Profiles in Self-delusion - Dilbert’s Scott Adams

The cartoonist responsible for the “Dilbert” strip has decided to expand his reach into writing on climate science.  His first endeavor is such an excellent example of the self delusional mind doing it’s best to rationalize and embrace an avoidance of fundamental reality that I’ve decide to make a case study of it.

Victor Venema at VariableVariablity.blogspot.com has already written an interesting fairly detailed rebuttal at “Scott Adams: The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science” and I recommend it because Victor, in keeping with his serious scientific sensibilities, offers Scott Adams’ the benefit of the doubt and takes the time to explain why Adams’ claims are misleading.

However, Scott Adams’ words convince me that his is nothing more than another cynical con game utilizing well worn tactics of strategic denial.  His exercise had nothing to do with an honest person trying to constructively explain his misgivings in an effort at better understanding. 

In this review I intent to focus on examining his disingenuous contrivances. 

First off please notice, rather than focusing on reviewing climate science fundamentals and known facts, Adams distracts with ‘slight of phrasing’ to draw the discussion away from where it needs to go, all the while striving to surreptitiously inoculate his audience with distrust and confusion at every turn.

The Non-Expert Problem and Climate Change Science, by Scott Adams

December 5th, 2016 - tagged: #trump, #climate science

It seems to me that a majority of experts could be wrong whenever you have a pattern that looks like this

1. A theory has been “adjusted” in the past to maintain the conclusion even though the data has changed. For example, “Global warming” evolved to “climate change” because the models didn’t show universal warming.

Steele saga - Repost 3/5 - Steele misrepresents California temperatures

This is a reposting of the third of five responses I made regarding various aspects of Jim Steele's 1/7/15 WattsUpWithThat 'essay' - in light of Steele's recent comment, I think it's only fair to bring it up again. 

Here I take a closer look at what Steele said about USHCN temperature data, in particular examining the way he misrepresents California temperature trends. Also Victor Venema explains some of the reasons why temperature data must be adjusted. 

________________________________________________________________________

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Peter Miesler Helps Expose USHCN Homogenization Insanity - WUWT

That's Mr. Jim Steele talking in that title, I myself intend to expose something quite different.

Although it'll be a few days before I'm ready to comment on the USHCN itself and the way Mr. Steele puts their data to work, (too many other things going on, for now I offer the following reading list courtesy of VV at VV).

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Victor Venema at Variable Variability 
put together a good reading list of articles that look into temperature adjustment: 

Climatologists have manipulated data to REDUCE global warming 

Variable Variability

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy comment on the Telegraph piece: No, Adjusting Temperature Measurements Is Not a Scandal 

John Timmer at Ars Technica is also fed up with being served the same story about some upward adjusted stations every year: Temperature data is not “the biggest scientific scandal ever” Do we have to go through this every year? 

The astronomer behind And Then There's Physics writes why the removal of non-climatic effects makes sense. In the comments he talks about adjustments made to astronomical data. Probably every numerical observational discipline of science performs data processing to improve the accuracy of their analysis. 

Steven Mosher, a climate "sceptic" who has studied the temperature record in detail and is no longer sceptical about that reminds of all the adjustments demanded by the "sceptics". 

Nick Stokes, an Australian scientist, has a beautiful post that explains the small adjustments to the land surface temperature in more detail. 

My two most recent posts were about some reasons for temperature trend biases: Temperature bias from the village heat island and Changes in screen design leading to temperature trend biases 

You may also be interested in the posts on how homogenization methods work (Statistical homogenisation for dummies) and how they are validated (New article: Benchmarking homogenisation algorithms for monthly data)

   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For now I want to focus on two more fundamental issues:  
1) Why does Mr. Steele rely on a few graphs based on a data set he also belittles as next to worthless?  
2) Why doesn't he allow the copious observational evidence to guide his convictions - rather than obsessing over fractions in a very complex data set?

Question: Best liar wins? re CC/Steele Debate

I'll admit, regarding my little SFSU/Steele project, recently I've spent a lot of time spinning my wheels.  Seems no one wants to get close to the touchy question of professors/instructors having a duty to honestly represent the scientific work of others.  

Apparently outright lying about the work of scientists is considered a sacred part of the academic process.  I still can't get my mind around that logic.  Admittedly I'm on the outside of academia looking in, so if anyone within the process would care to correct me or enlighten my interpretation please (If not here at WUWTW, how about an independent venue).  After all, constructive learning is what this is supposed to be all about.

What I find even less comprehensible: 
How is it that maliciously slandering honest professional scientists falls under the same acceptance?  Or is it a blind eye?

