Scientists want to create ‘red teams’ to challenge climate research | Hacker News Reader

Scientists want to create ‘red teams’ to challenge climate research

washingtonpost.com

63 pointsfrgtpsswrdlame117 comments

FTA: "I would expect such a team would offer to Congress some very different conclusions regarding the human impacts on climate."

I'm all for continued research, and I'm especially in favor of funding/encouraging research that opposes common viewpoints and conclusions regardless of the subject (yeah, turns out the Sun doesn't revolve around the Earth - maybe we shouldn't have been so hard on all those heretics). I look at a quote like this though, and come away thinking that this guy already has his conclusions, and his research will be solely about finding 'evidence' to support it.

As a former chemist, I think there's always a role for a gadfly in science (or in any profession). But part of being a gadfly is acknowledging you're probably wrong and the majority is probably right, and not trying to intentionally sabotage others' efforts. For a good example of what it doesn't look like, take a read at Scott Adams (Dilbert) blog, where he argues that the mainstream climate science community isn't just factually wrong, but they're actively deluding themselves. That sort of statement doesn't contribute anything to the situation since the only way they can stop 'deluding' themselves is to accept the opposing view.

There's nothing wrong with criticizing the status quo, so long as it's done honestly, with the humility to say: "I 'm probably wrong," and that's where these guys seem to go wrong. They're sure the majority is wrong to begin with.

Does a cartoonist have a duty to contribute constructively to a scientific discussion? If so, does he also have a duty to contribute in any particular way to a discussion that may once have been scientific but has long since been completely politicized?

If I'm blessed with a long life, a special joy of old age will be the various attempts to explain how Scott Adams and a bunch of conservative blowhards got it right while entire university departments got it wrong...

Anyone can try to be a gadfly to the consensus side of science, science is open to anyone. But, if you choose to throw your hat into that ring then you open yourself to criticism of your methods and behavior. You don't get to shout 'free speech' and walk away.

why would you listen to him on climate change? what are his credentials? doesn't the fact that you listen to him over people with more experience and knowledge in the field indicate that you are looking for people who support for a viewpoint, and not for people who are knowledgable?

also, scott adams guaranteed herman cain would be the presidential nominee in 2012. he is a bullshit artist who makes a million claims then picks out the ones that turned out to be right later. why even listen to him at all?

It has been years since I read anything by Adams, or indeed since I've looked at a Dilbert cartoon. "The Truth" isn't really that important to me. I'm not in a position such that it actually matters what I think of global warming, but I'm happy that most people who are in such a position seem mostly to agree with me. That is, we haven't yet made many human lives much worse in an attempt to curb emissions of CO₂. That would be monstrous and inhumane. Of course I have no problem with benign and even beneficial actions like encouraging solar energy production.

> Does a cartoonist have a duty to contribute constructively to a scientific discussion?

No, but neither does he have the right to not be called out when he contributes destructively to a scientific discussion.

I fail to see how Scott Adam's stance "intentionally sabotages" others efforts. Are you suggesting that freedom of speech is a form of sabotage?

He suggests strongly that they are delusional (as are basically everyone who disagrees with him). That's a big claim to make under the banner of 'free speech' while not having to defend it.

Can you link to where he says climate scientists are delusional?

I've only recently looked at his blog, but what I've seen him say on the topic has been this-

1. He doesn't have the training to evaluate climate science, so he gives climate scientists the benefit of the doubt in that climate change is happening and is driven by humans.

2. However, his personal experience with complex models is that they're never very good at predicting the future, and so he doesn't trust that complex climate models are either.

3. Climate scientists suck at using persuasive techniques to win people over to their beliefs. This seems to be his main thing as he is attempting to brand himself as a guru of persuasion.

"On the question of trusting experts, my frame of reference is the field of influence and persuasion. From my point of view – and given the examples of mass delusion that I have personally witnessed (including Trump’s election), I see experts as far less credible than most people assume." http://blog.dilbert.com/post/154082416051/the-non-expert-pro...

That same article starts with

"Before I start, let me say as clearly as possible that I agree with the scientific consensus on climate change. If science says something is true – according to most scientists, and consistent with the scientific method – I accept their verdict."

I think we'll have to agree to disagree. I think that opening statement is a rhetorical device.

Oh, it absolutely is. Scott Adams does this kind of thing all the time.

Paraphrased, but this is something else he posted: "Let me say that I am a Hillary supporter..." ok... "because if I supported Trump, then Hillary supports would kill me." wtf?

Poisoning the well is a well-known rhetorical fallacy. It is really worth the effort to study, learn and be on the lookout for fallacies in public discourse, although doing so will lead to some depressing insights.

False equivalences are also fallacious, and I urge you to desist from employing them.

I think you misread the parent and the grandparent.

Also, I can't understand what you're tying "poisoning the well" or "false equivalence" to.

Who said anything about freedom of speech?

This is a category error. Freedom of speech is not itself sabotage, but it is obvious that one can use speech to commit sabotage.

