Bishop Hill DPA magazine on Nullius in Verba
Mar 15, 2012 Royal Society I had missed this editorial in DPA magazine, much of which concerns my GWPF report on the Royal Society.
Whether or not the scientific community can truly be insulated from political influence, particularly when its research is financed, in part, through public funding, is a moot point. However, institutions like the Royal Society must presumably speak with the majority voice of their members. If the consensus among scientists is that anthropogenic climate change is a reality, then calls for “drastic action on energy and climate policies from policy makers and governments” are to be expected from a responsible scientific body. More worrying is the possibility that the views of dissenters are not being given proper hearing for fear of opprobrium; this, rather than the broader accusation of political grandstanding, is probably behind Andrew Montford’s call for more “open-mindedness and balanced assessment”.
Reader Comments (32)
" institutions like the Royal Society must presumably speak with the majority voice of their members."
Could he flesh out how that works? Or does 'presumably' mean 'I'm guessing/hoping/wishing that".
'then calls for “drastic action on energy and climate policies from policy makers and governments” are to be expected from a responsible scientific body'
he must have missed off the
' based on best available science and models that are replicated by real world data '
Bit picky but activism/politics are no excuse for allowing bad science!
"presumably"
I thought I remembered that one of the founding principles of the Royal Society was that it did not pronounce on matters - on behalf of its members or otherwise.
" institutions like the Royal Society must presumably speak with the majority voice of their members."
But, wisely, the RS have traditionally refused to 'speak' - that's what nullius in verba is about.
The majority view of science in the 16/17th Centuries was that the Sun rotated around the Earth.
The TRS was set up to prevent State-controlled Science from using its power to prevent Scientific Discourse.
The RS has now fallen under the control of the State.
The real question is whether the Royal Society wants to be a scientific society where they do literally take "no one's word for it", or in modern parlance: "Evidence based science". Or whether they want to be a group of experts who think theirs should carry greater weight than anyone else irrespective of the lack of evidence substantiating those views.
And if they don't want to stand behind the motto "Nullius in Verba" (shortened from Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri - be sceptical of the experts), then they should come clean and let others who wish to uphold that real science take up the torch in their place.
But, wisely, the RS have traditionally refused to 'speak'
As the longitude scandal shows, the Royal Society have always had a corrupted view of its own importance.
John Harrison is arguably the single most important person in created the modern world as we know it ... because he made it possible to map the world.
It is hard to think of another individual who so changed our modern world.
There is absolutely no doubt what so ever that he won the prize for developing a method to determine longitude. But the same arrogant attitude that now says "we must be right because we are the scientific elite", is the same arrogant attitude that said John Harrison could not possibly get the most prestigious prize of his age.
Like climategate, they fiddle and fiddle trying to prove that the "science" was right. They denied the obvious evidence that John Harrison's method worked and there is little doubt many people died in ship wrecks because the Royal Society were too damned pig-headed to admit they were wrong.
There is no doubt what-so-ever that the Royal Society have been wrong global warming. There stance has nothing to do with the evidence, and everything to do with their view that "we scientists cannot possibly be wrong (again)"
It is amazing that the last three heads of the Royal Society have chosen ignorance of their tenets and science to propagate their political and financial wellbeing with a distinct loss of stature and integrity as a result. With the members being conspicuous by their silence, ridicule and derision will come to pass. They will be rightfully viewed as an extension of the Bullingdon Club.
From the quote:
This is underpants gnomes science discourse.
Step 1. AGW is a reality.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Call for drastic measures.
Step 2 is quantifying just how dangerous you think AGW is to allow you to determine what measures should be suggested. There are benefits to a warmer world with more CO2 that seem often to be ignored. The cost of climate change legislation is out of all proportion to threat - not least because the actual threat to lives and communities *isn't* from climate but from weather.
Mar 15, 2012 at 9:40 AM | MikeHaseler
It is hard to think of another individual who so changed our modern world.
True but the group responsible for 'clocks in space' (GPS) finished off the job started by Harrison.
