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Comment by Rod | Hacker News Reader

Quoting the great Bertrand Russell:

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."

Interesting how so many people who know NOTHING about Science are SO sure that global warming is caused by man. Such dogma reminds me of the times of the 16th century Inquisition: no amount of evidence will ever convince the nutcase warmists that there MIGHT be a possibility that global warming is not caused by humans.

Dyson is a top physicist. Just because he dared to go against the mainstream dogma, people seem to want to lynch him. I thought that we, humans, had evolved from our tribal and primitive ways. But we still get carried away by mass hysteria and delusion.

There's no place for politics or ideology in Science. Only observation and experiment matter. Dyson is not alone. Many other physicists have been cautious and warned that we should not jump to conclusions based on noisy, ambiguous and incomplete data. They, too, were ostracized. So much for tolerance...

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Quoting the great Bertrand Russell

No need to do that. Socrates was saying the same thing two thousand years ago.

I've come to the conclusion from watching other people that some people just have to know. I guess I can understand. It has to be hard to spend your life studying in a certain field and end up with "Well gee. It sorta looks this way guys, but we don't really know."

When people slam the church for all the bad things they did in the past, they miss an important point -- the common denominator isn't religion, it's people. Certain people want to believe their stuff fervently. They want to believe that their belief system holds critical truths, and they want to persecute and ostracize those who fail to fall in line. It's not a problem with religion. It's humans that are the cause of this behavior.

So it's not surprising to see church attendance down and scientific religious-thinking up. All those folks had to go somewhere, right?

OK, I attributed the quote to the wrong philosopher ;-)

Science is not perfect. After all, Science is a human activity and humans are not perfect. Ideally, there should be no place for dogma in Science. In practise, there is some. Still, let us put things in perspective: Science is inherently non-dogmatic, while Religion is inherently dogmatic. I am not diminishing one nor the other. I am observing that they have entirely different essences and domains.

The goal of Science is not to attain an "absolute truth". Indeed, one may study Quantum Mechanics for a lifetime and still feel uneasy about it. But the truth is that just as long as we can explain experimental results and observations with our scientific theories, we are making progress. No scientist will ever know everything about his field, but that does not mean he can't contribute to it.

For centuries Newtonian Mechanics dominated. Then Einstein came up with his Theory of Relativity that could explain, for instance, the anomalous orbit of Mercury. In a few years, his theory was accepted. There was dogma, but it was not a big obstacle. By contrast, many religious fanatics in the U.S. in the 1960s still believed the Earth was flat, and when confronted with photos taken from Space they replied "OK, it looks a bit roundish at the edges." That is dogma. That is close-mindedness. It's not Religion's fault, it's a problem with us, humans (like you mentioned).

In Science one should always keep a fresh mind and be willing to accept what goes against the dogma. Otherwise, we will end up in a new dark age where we have advanced technology but no true knowledge.

I don't think we have a disagreement.

My point was about human nature, not about religion.

I really wish Kuhn was taught as much as Newton. I think what he discovered -- the human nature of the people who practice science and how it influences the study of science -- is just as important. Maybe more so.

Well, I think good scientists are always looking for facts that disapprove current theories and models of explanations.

There is no affirmative for theories and models, but our inability to falsify them for the time being.

In business, war, governance, love, and the climate, people are forced to make decisions based on sorely incomplete data because time is of the essence, and it is all they're ever going to get. If likely exaggeration is to be called out, so too are those who assert that doubt should necessarily imply inaction.

Why is "time of the essence"? Who told you so? Al "Save the Polar Bears" Gore? I promise you, those polar bears were in no danger.

Do you know what a stampede is? It's a frightening thing, where a large herd of animals is frightened and begin to run. They run and run, trampeling anything in their path, killing anything that gets in front of them, and each other, as they run from the danger on their heals. Never would the danger they flee cause nearly the harm that the stampede itself causes.

There are groups in the world that can stampede the human herd as well. The amount of stampeding that's been happening in the last 10 years is amazing. We stampede through this Patriot Act, and that Stimulus Plan, and the global warming stampede has been worse than both of them.

