next message in archive
no next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects
[2nd try: this never went through when sent yesterday; apologies for the
length.]
----- Forwarded message from srshaw@dal.ca -----
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2008 19:17:38 -0300
This is getting slightly ridiculous. If Lois and now Don Codling think that
their argument (such as it is) has legs, instead of this
philosophy-of-argument stuff they need to answer the questions Chris has posed
in some detail already about Lois' original claims. These claims were that
there are two planks of evidence that allegedly show that there is not a
current consensus about the anthropogenic nature of the rise in average global
temperature over the last century or two ("hockey-stick model" that was
discussed a bit here last year). The two original planks were/are:
Plank 1. That there is a large petition out there disputing global warming, now
exceeding 30,000 "scientists", of which, allegedly, ~9,000 have Ph.Ds. This
raises many questions of provenance discussed already by Chris, but the most
fundamental question is: since when did anyone engaged in actual scientific
practice believe that science advances by petitioning? As Chris pointed out,
it doesn't and never has -- this is what pollsters, lobby groups and special
interest groups do. Why would you even think that a petition of the sort that
you apparently support would have any weight in informing a scientific debate
in this specialized research area, of climate change? You need to spell out
clearly why you think this is a scientifically credible approach. Chris has
already shown, conversely, why this is an entirely credible lobbying strategy
if you want to befuddle the public, who ultimately elect governments in the
West, governments which then might legislate very expensive emission controls
on greenhouse gas emitters at some point in the future (pious hope in many
places, at present).
The earlier, pre-email version of this petition was actually mailed out, by
one estimate I read to probably more than 1 million scientists, but A. B.
Robinson would not disclose the actual number, understandably. Even if these
unverifiable 9000 Ph.Ds are real people, if only 9000 out of >1,000,000
approached actually replied with a check in the "denier" box, what did the
other >99% of the recipents think? Perhaps they tumbled to what this effort was
really about when they noticed that there was no check box present for
"non-deniers" on the petition: what kind of unbiased sampling strategy is that?
Who paid for such a large and expensive original mailing (see Chris' post for
the answer)? Were the 9000 perhaps snowed by inclusion in the mailing of the
scientifically fraudulent mock-up of a paper supposedly published in the
authoritative journal PNAS (it actually wasn't reviewed or published there, as
stated in a subsequent disclaimer from the prestigious publishers of PNAS,
AAAS)? One could go on like this, but a casual half hour of googling around
should have shown you that this petition is not a scientific effort, it's part
of a lobbying strategy.
Plank 2: that standing out against the supposedly scurrilous blogs that have
worked this lobbying effort over and that Lois finds insulting, is the
peerless scientific paper by Arthur B. Robinson (ABR, father), N.
Robinson (one of his sons) and W. Soon, published in JPandS (Journal of
Physicians and Surgeons; this is an authoritative-sounding title constructed a
bit like JAMA,
the title of the actually prestigious J. of the American Medical
Association). JPandS does exist, is open-access, so you can get to it
on-line for free (a good thing) but is not regarded as a serious science journal
in that it is not indexed by Medline and other databases in the way that even
2nd and some 3rd tier publications are. For the flavour of its crappiness and
right wing extremism,see the wikipedia article that I think someone else
already quoted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons
It is the house organ of Association of American Physicans and Surgeons
(AAPS), current paid president Jane Orient, a Tucson physician who teaches down
there, but has also contributed to the home schooling curriculum that ABR sells
from his Oregon Institute of Medical Science, OIMS. The AAPS appears to be a
right
wing group that supports keeping government influence and creeping socialism
out of medical care at all costs, on behalf of the interests of private
practitioners.
Where do these 3 authors hang out? Their affiliations are all given as OIMS,
which sounds impressive and does seem to have a real physical location and has
a web site. OIMS does not take students or teach, and has six named staffers,
of which two are apparently now dead according to one blog, and with which two
of the sons of ABR are affiliated. Their site indicates that only ABR has a
salary (fractional as disclosed, a few thousand $) and that the others really
seem to have positions elsewhere. It is hard to see how you can have a viable,
real research institute that says it does biochemical research with only one
quarter-funded position and a few moonlighters, some admittedly still alive:
this doesn't jibe with any notion of a real research institute that I've ever
encountered (I've worked in a couple of real ones in the past).
As Ulli said earlier, this paper is called a Review, and reviews are usually
invited by the Editor, and I couldn't immediately find out who that is. Could
it have been invited by AAPS president Jane Orient, connected to ABR (see
above) and who, guess what, is listed also as a staffer at OIMS? This looks
incestuous to me, but all this is not difficult to trace -- you could get to
most of this with a half hour of googling with search terms such as OIMS,
JPanDs, Robinson Robinson Soon, and following the many links from there.