I disagree strongly with the quoted text. Those who have made a study of the progression of scientific discovery through the existing record will shudder at the trend of thought expressed. Disinterest is always a desired vantage for those who hope to observe objectively and to evaluate reliably. Funding influence is not moot: it goes to the heart of the matter.
Sorry folks at my age you begin to repeat yourself. [I've snipped the repeated comment for you. BH]
You are correct Mike to identify the problem. I was one of many who, in 1988, accepted the Hansen/GISS modelling of possibly dangerous climate change on a Venusian level. This was my mindset for 20 years during which I warned of a WWIII scenario and I set up environmental businesses on the back of it. However, I always used the caveat 'So long as the modellers are right': part of my character as a professional scientist/engineer is that I am a true iconoclast.
CG1 changed my acceptance of the scientific diktat. the same goes for many 1000s of similar oddballs around the World. In the past 2 years we have cooperated loosely to identify who lied and how it was done.
I'm now homing in on the 1981 claim by Hansen using the flat plate radiative model of 33 K present GHG warming. What he did was to concatenate true GHG warming, which may be a fixed level for a water planet, and lapse rate.
This was unforgivable for a professional scientist. As for the RS, the fact that so many great minds are unable to accept that there is a fundamental scientific error in the calibration of the models is appalling. I can accept not picking up the other 3 major errors in climate science because it is a very complex subject. However, to fail to understand the most basic theorem of meteorology is not acceptable.
As for people without the training in physics such as Nurse and S. Jones who have pontificated on science they don't understand and have clearly failed to get an opinion from people who do, it was an abuse of position.
Mar 15, 2012 at 9:40 AM | MikeHaseler
It is hard to think of another individual who so changed our modern world.
True but the group responsible for 'clocks in space' (GPS) finished off the job started by Harrison.
I was going to compare them. The first massive advance would have been determination of latitude (N-S) which was well known in Roman times, so could be Greek or even unrecorded sea-faring nations.
The next massive advance was Harrions's longitude -- amazing really, because it was the first major advance in several thousand years!
The average sextant can measure position to within one minute (although my attempts were a few minutes = a few miles). With an accurate clock, Harrison gave us accurate W-E measurements.
There was then a period during which the OS refined known positions to within a few meters using a network of trig points and theodolites.
But yes, GPS, has now enabled almost anyone to know their position to a far greater accuracy than can be achieved with a comparable sextant - particularly as a sextant needs a sea horizon - and there ain't many of those where I live. (They created one using a mercury mirror - and instead of measuring the height of the star to the horizon, they halved the angle between the star and its image in the mercury)
Is there any saving the RS without a full rework of it's governing body?
On a side note: That’s the best tash I've seen since my uncle Robert.
Bobs me uncle.
I'll get my coat.
Bishop,
Bernie Lewin has posted the first part of a good review - review essay really. Woth a look:
http://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/
"...institutions like the Royal Society must presumably speak with the majority voice of their members..": there speaks someone with no experience of institutions, then.
.
@ dearieme
Yes, that's fascinating isn't it? It completely accepts the idea that the truth is what it's voted to be, while assuming that any vote took place. AFAIK, none of these psyence institutions that support the consensus polled its members first.
I thought that the whole point of the RS was that it didn't take sides? Just debate the science, the hotlier the better?
The problem isn't just the Royal Society, but a common misconception even "groupthink" amongst all science.
Scientists are taught a method ... to deconstruct a problem into its parts, solve the part and reconstruct the solution. This is taught as the best and only best way ... and you are fantastic because this is the method you use
Yes, science works fabulously for many types of problems ... for those that can be deconstructed into its constituent parts. And for that they should be justly proud.
Where it all falls down is a complex system like the planet, which cannot be resolved into small isolated bits which can be understood on their own ... or systems where chaos reigns, like engineering systems or instrumentation (i.e. noise). Yes science can help in understanding them, but its really the difference between a surgeon and a GP.
Sometimes you have to be able to treat a problem as a whole. You have to be taught the skills to diagnose symptoms and use experience and trial and error to find solutions. Instead, science is like a surgeon ... if they can't cut it open and look directly into the inner workings - they lack the engineering type no tools, techniques and experience to understand if there is a problem and devise a cost-effective solution.
