a chorus of empty vessels.
Adrien
31 Jan 10 at 10:33 am
Can anyone design a better system than peer review?
We could have Committees of Conservative-Libertarian Commissars review everything that’s sciency or arty, and establish for us whether it’s proper science/art, or merely the braying of ivory tower elitists, designed to push the world closer to one-world government, one obscure journal article at a time.
THR
31 Jan 10 at 10:39 am
We could have Committees of Conservative-Libertarian Commissars review everything that’s sciency or art
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Outstanding. And the committee will have to conduct its deliberations in Ptydepe. All papers published by this politburo shall be so in Ptydepe. Anyone wanting a translation can do so and the one world government will provide 70 000 translators out of Joe Cambria’s pocket. Free of charge. Except to Joe Cambria. You can get a translation easy. All you have to do is write a request and fill in a form. In Ptydepe of course.
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This can go on for a while. And then just when they’re used to it we switch all communications to Chorukor.
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Have you read The Chaser’s Biography of Obama by Fox? It’s a corker.
Adrien
31 Jan 10 at 11:00 am
The IPCC was essentially ‘captured’ by a group of very influential climate scientists, etc. most of the former were exposed in Climategate as being very questionable individuals
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This is very well thought out Dover. If you can recommend an intelligent book, relatively free of holes and twists, I’ll read it and even possibly change my mind.
Adrien
31 Jan 10 at 11:20 am
THR,
The solution is actually to end all of the other “correctness committees” that are involuntarily forced on people, not creating new ones.
Semi Regular Libertarian
31 Jan 10 at 12:05 pm
Peer review is a kind of ‘correctness committee’, but there aren’t so many better alternatives. Perhaps people could get their heads around the idea that there isn’t any infallible science, rather than pretend that peer review is the root of the problem.
THR
31 Jan 10 at 12:17 pm
It isn’t – but lately it has been used as some kind of panacea to sort out what is truth and not. That’s the problem – and when it is done very poorly it promotes some crappy science over good research.
“The truthiness will set you free” I suppose.
Semi Regular Libertarian
31 Jan 10 at 12:24 pm
The funniest IPCC embarrassment so far:
UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article.
Kevin Rudd and all other defenders of the IPCC and the “science settled” mantra must now apologise.
C.L.
31 Jan 10 at 12:26 pm
Perhaps we just go through periods of time when a bunch of lousy dickheads take over parts of science and pollute the shit out of it until those brave enough to show up and be counted take it back.
this seems to be happening now.
the other useful thing would be to get the government out of funding science or find ways to ensure government funding isn’t distorting things. This is my mind is what’s happened, as there isn’t a thing government touches that it doesn’t fuck up. Creating perverse incentives is what I’m talking about.
We have the ironic spectacle of Andrew Pitman (UNSW) writing a piece of political advocacy complaining about private funding going to sceptics when his own website proudly displays government dollars heading his way. It’s lost on him that potentially the biggest crisis in science- as a result of climategate and all the other “gates”- were essentially funded by government.
The attitude of this twit is astonishing.
JC1
31 Jan 10 at 12:29 pm
Richard Lindzen has been warning about this for ages, yet it seemed to fall on deaf ears.
I ‘m not suggesting that Lindzen has been right about the areas of climate science he’s investigated in the past however he has frequently warned about the attitude shown by Pitman and others in this specialized area.
JC1
31 Jan 10 at 12:34 pm
My feeling is that if someone takes government money for research areas and grants they should also be subject to similar provisions that boards of directors and senior executives are in the business world.
If a director distorts the potential of a firm undergoing an IPO and is found to be dishonest or telling tall stories then that person is legally sanctioned and perhaps could very well end up going to jail.
This is OUR fucking money these people are playing with.
JC1
31 Jan 10 at 12:39 pm
Last week the inmates were hooting over the failure of the IPCC to peer review an article in the New Scientist.
Poor rog, he still has no idea what the IPCC actually does and he’s been defending them for months now.
dover_beach
31 Jan 10 at 12:41 pm
Peer review – basically it’s to stop plagiarism but in those sciences that can’t do in situ experiments, it becomes a means of protecting the paradigm.
Notice that the dominant method in climate science is to develop arguments supporting the AGW hypothesis, rather than falsifying it.
And the climate sensitivity issue, it remains a hypothetical – no one has actually done a physical experiment showing that it actually does it its proponents say it does.
Louis Hissink
31 Jan 10 at 1:05 pm
Notice that the dominant method in climate science is to develop arguments supporting the AGW hypothesis, rather than falsifying it.
That’s true, isn’t it. It would be interesting to ask Andrew Pitman the question of whether he’s used one cent of government research money to go out and try to falsify other climate research.
I bet he hasn’t even thought about that. It would be like teaching a dog new tricks.