There are people like Richard Lindzen, who even extends his gadflyism to smoking and lung cancer (and as somebody who sees the DNA damage in whole genome sequencing of lung cancers from smokers, boy is he ever stupidly wrong there.)

Then there are the gadflys that are not in climate research that, when they actually do some science, realize that the field is on the right track:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Earth

I'm not sure how much these people have done to help the field become more rigorous. But then I'm not in it so I can't judge personally.

>"There are people like Richard Lindzen, who even extends his gadflyism to smoking and lung cancer (and as somebody who sees the DNA damage in whole genome sequencing of lung cancers from smokers, boy is he ever stupidly wrong there.)"

Is this true or fake news? The closest I could find is this: http://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2011/05/lindzen-dismis...

Also, seeing "DNA damage in whole genome sequencing of lung cancers from smokers" is irrelevant to the smoking-cancer link since you are sampling from the cancers... That only supports a link between cancer and "DNA damage".

"and as somebody who sees the DNA damage in whole genome sequencing of lung cancers from smokers, boy is he ever stupidly wrong there"

Hm, but does the dna in those lungs look much different, than the lungs of nonsmoking people with lungcancer? (Seriously asking)

Yes, the differences are massive. There's a huge signature of "bulky adduct" repair in smokers' samples. This looks different than, say, UV damage. See, for example, signature #4 from this paper:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v500/n7463/full/nature1...

Thanks, thats interesting

>"All cancers are caused by somatic mutations"

Its strange that epistasis cites that paper so freely since he has expressed skepticism about this idea in the past. In fact I may have discussed that exact paper with him awhile back. The layperson probably wouldn't realize it but this is a very hubristic first sentence, almost purposefully offensive.

take a read at Scott Adams (Dilbert) blog, where he argues that the mainstream climate science community isn't just factually wrong, but they're actively deluding themselves.

I don't think that's an accurate description of what he's saying -- he's made a point several times (e.g. [0][1]) of challenging the models, not the underlying science, comparing them to economic models, which he feels, having majored in economics (and having studied and built his own [1]) are not reliable. One may disagree with him about models and modeling, but I think it's helpful to understand what he's actually saying.

I'm putting an excerpt here from a recent blog post [0] he did which I think demonstrates my summary above to be a truer understanding of where he's coming from:

I’m not a scientist, but it seems to me that the chemistry and physics parts of climate science are probably pretty locked down. I give that stuff full credibility.

The measurements of temperature, ice, and sea levels over time are probably fairly good, but I observe disagreements among scientists on how best to measure. I’ll give the measurements an 85% credibility.

When it comes to the complex climate models, I’ve never seen a complex, iterative model – of the type that includes human assumptions and human measurements – reliably predict the future multiple years out. I don’t think it has ever been done, and perhaps it never will be. I give the complex climate models a 10% credibility rating. And I am only that generous because perhaps this is the exception to the pattern I observe that says complexity always hides the future, as opposed to predicting it.

BTW, I think the next paragraph, where he describes the psychological aspects of how people evaluate things when they don't have deep expertise or knowledge is interesting and possibly useful for understanding how to get through to people (Adams' blogs a lot about persuasion/psychology and how so often that is more important than facts in shaping people's views of things):

This is a good time to remind you that I have neither the qualifications nor the time to evaluate the climate science models on my own. So I’m stuck with using pattern recognition – which is not science, and it is not reason. And my pattern recognizer says humans use complexity of this sort to hide the truth, not to reveal it. If scientists want to change my mind, they need to show me historical examples in which things “like this” did a good job of predicting the future. You have to work on my pattern memory to change my mind, not my knowledge of climate science.

Again, you may disagree with him about models and modelling, but he's identified why some intelligent people, who are not science-deniers, may have issues with some aspects of climate-science.

[0] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158778029326/how-to-change-my-b...

[1] http://blog.dilbert.com/post/158549646496/how-leonardo-dicap...

> I don't think that's an accurate description at all of what he's saying -- he's made a point several times (e.g. [0][1] )of challenging the models, not the underlying science

Science is the process of developing predictive models. Challenging models is challenging the science by which those models are developed.

Trying to distinguish between these two is fundamentally misunderstanding what science is.

Unrelated to the climate change stuff I think you need to differentiate "the process" and "the models" (which is the result of the process). Epicycles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle) was a good predictive model used for a while and developed as a part of science process. Yet, I think we all agree that Copernicus was right challenging them and he did it in accordance with the science process.

We came full circle back to epicycles, though. Fourier transforms can be viewed as a way to model any periodic signal as an infinite series of epicycles.

Models are not inherently scientific, just because something is trying to make predictions doesn't make it scientific.

May I ask, what do you think of economic models? Would you call them scientific? They are using similar underlying equations, both complex systems and they both make many assumptions.

> Models are not inherently scientific, just because something is trying to make predictions doesn't make it scientific.

No, but science is about making predictive models, and you can't criticize a predictive model without criticize the science behind it, if it is a model which purports to be produced by science.

> May I ask, what do you think of economic models? Would you call them scientific?