So, it really boils down to the simple fact that the global climate is an engineering problem to which engineering skills ought to be applied. Instead, we have scientists too proud to admit that they lack the skills or techniques to deal with what they think ought to be a scientific problem.
And it was the same for John Harrison. The RS, thought the solution ought to be in better science. Instead it was in a better more reliable, more accurate watch. ... and they never forgave John Harrison for showing that science could not provide a solution.
Likewise, I doubt you will find a single scientist who doesn't believe that science is the way to understand the climate.
The truth is, science will help, but eventually even if it is not called such ... we will have a discipline that is really "climate engineering" ... seeing the climate as a complex machine to which we need engineering type skills to understand, diagnose, and ONLY IF NECESSARY repair.
To be fair, Hansen and GISS did use an engineering approach to climate science.when they applied Bode feedback theory to what appeared on the basis of the then available science ['CO2 rose with T at the end of ice ages'] a serious positive feedback issue. And if you look at the papers, Hansen did correctly compare CO2 climate sensitivity estimates for CLIMAP, modelling and modern warming, assuming Tyndall was right in judging that GHGs warmed by direct thermalisation of IR energy.
However, this was wrong; his experiment and the PET bottle analogue do not prove direct thermalisation; theory shows it's probably indirect. Also, in 1997 it was shown that CO2 rose after T and in 2007 that the deep Southern Ocean started warming 2 ky before CO2 rose.
Therefore in 1997, it seems a deliberate decision was made to maintain the scientific status quo by fraud [the hockey stick and systemic alteration of past T data] and by preventing publication of correct science. This even involved the use of propaganda tricks like using red to denote zero temperature change in the imaginary hot spot.
[ http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/sherwood-2008-where-you-can-find-a-hot-spot-at-zero-degrees/ ]
Mike H
Quite agree about Harrison. Dava Sobel's book was both fascinating and horrifying, especially considering the timescales involved in the testing and (unnecessary) retesting. It is a testament to the arrogance of some academics, which doesn't seem to have changed much.
GPS is smart, but is icing on the cake - anyone who really needed to know where they were could do it with the aid of a good clock (and GPS itself only works because of improvements in their accuracy).
mydogsgotnonose
You sound like Eliyahu Comay. Except his complaint is that physicists should understand the mathematics they are using.
For those of you who have no idea who Professor Comay is, he is one of the number of Standard Model "denialists" who hold that the Standard Model of Quantum Mechanics is hokcum based of incorrect mathematics. In particular, he holds that the Klein-Gordon Equation is incorrect and because the prediction of the Higgs boson -- the so called "God Particle" -- is based on that equation, it does not exist.
Personally, I have no idea if Comay is right or not, but there is at least a clear way to test his hypothesis -- go look for the Higgs boson. To this end, CERN has spent some €10 billion on the LHC looking for it. So far, although they have "promising" results, no God Particle yet.
Now, given that €10 billion is a bunch of money, one might click their tongue at the waste should the damn thing fail to show up. However, compare to what has been spent on windmills and other stupid wastes of money squandered on saving the world from CO2, I think the LHC is a bargain. At least we will have an impressive looking machine to use for the background of futuristic science fiction movies, and who knows just might pop out of it. My personal hope is for a tachyon to make a brief appearance.
And should the Higgs not show up, just imagine the number of physicists who will have quantum egg on their faces. Not to mention the number of careers based on the holy grail of the Standard Model shattered on the brutal mathematical reality Comay is claiming.
So, 2012 promises to be an interesting year. First off, sometime in May, we shall learn if neutrinos are actually faster than photons once they get their wiring sorted out. Then sometime soon, the Higgs should show up or not. And of course, come December 21, we learn what the Mayans really knew.
Hopefully, somewhere in the middle of all this scientific discovery, we will find out that CO2 had nothing to do with global warming.
The line between religion and science, knowledge and belief can be very tenuous.
My Dear Pablo, I am sure you are right in that I am making an apparently outrageous allegation that the modelling part of climate science was cocked up nearly from Day 1. However, the Wiki article on lapse rate is quite good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapse_rate
What Hansen claimed as the result of his thought experiment [remove the atmosphere so the -18°C, the S-B equilibrium with space at 240 W/m^2, is subtracted from the +15°C average] , 33 K, IS the combination of lapse rate and GHG warming.