The only person I can think of that goes out and tries to falsify is Richard Lindzen. Most of them are into defending each others work and getting on the gravy train.
This seems to be one of the best rackets going at the moment. How does one obtain research money, as governments seems to be throwing it at you.
I have a theory I want to investigate which is that stock trading adds to AGW and is possibly causing the most emissions. How do I get a grant to study this thesis. Should I ask Pitman for a heads up?
JC1
31 Jan 10 at 1:22 pm
Like the Berlin Wall, it’s amazing how quickly warmenism collapsed:
The fall of the warming wall.
Scroll down for the cover of the latest Open magazine cover in IPCC criminal Pachauri’s India.
C.L.
31 Jan 10 at 1:29 pm
Cool. Can anyone design a better system than peer review?
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probably not. All ‘systems’ have weaknesses and loopholes. Science existed before peer review, although admittedly the system was set up to solve some real problems in conducting orderly science.
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Surely peer review is better than a chorus of empty vessels.
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snark aside, yes it is
daddy dave
31 Jan 10 at 1:33 pm
Perhaps people could get their heads around the idea that there isn’t any infallible science, rather than pretend that peer review is the root of the problem
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I agree entirely THR. However it’s not that peer review is the problem, it’s simply that it’s not a magic bullet to finding Truth.
daddy dave
31 Jan 10 at 1:50 pm
That’s the problem – and when it is done very poorly it promotes some crappy science over good research.
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I wonder how the barrage of PR denialism affects this matter?
Adrien
31 Jan 10 at 3:12 pm
All ’systems’ have weaknesses and loopholes.
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Indeed our justice system has plenty but much less so than trial-by-fire and does she weigh less than a duck etc.
Adrien
31 Jan 10 at 3:15 pm
It is pretty hard for people who are not academics to get anything out of the “peer-review” system. It is only academics who really have the time and the professional investment to be able to distinguish between the credibility of different journals. The fact that a layperson is informed that a particular article has been “peer reviewed” means nothing to that article’s credibility. because it is the journal’s “peer review” credibility that is the real issue.
Peter Patton
31 Jan 10 at 3:21 pm
Good point. Maybe separate powers and have opposing journals peer-review your work.
Adrien
31 Jan 10 at 3:23 pm
Indeed our justice system has plenty but much less so than trial-by-fire and does she weigh less than a duck etc
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right, and when a judge is found to be corrupt, it’s big news. And just because someone is found guilty and goes to prison doesn’t mean that journalists can’t question their guilt, or get shouted down as judicial denialists.
daddy dave
31 Jan 10 at 3:23 pm
CL
Sounds like Tony Blair’s claim of ’45 minutes [or was it seconds] to Armageddon’ claim, which also came from a student’s essay.
Peter Patton
31 Jan 10 at 3:25 pm
I wonder how the barrage of PR denialism affects this matter?
Adrien, you should be wondering about how the PR catastrophism (which dwarfs the PR denialism by about two orders of magnitude) is actually effecting this matter.
dover_beach
1 Feb 10 at 9:44 am
PR catastrophism
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When you have a Department of Climate Change, you have to wonder how deep the vested interests are in the status quo. It’s kind of like having a Department of Alien Visitors. Or a Department of An-Asteroid-Caused-The-Dinosaurs-To-Become-Extinct.
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Adrien’s views are very 2008 when ‘denialism’ was still seen as right-wing fringe lunacy. Heinlein said “Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.” It’s no longer “too soon” although the payoff, ie getting ‘what do you know? dave was right all along about climate change’ is hardly worth it.
daddy dave
1 Feb 10 at 10:16 am
I don’t know where that claim came from, Peter. I do know Saddam Hussein was the worst mass murderer of the late twentieth century and his removal was just, moral, legal and something Tony Blair ought to be very proud of.
C.L.
1 Feb 10 at 11:08 am
And just because someone is found guilty and goes to prison doesn’t mean that journalists can’t question their guilt, or get shouted down as judicial denialists.
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And? This statement is contradictory. A journalist in this situation would question their conviction, their guilt having been established by the court and, unless they had sound reason to question the verdict, they would be shouted down and rightly so. This IPCC debacle is simply the continuation of a massive dissembling by both sides of the political spectrum to mask the facts in order to get people to endorse this or that side of the house.
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I’m not saying that the pro-AGW lobby has not been guilty of shouting down legitimate dissent. It certainly has. I’ve been shouted down simply for saying that there may actually be reason for skepticism. The lesson here is not the Right is right or the Left is right but that dogmatic modes of thought can distort facts even if we need those facts. We need them. Glaciers moving forward again does not totally scramble long-term warming trends and again it doesn’t matter who’s in government or what policies are deployed or what people believe – nature doesn’t care.
