Science denial

Discussion in 'Science' started by (original)late, Aug 23, 2020.

  1. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    The following facts of empirical climate science are not controversial -- though their evident logical implications are considered politically unacceptable:

    1. The paleoclimate record shows that CO2 follows temperature rather than leading it, and the physical mechanism causing this response is known and not in dispute: the oceans, which contain ~50X more CO2 than the atmosphere, dissolve more CO2 when they are cooler, and release it when they are warmer. So the observed pre-industrial correlation between temperature and CO2 occurred because the natural cycle of global warming and cooling causes atmospheric CO2 to rise and fall, not the other way around.
    2. There is a known millennium-scale cyclical variation in global temperature, and we have been in the up-phase of that cycle for the last ~200y.
    3. The Little Ice Age, the coldest 500y period in the last 10Ky, which was part of that natural temperature cycle, was accompanied by the lowest sustained level of solar activity in that time. The LIA ended just before the modern instrumental temperature record -- and the modern warming trend -- began.
    4. The Holocene Optimum ~5-9Kya was warmer than it is now. The century-scale warming trend we have experienced since the end of the Little Ice Age can therefore be considered a natural cyclical return to more normal Holocene temperatures.
    5. The warming of the 20th century was accompanied by the highest sustained level of solar activity in several thousand years.
    6. The US temperature record for the last ~150y, which is by far the most comprehensive in the world, showed definite cooling since the 1930s -- before the data were adjusted in the 1990s and readjusted since then to turn the observed cooling trend into a warming trend.
    7. After rising rapidly in the ~1910-1940 period, global temperature fell ~1940-1970 even as CO2 was increasing rapidly, then rose again ~1970-2000.
    8. Arctic sea ice coverage is sensitive to global temperature, and there is little credible empirical evidence that arctic sea ice is lower now than in the 1930s-40s. The satellite sea ice record begins in the 1970s, after the 1940-1970 global cooling phase, and thus begins at the high point of a natural cycle.
    9. In the Medieval Warm Period, the Vikings were able to settle and farm in Greenland using Iron Age technology, which would probably not be possible at current temperatures.
    10. The empirical evidence for CO2's effect on infrared radiative heat transfer in the atmosphere is all based on measurements for very dry air: air above the lower troposphere, where the water vapor has all condensed out, and lower-troposhere/surface measurements in winter at high latitude, where sustained sub-zero temperatures also condense out the water vapor. But global surface temperature is not determined by IR heat transfer in those places. It is determined by the IR transmissivity of the wet air that prevails over >90% of the earth's surface >90% of the time. As Angstrom demonstrated empirically over 100 years ago, adding CO2 to that kind of air has little effect on its IR transmissivity because it already holds so much water vapor and CO2 that it blocks all the relevant IR wavelengths anyway.
     
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  2. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Why do you insist that the few large corporations that own all the major peer-reviewed journals are the ultimate arbiters of scientific fact?
    That is baldly false. Credibility is determined by the quality of the work, not the reviewers.
    No. REPLICABILITY is the serious requirement that science cannot do without. Galileo's peer-reviewers refused to watch his experimental demonstration.
    Again, that's just objectively false. Newton's Principia Mathematica, certainly and by far the greatest scientific work ever published, and which almost single-handedly created modern civilization, was never published in a peer-reviewed journal.
    No, many scientists have become highly critical of the peer-review system, and especially the power over scientific investigation that it gives the corporate owners of the major peer-reviewed journals.
     
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  3. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

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    Citation?
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
  4. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Who reviewed and published this paper?

    Was it the Trump White House?
     
  5. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    There are high quality journals and review teams throughout the entire world. There are thousands of universities with serious science in various fields of climatology as well.

    They accept or reject papers on technical merrit, not outcome. So, scientists suchas Dr. Judith Curry have many published papers and tend to be on the "denier" side of the spectrum of results.

    The point is NOT ultimate arbiter".

    The point is for there to be independent review of methodology and argument.

    It makes NO sense to have anyone who manages to get a Phd from somewhere to get to say anything they want and then have someone like Hayes call it science and pretend it is serious argument even though no serious scientist has ever looked at it to see if it makes ANY sense, attempted to duplicate the results, compared it to similar research by others, or any of the other steps taken.

    That's true for all sides. You don't want people suggesting that crap level work is "science" any more than I do.