Take a breath. Time is not of the essence. When somebody tell you that, they're trying to make you rush to judgment and make a poor decision. Timeshare salesman do it, politicians do it, and I'm sorry to tell you, Al Gore does it.

Al Gore has nothing to do with my reasoning process.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119122043.ht...

These are the risks mentioned in the IPCC Synthesis report. The seem sound and reasonable.

    * The report says that around 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the plant and animal species assessed are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if global average temperatures exceed 1.5 degree C to 2.5 degree C over late 20th century levels.
    * The report also points to the likelihood of "irreversible" impacts. For example if temperature increases exceed about 3.5 degrees C, between 40 per cent and 70 per cent of the species assessed might be at increased risk of extinction.
    * Increases in sea surface temperatures of about one-three degrees C are projected to result in more "frequent coral bleaching events and widespread mortality."
    * There is also concern over the oceans and seas becoming more acidic as they absorb rising levels of carbon dioxide and the impacts on "marine shell-forming organisms" like coral reefs.
    * Other reasons for concern focus on the risks of extreme weather events with higher confidence in the projected increases in droughts, heatwaves and floods as well as their adverse impacts.
    * The report also flags up concern that the poor and the elderly in low-latitude and less-developed areas including those in dry areas and living on mega-deltas are likely to suffer most.
    * There is high confidence that by mid-century "many semi-arid areas, for example the Mediterranean basin, western United States, southern Africa and northeast Brazil, will suffer a decrease in water resources due to climate change."
    * The IPCC summary also expresses concern that any benefits linked with climate change will be gone after more modest temperature rises. The guide, launched after five days of discussions in the Spanish city of Valencia, will be essential reading for delegates attending the upcoming UN climate convention meeting in Bali, Indonesia.
    * Concern is also raised that new observations linked with the Greenland and possibly Antarctic ice sheets may mean that the rate of ice loss will increase above previous forecasts.

Well put. Looking at it slightly differently, what are the potential consequences of inaction, and what are the costs of action? Besides global warming itself, there are other consequences of inaction with respect to energy production issues that must be considered: health effects of pollutants, scarcity of fossil fuels, environmental damage in resource development, etc.

Trying to frame issues of energy production as "skepticism" versus "alarmism" betrays the complexity of the problems that we face. We cannot allow reasonable doubt to be equated with inaction, but we must take what steps we can with what we do know.

It is weird that you point out a system with 10,000 year cycles as one where "time is of the essence".

I suppose if(!) man-made warming is happening, climate is not really a cycle anymore.

We may adjust the period, but I do not think people are suggesting that we're making an irreversible change to the planet? Planet heats up, various complex mechanisms kick in, planet cools. The million-year average temperature of this planet is mostly governed by distance to the closest star. Is there much discussion about our planet getting closer to the sun? I don't pay much attention. If it was, I would very much listen to Dr. Dyson. Our fear and panic is about an irreversible change to the planet as we know it -- those complex mechanisms may not be pleasant for current life on the planet (ask the Dinosaurs, or anything living through an Ice Age). Environmentalism is mostly about conservation and continuity of the present biosphere. The planet will be fine, the planet will continue to have a climate, the climate will continue to cycle.

"Planet heats up, various complex mechanisms kick in, planet cools."

The "various complex mechanisms" are precisely what people are discussing and might not be well enough understood.

But sure, eventually the planet will cool again - at the latest when the sun dies.

AKA the virtue of phronesis, as described by Aristotle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phronesis

"Interesting how so many people who know NOTHING about Science are SO sure that global warming is caused by man. Such dogma reminds me of the times of the 16th century Inquisition: no amount of evidence will ever convince the nutcase warmists that there MIGHT be a possibility that global warming is not caused by humans."

I'm calling your BS. There are very few if any people who believe that it is impossible that global warming is not caused by man. I don't think I've ever heard that view expressed in the media, even once.

Well, since when is the media reliable? They also said Iraq had WMDs. Read some scientific papers. Seriously.

I don't think you followed the double negatives there.

The masses generally believe the media, and the media acknowledges the possibility of non-anthropogenic warming. If you are saying that the scientific establishment is 100% sure of AGW, then you just completely skewered your own argument.

