https://judithcurry.com/2013/03/11/lets-play-hockey-again/

This article discusses the problem with using the deficiencies in low resolution proxy data as a false argument for implausible and alarmist conclusions about recent warming.

For the record, I too support consideration and possible application of the precautionary principle, but with the caveat that this be strictly in an environment which isn't susceptible to manipulation of data to support a particular outcome.

[edit] and I agree, too, that the bad scenarios (which have been vastly: a) moderated/walked back in IPCC AR6; b) under-reported) don't imply catastrophe to the planet or to humans.

Last edited by SamH, Thu 19 Oct 2023, 19:31.

Quote from Aleksandr_124rus :

I don't think I meant that. I'm curious as to why you came to that conclusion?

I didn't mean to imply that you did! Sorry!

It's me jumping the gun, I think, but there are many responses to the presence of uncertainty or an unpredictable future. There are schools of thought that, the very fact that we don't know future outcomes means that we must immediately prepare for the worst.

This has been the refrain of most climate policy advocates with whom I have locked horns. The strength of their arguments invariably rests in their gut feelings. But for them this is more than enough. Enough for them to be filled with fear, and enough for them to use every trick in the book to convince others to share in their fear as well.

I think for many it is an autonomic response when presented with uncertainty, and I am sympathetic. These are people who experience feelings of dread when they pass by an open basement door. That feeling of dread will not itself manifest ghouls, though. Or indeed, the "bogeyman" as you put it very early on.

Quote from rane_nbg :

[..] Things can very quickly get out of our hands for future generations if we do not start acting now.

Quote from Aleksandr_124rus :

That's what I'm talking about [..]

Uhoh, now you're dipping into the epistemological precautionary principle. I've no particular issue with that, but I would point to associated costs, particularly with respect to different solutions-based approaches, be they mitigation or adaptation.

Our climate is indeed a complex coupled system, but it is not unbounded. There are forces and feedbacks at play that we simply cannot quantify - and many we know of but don't even consider. You really do need to ask, if a model comes to the right conclusion but via the wrong path, how much trust should you consent to place in it to steer your future?

Only questions, and at least for me somewhat rhetorical, sorry.

I can imagine that COVID has accelerated the process, but I can assure you this has been going on for probably 3 decades in certain fields. Obviously the effect on the research being funded and then advanced to publication, which delivers preferred findings, which will help secure future funding (or more importantly, won't jeopardise it), is antithetical to the principle of science for science's sake. It has the potential to skew the balance of scientific enquiry. Arguably, with research funding being determined this way, this is the only entirely predictable consequence.

I completely agree with your assessment. I think the "rush to publish" is an issue, and I think direct external influence over research funding is a primary issue too.

What you're witnessing in medicine is I believe unfortunately the tip of the iceberg. The system as it has now evolved is unfortunately too easy, if not absolutely necessary, to corrupt.

Quote from rane_nbg :

I'd really like to know the education and current job

Studied at art college, then became a computer programmer mid-nineties and rode the dotcom wave in the US and UK. Today I do mostly vanity projects in both graphic design and computing to satisfy my ADHD and OCD. I've no qualifications in philosophy and only a passing interest. I specifically concern myself with the integrity of science.

Quote from Aleksandr_124rus :

He was just trying to learn about the world through observation and drawing his own conclusions about it.

Yes indeed. This is what has continuity through the ages.

Avraham, as I said, you are a bad faith actor. You claim to have done things you didn't do, say nothing at all, or say nothing of any substance, or say things without an ounce of truth. And so I'm not interested any more in what you say. You're trolling the thread.

Quote from Aleksandr_124rus :

Then maybe I didn't understand what you were saying.
There is an aspect of philosophy in science, this is indisputable, for example in scientific method has philosophical concepts of verification and falsification along with Occam's razor.
Do you think that makes science a philosophy?

Kinda, maybe? Science was originally (maybe 2K years ago) known as "natural philosophy". So at its heart and for a long time, science and philosophy had at least synonymity. With the "recent" advent of the enlightenment, physical science (or "physics"?) as a philosophy distinguish itself greatly from other philosophies, with enormous changes to its discipline, the development of the scientific method and so on. But it is still derived in (and has a long history of) the principle of seeking to find a truthful way to describe reality, which is a principle it shares with all other philosophies. You yourself said "mother and child", and this I guess is the same as I'm saying. Maybe I'm just saying it badly.

Quote from Avraham Vandezwin :

I had missed this gem. There, for example, we can't even distinguish what you don't understand? The words of others? Or the one you use. You end up saying things that only make sense to you. Because they escape common sense. I seem to have already told you (kindly) that your speech was confused.
Each of your interventions confirms this a little more. Besides, you admit it yourself.

Then let me be as precise as possible. I am interested in a discussion wherein participants can extend their knowledge and understanding - including mine.

This is not your premise or goal. You are only here to inject confusion and conflation, and you do so obviously, rudely and in bad faith. I am not interested in conversing on that level.

