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I'm on the fence on this one. I think it is very very dangerous to blindly trust Perfect Science as we've seen with ClimateGate. Scientists are of course humans

by tlack 16y ago

I'm on the fence on this one. I think it is very very dangerous to blindly trust Perfect Science as we've seen with ClimateGate. Scientists are of course humans, and all humans are prone to competitiveness, greed, and deception. Science is fallible. On the flip, though, I become very nervous when I think about what happens when public perception of scientific truth begins to erode..

keefe 16y ago
I think part of this issue will be resolved as technology advances - eventually, it will become common practice to release all experimental data publicly, which will reduce the trust requirement. After all, the heart of science is independently confirming experimental results.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  I very much doubt that this is true. Raw data by itself is almost never definitive. Meaningful conclusions often require that data be manipulated in fairly extreme ways. Each one of those manipulations provides fertile ground for denialist critique. To give you one example with which I'm familiar, several research groups have attempted to measure the number of fatalities associated with the Iraq War. One of the standard techniques for doing so involves cluster sampling, i.e., picking a small number of locations and conducting multiple interviews near each cluster site. One research group doing this noticed that the mortality rate from their Fallujah cluster was much much much higher than any of the other clusters. So they purposefully excluded it from their analysis although they kept it as part of their raw data and explained why they removed it. As a result, their total death toll was much lower than it would have been. Denialists immediately criticized them for manipulating data so as to inflate the death toll. How did they do that? Very simply: if you omit the outlier, then the spread of the probability distribution shrinks dramatically. If you include the outlier, then the width of the distribution expands so far out that it encompasses zero excess deaths. Now in either case, the distribution was screaming that there were many excess deaths, but these denialists claimed that scientists were reducing the average fatality count just so they could exclude the minute possibility that the war decreased death rates. Obviously, there is no way these scientists could win: if they include the outlier, then they're deliberately inflating the death toll, but if they exclude the outlier, then they're manipulating data to obscure the possibility that the war saved lives. If the scientists had just quietly dropped their Falujah data, this controversy never would have happened. In this case, releasing data just gave denialists fodor for crazy attacks.
  - MichaelSalib 16y ago
    Downvoters: I'm curious, what is wrong with this comment?
    - keefe 16y ago
      I often wonder this myself, something seems to make people more inclined to disagree than agree.
      - ars 16y ago
        It's not people - it's person. There are a lot more readers than modders.
    - ars 16y ago
      I wouldn't downmod you for that, but man I don't agree with that comment. They are fitting data to expectations, and worse you are telling them to conceal the fact that they do so, just so no one can argue with them. That is pretty much as far away as you can possibly get from true science. What they should do is put massive error bars on the numbers and say "We can't." We can't tell you the true number, it's not possible to calculate it.
      - MichaelSalib 16y ago
        They are fitting data to expectations Eh? This is a war zone that has seen very intense fighting. It is not unreasonable to assume that data from this one site is unreliable for any of a million different reasons, especially given just how far it was from the other sites. Do you generally insist that scientists must never eliminate any outlier data points, no matter how suspect? you are telling them to conceal the fact that they do so I'm not telling them to conceal anything. I think they did the correct thing: they published all their data, and they disclosed exactly what data points they removed and why they did so. My point is that because they published their data and disclosed what they did and why they did it, they faced criticisms that never would have seen the light of day otherwise. And to me that suggests that it is unreasonable to believe that deniers are going to become less prevalent in a world where more data is published openly. What they should do is put massive error bars on the numbers and say "We can't." We can't tell you the true number, it's not possible to calculate it. I don't understand this at all. "Massive" doesn't mean anything. They calculated appropriate confidence intervals and included them in their analysis. What exactly do you think they did wrong?
- tlack 16y ago
  I agree that technology, in general, aides the cause of public trust in science. In some cases, such as the case of ClimateGate, the data itself -- the specific sample values -- were manipulated before their interpretations of it were even written. How do you see technology aiding in this case?
Locke1689 16y ago
I think it is very very dangerous to blindly trust Perfect Science as we've seen with ClimateGate. I'm really not sure what you mean by this. I would agree that some of the scientists in the East Anglia behaved very unprofessionally. However, there was no proof of improper scientific conduct (e.g., data alteration) in this case. The point of the peer review process is that you don't have to trust an individual scientist (or human) to not succumb to competitiveness, greed, and deception, only that the vast majority of them wont. Given that it is highly unlikely that they will be corrupt in the first place, it is even less likely that they will be corrupt towards the same result. That is, given that scientists are practicing in completely different environments and countries all over the world it is highly unlikely that the incentives and disincentives will align perfectly for everyone. Therefore, when you see a scientific "consensus," the most likely result you should get from that is that there is supporting data, not that there is a massive conspiracy.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- tlack 16y ago