"There are very few if any people who believe that it is impossible that global warming is not caused by man."

Are you saying that nobody claims that the observed global warming could not be caused by natural causes, and thus the warming must have been caused by man? For if you are claiming this, I think you are wrong.

There are definitely a few very influential people claiming that climate change can only have been caused by man: "Only anthropogenic forcing of climate, however, can explain the recent anomalous warming in the late 20th century." http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/jones2004/jones2004.html

This is from the abstract of a paper co-authored by Michael Mann, the lead author of the IPCC report on climate change.

Or am I misreading your negations as well?

Upmod for effort but I don't see this as equating to 100% certainty. The preceding sentences mention a variety of possible causal agents of climate change. In context the statement then is really

'Of the causes we have been able to identify - Only anthropogenic forcing of climate, however, can explain the recent anomalous warming in the late 20th century.'

I also see 'can explain' is 'the we can explain'. You are encouraged not to use the first person in these sort of papers.

You're reading me correctly. My claims are basically that:

A) I think that very few people actually believe that global warming could only be caused by anthropogenic forces.

B) I've never actually heard anyone claim that global warming could only be caused by anthropogenic forces, so if people are even saying that then they are in a small minority.

(The difference between A and B is that there may be people who say global warming can only be anthropogenic for political reasons even if they don't believe it. However, I'm saying that even the people who say this are a very small minority.)

Now clearly your quote supports your claim that Mann is saying this, at least in the abstract. However, my guess is that he's saying this more for political reasons than scientific ones. Which IMHO is reasonable, considering that implementing a legally binding cap on carbon emissions is the best course of action considering what we know today.

As the quote by Mann is from a published scientific paper rather than an editorial page, I can only hope that the statement is believed by the authors. I disagree that it would be reasonable to make an unsupported political statement in this context, thus I assume belief.

The IPCC AR4 statement on this matter (presumably written or at least approved by Mann) has this to say: "The observed widespread warming of the atmosphere and ocean, together with ice mass loss, support the conclusion that it is extremely unlikely that global climate change of the past 50 years can be explained without external forcing and very likely that it is not due to known natural causes alone." p.39, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf

While there is an important difference between 'impossible' and 'extremely unlikely', I think a journalist or lay reader could reasonably conclude that the scientific consensus (as represented by the IPCC report) is that warming could only be caused by anthropegenic forces.

Oh.

People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh?

Certainly your own biases, politics, and ideology aren't apparent from your prose, right?

Plenty of good scientists besides Freeman Dyson (one of my own personal heroes) have looked at the good science on the issue, and have concluded man's activities are causing harm.

You jump to conclusion too fast before reading the article. If you read it, you will know Dyson doesn't deny that human being's activities create the current global warming. But he doubts the consequences are as dire as what activists describe in their propaganda.

So even Dyson says there is man-made warming, but still people who believe in man-made warming are ignorant, stubborn nutcases who have no understanding of science? This is getting a bit confusing...

Actually Dyson seems to be hedging his bets on whether it is caused by man. He seems less convinced than the conventional view but accepts it could be the case. His main point is that it won't be so bad or could even be good.

The confusing part is why the global warming deniers would so instantly rush to him as verification of their views.

It is not exactly "confusing". The problem (as I see it) is that the question "does man cause Global Warming?" is ill-posed.

OK, let us say that we have a mathematical model of the global climate: a bunch of partial differential equations describing heat and mass flow, etc etc etc. Since humans burn fuels and release C02 on the atmosphere, it is obvious that man influences the weather. The real question is not "whether", but "how much". The Sun's cycles also influence the weather. Varying levels of cosmic radiation also influence the weather.

And if it's possible that the climate is indeed changing dramatically, what does "global warming" actually mean? The max temperatures are rising? Or does it mean that the average temperatures are rising? This is such a complex problem that interpreting it as a "yes / no question" is infuriating to say the least. Some people want to compress the entire global climate problem in one single bit of information. It's pathetic.

And what pisses me off is that there are hords of ignorants who believe this is a "religious war" against big oil and corporate America and claim that anyone who dissents is an heretic who was bought by the dirty capitalists and who should be burned at the stake.