So I've gone back to reviewing and learning some more while pondering the fundamental requirements for a constructive* rational debate - as opposed to the politicians lawyerly debate to win at all costs regardless of fidelity to the truth.

I have to wonder what the hell, has all of modern society accepted the myth that the best liar deserves to win?  

In any event, this morning I saw that Victor Venema (at his consistently thoughtful blog Variable Variability) wrote something that I believe fits right into this series of foundation laying "exhibits" in my continuing "Great CC/Steele Climate Science Debate."  

That's why, with a tip of my hat, I share his thoughts in this post.  But first, as learning goes, looking at related links led to other things and I was reminded of the following helpful chart by "Communicating the Science of Climate Change" and their effort to teach climate science communication skills. 

https://www.climatecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Somerville-Hassol-Physics-Today-2011.pdf

Communicating the science of climate change

It is urgent that climate scientists 

improve the ways they convey their findings 

to a poorly informed and often indifferent public.  

Peter Miesler Helps Expose USHCN Homogenization Insanity - WUWT

That's Mr. Jim Steele talking in that title, I myself intend to expose something quite different.

Although it'll be a few days before I'm ready to comment on the USHCN itself and the way Mr. Steele puts their data to work, (too many other things going on, for now I offer the following reading list courtesy of VV at VV).

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Victor Venema at Variable Variability 
put together a good reading list of articles that look into temperature adjustment: 

Climatologists have manipulated data to REDUCE global warming 

Variable Variability

Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy comment on the Telegraph piece: No, Adjusting Temperature Measurements Is Not a Scandal 

John Timmer at Ars Technica is also fed up with being served the same story about some upward adjusted stations every year: Temperature data is not “the biggest scientific scandal ever” Do we have to go through this every year? 

The astronomer behind And Then There's Physics writes why the removal of non-climatic effects makes sense. In the comments he talks about adjustments made to astronomical data. Probably every numerical observational discipline of science performs data processing to improve the accuracy of their analysis. 

Steven Mosher, a climate "sceptic" who has studied the temperature record in detail and is no longer sceptical about that reminds of all the adjustments demanded by the "sceptics". 

Nick Stokes, an Australian scientist, has a beautiful post that explains the small adjustments to the land surface temperature in more detail. 

My two most recent posts were about some reasons for temperature trend biases: Temperature bias from the village heat island and Changes in screen design leading to temperature trend biases 

You may also be interested in the posts on how homogenization methods work (Statistical homogenisation for dummies) and how they are validated (New article: Benchmarking homogenisation algorithms for monthly data)

   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For now I want to focus on two more fundamental issues:  
1) Why does Mr. Steele rely on a few graphs based on a data set he also belittles as next to worthless?  
2) Why doesn't he allow the copious observational evidence to guide his convictions - rather than obsessing over fractions in a very complex data set?

The courier font are Mr. Steele's words lifted from his January 7th, 2015 WattsUpWithThat blog post. "Peter Miesler Helps Expose USHCN Homogenization Insanity and Antarctic Illusions."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

¶6  I have referred to Yosemite’s temperature trend because it represented similar trends recorded in USHCN data throughout montane California, from the north at Mt Shasta in the Cascades, to Lake Tahoe (where my research was focused) and south to Death Valley. Likewise the peak warming in the 20s and 30s supported past analyses of California’s climatologist illustrating California’s rural counties had not experienced any warming that exceeded the 30s. 

~ ~ ~

Check it out, here Mr. Steele relies on a two decades old study that affirms the Urban Heat Island effect.  There is no climatologist out there that would disagree, and every climatologist will also explain that real though UHI effect is, it does not make a fraction of the global impact that humanity's injecting some 3 gigatonnes per month of insulating greenhouse gases into our atmosphere does. (think: compounding interest)

Goodridge, James D. "Comments on regional simulations of greenhouse warming including natural variability." Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 77.7 (1996): 1588-1588.

Also, one might ask, what do today's climatologists think?

necessary and sufficient falsifiable hypothesis statements

I finally got around to revisiting the "Climate Science Falsifiability" discussion at OurChangingClimate.wordpress.com

to see where it leads.  It's pretty wild and there's no keeping up with K so I thought I'd take it from the top to review where this discussion began.

To start with some quotes from Hans Custers' article:

A very, ehhrmm… interesting piece on  

Variable Variability, Victor Venema’s blog: Interesting what the interesting Judith Curry finds interesting. And I don’t mean interesting in a rhetoric, suggestive way; I mean it is a well-written and well-reasoned article, worth reading.  