That...depends. "Economic models" can mean either "models of the economy" or "models produced as part of the science of economics"; the latter are scientific the former may or may not be.

And even among scientific models (in any domain, economics is in no way special in this regard) some are products of different stages of the scientific process; there are speculative models done in the exploratory stage of pre-hypothetical work in science, there are models that are concrete operationalizations of untested (or only loosely tested) hypotheses, and there are models which are themselves tested and represent the best current understanding of the phenomenon they are intended to model; these are all "scientific models", but they have different roles.

I have a problem with this part:

> "my pattern recognizer says humans use complexity of this sort to hide the truth, not to reveal it"

This kind of presumes that there is some sort of malevolent intent on the part of the scientists. It's not an uncommon stance, but I really wonder what they think the scientists are getting out of it. It's like when the homeschooled devout Christian girl was taking my physics course (smart girl) and said that she thought the scientific view of cosmic origin was a "desperate attempt" to deny God and the Christian view. What is the purpose of denying the truth?

My impression is that people who think climate change is a hoax (or a fashionable delusion) see the benefit to climate scientists and climate activists mainly in terms of money and power: we fund them more or give them political power because they say that they are saving us from catastrophe, maybe much as military leaders gain money and power by promising to defend us from foreign threats. (Maybe sometimes those foreign threats really exist and other times they are imagined or exaggerated, and maybe it's hard to be sure which are which if you're not a military leader yourself, or maybe even if you are.)

I work for an NGO that works on very different issues, and it's clearly important and valuable to us that our supporters agree that the threats we try to mitigate are serious and important. Otherwise, they wouldn't want to pay for our work.

You could also think of medical researchers in a similar way: there is such a thing as a career in medical research because they think both that some diseases are terrible and that there's some possibility that understanding them will be helpful. Apparently this is usually true (e.g., antibiotics, vaccines, medical diagnostics, transplants, ...) but there are presumably some areas that don't make progress and there could be a sociological, economic, or ethical debate about how well researchers can identify when they're not on a fruitful path. I heard some depressing contrarian suggestions that current cancer research may never find a "cure for cancer" because each cancer may, for some purposes, be effectively a distinct disease from each other cancer.

A lot of people in our society have gone pretty far down some rabbit hole or other developing specialized skills and knowledge that aim at saving people from different kinds of urgent problems. An optimistic view of science, or of our society in general, says that typically those skills actually exist and can actually be acquired and practiced; a pessimistic view fears that many of them are, maybe unintentionally, forms of quackery.

I would understand that viewpoint if scientists made serious money, but they don't. If they are intelligent and unscrupulous there are MUCH better scams to pursue.

Scientists - or rather, researchers - don't make huge amounts of money, but it does often require huge amounts of money to facilitate their work.

It's not uncommon to see a researcher at a university in the US who makes $80-$120k per year apply for and obtain a grant that's worth tens of millions of dollars to the university.

It's true that working on research or activism whose value you doubt may not make for an especially lucrative scam.

On the other hand, probably a lot of activities of questionable value, including some scientific research, were begun in good faith by people who found them interesting, exciting, or enjoyable. After becoming well-connected experts in their communities, they now have established careers and a life situation that particularly qualifies them to continue those careers, and a corresponding incentive to believe and argue that their careers are relevant and important.

I don't think this is the case with climate researchers in particular; I'm just considering the question of why people would have reason to continue working in a field that is unproductive or of dubious value. And a basic set of possible answers is that they're good at it, they like their jobs, and it's what they're used to, not that they got into it because they thought it was a scam.

Thinking about another area that people more commonly suspect of being pathological science, suppose you were very excited about an area of alternative medicine, maybe because you yourself had been treated successfully with it, and you went to the trouble of training in it for several years and getting a credential as a practitioner. Now you start a practice, you enjoy your work, your patients are appreciative, you're apparently getting good outcomes, and you're a respected member of your community. You're aware that critics think that your field is unfounded or that its treatment outcomes are ultimately due to the placebo effect, or maybe to lifestyle changes that you inspire your patients to make, but not directly to the treatments you provide.

Are you going to be excited to investigate whether these critics are right about your specialty? Did you ever set out to scam anybody?

I think this issue, in one form or another, affects large swaths of our society; we all tend to think our professions are useful and worthwhile, and few of us ever spend much time entertaining criticisms of them, or arguments that imply that we may have wasted years of our lives.

I've heard that cancer bullshit since I was a college kid. Now I've lost friends to the disease and I'm married to a medical researcher. The race is to find the cure- not to let people keep dying.

Same with the climate scientists. You would mske your name by proving all was ok, not by saying the same thing the others are saying. I don't get why that isn't obvious.

They may be out there but I've never met a scientist who didn't want to solve the problem they were working on.

I didn't mean to suggest that cancer researchers are insincere or want people to die, just that some people hypothesize that there is no "cure for cancer" even though researchers are looking for one. The possible implication about the researchers is more that they're too optimistic that their current research avenues will be fruitful, rather that they are deliberately deceiving someone or don't want to succeed.

