Aliens cause global warming

[bascule]

http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html

 

Well, not really... but Michael Crichton has attempted to relate the Drake Equation to the mathematics underlying climate science, specifically in regard to making outrageous predictions about the future...

[Mr Skeptic]

Very nice link. I hope that this thread does not get trashed by closed minded people...

[Pangloss]

He seems to be saying that the inherent vagueness of the Drake equation, which suggests the underlying variables necessary to calculate the frequency of life in the universe, changed the definition of what constitutes "science". Since none of the variables can actually be known, scientific legitimacy was granted to something that did not actually constitute science. This opened a pandora's box that allowed wild conjectures like "nuclear winter", "global warming", "creationism", etc (he's saying these things, not me).

 

Isn't he making a mistake here in equating "science" with "fact"? I thought science was any exploratory process based on logical derivation of evidence. Isn't he going to far requiring that something cannot be called science unless it has been established as fact? Isn't it really the other way around -- we conjecture first, based, yes, on evidence, and THEN find fact?

 

Also, isn't he wrong in saying that the Drake Equation is vague, or not science? Who says we can't know those variables? Sure we don't know their values NOW, but who is to say we won't know them later? And how does that prove that we can't understand and evaluate all the variables in, say, global warming? Surely the Earth contains a much more comprehensible set of variables than the entire universe.

 

Not saying he doesn't have a point, though, and I particularly enjoyed this passage, roasting SciAm:

 

Worst of all was the behavior of the Scientific American, which seemed intent on proving the post-modernist point that it was all about power, not facts. The Scientific American attacked Lomborg for eleven pages, yet only came up with nine factual errors despite their assertion that the book was "rife with careless mistakes." It was a poor display featuring vicious ad hominem attacks, including comparing him to a Holocaust denier. The issue was captioned: "Science defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist." Really. Science has to defend itself? Is this what we have come to?

 

When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.

 

...

 

Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.

 

Ouch!

[bascule]

Climate models continuously integrate new, scientific knowledge about the climate system and model outputs can be tested for accuracy against the instrumental record, at least for the past century or so.

 

The Drake equation is total conjecture. It doesn't continuously integrate new information.

 

Climate models in the '70s were highly inaccurate. They've been continuously refined for decades to improve their effectiveness.

 

The Drake equation has not changed, nor has any new information been used to improve its accuracy.

 

Climate models are not a single equation. They are complex systems for transforming model inputs and doing successive iterations across various grids representing either regions or the entire planet.

 

So, that said, Crichton's main argument seems to be that climate science is driven by politics, rather than the other way around.

 

I call bullshit.

[foodchain]

I don’t understand how he can reach this understanding of climate science either. Al Gore was and still interacts with politics for example, but he does not produce the science behind his stance science does. This is conducted in a fashion sound with accepted scientific practice. So for him to relate this to people I don’t understand how purely politics would be climate science more so that global warming of course is not a purely climate science issue and has gained support via science by other scientific fields of study. I think of course as personal opinion the issue is more dramatic in terms of human culture due to impact. As in this debate does not rage over the status of gravity for instance, yet both are scientific avenues of study which pertain to the natural world.

 

I know that studies have been conducted in the name of global warming that have turned out to be false, but in that context even if such was purely scientific in purpose such as studying the sun for instance in relation to solar forcing came out to be incorrect as the main cause of global warming the reality to me is science is not always going to be right on every little thing as a constant in time in regards to every little detail at the moment, its why we have models and theory in the first place.

 

That being said I still cannot find in regards to science a reason to support the claim that climate science is purely political, i think such an opinion is far more political actually that differs from say Gore as in I don’t know to what extent if any science would support such a stance.

[Reaper]

I'm pretty certain that if there was even one peer-reviewed scientific article that genuinely indicated that some other cause was at work for global warming, politicians, coorporations, the general public, etc would instantly change their minds and policies about global warming and environmentalism in a heartbeat. I'm pretty certain they would be rejoicing, rather than dismissing it.