  Are you serious? Have you read the direct quotes from their email? They're clearly colluding to change the data and get the report out there. Furthermore, on the subject of the peer reviews, it's almost possible for someone's peers to review their data and find flaws in it if they didn't do the research themselves and the data has been changed (as in the case of ClimateGate), to say nothing of a persons inherent laziness and desire to rubber stamp the work of their peers.
  - mistermann 16y ago
    I think this case basically proves it's pointless. Advocates are exposed as colluding, doctoring data, and using connections to remove legitimate people who disagree from the conversation. Global warming will be passed as absolute truth. It seems similar to the ages when priests would silence people rather than address their scientific assertions. If the global warming deniers are wrong, it would seem to me to encourage their writings, and if the global warming advocates are confidently correct, it would seem, from a traditional scientific method perspective, they would welcome any and all discussion of their topic. Yet, they try to use government agencies to limit freedom of speech of their adversaries, and to hide the discussions they have amongst them selves? This is science? I don't proclaim to know what is right or wrong when it comes to global warming, but I have a sense of when someone is telling the truth or not. When someone uses the government to stop someone from talking, for reasons of "expediency", I get suspicious. And they don't even seem to care about that. Believe what we tell you, our cause is so important we can skip the traditional scientific process, all evidence to the contrary is conspiracy theories, end of discussion. Or, you'll be talking to our (taxpayer funded) lawyer.
alsomike 16y ago
But isn't it strange that many climate deniers are skeptical of global warming, yet have total faith in a much more implausible idea: a coordinated group of scientists are systematically suppressing dissent to further their ideology.
- ellyagg 16y ago
  Uh, what? The recently leaked emails specifically showed climate scientists attempting to work together to suppress dissent, e.g., urging that people in the group stop submitting to a particular journal because it published "skeptical" studies. I think you may be misconstruing what many skeptics believe. No skeptics believe there is a vast conspiracy of scientists working together to pull a fast one on the public even though they know that global warming does not exist. Instead, some skeptics believe a small culture of well meaning scientists have fallen victim to a host of well-known and self-reinforcing biases that make their analysis, and especially their extrapolations, suspect.
  - DilipJ 16y ago
    "No skeptics believe there is a vast conspiracy of scientists working together ..." uh, isn't that a suspect extrapolation? Just Google what Sen. Inhofe has to say on the subject. Just like the article said, there is a significant overlap between those who deny AGW and those who deny evolution. And if over a century of empirical evidence is not enough to convince them that they're wrong, what good is a few decades worth of data?
- brc 16y ago
  I don't deny the climate. It exists, I can see that out the window. I don't deny that the climate has gotten warmer on trend for the last 150 years. I don't deny that humans have increased the c02 concentration through the activities of forestry clearing and fossil fuel burning. I am skeptical of the proven link between c02 and large temperature rises. I am extremely skeptical of the climate models developed. I am extremely skeptical of the climate alarmism promoted through science and quasi-science publications, and on through the regular media. People have made these predictions for 30 years, and not one has come close to being true. I am extremely skeptical that the current costs associated with ineffective present-day solutions (cap & trade, carbon tax, wind power etc) are going to be less than long-term adaption if climate change proves to be a problem. Yet, for most of the climate change cheer squad, I am filthy denier who probably believes that cigarettes don't cause cancer and who probably doesn't believe in evolution. The blanket 'with us or against us' attitude developed by many is the worst thing : denying criticism or outright rejection of alternative views is the worst kind of denial. Solid scientific concepts don't need to be packaged, managed and sold to the public.
moultano 16y ago
If you put any stock in "ClimateGate" as a legitimate controversy then you certainly only read snippets out of context.
- tlack 16y ago
  And let me guess, I read the source code out of context too? ; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
  - moultano 16y ago
    This might clear up your confusion: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-...
    - tlack 16y ago
      So you feel that randomly applying corrections that you make up to data from specific intervals (between date X and Y) is totally kosher in terms of modern scientific practice? If the data doesn't fit, you don't make it fit.
      - moultano 16y ago
        I don't understand what part of their results you are disagreeing with.

by tlack 16y ago

keefe 16y ago

I think part of this issue will be resolved as technology advances - eventually, it will become common practice to release all experimental data publicly, which will reduce the trust requirement. After all, the heart of science is independently confirming experimental results.