If that turned out to be true, some of the research might ultimately need a reorientation.

I'm sorry for appearing to conflate the notion of researchers in some field being too committed to their field's approach or tradition with the idea of researchers being intentionally deceptive or wishing not to succeed. I started out trying to describe ways that people envision the latter could be true, but in fact I ended up thinking that it's the former that's particularly plausible. I have no specific reason to think either form is the case today for either climate or cancer research.

The basic challenge is that people, including me, have a wide range of incentives to want to believe and even convince others that what we do for a living is worthwhile. Hopefully most people are right about this most of the time.

I totally get your point, and I recall from my past in my naïveté I used to think like that. But now I realize that, for example, with cancer they can cure some of it, but there is not "one root cause" to the problem yet- every problem is different. Like solving physics problems not using equations but just putting in numbers. That's a tough road.

But these climate scientists were employed before this issue. Having a theory that God created the universe doesn't mean we can't try to understand how.

But I'm not trying to argue with you. I know you understand. I'm just rhetorically lamenting the state of humankind. :)

But why should anyone place any stock in Scott Adams' personal experience with complex models?

"When it comes to the complex climate models, I’ve never seen a complex, iterative model – of the type that includes human assumptions and human measurements – reliably predict the future multiple years out."

Since he has never seen such a thing, are we all to nod our heads and agree they don't/can't exist? This is a rhetorical trick I find a little irritating.

> Since he has never seen such a thing, are we all to nod our heads and agree they don't/can't exist?

No, but... which is harder, to model the economy, or to model the climate? Which do we have more people trying to model, more money being poured into attempts to model?

> This is a rhetorical trick I find a little irritating.

It's not a proof of non-existence. I'm not sure it's supposed to be. It is a reasonable grounds for asking whether we're as sure as we think we are.

If you trust Scott Adams to review scientific literature or assess scientific models, then sure, it's reasonable.

Scott Adams, a cartoonist, has given me no reason to trust his capability to review scientific literature or assess scientific models.

That's not to say that a cartoonist could never meaningfully contribute to a discussion on scientific literature or models, but with a background as a cartoonist, the bar for me to trust him on this is a lot higher than, say, climate researchers. "I've never seen..." is insufficient from him. There's probably a lot of stuff he's never seen since he's focused his career on drawing comics.

We know the models are imperfect. Isn't that why the Monte Carlo method exists? Also, I have the strong impression Adams is aware of that and chooses not discuss it much with his readers.

I hate the attack on the models.

We don't use simulators for most liquid flow calculations, we have models that approximate liquid flows. Only a few years ago have computers been able to fully simulate a single atom, if Moore's Law were to hold it will still be... a very long time before we could simulate the approximately 1.e+49 atoms on Earth and all the energy flowing into our system.

So of course a model is going to have issues. Models are tuned to reproduce a close approximation, they aren't perfect simulations. The attack at models is a diversion. I doubt even a perfect simulation of our planet experiencing anthropological climate change would convince the majority of deniers.

Perhaps you've never studied chaos theory? Complex systems are notoriously hard to model despite the underlying process being deterministic.

Why do you think we keep having recessions? We know where every dollar is at every point in time, the equivalence would be your atoms in liquid flow.

It's also interesting you point to liquid flow, that is a counter-example of what you're trying to say, as the navier stokes fluid dynamics equations that we use to model liquid flows are chaotic..

I have not studied Chaos Theory, but I think you might be misunderstanding something in my post.

I'm unhappy with people rejecting the accuracy of the models, when the models are going to be inaccurate regardless of the knowledge of the starting conditions. A model is not a simulation. Modelling the Earth is not the same as simulating the Earth.

Perhaps a better example would be Freeman Dyson. Here's a video of him talking about questioning the status quo: Freeman Dyson: Heretical Thoughts About Science and Society. [1] In which, he also questions global warming, or at least to the degree in which it will affect us.

[1] https://youtu.be/8xFLjUt2leM

> I'm all for continued research, and I'm especially in favor of funding/encouraging research that opposes common viewpoints and conclusions regardless of the subject

I agree. Recently I've been involved in some research where the thing we found was not only believed to not exist, there were some published theories for why it shouldn't exist.

It's hard to get stuff like that published. You use every instrument at your disposal to accumulate proof, and reviewers still won't accept it.

So yeah, I think funding & encouraging research that opposes common viewpoints is really important. It's hard to tell whether what's discussed in the article will do that though.

I generally agree, but in this specific case worry that we will (as with any research) get done false results that will get picked up by right wing media while the research that disproves those will be ignored. The people who already don't believe in climate change will just continue to cherry pick what they believe. The entire discussion has become so politically loaded that I am not convinced any amount of evidence will convince these people. Just like evolution etc.

US taxes will wind up paying these "scientist" to invent arguments like bananas are proof that a god exist.