Quote from Aleksandr_124rus :

No. I've already summarised my position, it's not much different from the mainstream. But mixing idialogy, science and philosophy into one is not a productive way of looking at things.

I'm sure the problem is my failure to communicate properly. I'm not seeking to merge them into one, I'm trying to juxtapose them appropriately relative to each other. We may disagree with how they are placed, but the last thing I wish to do is merge them into one.

Childish

Perhaps you might agree that science is the philosophy of experimentation and observation?

It's not so important to me to distinguish science from philosophy (because I do think they're inextricably linked) as it is to distinguish science from ideology (which I think in some fundamental ways exist in opposition). Perhaps my insistence on describing science as a philosophy is not helpful in this regard.

Quote from Aleksandr_124rus :

Philosophy is not a science, just as a mother is not a child. Because out of philosophy came all the other sciences. The sciences study the world through models and Philosophy deals with fundamental knowledge and reality. Science and philosophy are not in competition with each other. They are like two curves that run parallel to each other, occasionally crossing each other.

All Skodas are cars, but not all cars are Skodas. So, all sciences are philosophies but not all philosophies are scientific. Since by its definition a philosophy is a mechanism or syntax by which to define or explain the universe (or part thereof), the differentiation between philosophies is the discipline which governs it. Astrology and astronomy are two philosophies with very different disciplines, thus employing very different methodologies.

Quote from Racer Y :

Trying to read this thread is right up there with watching paint dry. I've been reading something about the dangers of planting new trees. That there is something in the trees that are actually worse than the greenhouse gases the cars put out. It's not all trees, it appears to be hardwood species like Oaks. Isoprene.... LOL sounds like some sort of ointment for sore muscles.

I haven't heard about that. Interested in a link if you have one.

I'm generally quite a big fan of reforesting - especially around where I am, the moorlands are artificially stripped bare of forests so the wealthy can pay a fee to shoot the million+ annually imported grouse (I'm NOT a fan. I shoot grouse, but in a nice way!) - but I'm aware that, if the goal is LESS CO2 in the atmosphere, draining peat bogs and marshland can cause release of more CO2 into the atmosphere than the forests they plant in their place will ever consume from it. The history of conservation and environmentalism is replete with stories of unforeseen consequences.

Either that's a poor translation into English, or it's 97% straw man, from the school of "Modern Music Isn't Real Music"

You think that's a victory lap you're running. What value, then, has a climatologist with a "PhD"?

This is why we are at an impasse.

Quote from Avraham Vandezwin :

Science is not a philosophy since Antiquity. I don't think venturing into this debate is to your advantage.

Science IS a philosophy. Philosophy is a way of examining existence, pursuant to truth.

You are not eqipped to have this discussion. This is why we are at an impasse. You do not understand science or its purpose.

QED.

I think we are at an impasse. There is nothing at all which is ideological in anything that I wrote. Everything is based on principle, not a belief system (unless you regard humanitarianism and a love of nature to be ideological, which is possible I supppose).

As I make clear very explicitly, I hold high the values of scientific integrity and the scientific method, but you seem to be saying you see them as inconvenient obstacles in the way of a goal.

You say my argument is "weak in scope, even scientifically insignificant." This is an extraordinary and denegratory claim, but it is also baseless. You say my "positioning has absolutely no scientific basis, at any level (referential or conceptual) purposes", but it IS the scientific basis of the question of anthropogenic global warming, and whether it is catastrophic. When you take issue with what I set out, you take issue with the science

So I'm afraid to say, it seems clear that I was correct to say that you don't understand what science is, or how it should be conducted. Or you don't care.

I didn't remove reference to the Little Ice Age. Perhaps you misunderstood the commonly understood abbreviation, "LIA".

Quote from Avraham Vandezwin :

But what I see in your discourse is that science serves as your alibi without giving you in any way the means of demonstration.

Yes, you're right, I'm using science as my argument. But science is a philosophy. What you perpetually lean into is an ideology.

Quote from Avraham Vandezwin :

But just because it is the most plausible explanation for this phenomenon. Unless you prove to me otherwise by the facts and not only by the decline of the state of science. I asked you for. You didn't do it.

The most basic, i.e. default or null, explanation is that recent warming is natural (H0). You have to show compelling evidence that the recent warming has never happened before in history, and that it is directly connected with anthropogenic causes, and that the warming is catastrophic, in order to justify such enormously disruptive and excrutiatingly expensive changes to our societies.

We know that we have compelling evidence that CO2 has increased, and that it is almost certainly contributed to by mankind. But we also know from direct measurements (Central England temperature record, for example) that THIS warming began prior to industrialisation (i.e. exiting the LIA), and we can also show strong evidence that temperature increases precede CO2 increases (forcing vs feedback dilemma). Not only that, but we know from the paleoclimatological reconstructions that the level of warming we are seeing is not even unprecedented.

