A Great Description of the Sceptic position.

[JohnB]

Matt Ridley, author of "The Rational Optimist" gave the Angus Millar Lecture at the RSA recently, describing himself as a climate "Heretic". His speech is about the best overview of the sceptical position I've seen and judging from the comments at the blogs "at least 97%" of the sceptics would agree with me on this.

 

He has allowed a couple of blogs to post the full text of his speech and it's really worth the read. (Unless of course a person is certain that the other side is composed only of pseudoscience and liars and would rather not face evidence to the contrary)

 

The link is to Anthony Watts site simply because this version has some of the explanatory graphs that accompanied the speech and they aren't available elsewhere. The fact that it is the Watts site will, I'm sure, turn some people from reading it. I urge those who do have that reaction to think about their response. Is it a reasoned reaction or a dogmatic response to ignore something that may disagree with your worldview?

 

"Thank you Matt Ridley"

 

While I agree with what he had to say in general, there are a couple of areas that I'm quite as content with. A big bugbear being that the speech has a number of asterisks to denote references, but the actual references are lacking.

 

However I hope the speech can dispel some myths about "denialists" (or whatever derogatory name is in vogue right now) and stimulate an interesting conversation.

 

Edit to add;

The RSA was formed 1754 and originally known as the "Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce". It awarded cash prizes for the development of Arts and to help inventors. Later they became a "Royal" Society and shortened their name. One could argue they have possibly the longest pedigree in "Environmental" concerns as they first awarded prizes in 1770 to inventors attempting to reduce smoke emissions. They aslao awarded a prize for the invention of a machine in 1805 the replaced children as chimney sweeps. Also responsible for the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the establishment of the Royal College of Music in 1876. Their achievements and timeline can be found on their website here.

Edited November 4, 2011 by JohnB

[matty]

hello, no offense, but it's sKeptic. I know there are very different spellings for things abroad, some of them bug me but I don't think this's in that category and if it is, well, add it to the list...

 

Septic, I keep reading it like sceptor, you know, lol, omg, knockitoff.

[swansont]

hello, no offense, but it's sKeptic. I know there are very different spellings for things abroad, some of them bug me but I don't think this's in that category and if it is, well, add it to the list...

 

Septic, I keep reading it like sceptor, you know, lol, omg, knockitoff.

 

It is in that category. Any decent dictionary would tell you that.

 

____

 

Matt Ridley broke my irony meter. While it's not as extreme as some it's still an example of why the "sceptic" movement is called denialism.

 

The fallacy of "heretics are sometimes right"

Lysenkoism? Really?

The "climategate" emails. Again, really?

 

I noticed "Your probability* of dying as a result of a drought, a flood or a storm is 98% lower globally than it was in the 1920s." because we discussed it recently. This is a massive straw man argument.

 

His "at least X" section is a wonderful example of cherry-picking.

 

None of the claims are backed up; I know it was a talk, but that's part of the problem — unsupported claims. It makes him part of the credulous media, not separate from it.

[matty]

You did just fine.

 

Chalk another one up cuz that one's most odd.

[JohnB]

The "climategate" emails. Again, really?

 

Yes. It's quite odd that some people have a severe dislike for those who knowingly and intentionally conspire to break the law. Funny how we don't view them as ethical or moral people.

[iNow]

It's quite odd that some people have a severe dislike for those who knowingly and intentionally conspire to break the law.

Who conspired knowingly to break a law, exactly? When did that happen, and what law(s) was/were broken?

[swansont]

Yes. It's quite odd that some people have a severe dislike for those who knowingly and intentionally conspire to break the law. Funny how we don't view them as ethical or moral people.

 

But it's not at all surprising to me that people ignore the multiple investigations into the matter that ALL found no wrongdoing.

[JohnB]

Who conspired knowingly to break a law, exactly? When did that happen, and what law(s) was/were broken?

 

From: Phil Jones To: “Michael E. Mann”

Subject: IPCC & FOI

Date: Thu May 29 11:04:11 2008

 

Mike,

 

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

 

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment - minor family crisis.

 

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

 

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

 

I see that CA claim they discovered the 1945 problem in the Nature paper!!

 

Cheers

 

Phil:

 

Deleting documents or requesting others to delete documents that are subject to an FOI request is an illegal act, like it or lump it. The only reason that Phil Jones wasn't charged was the relevent legislation had a requirement that for charges to be laid discovery must occur within 6 months of the act. As the 6 month period had passed no charges could be laid. Both the Britisn and Scottish Parliments are modifying the law so that this loophole is closed in the future. I put it to you that when the actions of a person result in new laws those actions are not viewed as "legal" or "acceptable" by Parliments or the general public at large.

 

I also put it to you that it doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to know that destruction of documents subject to an FOI request is a very big no no in Western nations. This is basic stuff here, not some fine point of law.

 

To his credit Dr Mann did not delete any emails on the subject and was able to produce a zip archive to the Investigating Committee containing the emails. In testimony to the committee (although where to find that now is a good question) he stated that he thought the request was a bit "off" so to speak and expressed concern about the request. However he did forward the request to "Gene".

 

Given those as the facts it is very hard to understand how the Committee found "that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data related to AR4, as suggested by Dr. Phil Jones."

 

If forwarding the request to delete isn't an action, at least indirectly, with "intent to delete" I really don't know what is.

 

But it's not at all surprising to me that people ignore the multiple investigations into the matter that ALL found no wrongdoing.

 

Swansont, the problem I and others have with the investigations is that they "smell", to say the least. It's not so much the findings as the way they were arrived at that is a cause for concern. Consider if a criminal investigation was held the same way. Exactly how balanced or open or fair would you consider a judicial investigation where the judge was a friend of the defendant, as are the jury and prosecutor and only friends of the defendant were interviewed as part of the investigation?