    The process of modern science fully depends on this review. Without it, science is a joke - the official looking documents and claims of individuals doing stuff that nobody even looks at is NOT science.

    You get to point that out, too!
     
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  6. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    If you want to actually itemize the benfits, do that. I'm not interested in reading a screed.

    Earlier, I itemized the benefits that our government gives fossil fuel and did so in a way that they could each be addressed.
     
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  7. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Nobody knows the quality of the work without there being review of that work.

    That is the point.

    And, duplication/replicability is just part of that review.
     
  8. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Frontiers in Earth Science
    www.frontiersin.org › journals › earth-science

    Frontiers in Earth Science is an open-access journal that aims to bring together and publish on a single platform the best research dedicated to our planet.

    Above is a link to the journal.
    Details of the acceptance and review of this specific article are provided in the original link.
     
  9. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    You asked for evidence, not a citation. The ten facts I identified as evidence are gathered from, and can be found in, many peer-reviewed sources. As I already told you, and you ignored, they are widely known in climatology circles and not controversial. Their evident logical implications are just not politically acceptable. That is why you are refusing to engage with them and demanding a "citation" for facts that are well known.
     
  10. skepticalmike

    skepticalmike Well-Known Member

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    1) The major fluctuations in carbon dioxide levels in the paleoclimate record were initiated by changes in incident solar radiation, which are caused by the Milankovitch cycles.There is a time lag of
    several hundred year wheres carbon dioxide changes lag temperature changes. If the incident solar radiation is increasing then the oceans will warm, releasing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide,
    and the increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide will warm the planet's surface beyond the initial increase expected from the rising incident solar radiation. Therefore, the rise in atmospheric carbon
    dioxide's climate effect is a positive feedback. As the planet's surface warms sea ice and glaciers melt causing the earth's albedo to decrease, so this is another positive feedback. There are other feedbacks
    such as changes in water vapor, aerosols, and land surface. It is impossible to account for the magnitude of the temperature fluctuations seen in the ice core data without taking into account the carbon
    dioxide and methane contributions to the Earth's radiation balance.

    2) There are approximately 1500 year cycles that result in regional fluctuations of heat from one hemisphere to the other caused by changes in ocean circulation patterns. This cannot account for the
    global warming observed over 95% of the Earth's surface since around 1850.

    3) The causes of the Little Ice Age are complex and were initiated by volcanic aerosol forcing and not by reduced solar activity. Several large volcanic eruptions cooled the planet and
    increased the spread of Arctic sea ice. More sunlight was reflected from the Northern Hemisphere and the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowed down. Decreased solar activity
    also contributed to the cooling.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-en...Ice Age was,and sediments carried by glaciers.

    4) The Holocene Optimum was not warmer than today. The global climate was in a cooling trend of about 0.1 degrees C per 1000 years starting 5000 years ago.There
    is no natural reason for why this trend, caused by Milankovitch effects, should suddenly reverse and cause warming.

    5) Solar activity cannot account for the warming over the past 50 years which is 0.9 degrees C.

    6) https://www.globalchange.gov/browse/indicator-details/3663

    "Rising temperatures in the United States are indicative of warming in the global climate system. In the contiguous United States, temperatures during this century have been, on average, 1.5°F warmer than during the last century. Human activities have contributed to this increase in temperature through the addition of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.".






    .[​IMG]

    The bars on the graph show the number of degrees by which the average U.S. temperature for each year differs from the average U.S. temperature during the last century.



    . .
     
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  11. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Nobody knows the quality of the work WITH review, either, as the climategate emails proved. The point is that everyone has the responsibility to critically review scientific work, and everyone, not just designated journal peer-reviewers, is qualified to judge its merits on logical, methodological and epistemological grounds.

    That is the point.
    No. Replicability is the highest standard of scientific merit, and as recent scandalous investigation has found, publication in a peer-reviewed journal is by no means a guarantee of replicability.
    But your claim that there is no science except that published in peer-reviewed journals is just false.
    No, because that is the proof of replicability.
    No, we can also hope that they have some ability to judge the quality of the science they are presented with.
    You evidently don't understand either of them.
    Yes, hypotheses are not evaluated by replication, but by confirmation of predictions. But replication is a higher standard than peer review -- which is why so much that passes peer review ends up failing replication.
    Right. The point is that peer-review is just one mechanism for judging scientific merit, not the only or even the primary one.
    Review is going to happen anyway, and your claim was not that review is essential, but that acceptance by and publication in a peer-reviewed journal is essential, and that is just flat-out bollocks.
     