Victor writes about the meme regularly used by the anti climate science campaign, often supported by some straw man arguments, that the science of human impacts on climate would not be falsifiable. He shows it’s nonsense, by giving some examples of how it could be falsified. Or, more likely, already would have been falsified, if the science would be wrong. Victor’s post inspired me to think of more options to falsify generally accepted viewpoints in climate science. If there are any ‘climate change skeptics’ who want to contribute to real science, they might see this as a challenge. Maybe they can come up with a research proposal, based on one of the options for falsification. Like proper scientists would do. 

First, a few more things about falsifiability in general. Bart wrote a concise post about the subject four years ago, explaining that a bird in the sky does not disprove gravity. What looks like a refutation at first, might on second thoughts be based on partial or total misunderstanding of the hypothesis. Natural climate forcings and variations do not exclude human impacts. Therefore, the existence of these natural factors in itself, cannot falsify anthropogenic climate change. A real skeptic is cautious about both scientific evidence and refutations. 

{...}

One more thing. The philosophical principle of falsifiability and the feasibility of tests for it are two different subjects. ... Philosophy of science does not set a time frame for hypotheses testing. The issues involved in the testing of hypotheses are the story of almost every scientist’s life. They’re not sitting back, thinking of new and brilliant ideas, most of the time. Instead, they are busy digging for data, messing with measuring equipment, or evaluating errors in experiments. For climate scientists, one of the major issues is the pace at which they can get new information: one year of data every year. And one year of data is not a lot for climate research. There are no test tube planets for climate experiments. ..."

That’s it for falsifiability in general. Here are the 10 way to disprove the human impact on climate:

1. A drop in global temperatures for some period of time to the level of 50 years ago or longer, without a clear cause

2. A drop in global sea level for some period of time

3. A strong rise or decline in the atmospheric CO₂ level

4. The discovery that climate forcings in the past were much larger, or temperature changes much smaller, than science thinks

5. Warming of the stratosphere

6. Major errors in equipment in satellites, measuring outgoing longwave radiation

7. Evidence of a substantial fall of relative humidity with rising temperature

8. A source of heat in the climate system that we do not know yet

9. A fundamental flaw in the scientific understanding of radiation physics or thermodynamics

10. CO₂ molecules appear to behave differently in the wild, than they do in a laboratory

http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/is-climate-science-falsifiable/

Catmando: A Richard Feynman Primer For Deniers

While going over the comments to Hans Clusters "Is Climate Science falsifiable" I came across the obligatory (yet misleading) appeal to Dr. Richard Feynman's authority.  Probably the most charismatic and hip atom bomb building physicist there was, kids and lefties loved him.  Back in the day, I read a couple of his books and he did a wonderful job of explaining science, plus his own life story was quite fascinating.  To top it off, one of his last big acts was to bust open the Challenger Shuttle disaster investigation with a simple demonstration that highlighted the foolishness of blasting off a rocket early after a freezing night with icicles still dangling off the gantry.

His name has now become a favored among the contrarian crowd.  You see, Dr. Feynman gave a great many lectures and was loved for his provocative approach to teaching physics and his copious legacy has become a motherlode for the quote-mining debate loving crowd.  

Then looking up more background information I was reading Victor Venema's interesting article "Falsifiable and falsification in science" over at his Variable Variability blog, I found out that a few months ago Catmando took the time to find some Feynman quotes that shed a more realistic light onto his thinking about the scientific process than the disingenuous curve balls our contrarian debate mates toss out.  

Catmando has been kind enough to give me permission to repost his article in full - and both of us give you permission to copy and pass along - but please do give him credit for his work and link back to http://ingeniouspursuits.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-richard-feynman-primer-for-deniers.html.

I also want to invite anyone who knows of other Feynman quotes worth contemplating please do share.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

A Richard Feynman Primer For Deniers

Thursday, 20 February 2014 ~ IngeniousPursuits.blogspot

Deniers love Richard Feynman.  He was everything that they could hope for, successful, witty, a hit with the ladies, a bona fide genius and Nobel laureate.  They love to quote him because he seems to support what they are aiming at: science is uncertain, some bits of science aren't true, etc.

But I sometimes wonder what Feynman would have made of the denialists.  Since he died in 1988 it isn't possible to ask him and I don't have to hand his collected works so I can't interrogate them either.  But he left some interesting quotes, the sort that the deniers usually don't bother with, that give us an idea of what he might have thought, for instance, of climate change denial.

First exhibit:

“Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools - guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus locus -THAT, I CANNOT STAND! 

An ordinary fool isn't a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!”