Existential battles with denialists

by mullica

Carter Confusion #1: Anthropogenic Warming
[Via Skeptical Science]

Bob Carter is an Australian marine geologist who in recent years has forayed into the field of climate science, for example co-authoring the extremely flawed study McLean et al. 2009 which attempted to blame global warming on the El Niño Southern Oscillation.  Recently, Carter penned a media article in which he argued against Australia’s proposed carbon tax.  The article is a fairly typical Gish Gallop in which Carter seems to attempt to jam as many climate myths into as few words as possible, interspersed with a lot of empty political rhetoric and the usual misunderstanding of climate economics.  The article contains too many myths to refute in a single post, so we will address it in a Carter Confusion series in the same vein as Monckton Myths, Christy Crocks, and Lindzen Illusions.

In this first installment, we will examine Carter’s claims that there is no evidence that the observed global warming is man-made, and that it is instead caused by the natural internal variability of the climate system.

Anthropogenic Fingerprints

Carter leaps quickly out of the gate, launching a whopper in the second paragraph of his article (emphasis added):

“Since [the 1980s], with the formation of the IPCC, and a parallel huge expansion of research and consultancy money into climate studies, energy studies and climate policy, an intensive effort has been made to identify and measure the human signature in the global temperature record at a cost that probably exceeds $100 billion. And, as Kevin Rudd might put it, “You know what? No such signature has been able to be isolated and measured.”

First of all, it’s difficult to determine where Carter is getting this $100 billion figure from.  The article focuses specifically on Australia, and the country has not spent $100 billion on climate research in its entire history, period.  Even on a global scale, nowhere near $100 billion has been spent on studies to identify anthropogenic signatures of global warming.  Carter appears to be playing fast and loose with the facts in order to appeal to his readers’ emotions during difficult economic times, which is a highly unscientific approach.  Not a promising start to the article.

Furthermore, as Skeptical Science readers know, the claim that no human warming signatures have been identified is entirely false, and reveals that Carter is either ignorant of the field of climate science, or is not being honest in his article.  We have previously addressed the anthropogenic “fingerprints” or “signatures” of global warming in the rebuttal to “it’s not us“.  Below is a brief summary of those fingerprints:

• the upper atmosphere is cooling
• the tropopause height is rising
• nights are warming more than days
• sea level pressure is rising
• precipitation is changing as expected from anthropogenic forcing
• ocean heat content is changing as expected from anthropogenic forcing
• downward longwave radiation is increasing
• upward longwave radiation is decreasing

Additionally, the warming trend is accurately projected by climate models – another fact which Carter denies later in the article.

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Spewing made up facts and outright falsehoods is the hallmark of any type of denialist. Strawmen and false claims. Cherry picking and false logic. They all get used so often.

HIs level of reasoning is not based on a real search for truth but on supporting an already decided upon conclusion. And as we are seeing, while this sort of reasoning might have worked in times past, it is simply wrong when working with complex problems.

The peer review process of science introduces a strong social setting to respond to arguments and to clear away much confirmation bias. When Carter enters this arena, he has to drop all these sorts of rhetorical flourishes and stick to what can be proved.

And when he does that, his work is criticized heavily. That is what happens to work that can not withstand the reasoning arguments used in science. When this happens, scientists pick themselevs up and move forward with the new data and reasoning, looking to expand our knowlegde. They want to get to the bottom of it all and find what is really going on. They want the truth.

When this happens, deniaists resort to the sorts of reasoning that use arguments not often found in science –  logical fallacies, legalistic framing, cherry picking, quote mining, big lies, etc. In fact, these arguments are often used to hide the truth not find it. A purely scientific approach would not be likely to get a guilty person off. A lawyerly approach often does.

These lawyerly approaches may be successful in altering the course of human society. That is apparently what most argumentative reasoning has been geared for. When good choices are made, the society benefits. But when the arguments are twisted to hide the truth, society will be harmed.

Denialist arguments are often made up of rhetoric which might win an argument but are not geared for finding out what is going on around us. They let the guilty go free instead of finding out what really is happening. They represent a retrograde approach to the march of history. They wish a return to irrational arguments in place of the Enlightenment-derived rhetoric of science.

If this return to former modes of argumentative reasoning are allowed to win, we will have been witness to a decline in humanity’s historical course. Instead of continuing the upward progress we have sustained since the beginning of the Enlightenment, we will truly begin the march backwards so eloquently discussed by Clarence Darrow:

After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted fagots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind.

That is why this is an existential battle and one the denialists must not be allowed to win.

What happens to climate change models when plant retain less carbon than researchers thought

by BioCON Experiment/NSF Cedar Creek LTER Site

Big Clue to Future Climate Change in Small Plants
[Via NSF News]

 

Yarrow, it’s called, this flowering plant also known as “little feather” for the shape of its leaves. Prized as a garden plant that repels unwanted insects while attracting beneficial ones, it also improves soil quality and is used in many herbal medicines.

Now yarrow–and 12 other grassland species, including Indian grass, thimbleweed and wild lupine–may have a larger role, scientists have found: as players in Earth’s changing climate.

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and University of Minnesota-Twin Cities conducted an 11-year experiment with 13 plant species common in U.S. Midwestern states.

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Their results – the amount of carbon that these plants hold on to is less than what has ben used in many climate models, meaning that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will rise faster. The more we burn the more ends up in the atmosphere and the less than expected is taken up by plants.