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  12. skepticalmike

    skepticalmike Well-Known Member

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    7) Global temperature fell slightly during the middle of the 20th century and that was caused by increasing levels of atmospheric aerosols reflecting more sunlight away from the earth's surface.
    Some of those aerosols were caused by increased industrialization following World War II and some were caused by volcanic eruptions.

    8) Arctic sea is extent is lower today than it was in the 1930"s.

    https://skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=429

    One of the most widely used long-term estimates of Arctic sea ice extent comes from Walsh and Chapman (2001), whose data are available from the University of Illinois (updated through 2008). A description of the vast array of data used by Walsh and Chapman is available via tamino here, and the data are plotted in Figure 1



    [​IMG]


    Figure 1: Average July through September Arctic sea ice extent 1870-2008 from the University of Illinois (Walsh & Chapman 2001 updated to 2008) and observational data from NSIDC for 2009-2011 (blue), with a fourth order polynomial fit (black soiid line). Black vertical dashed lines indicate the years 1938-43.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
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  13. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Thanks - that kind of information is important.

    As you probably know, Frontiers is a collection of publications divided along topic lines. As a whole, they publish almost EVERYTHIG - rejecting something like 20% of papers while journals such as Nature reject 90%.

    This from wiki:
    So, Frontiers CLAIMS they give ppers some sort of review. But, that is only a CLAIM. Tthere is NO indication that your cited paper got the kind of rigorous scientific review of methods that other scientists subject themselves to when they publish in quality journals.

    Beyond that, it's a simple fact that your process is still "pumpkin picking". YOU are reviewing, too. It's just that you are reviewing to see if the conclusion conforms to your existing position..

    That action is still a direct claim that YOU know the correct answer - BEFORE you go looking for quality science on the subject.

    And, that you pick places to look that get ratings like "nonacademic" as well as presenting you with papers that do NOT have any kind of agreement from other scientists in the field.

    Excluding this kind of problem is exactly why science has a review process.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
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  14. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Review of methodology, comparison to other data sources, searches for assumptions, etc. all play an important part in rational review.
    I'm saying that unpublished science can not be given the same credibility as science that has received serous review.

    Unpublished science becomes the work product of individuals that has not undergone any verificatin. It could just as easily be more "Piltdown Man" hoaxing if it gets credit without review.

    This is the same problem we face on this board. You can make a climate claim. But, I'm going to review that before I just accept that what you say is true. The same is true for any of these cites from Hayes or you.

    Every scientist who completes some study needs to have that study reviewed before you decide that since he/she has a Phd, you have to believe him/her and make international public policy based on that study.
    We don't select policy makers based on their scientific accumen. We have SENATORS who reject science based medicine. We have senators who sell absolutely worthless dietary suplements on the side. We have those who subscribe to QANON.
    False. If improper methodology is used, replication is POINTLESS.

    The methodogical problems often dominate other probems we see in modern science. The fields of softer sciences (sociology, for example) have been shown to be especially vulnerable, with multiply duplicated experiments getting it wrong because of methodological flaws.
    No, reveiw is NOT going to ""happen anyway".

    Hayes is never going to hear why his favorite studies got rejected. All he will hold is the memory that he found "proof" that he was right by having read some paper that was never reviewed.

    And, there will ALWAYS be papers that get it wrong. The reason is not just hoaxers. The reason is that the science is not easy. Serious scientists can make mistakes. And, therea are a LOT of wannabes.
     
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  15. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Is the July through September period chosen because that is the period when Earth is most oriented to be able to collect heat on Arcic surfaces, thus making that period more important in climate forcing?
     
  16. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Yes, the problem of eliminating mistakes is prevalent and not easy.

    So, since you reject review processes as at least useless if not worse ...

    If I present you a paper from someone with a Phd in some field of climatology, would you accept its conclusions as true without review?
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
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  17. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

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    Poppycock! I ignored nothing nor am I "demanding" anything; you,however, are acting defensive, attempting to create an excuse rather than reveal your sources.
    I've no time for it; moving on.
     
  18. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    I'm completely uninterested in your opinion of Frontiers.
    I've already explained why "agreement from other scientists in the field" is not important, in my view.
    This is a discussion forum. The fact that you don't like my approach is not an argument, it's why the forum exists.
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
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  19. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    In any discussion it is well worth coming to an understanding of the valueof evidence presented.