Adrien
1 Feb 10 at 4:18 pm
DB – Adrien, you should be wondering about how the PR catastrophism (which dwarfs the PR denialism by about two orders of magnitude) is actually effecting this matter.
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From my reading of the history the denialism came first as a reaction to the information and it was highly dishonest. But I can’t claim to’ve made any disinterested study of the matter. I’m still waiting for a recommendation to some respectable source of information that charts this IPCC frause btw.
Adrien
1 Feb 10 at 4:20 pm
DD – Adrien’s views are very 2008 when ‘denialism’ was still seen as right-wing fringe lunacy.
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My views are based on reading various pundits, particularly from News Ltd that’ve used well known propoganda techniques to totally distort this debate.
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Heinlein said “Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
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Indeed. Back in the 1980s when Margaret Thatcher, amongst others, warned us about AGW it was fringe. Just because the ‘Alarmists’ are alarmist does not mean the ‘Denialists’ are not in denial.
Adrien
1 Feb 10 at 4:22 pm
The alarmists are denialists, they deny the truth that AGW is a myth, battened onto by the left when they lost the economic and social debates.
Rococo Liberal
1 Feb 10 at 4:39 pm
Actually RL, you’ll find the cultural left won.
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In mainstream society being gay is okay, sex outside of marriage is okay, drugs are okay, strange music is fine, and weird books are okay; you can read Lolita in your high school library.
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Do visit the 21st century sometime old bean. It’s cleaner than the 11th and people have all their teeth.
Adrien
1 Feb 10 at 4:43 pm
From my reading of the history the denialism came first as a reaction to the information and it was highly dishonest. But I can’t claim to’ve made any disinterested study of the matter. I’m still waiting for a recommendation to some respectable source of information that charts this IPCC frause btw.
When Hansen walked into Congress in 1988 he could have only have been talking about weather, not climate. When global average temps flat-lined in the last decade we were immediately introduced to the weather/ climate dichotomy. Both sides of this debate have been tendentious; that is all too clear, but for years people such as yourself have preferred to trust that the alarmists were as pure as the driven snow even though they were, as is clear from the Climategate emails, requesting funds from Big Oil (Shell), or peddling their influence with journals, journal editors, IPCC, etc. So far as sources of reliable information are concerned charting this ruse, they appear almost everyday in major daily newspapers and on reliable blogs like Pielke Snr’s, Pielke Jnr’s, ClimateAudit, and so on under the headings of Climategate, Pachaurigate, Glaciergate, and Amazongate (the latest). There are even two new books on this, The Hockey Stick Illusion, and Climategate: The CRUtape Letters. The billions spent on PR catastrophism dwarf the tens of millions spent on PR denialism; and really, the focus on ‘denialism’ has been beneficial to catastrophists because it has enabled them to ignore the legitimate questions asked of them in respect of AGW.
dover_beach
1 Feb 10 at 4:52 pm
people such as yourself have preferred to trust that the alarmists
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Dover it’s disingenuous of you to say that I take anything on trust. Your list of trustworthy sources is not reassuring. It’s simply one side of the war.
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I’ll go make some more popcorn and continue to enjoy the Endless Headless Chicken Show.
Adrien
1 Feb 10 at 5:32 pm
The billions spent on PR catastrophism dwarf the tens of millions spent on PR denialism
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Please back that up.
Adrien
1 Feb 10 at 5:33 pm
Dover it’s disingenuous of you to say that I take anything on trust. Your list of trustworthy sources is not reassuring.
Adrien, so far as my being disingenuous is concerned, I must confess I’m amused you’re asking for a trustworthy source while at the same time suggesting you don’t accept anything on trust. If you didn’t or don’t, wouldn’t repeated requests for trustworthy sources be superfluous? One of the problems with the IPCC was that people such as yourself claimed that it was a ‘trustworthy’ source for years on end because you were essentially unwilling to judge the evidence, however difficult this may be, for yourself. We are, by the day, seeing that your trust in this institution was misplaced.
As for my list, who cares if they constitute ‘one’ side of the debate; the question you should be asking is can they back-up their claims with evidence.
Please back that up.
Oh, c’mon; you want to compare the monies spent on sundry ‘denialists’ with the monies governments, NGOs, various foundations, etc. spend on climate change propaganda. I think you ought to pull the wool from over your eyes and see what is currently being exposed re Glaciergate, Pachaurigate, and Amazongate. There seems to be a symbiotic relationship between alarmist scientists, alarmist NGOs, and the IPCC designed to increasingly attract government funding and private philanthropy into its ever growing vortex. But, no, no, look over there, ‘denialist’.
dover_beach
1 Feb 10 at 7:05 pm
Adrien, so far as my being disingenuous is concerned, I must confess I’m amused you’re asking for a trustworthy source while at the same time suggesting you don’t accept anything on trust. If you didn’t or don’t, wouldn’t repeated requests for trustworthy sources be superfluous?