"People who know NOTHING about Science fall squarely in the "warmists" camp. The "nutcases", "tribal", or "primitives", eh?"

No. You didn't get the point. Sorry for not making it explicit. The point is: people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic. Their opinions count for nothing because those are based on emotion, misinformation, ideology, or plain dogma. In the old days, people seemed to know the boundaries of their knowledge, now everybody who has internet access believes he / she is an instant expert.

At times like this I really wish there was no downvote button on HN. I might try to guess what the guy who downmodded you thought (that even non-specialists have the right to express their opinions? that lobbying is a legitimate activity?) but after all I'm left to guessing. Because in a vast majority of cases, people who downmod don't explain why. It's like throwing a rock through the window and running.

Lobbying IS a legitimate activity! I hate all the crap that I hear about the "evil lobbyists in Washington". They fulfill an important role.

To make an informed decision, which is what our politicians in Washington are supposed to do, not just respond to populism and mob voice, you need somebody to inform you. Lobbyists do that. That's their job. To inform congressmen and senators. What that politician does with that information, and how he verifies it's truth is another matter.

I suppose I would support your right to try to convince others to a point of view that you know nothing about. But in a better world than we live in, people would seriously question the wisdom of doing this, and talk about baseball instead.

Aren't many lobbyists resembling the "might makes right" practices? From what little I understand so far, there is quite a bit of money involved, and decisions do not always seem to be as honest and altruistic when the amounts get large enough.

And aren't the politicians replacing responding to populism and mob voice with the loudest voices nearest them? Especially those that may finance the politicians' agendas?

I am frequently bewildered by some of the decisions made and enacted/codified into law, and must conclude that I obviously do not understand all of the agendas being served in those instances.

It is beginning to seem to me that the current lobbying system is akin to the current union system in that it may no longer be as beneficial as it once was in its current form.

I agree with you. It seems in this day and age if you wanted to find some information about a topic you cared about you could gather enough information online or by asking some experts. Lobbyists tend to have a biased opinion.

I would love to see some social website experimentation with online voting, and caucusing/solicitation of voters' desires, correctly tracked to one per registered voter.

Might they not already exist?

If we can make one robust enough and popular enough, maybe it can be the model (or the actual tool) used by our wonderful pols...

I guess one problem with that is that it favors people with money too much. In principle I also believe in markets, but I think this is the point where the neo-capitalist logic fails.

As an example: I remember reading in "the armchair economist" how the author was angry at environmentalists because they denied him the right to pollute the environment if he was willing to shell out the money for it. He mentions that it might be worth 50$ per year to him to make sure lions don't go extinct, but not much more than that. Well maybe it would be worth 1000000$ per year to another person, but that person does not have the 1000000$ per year.

Tough luck one could say, but by that one would assume a certain definition of what is fair, and it is not obvious what consequences that definition would have in the long run.

I didn't mean it's not :) Only that a downmod without comments leaves no room for discussion. Even if you agree with the downvoter, it's still not ok.

Experts can go wrong, too - and who defines who is an expert and who isn't? Some amateurs might have read more about the issue than the self-proclaimed experts.

And if non-experts are not qualified to speak, how do you justify letting them vote? Not saying democracy is perfect, but apparently there was a thought that even if people are not experts, they might be able to inform themselves sufficiently to be able to decide which experts to trust.

Great point Tichy.

The entire democratic system is built on the ability for the common man to make decisions about matters in which he is not an expert.

This is my problem with the global warming discussion, no matter what the outcome -- no matter who is right or wrong on it. At the heart of it, it's a threat to the core principles underlying the vote.

That's why it's near the top of my list of political things to care about.

Science is not programming. You can't learn Climate Modeling in your spare time, without checking experimental data and interacting with other people.

Scientists should investigate and report their findings. Politicians should decide what to do. People elect politicians, not scientists. That's the way it should work. Democracy is not in danger.

However, we now see politicians doing (pseudo-)science (Al Gore is a prime example) and reporting it to the ignorant masses. And we have scientists claiming that they should decide what to do. The world is upside down.