4.5 km to the real -18°C at a lapse rate of -5 K/km, gives 22.5 K lapse rate and 10.5 K real GHG warming. 9 k has been estimated by people more expert than me. Thus the IPCC overestimates AGW by a factor of ~3.7 even before you correct for the phoney cloud albedo effect cooling which Hansen has just upped by ~50% to match no warming!
It seems this whole science has been a sham from 1981 and that it was only when the models apparently predicted fast warming in the 1990s that it got some traction.It's time to put it out of its misery.
There was a key feature story in Energy Tribune on March 9th on the Bishop's Royal Society Report. It was headlined on the GWPF blog on that day. I had mentioned it on March 9th as an O/T comment on a previous thread, but it belongs here, because it is a must read critique. It is very surprising that the Royal Society continues to ignore these criticisms as if they did not exist.
http://www.energytribune.com//articles.cfm/10055/The-Royal-Societys-Climate-of-Anti-Science
Mar 15, 2012 at 1:21 PM | James P
(and GPS itself only works because of improvements in their accuracy)
(and GPS itself only works because of
improvements in their accuracyEinstein)... there, fixed it for you.
mydogsgotnonose
My point was
I do not know whether you crossed it or not. But I would agree that Hansen and others clearly have. As for where science starts and ends is a subjective issue, but the only true test I have found is PREDICTION. While it is possible to predict correctly with divine inspiration and so may not differentiate between science and theology, the opposite is true. If you do not predict, you can not be doing science. That is to say, prediction is a necessary, but not sufficient test of science.
I admit that that is a somewhat tenuous bit of logic, but it is what I believe ;-)
Using that logic, and looking out at the cold wintry weather I am in, I would say that Hansen and others have failed badly in prediction. But then, perhaps I am being subjective and merely believing it is colder.
I do find your your comments well reasoned and thought out and of great interest. Please do not take my comments as a criticism -- merely a warning about where limits may or may not be. And that sometimes we don't find out what is what for some time.
As for the Higgs boson. Should it not appear as planned, there are going to be many thousands of scientists with a massive amount of egg on their faces. Only time will tell.
Billy Liar
Few people realize that. Of course, having a clock a bit better than what John Harrison cobbled together doesn't hurt. Few people realize that their GPS is really a repeater for a clock with a precision of about one microsecond, but without Einstein, it would be running slow.
I think the point of the phrase "presumably speak with the majority voice of their members", would be the public perception of such a pronouncement. Within the science community it would be baffling, but for us in society it would be counted as normal and expected.
I guess we are so used to the governments and various people telling us what to do, where to stand, where we can and can't go, and how much we must pay, that a principle scientific body telling us how to live is not counted as unusual.
I just read the Royal Society's views on Global Warming on their website. I could write a more convincing scientific paper on my kitchen table. They even bang on about ocean acidification, which as we know is nonsense.
I recently met a distinguished Fellow of the Royal Society and he was a luke warmist. Hadn't really thought about it, but surely the Science was Settled approach.
So I tried to tell him about the logarithmic nature of CO2 warming, negative feedback from water vapour, temperatures during the Holocene Interglacial, CO2 levels in the past following rather than causing temperature rise, and so on and on. It was all too difficult for him. I was shocked. I thought that these people were supposed to be clever. The truth seems to be that a number (how many?) of them are none too bright.
Mariwarcwm commented that "...these people were supposed to be clever." Possibly, this disappointment is directed at me in the sense that "scientists" are all-knowing or, at the least, reasonably intelligent. I would like to provide a modicum of information on this point: I interact daily with those claiming to be scientists, are widely recognized as scientists, and (more importantly) are paid to perform the services of scientists. My information on this point is that most are not well informed, most hate being asked to consider anything outside their specialization, and a good many after securing tenure or positions of security, down tools and resort to disengagement and fade back into vague statements like: "Well, somebody should look into this."
Perhaps the mental aloofness that makes for abstract thinking also separates one from the concrete realities of life.