    You want your evidence to overturn the vast majority of the progress made in the field today.

    Why would ANYONE accept that kind of claim without checking it out?
     
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  20. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Your appeal to progress is touching. What is coming is revolution.

    “Why should a change of paradigm be called a revolution? In the face of the vast and essential differences between political and scientific development, what parallelism can justify the metaphor that finds revolutions in both?

    One aspect of the parallelism must already be apparent. Political revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense, often restricted to a segment of the political community, that existing institutions have ceased adequately to meet the problems posed by an environment that they have in part created. In much the same way, scientific revolutions are inaugurated by a growing sense, again often restricted to a narrow subdivision of the scientific community, that an existing paradigm has ceased to function adequately in the exploration of an aspect of nature to which that paradigm itself had previously led the way. In both political and scientific development the sense of malfunction that can lead to crisis is prerequisite to revolution.”
    ― Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
     
    Last edited: Nov 28, 2020
  21. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    Happer and Wijngaarden have provoked debate.

    Slight, beneficial warming from more carbon dioxide!
    In radiation physics that means adding more CO2 or water molecules will bring modest warming that will benefit plant growth, and thus all life on Earth. More CO2 and H2O will not cause dangerous warming.

    Continue reading →

    "Exhaustive study finds more CO2 and water molecules will not cause dangerous warming

    David Wojick, Ph.D.

    Precision research by physicists William Happer and Willem van Wijngaarden has determined that the current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and water vapor are “saturated.” In radiation physics that means adding more CO2 or water molecules will bring modest warming that will benefit plant growth, and thus all life on Earth. More CO2 and H2O will not cause dangerous warming.

    From this point forward, emissions from burning fossil fuels will bring little additional global warming, and what does occur will improve forests, grasslands and agriculture. There is no climate emergency.

    This finding is astounding, paradigm shattering, contrary to what alarmist scientists have told us for decades. Scientifically, it resolves a huge uncertainty that has plagued climate science for over a century: How should saturation be measured, and what is its extent regarding the primary greenhouse gases? . . . .

    The climate science community clearly needs to consider this work very carefully. This may not be easy since three major physics journals have refused to publish it. Their reviews have been defensive and antagonistic, instead of thoughtful, science-based or helpful. Climate alarmism seems to control these journals, and they tend to censor contrary findings. That’s why H&W released the preprint version. . . . "
     
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  22. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Now you're arguing FOR me again!!

    You HATE kuhn. He's the guy that says that change happens because of a combination of careful verification along with the CONSENSUS of science.

    You refuse to accept EITHER of those!!!

    Yes, there are paradigm shifts. Yes, we need creative minds that come up with new ideas or ways of looking at things.

    BUT, that does NOT mean that those ideas are accepted without serious examination of their value by those who are experts in the field of interest.

    A new idea doesn't invalidate the science that has come before simply because it is a new idea - or that it is written up to look like science.

    I'm not denying that there ARE headwinds. Einstein faced headwinds. Darwin faced headwinds - from both inside and outside of science. As Dr. Curry has pointed out, that's something we do need to think about.

    BUT, the resolution doesn't come through ignoring strong steps of review and verification. In fact it seems more likely to me that it comes through a WIDER range of review and verification, since the amount of research being done is huge and thus MIGHT be making it hard for novel papers to receive adequate review. Scientists today want to be doing novel research, advancing knowledge, causing a paradigm shift as Kuhn calls it - not verifying each others work.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2020
  23. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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    No, I am assuredly not. And your incomprehension of Kuhn is total.
    Please see #646 to understand that scientific revolution is not about consensus.
    I have the impression these issues are new to you, or at least your assumptions have never been challenged.
     
  24. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    No, Kuhn says scientific revolution DOES involve consensus as one important component.

    And, he says it requires serious review, as unverified ideas are NOT a basis for scientific revoluion.

    The revolutions that we see in science happen because of review and consensus. And, they do not have to do with organizations of science collapsing, as all of science is looking for truth and is ready to accept what is show to be solid ground.

    The Royal Society didn't go away because of Darwin. They gave him a medal. And, other such prominent institutions didn't go away because of Einstein or black body radiation or black holes, etc., etc. Yet each of these were revolutionary.

    You need to read Kuhn.
     
  25. Jack Hays

    Jack Hays Well-Known Member Donor

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