Well, there unfortunately seems to be a very large percentage of Americans who like their imaginary friends a little too much which had ruined the public discourse about climate change (and many other discussions). I have honestly given up on convincing any of these people. I'd like to just ignore them but that doesn't work in a democracy and see what we got now. So if spending some money on insane research just so that we can properly disprove it gives us even a chance to convince them then maybe that's worth it?

I'm pessimistic though and expect the "research" to be picked up by very right wing media while the evidence that disproves it will be ignored just like it's now.

I think that quote signals a misunderstanding of what a Red Team is. It doesn't exist to disprove / break / destroy something for the sake of destroying it. It's not an enemy. It is there to challenge and find weaknesses in the armor before the enemy and fix those weaknesses before they can be used against them.

And further more it is for the phycological benefit of the main team knowing that everything they do is going to be attacked. That they can't just rest on their laurels.

With that said. If the goal is miss-guided but the "Red team" actually does good science (and not propaganda) it might have the same effect anyway.

The red team idea makes great sense in espionage or epidemiology, where you have an actively antagonistic opponent whose causal vectors are obscure. I'm all for brainstorming, lateral thinking, and the prioritization of imagination - when other methods are failing.

Notice how all the (supposed) cleverness in these proposals is directed towards refuting the consensus about the causal mechanisms of climate change. Not a word about novel approaches to mitigation or adaptation.

Also, has anyone noticed how the people who fuss most loudly about being intellectually pure scientists and alleging the existence of a conspiracy among climatologists are perfectly comfortable with sweeping predictions based on astonishingly rudimentary models where economics are concerned.

where you have an actively antagonistic opponent

This is the case in climate research. We know from the East Anglia leak that at least some climatologists intentionally interfere with those who disagree with them. (To be sure, they may have very good reasons to be frustrated with those opponents, but that doesn't excuse the behavior)

is directed towards refuting the consensus about the causal mechanisms of climate change.

That was the first thing I noticed. I'm of the "lukewarm" mindset on climate, so I'm looking at both camps as an outsider. And I cannot fathom why either of them get so worked up about the "anthropogenic" part of it. If it's going to cause problems for us in the future, I just don't get why it matters if it's our fault or not. If something bad's going to happen, we ought to try to avoid that outcome whether it's coming from natural causes or is ultimately self-inflicted.

Ethical lapses are sadly a possibility in any scientific endeavor, but to generalize from a few examples of that to a global conspiracy isn't scientific either.

We already have a well-established method for challenging climate research. It's called the "Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis" report [1]. It comprises 1,500 pages, surveying the results from thousands of journal articles, and is written by 259 experts from fields including meteorology, physics, oceanography, statistics, engineering, ecology, social sciences and economics. The IPCC regularly updates and republishes this report to include more recent findings and data.

Anyone who has bothered to download and even skim this report knows how exhaustive, thorough, and--most of all--conservative it is in its predictions and findings. It dedicates a significant amount of space to pointing out where its predictions have failed and where the data does not support the theory of global warming.

Anyone who wants to "challenge" climate research by completely circumventing the existing dialogue that has been taking place in peer-reviewed journals for decades now to take their case directly to the policy-makers is a charlatan.

[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/

There is the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, founded in 2010. They brought physicists from outside climate science to do a clean reanalysis of temperature data.

I think they really kept open the possibility that NASA, NOAA and the UK Met Office had all processed and interpreted the temperature data wrong. After their reanalysis, their result was the same as other work before them.

http://berkeleyearth.org/about/

Thanks for this. I like the way they openly share their data, analysis, and code.

Reminds me of "My Unhappy Life as a Climate Heretic" https://wn.wsj.com/stories/c81eb3c4-e367-4087-93aa-1f90b5de1...

Professor Pielke (his words) "was under constant attack for years by activists, journalists and politicians." The pressure to stop asking critical questions became overwhelming.

Seems there could be a place for viewpoints that don't go with the consensus, especially in an arena that is so highly politicized.

But it's not a political issue. How politicized it is shouldn't matter.

There's power to be had by convincing people. It's political.

In a perfect world yes, but lots of scientific disciplines are heavily influenced by politics and public opinion in terms of funding, University support, etc. We can't pretend it doesn't matter

It doesn't matter to the supporting data. Thermometers don't run off of opinion. I guess that is what we need to convince people? lol

The money to fund the thermostats may depend on opinion.

In a fantasy world complete with international conspirators with god-like powers..... sure. If you don't like my use of the word "fantasy" then by all means provide some evidence.

These studies effect government policies. Any debate of facts which effect government policies is political.

We define how "political" an issue is precisely by how politicized it has become.

I agree that it shouldn't matter, but unfortunately it does and (ironically!) we can't pretend things are different just because that better suits our point of view.

When a line of questioning flat out ignores huge amounts of evidence then it can not be considered "critical".

How is this the top comment? The use of the word heretic in the article subtly implies the consensus on climate change is based on faith and not tons and tons of research. It's not that there is no place for different viewpoints, there just comes a time when the burden of proof for contrarian research becomes so high that most of it never clears the bar.

Yeah, I have been spending YEARS arguing for my Flat Earth theory, but I am constantly under attack for my alternate views! There should be a place for my viewpoints!