MichaelSalib 16y ago
I very much doubt that this is true. Raw data by itself is almost never definitive. Meaningful conclusions often require that data be manipulated in fairly extreme ways. Each one of those manipulations provides fertile ground for denialist critique. To give you one example with which I'm familiar, several research groups have attempted to measure the number of fatalities associated with the Iraq War. One of the standard techniques for doing so involves cluster sampling, i.e., picking a small number of locations and conducting multiple interviews near each cluster site. One research group doing this noticed that the mortality rate from their Fallujah cluster was much much much higher than any of the other clusters. So they purposefully excluded it from their analysis although they kept it as part of their raw data and explained why they removed it. As a result, their total death toll was much lower than it would have been. Denialists immediately criticized them for manipulating data so as to inflate the death toll. How did they do that? Very simply: if you omit the outlier, then the spread of the probability distribution shrinks dramatically. If you include the outlier, then the width of the distribution expands so far out that it encompasses zero excess deaths. Now in either case, the distribution was screaming that there were many excess deaths, but these denialists claimed that scientists were reducing the average fatality count just so they could exclude the minute possibility that the war decreased death rates. Obviously, there is no way these scientists could win: if they include the outlier, then they're deliberately inflating the death toll, but if they exclude the outlier, then they're manipulating data to obscure the possibility that the war saved lives. If the scientists had just quietly dropped their Falujah data, this controversy never would have happened. In this case, releasing data just gave denialists fodor for crazy attacks.
- MichaelSalib 16y ago
  Downvoters: I'm curious, what is wrong with this comment?
  - keefe 16y ago
    I often wonder this myself, something seems to make people more inclined to disagree than agree.
    - ars 16y ago
      It's not people - it's person. There are a lot more readers than modders.
  - ars 16y ago
    I wouldn't downmod you for that, but man I don't agree with that comment. They are fitting data to expectations, and worse you are telling them to conceal the fact that they do so, just so no one can argue with them. That is pretty much as far away as you can possibly get from true science. What they should do is put massive error bars on the numbers and say "We can't." We can't tell you the true number, it's not possible to calculate it.
    - MichaelSalib 16y ago
      They are fitting data to expectations Eh? This is a war zone that has seen very intense fighting. It is not unreasonable to assume that data from this one site is unreliable for any of a million different reasons, especially given just how far it was from the other sites. Do you generally insist that scientists must never eliminate any outlier data points, no matter how suspect? you are telling them to conceal the fact that they do so I'm not telling them to conceal anything. I think they did the correct thing: they published all their data, and they disclosed exactly what data points they removed and why they did so. My point is that because they published their data and disclosed what they did and why they did it, they faced criticisms that never would have seen the light of day otherwise. And to me that suggests that it is unreasonable to believe that deniers are going to become less prevalent in a world where more data is published openly. What they should do is put massive error bars on the numbers and say "We can't." We can't tell you the true number, it's not possible to calculate it. I don't understand this at all. "Massive" doesn't mean anything. They calculated appropriate confidence intervals and included them in their analysis. What exactly do you think they did wrong?
tlack 16y ago
I agree that technology, in general, aides the cause of public trust in science. In some cases, such as the case of ClimateGate, the data itself -- the specific sample values -- were manipulated before their interpretations of it were even written. How do you see technology aiding in this case?