 

And I think that his analogy to nuclear winter is out of context and just plain wrong, for he claims that we cannot know the effects of a nuclear winter or the amount of destruction that can arise given x-amount of bombs fired and deployed.

For example, a single volcano, while far less destructive than a nuke would be, throws up enough dust and ash to cause profound changes in Earth's weather patterns and significant temperature drops worldwide for quite a while, anywhere between a few months and a few years (depending on the severity of the volcanic explosion that is). Now, if a localized geological calamity can throw up that much dust to do that, it is not unreasonable to suggest that firing even a small percentage of our total nuclear arsenal (The TTAPS report assumed about 1000 nukes, or 5000 megaton yield, for reference) or so nukes can throw up enough dust to cause profound or permanent changes in Earth's weather patterns and/or climate changes. And, it is assumed that most of it will be concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere. Nevermind the fact that this dust is radioactive, which would cause even more problems than the ones he described.

 

But, I do think he does have a point about the additude regarding sci-am. Ad-hominems, baseless assumptions, etc. are never ok, regardless of how wrong or how unsupported the claims or beliefs are.

 

Also, isn't he wrong in saying that the Drake Equation is vague, or not science?

 

He is. The Drake equation has a pretty clear and precise aim; it was formulated to predict the probability or likehood of us finding another civilization elsewhere in the galaxy, or the universe for that matter. Just because we don't know the exact values of every variable in the equation doesn't mean it's not science.

 

So far, however, all we can do is speculate, because we don't have any data on the nature of extraterrestrial civilizations, or any data on the likelihood of how and where life springs up in general. The only thing we know is the number of stars in our galaxy.

 

You can watch this video here, Carl Sagan does a good job explaining what the equation means and how it can be applied:

 

The drake equation has also been applied to our own to predict the likelihood of our survival.

 

The Drake equation has not changed, nor has any new information been used to improve its accuracy.

 

 

Well, that's because there is no information we have about it so far, so we can't do anything to improve it's accuracy

[swansont]

When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.

 

But scroll down and we see

 

NOTE: Speeches contained on this site are the property of Michael Crichton and may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without express permission.

 

Hmmm. Pot. Kettle. Black.

 

Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.

 

That, and the whole post, really, is just the Galileo Gambit.

 

The Drake equation is just a probability calculation. To call SETI a religion is crap. I don't know if Louis Leakey did a probability calculation before schlepping to Olduvi Gorge, but I'm pretty sure that was science even before the first bones were found. Either there is life outside this planet or there isn't, but the act of looking is religion? Crichton's a hack.

[Mr Skeptic]

When Lomborg asked for space to rebut his critics, he was given only a page and a half. When he said it wasn't enough, he put the critics' essays on his web page and answered them in detail. Scientific American threatened copyright infringement and made him take the pages down.

 

But scroll down and we see

 

NOTE: Speeches contained on this site are the property of Michael Crichton and may not be reproduced, copied, edited, published, transmitted or uploaded in any way without express permission.

 

Hmmm. Pot. Kettle. Black.

 

Well, we would have to wait until he denies a critic the use of his post to tell for sure. Maybe having a bunch of media people mad at you just makes you paranoid.

 

Of course, any scientist can be charged as Galileo was charged. I just never thought I'd see the Scientific American in the role of mother church.

 

That, and the whole post, really, is just the Galileo Gambit.

 

Well, he was arguing that people who go against the consensus get "charged with heresy", so it gives evidence for his argument. Though it would have been much less self-serving if he had used somebody else as an example.

 

The Drake equation is just a probability calculation. To call SETI a religion is crap. I don't know if Louis Leakey did a probability calculation before schlepping to Olduvi Gorge, but I'm pretty sure that was science even before the first bones were found. Either there is life outside this planet or there isn't, but the act of looking is religion? Crichton's a hack.

 

The Drake equation is obviously correct. Anyone who knows how to cancel terms can see that. Using it as evidence for anything at the moment is completely arbitrary, though. Until we can estimate either theoretically or experimentally how likely we are to find a sun with a planet capable of supporting life, that has life that is intelligent and willing to talk with us and are still alive, it is useless. And after that, we already have the answer. The equation is only there to make it look like they know what they are talking about.

