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> they are what are being used as 'scientific evidence' No, you're wrong about this. The scientific evidence for climate change is multi-faceted and abundant.

> they are what are being used as 'scientific evidence' No, you're wrong about this. The scientific evidence for climate change is multi-faceted and abundant. All science involves some modelling. No model captures all forces on a system. Despite this, we are able to determine causal relationships based on simple models and empirical observation. 99% of experts consider the evidence for climate change caused by human carbon emissions convincing. Do you think that would be the case if the only evidence was a large, opaque, uncertain, buggy program? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_climate_change https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_consensus_on_clim...

MichaelZuo 4y ago
Far more than 99% of ‘experts’ in 1400s Europe considered the Sun to revolve around the Earth. Appeals to popularity have obvious pitfalls.
- geysersam 4y ago
  There's a difference between the scientific community of 1400s Europe and today.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Different in some aspects, certainly not in all possible aspects.
    - geysersam 4y ago
      But perhaps in the aspects most relevant to this discussion?
      - MichaelZuo 4y ago
        Such as…?
      - the_third_wave 4y ago
        No, actually the comparison is rather apt given the way some subjects are treated - as quasi-religious dogma where criticism is being treated as heresy. Critics of the leading narrative around the changing climate are called "climate deniers" who are "anti-Science" and either uneducated knuckle-draggers or nefarious plotters in the pockets of the enemy - usually the fossil fuel industry. Critics of the narrative around SARS2 are called "anti-vaxxers" and "Science-deniers" who do not "listen to The Science™" and probably are *-ists and *-phobes as well. The parallel is clear, this is how critics of the narrative around the movement of the Earth, Sun, stars and planets were treated in the 1600's. In that case it was the power of the established Church which saw its monopoly on "truth" threatened by some upstart with a telescope. If his revelations about the orbits of the planets was accepted it would undermine their interpretation of scripture which would undermine their authority so they lashed out to silence the heretic. There is a striking resemblance to the way critics of current narratives are treated, as heretics who need to be silenced before their wayward teachings can poison the populace. This is now how science tends to be done and it is not how science (with a small 's') should be done. Everything should be open to criticism, theories should be mercilessly attacked. The more these attacks falter, the strong the theory will be. Should the attacks succeed in proving the theory wrong everybody will benefit from it. In the discussion around climate models this means the models need to be subjected to rigorous and merciless testing to find their flaws. They should be tested against historical data, the code should be scrutinised for everything from simple errors to the use of fudge factors and 'magical constants' or 'damping mechanisms' or any other such unproven/unprovable manipulations of the data. If the models withstand these tests and actually manage to follow historical data on which they have not been tested to a reasonable degree of accuracy they will be the stronger for it and their predictive ability will be far higher. This would be a good thing for everyone involved.
the_third_wave 4y ago
> 99% of experts Ah, the fabled /9[789]%(.9)?/ argument raises its ugly head again. This claim has several sources, let's have a look at them. In 2009, the University of Illinois sent a survey [1] online to about 10200 scientists (of many disciplines) with the following two questions: 1: Do you agree that global temperatures have generally risen since the pre-1800s? 2: Do you think that human activity is a significant contributing factor? 3146 responses were received of ~10,200, and of that 31%, 90% said yes to the first question while 82% said yes to the second question. When narrowed down to actual experts in the field (mostly meteorologists) 64% answered 'yes' to the second question. Of the 3146 responses 77 were selected which came from self-professed 'climate experts'. Of these 77 individuals 75 answered 'yes' to the second question. 75/77 = 0.97 -> 97% of experts agree In reality a self-professed "expert" group of 2.4% of the answerers were selected who in turn formed 0.8% of those who received the survey. The well-known saying about statistics - there's lies, damned lies and statistics [2] - comes to mind here. Then there was the '2013 Cook study' [3] entitled 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature' which is often cited as another source for the '97%'. Cook and his team searched the Web of Science for the phrases "global warming" and "global climate change", then categorised the results to what they considered to be their level of endorsement of anthropogenic global warming. While Cook's conclusion - “Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97 percent [of papers he surveyed] endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.” - was taken for gospel by those who were looking for more endorsement of the earlier '97%' study. What is it based on? Cook created a category called “explicit endorsement without quantification” (papers in which the author did not say whether 1 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent of the warming was caused by man). He had also created a category called “implicit endorsement” for papers that imply (but don’t say) that there is some man-made global warming without quantification of the effect. These were the categories used to calculate the '97%'. Many scientists whose papers were classified in these categories protested to Cook [4] for being selective in which papers were cited and misrepresentation of their positions on the subject of anthropogenic climate change. Cook's data is available in the study [3], the positions on anthropogenic global warming look like this: Explicitly endorse AGW 50+% = 0.54% Explicitly endorse – does not quantify = 7.72% Explicitly endorse AGW without minimizing it = 24.36% No Position = 66.73% Implicit minimizes/rejects AGW = 0.45% Explicit minimizes/rejects AGW = 0.13% Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as <50% = .08% These 7 groups are summarised in 4 categories by Cook: Endorse AGW 32.6% No AGW Position 66.4% Reject AGW .7% Uncertain on AGW .3% The study arrives at the '97% endorsement' by leaving out the 66% who do not have a position which leaves the 32.6% who endorse some form of AGW against the 0.7% who reject it. Apart from the mentioned problems with the categorisation this is another example of lies, damned lies and statistics [2]. In short, don't use the /9[789]%(.9)?/ argument in an attempt to appeal to authority, especially not in the context of a discussion around the viability of global climate models as evidence for future climate change. First because of the mentioned reasons but also because the '97%' argument has no bearing on the validity of climate models since it just - rightly or wrongly - claims that '97% of experts agree that anthropogenic climate change is a fact'. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.h... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist... [3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024... [4] http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-classifies-scientists.html http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-cl...