Please don't post deliberately inflammatory sarcasm, that's jet fuel for flamewars.

Just to be clear, Pielke is also in the op article testifying to the panel. So obviously there already is a place for his viewpoints, and given all the other people testifying have jobs as well, places for their viewpoints also. Part of being a scientist is accepting that every publication can end your career if you get it really wrong.

This isn't science camp. If you `rm -rf /` a live server, you should have your actions evaluated carefully to see why that happened and if you acted appropriately. Professional science is the same, if you can't prove your case then there are consequences, saying you're right because you're being picked on doesn't cut it.

You cannot challenge science with teams. Science can only be challenged with evidence.

"Prominent scientists operating outside the scientific consensus on climate change."

That's already a red flag.

Prominent scientists have, and will continue to challenge climate change from within "the scientific consensus" (whatever that is suppose to mean -- consensus is irrelevant).

Climate change is true not because of a lack of challengers. It is true because we have only found evidence to support it. It is true because of a consensus of evidence.

The nature of climate change is highly debatable (= could use more research and hypotheses) and uncertain (= further understanding is possible). But we cannot get into "the nature of" while in denial of "the existence of".

> You cannot challenge science with teams. Science can only be challenged with evidence.

The goal of the proposed team would be to collect evidence and examine alternative hypotheses. No one is proposing creating a team for its own sake.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a climate skeptic.

> The goal of the proposed team would be to collect evidence and examine alternative hypotheses.

But they exist. They are all the scientists already working in the field. Which is why the next statement is suspect:

> No one is proposing creating a team for its own sake.

I am assuming this Red Team business is about funding. They want to pay people "outside science" to challenge scientists who are already doing their jobs and are quite good at it.

That is why this makes no scientific sense. But it makes PERFECT political sense. It's politics.

The idea is that the existing science is already politically biased, so a new team will be created to investigate verboten hypotheses, contributing new evidences to the conversation which might challenge or support the existing consensus. Whether or not you or I agree with the premises is a different matter.

> Climate change is true not because of a lack of challengers.

In fact, the opposite is true. The theory that the rising atmospheric carbon level is causing a rise in average global temperatures has had many competing theories going back decades. None have been nearly as consistent with the observations as this theory.

Likewise the theory that the rise in atmospheric carbon is due to human activity has had many challengers, but none have explained the observations as well.

What will come of rising temperatures is a matter of less agreement, and less certainty. Rising water levels in the back yards of most humans is a common worry among scientists, but the current situation is rather unique, so nobody really knows what will happen, much less what the timeline will be. However, temperature deviations of the magnitude we are currently in have drastically altered global climate in earth's history.

source: basically summarizing from memory this recent dive into the subject of what the established science on climate change says from the excellent 'Science Vs' podcast from Gimlet: https://gimletmedia.com/climatechange . Corrections welcome.

There already are red-teams looking for evidence against the main consensus on the climate. Let me explain why you've never heard from them.

Let's start by what climate scientists actually do. Very few of them actually gather any of their own data. Some get a grant here or there to go on a trip to Greenland or Antarctica, or to design and launch their own satellite, but they are few in number. And generally while they get first dibs on their raw data, it all gets public at a set pace.

What climate scientists mostly do is 1. download raw data from the diverse array of sources available, 2. run models with them, using C/C++, Fortran and MPI, 3. distill what they find with Matlab and R, and finally 4. produce papers.

That's it. If you've experience with analyzing data in Matlab/R/Numpy, with using queue-based computer resources or AWS, you too can be a climate scientist. Just apply your knowledge to this narrow field. Done. The only difference between you and climate scientists is they're paid to do it full time, with an allowance for buying Beowulf clusters or running up a tab on other people's.

Observe that the right wing think-tank archipelago around Northern Virgina and DC has thousands, literally thousands, of people with statistics Phds, and money for as much playtime on AWS as they want. Climatology is a highly accessible field to anyone who's every pulled an all nighter with Matlab. And the right wing sponsors of the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Cato, et cetera, would love, love, to find serious evidence against the greenhouse effect.

So why haven't they ever stepped forward with anything?

Because there isn't anything out there.

Why has the anti-AGW community ever produced anything that is at or above the dignity of a middle schooler?

Because middle school taunts is all they have.

Check the sibling comment [0] in this thread.

There are known climate consensus red teams.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13989422

You and I would consider Berkeley Earth to be a "red team."

But for right wing politicians, a "red team" either produces evidence against AGW or stays silent.

I think this paragraph is pretty telling:

> “One way to aid Congress in understanding more of the climate issue than what is produced by biased ‘official’ panels of the climate establishment is to organize and fund credible ‘red teams’ that look at issues such as natural variability, the failure of climate models and the huge benefits to society from affordable energy, carbon-based and otherwise,” said witness John Christy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, in his prepared testimony. “I would expect such a team would offer to Congress some very different conclusions regarding the human impacts on climate.”