 

The act of looking may be science, but the "estimating" how much life is out there looks like guesswork. Personally, I would rather they spent their bits modeling protein folding.

 

Oh, and the Drake equation forgot to include the fraction of civilizations that use EM in the same spectrum we use to communicate.

[Reaper]

The Drake equation is obviously correct. Anyone who knows how to cancel terms can see that. Using it as evidence for anything at the moment is completely arbitrary, though. Until we can estimate either theoretically or experimentally how likely we are to find a sun with a planet capable of supporting life, that has life that is intelligent and willing to talk with us and are still alive, it is useless. And after that, we already have the answer. The equation is only there to make it look like they know what they are talking about.

 

Well, the Drake equation is not really used as evidence though. It is just there to give us an idea of the likelihood that we will find another technological extraterrestrial civilization on galaxies. As for the number of planets that may support life that are out there, this article gives an idea of how many may be in our own galaxy:http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401024

 

So, we are making progress in solving the Drake equation, if only very slowly. But it is best to be patient.

 

The act of looking may be science, but the "estimating" how much life is out there looks like guesswork. Personally, I would rather they spent their bits modeling protein folding.

 

Right now its guess work because we only have one data sample (which is Earth). But that doesn't mean that we won't be able to learn enough information that will allow us to figure out the likelihood of life on other planets. I'm pretty sure that we will learn that in the coming years of the 21st century.

 

 

Oh, and the Drake equation forgot to include the fraction of civilizations that use EM in the same spectrum we use to communicate.

 

Maybe they might use a different one, but probably not likely. There is a reason why we transmit information at particular frequencies; they are not just frequencies that are chosen at random. Likewise, an extraterrestrial civilization capable of radio astronomy or telecommunications would have figured that out too.

[Glider]

I think he does make some good points. 'Science' doesn't care what it finds, but people tend to be more resistant to findings they don't like, or disagree with, and much more prepared to accept without question findings they like or agree with.

 

It is extrememly difficult to remove the element of concensus when trying to move scientific results from the lab to the population, especially if those results hold some potential for cost.

 

I have one particular issue. Where Chrighton says "Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future?. I think he is confusing two separate measures.

 

If I went to a sea wall on the South coast of England on a choppy day, I could not place a line on the wall that predicts the exact surface level at any specific point on the wall 30 seconds in advance. That is pretty much like trying to predict tomorrow's weather.

 

However, I could place a line on the wall that accurately predicts the mean surface level (+/- chop) four hours in advance as long as I knew know the state of the tide at the point I arrived. That is more like predicting a future state based on measurable trends.

[swansont]

Well, he was arguing that people who go against the consensus get "charged with heresy", so it gives evidence for his argument. Though it would have been much less self-serving if he had used somebody else as an example.

 

But it's logically invalid. Calling it heresy is poisoning the well and a strawman, and the reaction from the science community will be negative to your claim if you're wrong, too. A negative reaction is not proof that you're right — you have to come up with a bunch of evidence, and it does take time to assess the evidence.

 

The Drake equation is obviously correct. Anyone who knows how to cancel terms can see that. Using it as evidence for anything at the moment is completely arbitrary, though. Until we can estimate either theoretically or experimentally how likely we are to find a sun with a planet capable of supporting life, that has life that is intelligent and willing to talk with us and are still alive, it is useless. And after that, we already have the answer. The equation is only there to make it look like they know what they are talking about.

 

The Drake equation is only very weakly coupled to SETI. It doesn't tell you where to look or what to look for, so that's a huge strawman on Crichton's part.

 

 

edit: Ran across this commentary on Crichton's speech.

[bascule]

Is it me or are those who claim climate science is politicized generally non-scientists who are trying to politicize it?

[1veedo]

Is it me or are those who claim climate science is politicized generally non-scientists who are trying to politicize it?

Yeah that's what I tend to notice too.