So the question Lois, Don or other potential denier-enablers need to address
is why anyone would want to take this sort of publication seriously as evidence
that there is a current raging scientific debate about the existence of global
warming and of the anthropogenic contribution to this. Why would you? The work
is not up to snuff scientifically and forms part of the industrial strength
lobbying effort Chris has outlined in some detail. I didn't find Chris'
arguments ad hominem, but I think I did detect a note of disparagement given
the facts about this that he had uncovered, and I hope that you will detect
that here also in this post, in spades. As with similar pseudo-controversies
out there in which science is in one of the corners, this is not one in which
all protagonists merit equal time.
For a recent window into the real field of climate research that I just
happened upon, there are two interesting articles in the weekly journal
"Nature", 15 May 2008, volume 453, pages 379-382, and 383-386, and a more
accessible commentary on this area by E. Brook "Windows on the greenhouse", on
pages 291-2. This is the latest about sampling Antarctic ice cores for
greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane, extending back now to 800,000
years before present. This shows remarkably close co-variation among CO2,
methane and temperature levels in the 800,000 years. The commentary also
contains the clearest (cleanest) graphic I've yet seen of the CO2 and methane
levels during the past 2000 years. These levels remained essentially flat
throughout the pre-industrial part of the last 2000 years, but started to
accelerate smoothly upwards ~200 years ago (hockey-stick profile) to
much higher values than at any time in the preceding 800,000. Because Nature
has a for-profit publisher, I was surprised to find that I could also get to
this
commentary on Google from my house, at
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7193/full/453291a.html
This allows enlargement of the Figure 1 in question for a much better
view than I had had, in the paper copy that I had been reading. Hope it works
for you too.
Cheers,
Steve, Halifax
Quoting Lois Codling <loiscodling@hfx.eastlink.ca>:
> Hi Flora,
> You're right, I spelled 'hominem' wrong.
>
> But you're wrong in your re-statement of the argument. Chris did use
> 'ad hominem' arguments, which are a logical fallacy. The claim being
> discussed is whether *human-caused* climate change is true (N.B. the
> difference from your statement of the claim). The qualifications of
> the people on either side of the argument are irrelevant. If a
> well-known liar says that 2+2=4, does that make it false? No. We
> have to look at the statement independently from its source. Many
> early scientists were amateurs (no scientific qualifications), yet
> they discovered many things. So for Chris to claim that the
> scientists who signed the Petition Project are a group of deniers
> comparable to those who deny that smoking causes lung cancer, among
> other 'nasty' politically incorrect things, says absolutely nothing
> about the argument, even if he is correct.
>
> Lois
> ........
>
> [Lois wrote what you see above. Because of her need to care for her
> father, she doesn't have time & energy to continue the discussion,
> though we both (I'm Don, her husband) think it is too important to
> drop, so I'm substituting for her. Unfortunately, I'm not as nice as
> she is.]
>
> Flora, your expression of claim B is also a misrepresentation of
> Lois' earlier letter. Claim B, in fact, is that Kyoto supporters
> falsely claim a scientific consensus in their favour. Lois wrote, "I
> am heartily sick of hearing that the consensus of scientists is that
> human-caused climate change is undeniable." The signatures of 30,000
> plus scientists (in one country alone) to a contrary position
> demonstrates that the claim of consensus is false. The /ad hominem/
> argument Chris uses appears to be an attempt to bolster a claim of
> consensus by saying that those who disagree are not worth counting.
>
> Any argument addressed to the character or qualifications of the
> opponent is /ad hominem/, unless the question is the suitability of
> that person for some position. In that case alone, it deals with the
> question at issue. It is appropriate to consider the character of
> someone running for political office, for example, because that
> speaks to his ability to fulfil that office.
>
> The issue is truth, wherever it falls. When you misstate someone's
> claims & give more attention to the "character" of a speaker than to
> the argument he or she is making, it gives the impression that your
> concern is to win an argument, not to find truth. When, instead of
> addressing a group's theories & the evidence they cite, you ask "are
> their opinions worthy of consideration?", you are communicating that
> truth doesn't matter to you, only authority. I trust that was not
> your intent.
>
> David Webster answered appropriately, by citing an article which
> presents evidence which seems to be contrary to the argument in the
> Petition Proposal article, & by indicating his disagreement with some
> of their reasoning. That takes us somewhere on the quest for truth.
> Lois & I both appreciated the fact that he dealt with issues & not
> persons.
>
> David, I for one would be interested to hear more specifics about
> your disagreements with them.
>
> Don Codling
----- End forwarded message -----
--
Stephen R. Shaw Ph.D.
Dept of Psychology & Neuroscience
Dalhousie University
1355 Oxford Street
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4J1
e-mail: srshaw@dal.ca
phone: 1-902-494-2886
fax: 1-902-494-6585
next message in archive
no next message in thread
previous message in archive
Index of Subjects