 

The reasoning behind some of the investigations is "dubious" to say the least. From a Penn State inquiry;

This level of success in proposing research, and obtaining funding to conduct it, clearly places Dr.Mann among the most respected scientists in his field. Such success would not have been possible had he not met or exceeded the highest standards of his profession for proposing research

 

There are similar comments elsewhere in the report. I find this an absolutely bizarre bit of circular reasoning. "Naughty" actions are "impossible" if you are successful, Dr Mann is successful and therefore cannot have been naughty. I would point out the Bernie Madoff was quite good at getting money too and was also quite respected in his (extremely competitive) field, for that matter so was Richard Nixon.

 

Clive Crook, who is a "warmist" BTW wrote this article for the Financial Times about the investigations.

 

Similarly I'm not too sure that right now is a good time to be arguing for Penn States ability to conduct thorough internal investigations.

 

It is worthwhle noting that none of the British inquiries actually asked the simple question "Did you delete any emails?" One would think that if such things were the topic of the investigation then that question would be asked.

 

For my part, and I do want to make this perfectly, crystal clear. I do not believe that Dr Mann or any others have engaged in professional misconduct by using false data or that type of thing. I think that there is a lot of confirmational bias going on and conflicting data might be being ignored on that basis. (Along the lines of since it conflicts, it must be wrong and shouldn't be used) I think that there have been very poor statistical techniques being used and I'm concerned that "new" and "novel" statistical techniques are turning up in the climate literature after being reviewed by climate scientists and not competent statisticians. Any "wrongdoings" are the result of confirmation bias, gatekeeping and perhaps "noble cause corruption" and are not the result of any wilful attempt to mislead, commit fraud, etc.

 

There has been quite a bit over the years about the FOI things with many on the "establishment" side saying that there was no need for the requests as the data was already "publicly available", the Section 6 defence used by UEA to refuse an FOI request and that FOI requests have been done for the purpose of "harrassing" or otherwise. I'd like to quote from the Information Commissioners ruling on this as to just how "publicly available" the data is;

27. Regulation 6(1) provides that

"Where an applicant requests that the information be made available in a particular form or format, a public authority shall make it so available, unless -

(a) it is reasonable for it to make the information available in another form or format; or

(b) the information is already publicly available and easily accessible to the applicant in another form or format. "

 

28. UEA argued that the requested data is an aggregation of a number of datasets provided by NMSs and other sources. There was no obligation under the EIR to make the requested data available in a digital form as most of it was already publicly available and easily accessible. Therefore regulation 6(1)(b) applied.

 

29. In its letter to the Commissioner of 5 April 2011, UEA identified the weather stations in relation to which the same information as that in the withheld datasets was available on the GHCN website. The Commissioner subsequently asked UEA to explain, step by step, the process the complainant would have needed to follow to identify which weather stations on the GHCN website were contained in the datasets sent to Georgia Tech and how they would then have located the data for those weather stations on the GHCN website.

 

30. On 11 May 2011 UEA provided a very detailed explanation as to how the information to which it believed regulation 6 applied could be obtained from the publicly available GHCN website. It explained that the format of the data on the GHCN website was somewhat different from its own datasets. Consequently it was not reasonable to expect to be able to match its own temperature series with any GHCN counterparts by the simple reliance on a matching of respective station codes. Having regard to all the potential difficulties in matching station series between the two different datasets it suggested a four stage process to achieve this.

 

31. Stage 1 involved the matching of stations in UEA's dataset with its nearest equivalent on GHCN using latitude and longitude only. Stage 2 involved the extraction of the GHCN station series according to the nearest matches from stage 1. Stage 3 involved a dummy merger of the two matching subsets in order to generate differences files for common subsets and stage 4 required an assessment of the differences files. Each stage required the use of a different computer program to carry out. UEA provided these to the Commissioner.

 

32. The Commissioner's view is that the phrase " ... already publicly available ... " contained in regulation 6 refers to whether an applicant can reasonably obtain all the information to which the regulation has been applied. It does not refer to whether the applicant can access a reasonable proportion of the information to which it has been applied.

 

33. He is also of the view that information is easily accessible if a public authority is able to direct the applicant to where they can locate the same information that has been requested. The public authority has to be able to be reasonably specific as to the location of the information to ensure that it is found without difficulty and not hidden within a mass of other information. If it is able to do this, in the Commissioner's view, the public authority will have discharged its duty under regulation 5 which requires it to make environmental information available on request.

 

34. The dataset available on the GHCN website contains data for a much larger number of weather stations than that contained in the withheld datasets. The Commissioner notes that the public authority did not inform the complainant which weather stations on the GHCN website were included in the datasets that were withheld. Consequently, it is not apparent how the complainant would have been able to identify on the GHCN website the information that had been withheld under regulation 6.

 

35. In addition, the process that UEA described that the complainant would have needed to follow to obtain the same information as it held is by no means straightforward and would appear to require information technology skills beyond those possessed by many members of the public.

 

36. Based on the evidence provided to him, the Commissioner is not satisfied that the information to which UEA has applied regulation 6 in datasets A and B is publicly available and easily accessible. He has therefore determined that regulation 6 is not applicable to any of the withheld information.

 

Please note Paragraph 31. "Publicly available" (according to UEA) is a four stage process, each stage involving a different computer program to carry out. The Commissioner disagrees. Remember this the next time you read that nasty "deniers" are making FOI requests for data that is "publicly available". The devil, as always, is in the details.