Locke1689 16y ago

I think it is very very dangerous to blindly trust Perfect Science as we've seen with ClimateGate. I'm really not sure what you mean by this. I would agree that some of the scientists in the East Anglia behaved very unprofessionally. However, there was no proof of improper scientific conduct (e.g., data alteration) in this case. The point of the peer review process is that you don't have to trust an individual scientist (or human) to not succumb to competitiveness, greed, and deception, only that the vast majority of them wont. Given that it is highly unlikely that they will be corrupt in the first place, it is even less likely that they will be corrupt towards the same result. That is, given that scientists are practicing in completely different environments and countries all over the world it is highly unlikely that the incentives and disincentives will align perfectly for everyone. Therefore, when you see a scientific "consensus," the most likely result you should get from that is that there is supporting data, not that there is a massive conspiracy.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
tlack 16y ago
Are you serious? Have you read the direct quotes from their email? They're clearly colluding to change the data and get the report out there. Furthermore, on the subject of the peer reviews, it's almost possible for someone's peers to review their data and find flaws in it if they didn't do the research themselves and the data has been changed (as in the case of ClimateGate), to say nothing of a persons inherent laziness and desire to rubber stamp the work of their peers.
- mistermann 16y ago
  I think this case basically proves it's pointless. Advocates are exposed as colluding, doctoring data, and using connections to remove legitimate people who disagree from the conversation. Global warming will be passed as absolute truth. It seems similar to the ages when priests would silence people rather than address their scientific assertions. If the global warming deniers are wrong, it would seem to me to encourage their writings, and if the global warming advocates are confidently correct, it would seem, from a traditional scientific method perspective, they would welcome any and all discussion of their topic. Yet, they try to use government agencies to limit freedom of speech of their adversaries, and to hide the discussions they have amongst them selves? This is science? I don't proclaim to know what is right or wrong when it comes to global warming, but I have a sense of when someone is telling the truth or not. When someone uses the government to stop someone from talking, for reasons of "expediency", I get suspicious. And they don't even seem to care about that. Believe what we tell you, our cause is so important we can skip the traditional scientific process, all evidence to the contrary is conspiracy theories, end of discussion. Or, you'll be talking to our (taxpayer funded) lawyer.

alsomike 16y ago

But isn't it strange that many climate deniers are skeptical of global warming, yet have total faith in a much more implausible idea: a coordinated group of scientists are systematically suppressing dissent to further their ideology.

ellyagg 16y ago
Uh, what? The recently leaked emails specifically showed climate scientists attempting to work together to suppress dissent, e.g., urging that people in the group stop submitting to a particular journal because it published "skeptical" studies. I think you may be misconstruing what many skeptics believe. No skeptics believe there is a vast conspiracy of scientists working together to pull a fast one on the public even though they know that global warming does not exist. Instead, some skeptics believe a small culture of well meaning scientists have fallen victim to a host of well-known and self-reinforcing biases that make their analysis, and especially their extrapolations, suspect.
- DilipJ 16y ago
  "No skeptics believe there is a vast conspiracy of scientists working together ..." uh, isn't that a suspect extrapolation? Just Google what Sen. Inhofe has to say on the subject. Just like the article said, there is a significant overlap between those who deny AGW and those who deny evolution. And if over a century of empirical evidence is not enough to convince them that they're wrong, what good is a few decades worth of data?
brc 16y ago
I don't deny the climate. It exists, I can see that out the window. I don't deny that the climate has gotten warmer on trend for the last 150 years. I don't deny that humans have increased the c02 concentration through the activities of forestry clearing and fossil fuel burning. I am skeptical of the proven link between c02 and large temperature rises. I am extremely skeptical of the climate models developed. I am extremely skeptical of the climate alarmism promoted through science and quasi-science publications, and on through the regular media. People have made these predictions for 30 years, and not one has come close to being true. I am extremely skeptical that the current costs associated with ineffective present-day solutions (cap & trade, carbon tax, wind power etc) are going to be less than long-term adaption if climate change proves to be a problem. Yet, for most of the climate change cheer squad, I am filthy denier who probably believes that cigarettes don't cause cancer and who probably doesn't believe in evolution. The blanket 'with us or against us' attitude developed by many is the worst thing : denying criticism or outright rejection of alternative views is the worst kind of denial. Solid scientific concepts don't need to be packaged, managed and sold to the public.

moultano 16y ago

If you put any stock in "ClimateGate" as a legitimate controversy then you certainly only read snippets out of context.

tlack 16y ago
And let me guess, I read the source code out of context too? ; Apply a VERY ARTIFICAL correction for decline!!
- moultano 16y ago
  This might clear up your confusion: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-decline.htm http://www.skepticalscience.com/Mikes-Nature-trick-hide-the-...
  - tlack 16y ago
    So you feel that randomly applying corrections that you make up to data from specific intervals (between date X and Y) is totally kosher in terms of modern scientific practice? If the data doesn't fit, you don't make it fit.
    - moultano 16y ago
      I don't understand what part of their results you are disagreeing with.