“What this all boils down to,” says Reich, “is that the world could warm even faster than we thought.”

This is a long term experiment:

The researchers measured gas exchange rates of the 13 grassland species over 11 years using free-air CO₂ enrichment at 180 parts per million, or ppm, above ambient CO₂ levels. Their work is part of the BioCON experiment in Minnesota.

But now they have really long term, detailed  data on the carbon cycle when carbon dioxide is at higher levels than today. What they found was that higher carbon dioxide did not stimulate photosynthesis by 25%, a value used in come climate change models.

Photosynthesis only went up 10%. This could have a huge effect on the models, since they would all then underpredict the increase in carbon dioxide levels and in global temperatures.

I’m glad the NSF exists – who else would have supported this work  for 11 years?

 

The obesity switch – why you shuld not get your science from the media

by Steve Snodgrass

‘Master switch gene for obesity’
[Via NHS Choices: Behind the headlines]

 

“The ‘master switch’ gene which causes obesity has been identified,” reported the Daily Mail. It said that the breakthrough could help treat “obesity-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes”.

This genetic study looked at how genetic variations associated with changes in the activity of one gene (called KLF14) had knock-on secondary effects on the activity of a network of genes involved in metabolism. The activity of these secondary genes in fat cells was associated with body mass index, blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and how well the insulin system controlled blood sugar.

This study does not immediately lead to new treatment options, but does show that the genetics underpinning metabolic conditions such as obesity and diabetes are complex. The findings highlight the importance of looking at a network of interacting genes rather than one gene in isolation.

The study itself did not look at the activity of these genes in obese people, and it is too early to say that KLF14 is ‘the gene that makes you fat’. Further studies are needed to understand how this network of genes influences obesity and obesity related diseases.

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Finding one gene whose regulation affects an entire network of genes does not make it a master gene and does not fully explain what is going on. We are a long way from any real therapeutic  or deep understanding of what is going no.

But all the papers said “Master gene” in a faint hope you would read the ads. That is their reason for hyping things like that. Actually educating people about  data is very far down the list of things the MSM do.

Group learning works better than lectures

by Conor Lawless

Lots of Ink: A Nobelist (further) undermines the big-shot lecturer as essential to teaching er [Via Knight Science Journalism Tracker]

A number of outlets ran with the main news from an unsurprising, but remarkable anyway, report on how to teach college physics. In Science on Friday a physics Nobelist, Carl Wieman best known for his role in confining Bose-Einstein condensates in the laboratory, reported that people like him giving lecture is an okay way to teach college students. A better way, his study concludes, is to let teaching assistants ride herd and interact with students as they wrestle and collaborate over focussed challenges that compel them to embrace new information. In a one-week competition between traditional teaching and collaborative, interactive supervised learning without a professor in sight, students in the latter group crushed those in the former when they all took a standard quiz.

(By the way, Wieman is not only merely a Nobel-Prize winning physicist working for the White House who is not named Chu, interesting as that is. Now on leave from U. of Colorado and U. of British Columbia , he has a distinctive, fascinating early background. Check his Nobel Foundation autobiography and its passages on the backwoods of Oregon.)

While this topic is, strictly, one that might fit the education beat, many of the bylines with the stories are those of science reporters.

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Having small groups working on focussed problems, facilitated by those with core knowledge, may very well be the best way to teach/learn a subject. It certainly is one of the best ways to solve most problems. There is increasing evidence that what we call reasoning requires a social setting. In fact, the best reasoners are usually those who make the best arguments – sometimes those arguments are wrong. Often because of confirmation bias. We only reason well when we get together and pick at each others arguments.

“Reasoning was not designed to pursue the truth. Reasoning was designed by evolution to help us win arguments. That’s why they call it The Argumentative Theory of Reasoning. So, as they put it, “The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things.”

“Now, the authors point out that we can and do re-use our reasoning abilities. We’re sitting here at a conference. We’re reasoning together. We can re-use our argumentative reasoning for other purposes. But even there, it shows the marks of its heritage. Even there, our thought processes tend towards confirmation of our own ideas. Science works very well as a social process, when we can come together and find flaws in each other’s reasoning. We can’t find the problems in our own reasoning very well. But, that’s what other people are for, is to criticize us. And together, we hope the truth comes out.”

Science works because it uses a set of logical and argumentative principles that reduces – but does not necessarily destroy – confirmation bias. (This is why scientists have a hard time debating lawyers. Lawyers have a wide range of argumentative tools that scientists do not. Thus lawyers often seem to ‘reason’ better than scientists.)

So we evolved to reason out the best arguments in a social setting. And the best decisions will be made when confirmation bias is removed. Which is what science tries to achieve.

Teaching by lecturing large classes would not be a good way to learn, based on this argumentative theory. In large lecture halls, the main reasoning argument to convince people is based on the authority of the speaker, not on what they say. “They are the teacher; they must be right.”

But split the class into groups and have them reason the way we have for eons – around a campfire or around a table. Now we start to reason the way we evolved with all the various argumentative approaches, some useful and many not. This is where the facilitator with knowledge can help steer the students to the correct result.

A successful facilitator will be able to use their superior reasoning skills – since they do know what the real answer is – to ‘convince’ the group. The group will not only remember the argument better; they will get to it faster and with deeper retention.

Because that is really how we evolved to deal with a complex world.