MichaelZuo 4y ago

Far more than 99% of ‘experts’ in 1400s Europe considered the Sun to revolve around the Earth. Appeals to popularity have obvious pitfalls.

geysersam 4y ago
There's a difference between the scientific community of 1400s Europe and today.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Different in some aspects, certainly not in all possible aspects.
  - geysersam 4y ago
    But perhaps in the aspects most relevant to this discussion?
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      Such as…?
    - the_third_wave 4y ago
      No, actually the comparison is rather apt given the way some subjects are treated - as quasi-religious dogma where criticism is being treated as heresy. Critics of the leading narrative around the changing climate are called "climate deniers" who are "anti-Science" and either uneducated knuckle-draggers or nefarious plotters in the pockets of the enemy - usually the fossil fuel industry. Critics of the narrative around SARS2 are called "anti-vaxxers" and "Science-deniers" who do not "listen to The Science™" and probably are *-ists and *-phobes as well. The parallel is clear, this is how critics of the narrative around the movement of the Earth, Sun, stars and planets were treated in the 1600's. In that case it was the power of the established Church which saw its monopoly on "truth" threatened by some upstart with a telescope. If his revelations about the orbits of the planets was accepted it would undermine their interpretation of scripture which would undermine their authority so they lashed out to silence the heretic. There is a striking resemblance to the way critics of current narratives are treated, as heretics who need to be silenced before their wayward teachings can poison the populace. This is now how science tends to be done and it is not how science (with a small 's') should be done. Everything should be open to criticism, theories should be mercilessly attacked. The more these attacks falter, the strong the theory will be. Should the attacks succeed in proving the theory wrong everybody will benefit from it. In the discussion around climate models this means the models need to be subjected to rigorous and merciless testing to find their flaws. They should be tested against historical data, the code should be scrutinised for everything from simple errors to the use of fudge factors and 'magical constants' or 'damping mechanisms' or any other such unproven/unprovable manipulations of the data. If the models withstand these tests and actually manage to follow historical data on which they have not been tested to a reasonable degree of accuracy they will be the stronger for it and their predictive ability will be far higher. This would be a good thing for everyone involved.

the_third_wave 4y ago

> 99% of experts Ah, the fabled /9[789]%(.9)?/ argument raises its ugly head again. This claim has several sources, let's have a look at them. In 2009, the University of Illinois sent a survey [1] online to about 10200 scientists (of many disciplines) with the following two questions: 1: Do you agree that global temperatures have generally risen since the pre-1800s? 2: Do you think that human activity is a significant contributing factor? 3146 responses were received of ~10,200, and of that 31%, 90% said yes to the first question while 82% said yes to the second question. When narrowed down to actual experts in the field (mostly meteorologists) 64% answered 'yes' to the second question. Of the 3146 responses 77 were selected which came from self-professed 'climate experts'. Of these 77 individuals 75 answered 'yes' to the second question. 75/77 = 0.97 -> 97% of experts agree In reality a self-professed "expert" group of 2.4% of the answerers were selected who in turn formed 0.8% of those who received the survey. The well-known saying about statistics - there's lies, damned lies and statistics [2] - comes to mind here. Then there was the '2013 Cook study' [3] entitled 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature' which is often cited as another source for the '97%'. Cook and his team searched the Web of Science for the phrases "global warming" and "global climate change", then categorised the results to what they considered to be their level of endorsement of anthropogenic global warming. While Cook's conclusion - “Cook et al. (2013) found that over 97 percent [of papers he surveyed] endorsed the view that the Earth is warming up and human emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause.” - was taken for gospel by those who were looking for more endorsement of the earlier '97%' study. What is it based on? Cook created a category called “explicit endorsement without quantification” (papers in which the author did not say whether 1 percent or 50 percent or 100 percent of the warming was caused by man). He had also created a category called “implicit endorsement” for papers that imply (but don’t say) that there is some man-made global warming without quantification of the effect. These were the categories used to calculate the '97%'. Many scientists whose papers were classified in these categories protested to Cook [4] for being selective in which papers were cited and misrepresentation of their positions on the subject of anthropogenic climate change. Cook's data is available in the study [3], the positions on anthropogenic global warming look like this: Explicitly endorse AGW 50+% = 0.54% Explicitly endorse – does not quantify = 7.72% Explicitly endorse AGW without minimizing it = 24.36% No Position = 66.73% Implicit minimizes/rejects AGW = 0.45% Explicit minimizes/rejects AGW = 0.13% Explicitly minimizes/rejects AGW as <50% = .08% These 7 groups are summarised in 4 categories by Cook: Endorse AGW 32.6% No AGW Position 66.4% Reject AGW .7% Uncertain on AGW .3% The study arrives at the '97% endorsement' by leaving out the 66% who do not have a position which leaves the 32.6% who endorse some form of AGW against the 0.7% who reject it. Apart from the mentioned problems with the categorisation this is another example of lies, damned lies and statistics [2]. In short, don't use the /9[789]%(.9)?/ argument in an attempt to appeal to authority, especially not in the context of a discussion around the viability of global climate models as evidence for future climate change. First because of the mentioned reasons but also because the '97%' argument has no bearing on the validity of climate models since it just - rightly or wrongly - claims that '97% of experts agree that anthropogenic climate change is a fact'. [1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.h... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statist... [3] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024... [4] http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-classifies-scientists.html http://www.populartechnology.net/2013/05/97-study-falsely-cl...