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Originally Posted by Kijana
Sorry that I took so long to get back to you on this. But, alas, work, school and personal life have intervened frequently over the past few months. Internet message board had to take a back seat.
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Not a problem. School and meat-life (not cyber-life) should always come first.
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The biggest problem I have with Michael Crichton is that he claims that the politicization of science is a big problem because it selectively cherry picks the data to further an underlying aim in a particular field of study. And then to prove this, he goes out and selectively cherry picks studies that back up his thesis.
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And what cherry did he pick? The research by Michael Mann and the infamous hockey stick graph. A graph that was not based on computer models, but on tree ring studies. Even more so, Mann's hockey stick graph was used by the IPCC as clear evidence for global warming and was the major graph that Al Gore used in his fauxumentary
"A Convenient Lie." He may have been selective in his picking, but what he picked was used as the prime evidence for global warming by the IPCC, Al Gore, and nearly every environmental group or advocate to push the myth of global warming. It has been completely and utterly discredited.
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I agree with him that there are examples present in science where politics get involved. It happens in every field of human endeavor, some more than others. Science, unlike many other fields, actually has a way to try and limit the effect of this: peer-review. And a vast majority of the peer-reviewed literature does not support his claim that anthropogenic global warming/climate change is non-existent.
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Crichton does not make the claim that "anthropogenic global warming/climate change is non-existent." He claims that we do not currently understand enough about the hows and whys of the climate to make a firm conclusion on either side. Crichton does not want us going halved ass into draconian trillion dollar projects that have no real chance of doing anything for the climate and will cause tremendous suffering for human beings, particularly in the Third World. I agree with that completely. Also, peer-review is not the be all and end all of any scientific theory or fact. It is the ability to replicate experiments (getting the same results) and the ability to predict events based on a theory (it is also helpful if science can help explain the why or the process accurately). Peer-review only helps establish what we already know, it rarely helps establish any radically new theory or evidence.
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He recognizes this, but claims its not a problem due to two things: 1) over-reliance upon computer models and 2) consensus does not prove truth. I actually have some sympathy for these two points, but I think he overextends himself mightily to think that these points mean AGW is bunk.
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That's not what he claims. Read above.
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First, let's look at computer models. I won't deny that there are problems with the models, and to be honest, no one should be surprised by this. Proper experimentation would mean that we would have to replicate our experiments. Since we only have one planet Earth, and the costs, feasibility and ethical issues that would arise with tinkering with the Earth's atmosphere make it impossible for us to directly test AGW hypotheses. So, we have to rely on models to help us try to do that. They are by no means perfect and I'm sure there are some errors that will continue to be found in them. But, all that being said, the majority of them haven't been that far off.
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Actually no, the majority of climate models have been far off.
Not one climate model has been able to accurately predict past climate trends. None, zero, nada. If none of the climate models have been able to predict past climate trends why-how should we rely on them for predictions of future climate trends? The "one planet Earth" argument does not cut it. There are many ways to study the climate, the atmosphere, the environment without the need to mess with it in ethically questionable ways. It only requires time -- long periods of time. Threats, like Al Gore's and the hosts of other environmentalists extremists, that we only have ten years tells me they are more interested in an agenda and not the truth of facts. If all we have is ten years the world is doomed and the world would not be able to do anything fast enough to fix what may very well not be broken.
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Now, if we only relied upon models to research AGW, the theory would be very weak. But, that isn't the case. There are a host of different data sources that support AGW from many different realms of science and they all suggest the same thing:
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You mean like Mann's hockey stick graph?
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the best explanation for warming/climate changes is due to carbon dioxide increase and most of this carbon dioxide increase is sue to man-made activities.
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False.
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Yet, Crichton never really attacks these data sets. Almost all of his arguments deal with the models, which is far and away the weakest of the supporting data sets for AGW.
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I have already showed that is not the case.
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And the ones that try to go after the science that I've seen are pretty damn weak (the one that comes to mind is one where he states carbon dioxide only makes up a small percentage of the atmosphere so it just CAN'T make that big of a difference). Sorry, but that doesn't fly. If he wants to be far more convincing, he needs to show why other, much stronger data sets are incorrectly interpreted. I have yet to see any skeptic scientist, let alon Mr. Crichton, do this.
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In no particular order:
Roy Spencer’s testimony before congress backs up Monckton’s assertions on climate sensitivity « Watts Up With That?
Roy W. Spencer: Global Warming and Nature's Thermostat
CO2 Science
Still Waiting For Greenhouse
When Graphs Attack! « Watts Up With That?
http://www.climatechangeissues.com/f...5mckitrick.pdf
Climate Modeling Must Consider All "Greenhouse" Gases
Jan Veizer
The Milky Way Galaxy's Spiral Arms and Ice-Age Epochs and the Cosmic Ray Connection | ScienceBits
On the Role of Cosmic Ray Flux variations as a Climate Driver: The Debate | ScienceBits
Two Peer-Reviewed Scientific Papers Debunk CO2 Myth
http://www.heartland.org/pdf/21977.pdf
Dr. John R. Christy
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/chris...gless_etal.pdf
http://www.marshall.org/pdf/materials/136.pdf
Harvard Gazette: Global warming is not so hot
http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/2005GL023849.pdf
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Another of his big themes is that consensus doesn't equal the truth. Again, I have sympathy for this argument, yet I think it is logically flawed in how he uses it. It's true that there have been sea changes in scientific thought when one scientist, much mocked and ridiculed, bucked "the system" and proved to everyone that he was right and changed how people looked at the world. Galileo, Darwin, and Wegener come to mind. Crichton often uses the examples of plate tectonics and global cooling to show how the consensus was wrong. So since this happened, how can consensus be trusted?
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Consensus can never be trusted completely. Experimentation repeated and verified by multiple sources can be trusted. Consensus does not move scientific fact forward, it helps establish it.
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I know that consensus is sometimes wrong. But, more often than naught, I do trust it (I still read up on it, though). why would I do such a "stupid" thing? Well, it's because consensus is much, much more often right than it is wrong. Yet, Crichton never gives examples of this, and there are MANY. To put it in words that a friend of mine said once, "just because someone laughed at one of your jokes, it doesn't mean you're funny". Crichton uses his argument to paint all consensus as inherently flawed due to a few cases, when in reality, these cases are exceptions rather than the rule.
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Amazon.com: Rethinking Risk and the Precautionary Principle: Julian Morris: Books Within this book you will find a list of major scientific developments that were held back because of the subjective prejudices of scientists. That's consensus for you.
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So, in many ways, I think Crichton is a case study in the very thing he argues against. He uses part of the story to inflame public opinion for his side of the story. That's why it is better to have these talks based on the science, rather than the messenger (which was the whole point I was trying to get with my flippant comment).
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Considering the fact that you misunderstood Crichton's claim and his argument (you at least misstated them) I think we can dismiss yours.
While not all of the links above lead to articles written by scientists writing about "the science," several of them are. But thank you for taking the time to reply.
tashi deleks,
M