Comments on: A Quick Thought on “Peer Review”

By: Mongo

Mongo — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:58:55 +0000

I rarely post comment in any of the blogs I visit, but this one grabbed me. While not trained in climatology or any related disciplne, I am well educated and read in general science. Some material is pretty dense and a stretch, but in general I understand it's basics.

I cherish healthy debate, as both sides sharpen their supporting information to justify their position. When peer reviewed studies/papers/etc are used as they are now, without the rigor of open and honest debate, we end up with this situation. In general, this resembles a house of cards built on sand when viewed with any kind of open mind.

After years of watching this...I'm not sure what to term it...debacle ?...come to where it's at, all I can think of is two words. The below 8 lines describe it.

Illusion of Invulnerability: Members ignore obvious danger, take extreme risk, and are overly optimistic.

Collective Rationalization: Members discredit and explain away warning contrary to group thinking.

Illusion of Morality: Members believe their decisions are morally correct, ignoring the ethical consequences of their decisions.

Excessive Stereotyping:The group constructs negative sterotypes of rivals outside the group.

Pressure for Conformity: Members pressure any in the group who express arguments against the group's stereotypes, illusions, or commitments, viewing such opposition as disloyalty.

Self-Censorship: Members withhold their dissenting views and counter-arguments.

Illusion of Unanimity: Members perceive falsely that everyone agrees with the group's decision; silence is seen as consent.

Mindguards: Some members appoint themselves to the role of protecting the group from adverse information that might threaten group complacency.

If you haven't guessed those two words by now, the above describe group think. It seems to be epidemic.

BTW - I was open to the idea of AGW/ACC or whatever term is being thrown around, but as time has passed I am convinced that man-made CO2 has, at best, an insiginificant effect on climate. Prove otherwise and I will change my mind.

By: Scientist

Scientist — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:14:59 +0000

If the key to hindcasting is assigning arbitrary values to aerosol forcing, then how come the predictions made immediately after Pinatubo erupted about the effect on global temperature of the aerosols emitted were so accurate?

By: An Inquirer

An Inquirer — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:11:33 +0000

Perhaps the following point is obvious, but I did not notice it being explicitly addressed. A key reason why GCM are able to achieve great backcasts is the ability of aerosols to act as dummy variables in the models. Perhaps several of you have had similar experience as I have had in building and / or evaluating models. You can get great fit by inserting dummy variables, and as a result, there is great emphasis on the impact of the drivers on the dependent variables. (Of course, if you cannot come up with legitimate values of the dummy variables in the future, then your forecasts will be unreliable.)
I have spent considerable time examining the sources of aerosol values that GCMs use. First, I am impressed with the amount of data that is out there on this issue. However, at the same time, aerosols are a gold mine of opportunities to insert dummy variables and hypothesized relationships. One can easily choose values that will produce a great fit and be misled into believing that other drivers (such as CO2) are responsible for changes in the dependent variable.
Researchers should be allowed the ability to update and refine models based upon best available data. For example, some early GCMs forecasted greater warming at both poles. However, as new data of observations are inserted, models now generally forecast warming at the North Pole and delayed warming at the South Pole. Of course, this dichotomy is driven by recent observations forcing relationships to change inside the models, but it probably would be more difficult for the dichotomy to emerge if not for the presence of "dummy variables."
The author of the blog is quite generous in comparing Hansen's 1988 forecasts with GISS. Only in climatology would it be acceptable for a forecaster be allowed to validate his model results with his estimate of observed values -- when his estimate of observed values are not reproducible nor verifiable. (To some degree his estimate of observed value are verified by its similarity to HadCrut estimate values, but HadCrut also has issues with UHI which apparently have been examined even less than in GISS. And we can get into comparison with satellite data which I am not going to address in this post.)

By: Scientist

Scientist — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:01:30 +0000

papertiger - that is a deeply ridiculous characterisation. By the same logic, chemistry is the study of what humans expect chemicals to do in the future based on past experience, astronomy is the study of what humans expect stars, planets and galaxies to do in the future based on past experience, medicine is the study of what humans expect human bodies to do in the future based on past experience, and so on.

Deniers spend a lot of time thinking up new ways to try and denigrate climate science, but they don't often come up with something as immature and flawed as that.

William Squire - funny how you obviously have no clue at all about what climate scientists do.

By: William Squire

William Squire — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 19:20:55 +0000

I was taught “the scientific method” in 5th grade. Funny how climate scientists seem to have never heard of it…

By: Eric H

Eric H — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:40:45 +0000

There’s a little misdirection going on here. It’s the non-scientist politicians, media, and others who are relying on the phrase “peer-reviewed” as a passkey. The scientists, for their part, are relying on the politicians, media, and others to carry water for them. AFAIK, very few of the scientists are protesting the misuse of their work; a few of them even applaud the hyperbole. For them, the ends justifies the means, even if the means undermines its own validity (i.e., the politicization of science means that science will become political).

By: papertiger

papertiger — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:44:49 +0000

About the postscript. Lubos Motl pointed out that climate, and by extension climate science, is the study of what humans expect the weather will be in the future based on past experience. The operative phrase is "human expectation" which puts climatology squarely in the realm of anthropology. Social studies is very appropriate as a description.

By: The Idiots Have Spoken. Humans Cause Climate Change. Case Closed.

The Idiots Have Spoken. Humans Cause Climate Change. Case Closed. — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 03:03:58 +0000

Here’s some peer review for ya. I guess this means you can close down your web site, eh? How ridiculous.

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19926683.300-humans-cause-climate-change-us-body-accepts.html?feedId=online-news_rss20

By: Luis Dias

Luis Dias — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:39:27 +0000

I didn’t understand well enough the issue at hand. I’ve always had IQ well above average but I didn’t choose math fields on my learning path, so there were concepts that I still don’t understand well enough. Still, I saw what he did and his conclusions didn’t fit with my intuition.

So I was skeptical at his position, which is a common trait in me. I understand that it was acknowledged as a “sheep-follower-troll-comment”, but it was nothing of the sort. I was “new” to the debate at hand, and unaware of certain facts that are egregious.

Having said that, I still think that the political body should continue to regard the IPCC as their scientific advisor machine. The concept is a little monolithic, but given enough pressure and if the “gates” are duly reported to the public, truth will prevail. The people of misconducting behaviors should be expelled though. False consensus are also a problem, but I think this is nothing out of the ordinary in science.

The main reason of my “belief” that such is the best system comes from the fact that the alternative is to have a disparate myriad of different scientists claiming their own theories, to which any sane politician will say: “Or you all come to grips or nothing will happen”. But it has to have a different way to function, because clearly, it isn’t working as it should.

I recall one of the follow-on posters said something snarky like “You’ve just proved the existence of God.”

StevenMosher was still bruised and cranky at the other discussion about atheism and theism where I kicked his ass good .

By: Mesa Econoguy

Mesa Econoguy — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:48:04 +0000

Luis, I was referring to comments you posted on the Briggs (statistics) website stating you did not share their skepticism about rejection of their research hypothesis in a particular example.

You either confirm or fail to confirm your hypothesis given your confidence interval, it’s that simple. You don’t get the option to say “well, I’m not so sure about that.” It is, or it isn’t. I recall one of the follow-on posters said something snarky like “You’ve just proved the existence of God.”

But let’s not focus on that. Welcome to the skeptics fold. The economics of the proposals to “curb” AGW is even more alarming than the scientific shenanigans used to justify them.

And you are absolutely correct that real damage is being done to the scientific process by this movement.