[Mr Skeptic]

I think he does make some good points. 'Science' doesn't care what it finds, but people tend to be more resistant to findings they don't like, or disagree with, and much more prepared to accept without question findings they like or agree with.

 

They say that ideas change because the people who believed the old ideas eventually die out

 

But it's logically invalid. Calling it heresy is poisoning the well and a strawman, and the reaction from the science community will be negative to your claim if you're wrong, too. A negative reaction is not proof that you're right — you have to come up with a bunch of evidence, and it does take time to assess the evidence.

 

True, but criticizing him and then trying to prevent him from responding to the criticism would be too far (if that is indeed what they did).

 

The Drake equation is only very weakly coupled to SETI. It doesn't tell you where to look or what to look for, so that's a huge strawman on Crichton's part.

 

Glad to hear that. I don't really know that much about SETI other than that they haven't found ET yet but are using lots of cpu power to analize signals.

 

My my.. we were just studying Janis' "GROUPTHINK" theory in class the other day.

 

VERY Fascinating theory, and I recommend the read, specifically his analysis of the decisions that were taking in the incident of "The Bay of Pigs" (as a bad decision, caused by what he defines as "groupthink") versus the second, better managed incident, of the "Cuba Missile Crisis".

 

His theory is that within the psychological interaction of a group, people can be subjected to methods and pressures that would make them not express themselves fully, become arrogant (something like 'as a group, we agree, therefore we must be right') and encourage unanimity.

 

The symptoms for groupthink are (abbrev):

 

Symptoms of Groupthink

 

Janis has documented eight symptoms of groupthink:

 

1. Illusion of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.

2. Collective rationalization – Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.

3. Belief in inherent morality – Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.

4. Stereotyped views of out-groups – Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary.

5. Direct pressure on dissenters – Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views.

6. Self-censorship – Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.

7. Illusion of unanimity – The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.

8. Self-appointed ‘mindguards’ – Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

 

((source: http://www.psysr.org/groupthink%20overview.htm))

 

He's explaining it quite convincingly, and it's really fascinating to read.

 

 

~moo

 

Sorry to totally yank this out of context,

 

but might Crichton be accusing science of groupthink?

[iNow]

True, but criticizing him and then trying to prevent him from responding to the criticism would be too far (if that is indeed what they did).

I thought they were just enforcing copyright.

[swansont]

I thought they were just enforcing copyright.

 

I'm not sure the responses are lining up here, but the copyright thing was just that; you can post your own responses, but the original criticism was apparently posted without permission. (Crichton criticized that, and yet the very page had a copyright notice on it, saying you can't repost without permission. More than a smattering of hypocrisy).

 

The post to which Mr. Skeptic replied was in regard to calling the so-called skeptics as heretics, which is poisoning the well; this is not tied in with the copyright issue AFAIK.

 

Glad to hear that. I don't really know that much about SETI other than that they haven't found ET yet but are using lots of cpu power to analize signals.

 

But they are, in fact, analyzing signals. They aren't praying for divine inspiration or reading tarot cards to figure it out.

[iNow]

Crichton criticized that, and yet the very page had a copyright notice on it, saying you can't repost without permission. More than a smattering of hypocrisy.

I missed that first part, and agree. I still think Crichton is full of malarky, but also recognize that Sci Am may have used copyright to squash it while their desire to do so could have come from other motivations.

[Pangloss]

Exactly. And a disturbing trend from that important institution.

[iNow]

Exactly. And a disturbing trend from that important institution.

 

So, now we've gone from a speculation that they MAY have had other motives to "this is a disturbing trend?!?!?" :confused:

[Mr Skeptic]

But they are, in fact, analyzing signals. They aren't praying for divine inspiration or reading tarot cards to figure it out.

 

Much good it's done them But I agree; it's the thought (and, of course, methodology) that counts. The search may be science, but I think that the value of the Drake equation is just guesswork at this point.

[swansont]

Exactly. And a disturbing trend from that important institution.

 

It's a tactic that's being used by some dodgy folks to quash criticism, and Sci Am shouldn't have to resort to that. But it turns out this isn't the case:

http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/politech/msg02803.html

 

The notion that a publishing company would object to any and all infringement as a matter of policy isn't all that surprising or unreasonable to me.