Not every climate expert has run a climate model in his head. Presumably sometimes they also just read papers about other people's results, and assign the a likelihood based on their own experiences. Maybe they are better at estimating likelihoods, but other than that, not so different from the common person in the street.

Even without knowledge in climate modeling, some things can be easily seen. For example it seems obvious that there is a debate on man made warming - some experts seem to consider it likely, others not. Credentials of experts can be checked to some degree without expertise in climate modeling, too. And so on - at every level of knowledge, it is possible to make an estimate of the probabilities, I should think.

Also, I think it is often politicians who decide which scientists get funding for their research, so in a way people do elect scientists (not sure how the system works in the US).

"Also, I think it is often politicians who decide which scientists get funding for their research, so in a way people do elect scientists (not sure how the system works in the US)."

You are totally right. And, in my humble opinion, it's dangerous when politicians alone decide what should be investigated and studied. It creates a situation where "intellectual prostitution" is the norm. Scientists know what the funding agencies want to hear, and write grant proposals accordingly. A monoculture is born. No one works outside the mainstream ideas.

Focusing on some areas is good because it creates momentum and leads to faster progress. For instance, in the 1950s and 1960s, the investment in the space program led to an amazingly fast progress. This was good. Entire new fields were developed. On the other hand, when the government alone decides that a certain area is "evil" (e.g., stem cell research) then we have a "New Inquisition" in place. This is very bad.

In an ideal world, scientists would report their findings, politicians would propose courses of action, and people would vote for one proposal over the others. The real world is a whole lot less perfect.

I assume it's the democracy bit that is your core premise.

I'm not certain which country you live in. If you're in the U.S., you're not living in a democracy, you're living in a republic. There is a strong agenda by many people to turn it into a democracy, merely by saying it is one, and that is working, but by law, it's a republic.

Democracies tend to disintegrate rapidly as the populace votes themselves beer and circuses. You see that beginning to happen now, don't you? The populace is not, and can not, be trusted to act in a fair, impartial, and informed manner. They're a mob. Look at the public lynching we almost had with the AIG folks? Even the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut got into the act.

When the populace proves themselves too lazy to carefully consider the repercussions of their decisions, and too proud to admit they do not know the repercussions of their decisions, then it can't end well.

This will not end well.

Very frighteningly, accurately, and succinctly put.

What is the specialty of the Republic? I guess there are laws that the zombie masses have to adhere to, but these laws were once upon a time also created by people.

I don't want to defend democracy, but it seems that it is not trivial to come up with a better system, and "don't give non-experts the permission to speak" won't cut it in my opinion. As soon as you start going down that road, a lot of other issues crop up.

A better model: Perhaps smaller democracies? Instead of everyone having 1/300,000,000-say in 300,000,000 lives, let them have bigger chunk in smaller systems.

Stronger, faster and more direct feedback can enhance control loops without adding more sophistication otherwise.

More data usually beats better algorithms. (http://anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/03/more-data-usual.h...)

people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic. Their opinions count for nothing because those are based on emotion, misinformation, ideology, or plain dogma.

How do we define "trained"? Since the subject in question is the consequences of global warming (not whether warming is occurring), why does training in Physics qualify one to pontificate on what is largely a biology question?

Also, you seem to define scientists in a way that suggests that they're not subject to emotion, misinformation, ideology, or plain dogma. Sadly, this is not the case.

How badly would the global warming deniers complain if everyone who was allowed to speak on the issue needed to be approved by the scientific establishment? That would be a great injustice and even I would agree with them on that one.

Sorry for not making it explicit. The point is: people who are not trained in Science (Climate Modeling in particular, Physics in general) are not qualified to speak on the topic.

The trouble is the money comes out of the pocket books of non-scientists. And they must be able to make the judgment, of whether or not climate modeling is the equivalent of chemistry or of alchemy. The alchemist is not just going to come out and tell you that his whole field is full of mistakes, and that you should cut off funding. Thus when the money of the laity is at stake, there is no avoiding having the laity make opinions about the details of climate science.

Rod's comment didn't seem biased, but yours sure does.

Not intended as a flame, of course - just trying to point out that you are kind of proving his point.

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