It is pretty clear for this scientist's choice of words ("biased 'official' panels", "I would expect such a team would offer to Congress some very different conclusions") that he has no intentions of approaching this in an unbiased manner. I get the impression that he has an agenda, and he will force the facts to agree with him.

I agree. While I'm overwhelmingly convinced that climate change is real and due to anthropogenic emissions, there is clearly a place for people who aren't convinced of the evidence to poke and prod at the research. However, it should be done by fundamentally unbiased people, not by people who have already at the onset stated that they expect to come to different conclusions.

And what the hell does "the huge benefits of society from affordable energy" have to do with the science? What to do is a policy question, not a science one, and the "huge benefits" of pollution should not enter into the evaluation of what the likely effects of climate change are.

All science starts with a hypothesis. If the evidence he presents supports his, then what's the problem? Peer review will illuminate if he is dishonest in his analysis. The bigger risk is the converse problem, where nobody around is challenging the consensus. History is rife with examples where the consensus is wrong.

His whole point is that he's not happy with the peer review process because it keeps reaffirming the existing consensus.

I mean look, I could argue that gravity isn't really A Thing and that on some planets stuff floats in the air and it's really difficult to ever touch the ground. Prove me wrong! Ha - you can't! Congress should give me money to fund my research - think of the potential payoffs!

Two problems:

1. There are plenty of places to publish junk science. This is all somewhere like Cato needs to keep arguing that climate change isn't real and that is enough to convince half of the lawmakers. Even if the science is bad, it can easily influence policy.

2. You can make this argument until the end of time. When have we done "enough" research on alternative hypotheses? Never, of course. We can keep on demanding more research and put off emissions regulations indefinitely.

Here you can see the problem of these congressional committees: they hear from a few people on one side, and a few people on the other, completely unaware that the few denialists they've heard from are basically all of them (Curry and Christy are pretty infamous), whereas almost every other scientist disagrees. They should have to sit through 97 witnesses who agree with the consensus for every 3 who do not- that is the only way to really understand it.

> Here you can see the problem of these congressional committees: they hear from a few people on one side, and a few people on the other, completely unaware that the few denialists they've heard from are basically all of them

The committees (largely their staffs) choose who is going testify, and they absolutely know this.

To the extent they pretend not to, that's because they are trying to use the hearing for propaganda purposes.

Hearings are not held to get a neutral point of view.

To be in line with the science, or at least the study [1] that 97% number comes from, they would have to sit through 33 witnesses who believe the planet is warming and humans are at least part of the cause, 66 witnesses who have not stated an opinion either way, and 1 witness who isn't sure but leans towards no.

Also, Curry and Christy would be part of the 66 "consensus" witnesses, having acknowledged that the planet is warming and humans are part of the cause. It sounds like they've managed to get Republicans to consider funding climate science by proposing an adversarial set of studies focused on "how much" rather than yes or no.

1: http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article

So we should cut funding into climate-change related science in general, except for "science" that is working towards a desired conclusion being promoted by certain politicians?

That's not really science anymore then, is it? It's more "we should pay some scientists to support our position"

Science, by definition, challenges itself. These "red teams" -- the name itself is telling -- are a ploy to give industry-funded skeptics the rhetorical props they need so they can continue to deny climate change and the large-scale societal and regulatory shifts required to fight it.

If they also create "red teams" to challenge their tax and health care policies I am all for it.

The way I see it, it seems there are 2 issues which get confused a lot:

A) Is there evidence of climate change (Yes/No)

B) Is human activity impacting the climate change (Yes/No)

I think most people across the political spectrum agree with A) Being true (please correct me if wrong). Of course, some will disagree, just as there are people who believe the earth is flat. oh, well...

The big contention these days is mostly regarding B). I guess some groups don't want to deal with the economic ramifications they assume will impact them if human activity is at the core of the climate change.

On the other hand, if it's not 'our fault' we can carry on and not worry about finding solutions? I don't completely understand where the 'red team' would stand on this, anyone care to clarify?

I don't believe that climate scientists even see item B as being very much up for debate. And I feel safe in saying that these red teams would think otherwise. The writing is on the wall, really. How could it surprise anyone that this is happening now, given that our current president (and his cabinet) has deep financial ties with big players in the fossil fuel industry.

The debate on Item B pretty much ended in 1957.

The contention depends on the sphere. Whilst the laypeople battle out A and B, there are other issues...

C. What is the climates degree of sensitivity to CO2? How MUCH impact? Any PhD who tells you they know this is a kook or charlatan. Source - I dated a climate scientist. Take it with what salt you must, go read Curry if it won't offend your orthodoxy.

D. What is the climates degree of sensitivity to anything, for that matter.

I'm sure the red team is at best controlled by a hostile minority, just like the blue team.

We're doubly fucked if climate change is in a anthropogenic positive feedback loop but its caused by something else like water vapor. Good luck getting red or blue to discover something like that. Both sides are children.

Conservatives love this kind of nonsense-- they did it during the cold war, and came up with wildly bad conclusions about Russian intentions and capabilities:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B

Then the exact same guys did the same thing in the lead up to the Iraq War:

http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/NEWS-ANALYSIS-Bush-te...