 

Like that note said, they offered to host the whole thing on their web site, and it's available there; the original article, Lomborg's responses (the short one published in SciAm and a longer pdf file) and responses to the responses.

 

Note that Lomborg's "detailed" response is dated Feb 2002, and the web site date is April 2002, which is well before the Jan 2003 date of Crichton's speech, but he never makes mention of this. Selective omission of data to bolster your case is bad scientific practice.

[Glider]

They say that ideas change because the people who believed the old ideas eventually die out

There's a lot of truth in that

[Pangloss]

John Rennie isn't objectively qualified to determine whether Scientific American is crossing that line, swansont. If they've done so, he's the perpetrator. That's the price you pay when you decide to enter a fight on one side or the other. So what you've posted isn't a refutation, it's a countering opinion. There is a huge difference.

 

Besides, you're talking about the man who invented the term "global warming deniers", which is all about having an agenda and putting opposition in its place. (Or at least popularized it; I mean what the hell is the editor of an ostensibly objective and scientific magazine doing pushing an agenda?)

 

Rennie should have held his institution above the fray. Instead he's chosen to place it right in the middle of the fight. Frankly SciAm is spending its reputation like it's an actual budget item instead of a resource you keep tucked away for a rainy day. They have enough "income" to keep it going, but they would be better served following an honest pattern of scientific objectivity along the lines of Nova or Nature, instead of getting down and dirty in the trenches.

 

From which I surmise that they've just never seen YT2095's signature.

[swansont]

John Rennie isn't objectively qualified to determine whether Scientific American is crossing that line, swansont. If they've done so, he's the perpetrator. That's the price you pay when you decide to enter a fight on one side or the other. So what you've posted isn't a refutation, it's a countering opinion. There is a huge difference.

 

I was pointing out that Crichton didn't tell the whole story. The fact of the matter is that you can read all of it on the SciAm website; that's not an opinion. Rennie stated SciAm's policy and gave his account of what happened. Now it's entirely possible that there were ulterior motives, but it's still a fact that you can read all of the material on their website — there is no weight to the argument that they were trying to censor the rebuttal. (Lomborg would have been free to post his rebuttal in any case, it was just a question of how much of the original article he was quoting)

 

Besides, you're talking about the man who invented the term "global warming deniers", which is all about having an agenda and putting opposition in its place. (Or at least popularized it; I mean what the hell is the editor of an ostensibly objective and scientific magazine doing pushing an agenda?)

 

Rennie should have held his institution above the fray. Instead he's chosen to place it right in the middle of the fight. Frankly SciAm is spending its reputation like it's an actual budget item instead of a resource you keep tucked away for a rainy day. They have enough "income" to keep it going, but they would be better served following an honest pattern of scientific objectivity along the lines of Nova or Nature, instead of getting down and dirty in the trenches.

 

I haven't read the material in question, so I don't know if you're referring to that or the more general situation.

 

Not all of global warming is political — there is underlying science. And there is no "other side" in this case; the science is pretty clear to those who do that work for a living. There are those who use political and rhetorical tactics rather than basing their arguments on science, but denialism shuld not be confused with debate. A scientific magazine should have a duty of exposing bad science and antiscience, and that has nothing to do with pushing an agenda.

[SkepticLance]

Chrichton is a suspect source of information. However, Lomborg is not. His Skeptical Environmentalist book is a carefully compiled mass of objectively derived data. SciAm did not like the results, but that shows their shortcoming, not Lomborg's. I bought a copy of Lomborg's book and read it cover to cover. Even now, some years later, I have found very little that could be pointed to and called wrong.

 

The Drake Equation may or may not be called scientific. I would think of it more as scientific speculation. Sagan and Drake applied their best guesses to fit values for the equation, and came up with a result of one million alien civilisations in our galaxy. SETI may not have achieved very much, but it makes this result seem seriously unlikely. If there are a million advanced civilisations, what are the chances that none use any communication method that SETI can detect?