These are well established matters which must be overcome, in order to substantiate the hypothesis that warming is manmade. Even if you can establish that the warming is manmade, you have to additionally show that it is catastrophic to nature (which you haven't, and still can't).

I made these points already. You came back with the claim that the RATE of change is unprecedented. This is an unsubstantiated claim, and we know this is unsubstantiated simply because the claim depends on ~70-75 paleoclimate proxy reconstructions which have a resolution between 120 and 300 years, with a median average between the proxies of 160 years/point resolution. This is even without giving consideration to error bars, which are prohibitively wide in the paleoclimate.

So, when I say the science is not good enough to support the popular and headline-grabbing apocalyptic and/or catastrophic narrative, this is what I mean. You can't defeat this with arguments on an LFS forum, it must be done scientifically. The scientists haven't been able to, so you certainly can't. Respectfully, of course.

Quote from Avraham Vandezwin :

Edit: I don't dispute that nature is natural. I know man can destroy it. He works there a little every day.
I have as many doubts as you about the effectiveness of the recommended policies, for the simple reason that they are inapplicable. But that's another subject.

Everything in nature has an impact in nature, but humans are not unnatural any more than termites, who build enormous mounds, are unnatural.

I do not hold with the anti-human/pro-environment position. I favour both mankind and nature. The policies being enacted in the name of environmentalism are absolutely certain to harm nature in the future, and they are harming mankind right now - from Uighur slaves in China to child slaves in the copper mines in Africa.

The global warming narrative is the virus and virtue-signalling environmentalism is the cytokine storm.

Last edited by SamH, Sun 15 Oct 2023, 16:21. Reason : Correcting typos and clarifying.

Quote from Avraham Vandezwin :

In this precise case, it is a good way of unmasking gross impostures. I would like to point out to you that you are in no way demonstrating the truth of your words. You in no way demonstrate how science is wrong about the problem of global warming.
Whether people believe you or they believe the science, they remain in the ignorance.
Your position is entirely based on a reversal of the burden of proof: “you believe that science is right? Prove it to me!”
This is a fallacy, you know that

I'm pointing out that you misunderstand Occam's Razor and how to apply it and nothing more, here. You don't address that but lunge in a different direction, which is also nonsensical.

As for the science being "wrong", I don't think you understand WHAT the science IS or where it really is on global warming or anthropogenic warming, or especially catastrophic anthropogenic global warming. You repeat headlines and talking points from socio-political policy advocates, but as soon as I point to an apocalyptic prediction made by a "climate scientist" to a sensationalist media about the world ending, you want to call a truce rather than address the issue.

The null hypothesis is, always has been, and always will be that nature is natural. You cannot reverse that, or to claim the burden of proof is on someone else to prove a negative. That would be ridiculous.

Quote from Aleksandr_124rus :

Occam's razor isn't utilized in science as a strict arbiter between competing hypotheses, but rather as an useful abductive heuristic in the building of theoretical models.

I agree, this is the correct usage of Occam's Razor.

Quote from Avraham Vandezwin :

Occam's razor can be used in different ways depending on the complexity of the problem. In terms of the most common use, Occam's razor allows a person who understands nothing about the issues of global warming, its causes and consequences, and who does not believe in science, to make a rational choice. To decide by reason between two propositions on the same problem. Without choosing the simplest, but the most probably true (or likely, at least).

No. This is not the correct usage. This encourages conclusions in ignorance to be inferred from inconclusive information.

Perhaps more simply, seek to address the null hypothesis (H0) which is that things observed in nature occur naturally.

I removed some irrelevant stuff in my post about Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor is useful when you have two or more competing hypotheses, and the one with the least assumptions is most likely worth testing. Occam's Razor doesn't find the proof, but it helps you get there more quickly.

Last edited by SamH, Sat 14 Oct 2023, 17:03. Reason : Deleted Occam's Razor stuff

Quote from zeeaq :

The one thing this discussion manages to do well is highlight our inability to efficiently move beyond that sticky, dreadful zone of "us vs. them/me vs. you" to objectively tackle the bigger problems that are upon us. Keep at it guys, we'll get there someday

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts." - Richard Feynman

I think I've found the problem. Anthropogenic warming does not de facto cause catastrophes. We know that it was at least as warm as today in medieval times, and at least as warm as today in Roman times, without any possible anthropogenic component. We also know that modern warming is in part a "bounce back" from what is known as the Little Ice Age - also not anthropogenically influenced. So we know that warming is not automatically catastrophic.

As for distinguishing catastrophe from apocalypse, would that mean you agree that this article is silly hyperbolic nonsense quoting Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, perpetuating a false apocalypse narrative that's since failed to materialise? Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48964736

If you hold the belief that modern warming WILL be catastrophic, simply because it has an anthropogenic component, the historical record does not support your fears. If you do believe that the very fact that some (even all?) of the current warming is dangerous simply because it's human-caused... well, that's just not correct or rational.

And I don't belong to any movement.

Last edited by SamH, Fri 13 Oct 2023, 17:57. Reason : Not only but also...