Can we trust what scientists are saying?

[Ignatiev]

Hello everybody.

 

I am a rep for a supercomputer company and I don't trust what they are saying about the climate.

 

I believe this is a natural cycle and I don't think they have the evidence. I think they are just trying to get money. I know how this works because I take that money. They need the money to get paid then they take the money and pay me. It's a scam and while I don't want to lose my money I think these scientists are not telling the truth.

[Phi for All]

I think they are just trying to get money.

If there weren't other scientists out there checking the evidence for flaws, hoping to be the scientists who caught what no one else caught, scientists who aren't getting any money for climate research, then you might have a point.

 

But there are.

 

You can check out some of the discussions in Ecology and the Environment, or go to Climate Sciences. Read, read, read, lots to learn before you make up your mind.

[AzurePhoenix]

Fortunately science isn't about trust. It's about data. Lots and lots and lots of data. Would you like share your data indicating the natural cycle hypothesis? Or are you just trusting something to arrive at that belief?

[JohnB]

Actually AP, there seems to be some interesting stuff around along those lines. How good it is and whether or not it pans out is a different question.

 

Ignatiev, I echo what Phi said. Read, read and read. Our own opinions count for nothing, it is the data that matters.

[padren]

The problem really isn't the scientists, it's the process we all use to determine the quality of sources.

 

For instance, all the concerns you raise with regards to climate scientists, are true with all advocates of all aspects of human endeavor. Consider the claims made by politicians, car salesmen, HOAs, oil companies, wall street bankers, military generals - do you think any of them have any less motive to lie, and any less able to bury facts to make spurious claims appear reasonable?

 

The truth is, we tend to use shortcuts in determining the quality of information.

 

• We decide if it fits our world view, and if it does we mentally tilt the benefit of the doubt in their favor.
   
  
• We determine how we feel about the authority of the source - is it someone or some organization we like, respect or otherwise feel has a reasonable reputation? How do we feel about their critics?
   
  
• We measure the cost of the two weighed possibilities: how much does it cost to believe it, and how much does it cost if we don't.
  

We do this because it's next to impossible to verify everything ourselves. We can't go and see what Afghanistan is like, so we trust military leaders and reporters to tell us. We run it through our "world view/model" to filter information that doesn't seem to make sense. Ten foot tall spiders invading Spain would be hard to swallow, knowing even basic information about the mechanics involved and the biology of where such things could hide before now. We filter if it's coming from a dirty commie or a filthy teabagger.

Lastly, if it's information that doesn't affect us we tend to just accept it since it doesn't matter.

 

If the news is some trouble with the guidance system on the international space station they had to fix, we don't tend to care to vet it. If it's going to impact our lives like climate change we'll consider it very carefully.

 

 

That's how we normally work. As you can imagine, that is nearly useless for scientific endeavors. To this end, science has gotten where it is today through strict peer review, masses of empirical evidence reproduction of results and extensive modeling and prediction analysis.

I can understand how people would be skeptical of the press-release level of science, but all the data is there to be examined if you know how to look. Most people are skeptical because they don't know how to look, and don't know how to differentiate legitimate work from, say the "super healing ionized water" snake oil pushers.

 

I think sometimes people in the scientific community fail to realize how much it looks like a "series of bullet points" summarized by a reporter (who will usually mess it up) with a whole bunch of Greek written in the background.

If you are very familiar with the scientific landscape, getting a read on information quality is much more second nature.

 

 

If you are really worried about the quality of information you are getting, your best bet is to learn why it's considered solid. Learn more about how the peer review process works, how data and theory are debated, who is doing what, what their credentials are and become more familiar with the scientific landscape behind all this. You'll probably find that some claims are being overstated in the media, and it's those overstated claims that are refuted by critics, but when you cut right down to it the data that is concerning scientists which points to man made global warming actually is pretty solid.

But regardless of what you find, the important point is you'll find it, and you'll have reasonable reasons to back up what you find.

[swansont]

Hello everybody.

 

I am a rep for a supercomputer company and I don't trust what they are saying about the climate.

 

I believe this is a natural cycle and I don't think they have the evidence. I think they are just trying to get money. I know how this works because I take that money. They need the money to get paid then they take the money and pay me. It's a scam and while I don't want to lose my money I think these scientists are not telling the truth.

 

Most scientists get paid. Do we not trust any research at all, because of that? Why are climate scientists special in this regard?

 

As far as dismissing it as "it's natural," that's a flawed argument. You still have to account for the energy imbalance that is driving the temperature increase. If you dismiss anthropogenic CO2 (and simply dismissing it has no basis in science), then you have to come up with a new mechanism. Failing to do so makes "it's natural" as meaningless and useless as "it's magic."

[iNow]

Just to reinforce what swansont said... It's perfectly acceptable to think it's natural. None of us dispute that as a possibility. However, you need to still describe what natural phenomenon is making it happen before that assertion has merit.

 

Is it volcanoes? Nope.

Is it oceanic changes? Nope.

Is it the sun? Nope.

Is it the countless other natural things? Not that we can tell, nope.

 

So... you do this process of elimination... go through deduction... like Sherlock Holmes would...

 

It's not the sun. It's not volcanoes. It's not a whole lot of other things... What's left?

 

Well... there's those thousands of metric tons of carbon we're digging out of the ground... carbon which has been buried and sequestered for millions and millions of years... and we're burning it... releasing it into the air... into the atmosphere... where it takes hundreds of years to break down... and where basic chemistry shows that it changes the way heat gets exchanged.

 

But yeah... We should probably dismiss that too, right, because everyone who knows anything about it and who has studied it for their entire lifetimes might happen to earn a paycheck while conducting their work... Work which is reviewed by thousands of their colleagues for accuracy.

[CharonY]

A point about money. You get money for research, not restating opinions. In other words a climate scientist would submit a grant e.g. proposing to apply a certain model to explain certain climate patterns. In other words, the results of this approach remains to be seen. Also, you generally do not get funded if your results are expected to be no different from what is already known. Either the approach has to be novel or the outcome has to have some impact.

In fact, research that are against common knowledge have a chance of getting funded IF there is very strong preliminary data pointing into that direction. It would be new and cool and, if presented convincingly, it would open up new direction (one of my funded grants was a bit like that).

[swansont]

There's also the data that are going to be collected no matter what, like temperature and other climate/weather data. Government scientists aren't going to be out of a job if there wasn't warming, or if the source of the warming were natural, because we'd still want that data to be collected. Governments have a compelling interest to be able to understand the weather and climate.

[rigney]

I don't know too much about global warming, but barring another Pinatubo, Krakatau, Mt. St. Helens and Vesuvius all erupting at the same time, I really have to give Al Gore a little credit. A thing like this can get close to your heart. This Oil spill! Plus the new coal burning mills, factories and power plants going up throughout the world, except here in the states makes me wonder?

 

Oil Spill!

http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com

Edited June 10, 2010 by rigney