Scientific Fraud

[TitoFan]

Lyle, I think deep down we all have a common thread.... and none of us are as extremist as we may be coming off to each other. Don't be guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The Al Gores, the DiCaprios.... they're not representative of the scientific community bcollins keeps referring to. As with other debates, you can't just take the words of a distorted few and use them to counter what could be some very good arguments.

IMO, it does no good to flock to one extreme or the other. Those flockers usually have personal agendas, and all they do is confuse the issues.

A good point bcollins makes is regarding the more advanced technology with which environmental conditions are now monitored. Granted..... and I'll bold this next statement..... it's also important to be extremely careful when interpreting weather data. Scientists should be like reporters and not editorial column writers.... reporting the news..... not rushing to judgments based on insufficient data. Even scientists can fall prey to that. I myself am not a scientist, although I do have a technical background and nature. But in any science, even climate science, professionals can make mistakes and be swayed by a number of factors, such as other studies, previously published trends, and even a little bias. Scientists are human also, after all.

Are humans capable of affecting the environment and even the weather to some extent? I'm not qualified one way or the other to even have an opinion on that question. If we do... we certainly haven't had that capability for a very long time in the context of "Earth time". I do know this: There are certain things I do believe in. Such as the finite supply of petroleum in the world. It only makes sense. A lot of very fast withdrawals, versus a very slow rate of deposit. Does that mean we're going to run out of petroleum in 10 years? 50 years? 200 years? Never? Who knows. Such it goes with global temperatures, the melting of the ice caps, etc, etc. Is man doing something to cause it? Is man doing something to affect it? If so... is it a 10% effect? A 20%? A 0.00000000001% effect? Is it enough to even worry about? Are we just seeing something cyclical and mistakenly attaching man's hand to it? For the record, I don't like the doomsdayers who would have humanity thrown into a panic and running for higher ground. They just rub me the wrong way.

I think we're all intelligent enough. Matter of fact, I believe there are more than a few extremely capable minds on this forum. I think we're all intelligent enough to ponder these and other climate issues without bias, and with an open mind. Ideally we should be open to say.... "Damn... I guess I was wrong about that." Or... "Gee, I didn't know that. That throws a brand new perspective on what I was thinking."

The enemy of all this is ignorance, coupled with hidden agendas and our own egos. Nobody likes to change direction midstream.

[bcollins]

Lyle, I think deep down we all have a common thread.... and none of us are as extremist as we may be coming off to each other. Don't be guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The Al Gores, the DiCaprios.... they're not representative of the scientific community bcollins keeps referring to. As with other debates, you can't just take the words of a distorted few and use them to counter what could be some very good arguments.

IMO, it does no good to flock to one extreme or the other. Those flockers usually have personal agendas, and all they do is confuse the issues.

A good point bcollins makes is regarding the more advanced technology with which environmental conditions are now monitored. Granted..... and I'll bold this next statement..... it's also important to be extremely careful when interpreting weather data. Scientists should be like reporters and not editorial column writers.... reporting the news..... not rushing to judgments based on insufficient data. Even scientists can fall prey to that. I myself am not a scientist, although I do have a technical background and nature. But in any science, even climate science, professionals can make mistakes and be swayed by a number of factors, such as other studies, previously published trends, and even a little bias. Scientists are human also, after all.

Are humans capable of affecting the environment and even the weather to some extent? I'm not qualified one way or the other to even have an opinion on that question. If we do... we certainly haven't had that capability for a very long time in the context of "Earth time". I do know this: There are certain things I do believe in. Such as the finite supply of petroleum in the world. It only makes sense. A lot of very fast withdrawals, versus a very slow rate of deposit. Does that mean we're going to run out of petroleum in 10 years? 50 years? 200 years? Never? Who knows. Such it goes with global temperatures, the melting of the ice caps, etc, etc. Is man doing something to cause it? Is man doing something to affect it? If so... is it a 10% effect? A 20%? A 0.00000000001% effect? Is it enough to even worry about? Are we just seeing something cyclical and mistakenly attaching man's hand to it? For the record, I don't like the doomsdayers who would have humanity thrown into a panic and running for higher ground. They just rub me the wrong way.

I think we're all intelligent enough. Matter of fact, I believe there are more than a few extremely capable minds on this forum. I think we're all intelligent enough to ponder these and other climate issues without bias, and with an open mind. Ideally we should be open to say.... "Damn... I guess I was wrong about that." Or... "Gee, I didn't know that. That throws a brand new perspective on what I was thinking."

The enemy of all this is ignorance, coupled with hidden agendas and our own egos. Nobody likes to change direction midstream.

I agree with this. I get frustrated with Lyle not because of him personally, but because he echoes the sentiments of so many people I do know in my personal life. I have apologized to him in the past for letting my mouth (in this case fingers) get the better of me - and that's a standing apology, since I seem incapable of being fully civil.

Tito, in terms of the science, I am not an expert on climate science, but I do know a lot about the types of models they use. The people who devote their lives to climate science rely on people like me to create better modeling techniques - especially better ways to implement the weather simulations on a computer. The models they use are not deterministic (meaning the result of a model is the same each time you run it); instead, the most advanced models include stochastic processes (meaning randomness in the results). These models typically consist of systems of stochastic partial differential equations, which are extremely hard to work with. This is why climate models are not "perfect," as the naysayers would have it. The thing they don't understand is that such a model is impossible, as in it doesn't exist. However, another thing that seems to be misunderstood is that the uncertainty inherent in a model is also quantifiable and can thus be measured.

Now even in this context, there are "good" and "bad" models. But when different models (with the uncertainty built in to each model) from different scientists from different parts of the world all produce results that differ by only a very small degree, then the consensus result is one that should be respected. However, a lot of the naysayers point to the differences and say "See? They can't all be exactly the same - therefore they must be wrong!" This is fallacious reasoning, perpetuated by those who don't understand how these processes work.

And you are absolutely right - scientists are 100 percent human (even though a lot of my students contend that mathematicians are all aliens). The bias that you described absolutely exists. This is why the peer-review process is so important - when you go to publish your findings, those results must be examined by anywhere from two to four referees - also experts in the field - who will try their best to poke holes in your work. Speaking from experience, they try just as hard as Lyle to poke holes in your arguments - sometimes much harder, since they know where the weak points are! Before a paper is published, it must be revised to account for the questions raised by the referees. If this is done to their satisfaction, the paper is usually published; otherwise, it is sent back for more revisions until everyone agrees that it is correct. In this way, the bias is kept as small as humanly possible, since the results must stand up to scientific scrutiny, which is a MUCH higher level of rigor than standing up to media or political scrutiny.