The purpose of this kind of thing isn't scientific inquiry, it's a blatant attempt to muddy the waters in order to advance a political agenda.

A video of the testimony is here: http://democrats.science.house.gov/hearing/climate-science-a...

At the bottom of that page are links to the written testimony of the 4 witnesses:

Curry: http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.h...

Christy: http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.h...

Mann: http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.h...

Pielke: http://democrats.science.house.gov/sites/democrats.science.h...

>"I would expect such a team would offer to Congress some very different conclusions regarding the human impacts on climate."

The sheer stupidity of saying we should fight biased research by funding a plainly biased team of "researchers" who, with hat in hand, state their conclusions before they've even begun is mind boggling. I can't say it surprises me though. There's lots of mind-bogglingly stupid shit happening in national politics all over the world.

It's really a shame. Some fields are undergoing reproducibility crises at the moment, and I'd expect there are innumerable questions that you could survey those communities about, only to return with a strong but irreproducible consensus. Peer review is hard enough without challenging the status quo, and peer review has demonstrated itself to be an incomplete mechanism for science (short term, at least, and we need climate action in the short term). With that in mind, red teams sound great.

However, when doing anything statistical, there are questions you can debate before and after you collect data, and that distinction is incredibly relevant here. Having a red team push back against methodology while no-one has yet seen the data sounds great. But if you have a red team supporting your methodology before you collect data, only to challenge it based on the conclusions, you're basically endorsing using your "researcher degrees of freedom" to push in a particular direction, and it's terrible. It's p-hacking with an agenda. It's oxymoronic to ask people to do science that leads to specific conclusions, and that feels like where this is going.

Obviously this scheme is just political pandering. They want to create an organization whose sole purpose is to assault the legitimacy of factual science for political purposes, and put it inside the government under the guise of "scientific rigor".

But it made me consider: we are facing a serious crisis of replication in psychology. Medical studies are very unreliable. Economics is quite truly a voodoo science; state the conclusion that best lines your pockets and you can find a scientist who says it's just good economic sense and anyone who disagrees is "ignorant of economics". Climate change is based on science but because of the denial there's this air of a faith-based test whenever it's discussed (oh, you're one of THEM?). All of science, since it's a human activity, tends towards an echo chamber. Conservatives don't become social psychologists, lo and behold all social psychology research is blatantly pointed towards reaffirming liberal world views. Communists don't become economists, so economics has become the clergy of unrepentant neoliberalism. Plenty of people aren't particularly concerned about the environment for its own sake, but none of them become climate scientists. This is partially because of initial ideological attraction, but it's largely because these fields require conformity. Being a detractor is difficult: undergraduate lectures are you being lectured about things you fundamentally disagree with which are often not scientific. Every person in your classes and your professor all agree in lockstep about these fundamental concerns except you. When you advance, it's hard to get respect or publications. No matter how rigorous, trying to get a paper published against a tide that strong is impossible. You're ostracized, minimized -- that's even if you get that far, which most don't. They pick a different topic of study where they feel more comfortable.

At the end of the day, that's a problem. I think a red team is a great idea in science, if that means people can get grant money and publications and respect for verifying and testing experiments, conducting them again, reproducing them, re-checking the work of others in an adversarial fashion, challenging premises.

But you should NOT have anyone be a dedicated red-teamer. That's politicizing the whole process and giving credence where none is due. They should be selected at random from the scientific body and required to advocate against the consensus as best they can for the period of a grant, the way lawyers do pro bono work as a public service, then go back to their regular research.

Medical studies with proper protocol and sufficient power are actually extremely reliable. Compared to the rest of the fields you mentioned, climate science is way more replicable and data-driven. The empirical evidence is so overwhelming that even the deniers no longer deny that the planet is warming. Now they have shifted the goalposts to quibble about whether this is 'man-made' or not. While harder to establish, there is abundant evidence supporting this hypothesis as well. It's also important to distinguish between this testing question and climate forecasting, which is harder and more error-prone.

Actually, 90 percent of medical studies are pretty much horseshit.

Source http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jou...

Or ask a good cardiologist after a few drinks.

The closer you get to the source, the more you find out just how much we delude ourselves about what we know.

Sometimes BOTH sides have a hidden agenda.

I've read that paper more than once. It doesn't contradict what I said.

> the huge benefits to society from affordable energy, carbon-based and otherwise

This has nothing to do with determining if climate change is man made or not. This is an attempt to support a political argument.

Science doesn't play politics. Miami is already flooding! Tic Toc Tic Toc

The title is missing a leading "These". This small word is important, without it I assumed the Washinton post were talking about scientists in general —when it fact it does not.

So the discriminative scientist neural network competes against our generative scientist neural network in a zero-sum game regarding climate change. What are the laws against back propping a scientist?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik

TIL "red team" means "bias confirmation"

Healthy science is letting unpopular opinions be disinfected with sunlight.

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