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Well okay then. What I want is a book by someone who knows the science, does not have a barrel to push and can chart the IPCC’s determined bias with solid information.
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May I have this please?
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One of the problems with the IPCC was that people such as yourself claimed that it was a ‘trustworthy’ source for years on end because you were essentially unwilling to judge the evidence, however difficult this may be, for yourself
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Untrue. Back in my days of the trial by ‘show me your evidence’ with Graeme Bird I put up an argument for AGW and backed it up with links none of them to the IPCC which I excluded as a tainted source.
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Oh, c’mon; you want to compare the monies spent on sundry ‘denialists’ with the monies governments, NGOs, various foundations, etc. spend on climate change propaganda.
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Please include, on the denialist side, the resource interests, News Ltd, governments held by anti-AGW conservatives and then do the sums. You can’t back it up. It’s simply something you don’t know.
Adrien
1 Feb 10 at 7:32 pm
“Is the New Scientist suggesting that the IPCC abandon its own peer-review process . . . or that the IPCC abandon its reliance on peer-reviewed literature . . . ”
I’d say, pay special attention to the word “closed.”
I’m guessing he means, the IPCC should probably stop putting three friends together in a quiet corner of the room to approve each others’ works and make fun of the submissions from the uncool kids.
Surely, even if the “climate” group is not vast, they can find new volunteers from related fields to perform the PR. Maybe, even, the reviewers might do well NOT already “knowing” what’s wrong and impossible and stupid – knowing generally how science gets done, of course, knowing the basic use of stats, but not needing the narrow skill set possessed by the current crop of reviewers (and I’ll be good and not give illustrative examples of just what skills they’ve exhibited.)
bobby b
2 Feb 10 at 5:44 am
What I want is a book by someone who knows the science, does not have a barrel to push and can chart the IPCC’s determined bias with solid information.
Anyone that goes to the lengths of having written a book will have a barrow to push, Adrien; you have no choice but to exercise your judgement. I have given you Pielke Sr’s website, there are multiple threads there were he demonstrates the bias of the IPCC.
See here:
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2007/06/20/documentation-of-ipcc-wg1-bias-by-roger-a-pielke-sr-and-dallas-staley-part-i/
and
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/documentation-of-ipcc-wg1-bias-by-roger-a-pielke-sr-and-dallas-staley-part-ii/
The book/s you’re looking for will likely be written sometime in the next five years.
Please include, on the denialist side, the resource interests, News Ltd, governments held by anti-AGW conservatives and then do the sums. You can’t back it up. It’s simply something you don’t know.
Its been done by the alarmist side of the debate and it totals tens of millions over the last two decades. When you total the sums supporting the alarmist cause (governments, universities, NGOs, resource interests, industry, finance/ insurance, media, etc.) you are going to find monies invested totalling in the tens or hundred of billions. Even ‘governments held by anti-AGW conservatives’ couldn’t resist the momentum they generated. To ignore this is simply to be in denial.
dover_beach
2 Feb 10 at 9:00 am
You can’t back it up. It’s simply something you don’t know.
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Adrien… I certainly don’t know the numbers, but as dover_beach pointed out, there are several orders of magnitude difference between funding for alarmists versus denialists. I mean, we don’t just have a “department of climate change” we have them at state and federal level. You’ve got every Western government handing out enormous amounts of grant money every year to study the “effects of climate change” on everything from frogs to rice paddies.
Look around. It’s fucking obvious which side has all the money.
Stop believing the stupid line you’ve been told that sceptics are a front for Big Oil.
daddy dave
2 Feb 10 at 9:18 am
Actually RL, you’ll find the cultural left won.
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I agree with that.
Two caveats: history keeps on moving; they can’t rest on having “won” (past tense). There are backlashes in some areas.
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Plus, the extent of their victory varies from region to region. If you want to see what total victory for the cultural left looks like, cf Britain.
daddy dave
2 Feb 10 at 9:22 am
DD – Look around. It’s fucking obvious which side has all the money.
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Actually it’s not.
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Stop believing the stupid line you’ve been told that sceptics are a front for Big Oil.
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I didn’t say that. But if you think that large multinational complexes with shitloads of money and a whole lot to lose will just stand idly by and do nothing – hah!
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I know modern communications, it’s my thing. And this whole debacle is a war between Newspeak emitters par excellence. Most people only know half of the truth. They take one side and think the lies are all on the other.
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Life is not a Western. It’s not a story of good versus evil. Just cause one side lies doesn’t make the other the way the truth and the light.
Adrien
2 Feb 10 at 12:53 pm