Science is the pursuit of the truth, not consensus
John Kay, Financial Times, 9 October 2007
The notion of a monolithic “science”, meaning what scientists say, is pernicious and the notion of “scientific consensus” actively so. The route to knowledge is transparency in disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of “scientific consensus”.
Read the rest of the article here (free registration required).
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Yes well that’s all fascinating but as a farmer whether wondering to continue with my Murray Darling operations, a Treasury officer concerned about endless billions of drought dollars going out the door, an engineer building a water supply in Perth, an actuary in an insurance company I need to run some numbers.
Let’s see – I can ask Biggsy, John McLean, Louis Hissink, David Archibald the Lavoisier Society, CSIRO, the IPCC, BoM, NSW Agriculture and others – I wonder who’s going to help me.
David looks attractive as it will be simple. I’ll only need 5 datum points.
I wonder if the future will simply be a subset of the last 120 years or what?
I might just read my book here on Nietzsche and the scientific method till the phone rings. Just to keep my mind off thngs.
Is anyone going to help me?
The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of “scientific consensus”.
Yes!
But I am often surprised by how many graduates from the social sciences of about my age have trouble with the concept of ‘the truth’. Some of them seem to believe everthing depends on your point of view.
This article is also available at http://www.johnkay.com/recent – no regsitration required.
Luke, what do your ramblings have to do with the aricle?
I am often surprised as well Jennifer at the problem some people have with ‘the truth’. Many people seem to think that because they can find =a= voice to express a dissenting view about the truth, the received view of the truth must be wrong.
But I agree with you, while some truths are subjective, there comes a time when you just have to use your common sense to reject extreme, non-authoritative dissenting views of the truth and acknowledge that there is sufficient authoritative support for the received, consensual view of the truth that it can be regarded as objective. e.g. the earth is not flat, despite the view of some dissenters.
“The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of “scientific consensus”.
“Yes!”
No!
Science is built on consensus. It is demanded by the scientific method, which requires that your peers can duplicate your experiments and come to agree with you.
Consensus doesn’t mean that scientists should stifle dissenting research, though they can of course ignore it if it isn’t very good.
The straw man here is that dissenting climate science is stifled. It isn’t. Its just heavily crticised, for good reason.
In the real life world that we all live in, at some point, you have to cease hesistating to act because of the existence of marginal dissenting views. That’s what Luke is getting at Helen. Let the dissenting views keep coming so long as people want to express them. But don’t have a whinge if they aren’t always listened to. We have better things to do than listen to cranks. Because while the very very rare crank ends up being a Gallileo, for the most part, they are just cranks, and practical people don’t have time to listen to them all.
Steve, that’s not concensus, that’s verication of empirical facts, something that seems to be lacking in AGW science. Concensus is a group of people deciding on an agreed position, verification is those same people running the same experiments and getting the same results.
The first is politics, the second is science. Since Hansen, Mann et al seem reluctant to disclose what they did, it’s a bit hard to run their experiments or calculations. Just because people are questioning this idea of a concensus is no reason to call them cranks.
Helen – it’s very simple. This post is just more of the “oh it’s all so uncertain” and “how do you really know” propaganda.
In the real world people are having to make decisions on all sorts of time frames – tactical, strategic and structural. And from small farms to government policy to big business.
If I were the CEO for climately things and were kept being srved this up as “information” I’d sack you all.
Does rampant uncertainty help. Yea we know consensus can be flawed. So what. Perhaps we should flip a coin then or just Biggsy what he reckons. Give up on inclusive processes – you’d all like that I’m sure. Don’t worry about literature reviews or science reviews. Perhaps just ask Lord Monckton for his idea? Perhaps Louis is a budding Galileo?
But in the real world people need to get on !
Decisions need to be made – on the basis of what then??
Bazza has been telling you about risk management for some time now. Nobody listens.
So how about instead of just ragging the denialists get off their arse and contribute something useful that a bloke or blokess can make a decision on – something more useful than proliferating uncertainty.
Do give me a rebuttal, a legal case, propaganda or a whinge – give me a serious alternative.
Fine, lets have scepticism and debate, but can we a meaningful level of discourse? Every nutcase with a dissenting view is given a run here. The likes of Piers Corbyn, who won’t even reveal his secret methods, is considered a serious critic and worthy of inclusion in the debate via TGGWS. That there has to be a debate against such obvious idiots doesn’t really make me feel there is anything serious to debate against.
erratum “don’t give me”
Science is also not about the *truth*. The history of science is a history of the *truth* turning out to be wrong. It is about determining as best we can what is happening and why. That just about sums up the IPCC case.
Or novelists like Chrichton are supposed to be taken seriously.
“But this proposal blurs the distinction between politics and science that Lord Rees wants to emphasise. Novelist Michael Crichton may have exaggerated when he wrote that “if it’s consensus, it’s not science, if it’s science, it’s not consensus”, but only a bit. Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.”
What does a novelist know about telling scientists what science is? I can tell you right now, the consensus of science is that homeopathy is nonsense, for example. A fine piece of rhetoric, but he should stick to what he knows best, making money out of lousy action novels.
Why is there a consensus? Not because scientists just want to all get along together, and not have acrimonious debates about string theory. It’s because the scientific method is about processes and procedures being followed to demonstrate what we do and don’t know. The reason homeopathy is widely considered to be rubbish is that there is no evidence to support it. The reason there is a consensus on AGW is that there is evidence to support it.
Even the ecologists are have a sook
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=486
Talk about bait and switch.
With names like nutcase, denialist, idiot, sook and crank being bandied about by the usual people, this thread has gone a bit off track. Lift your game guys, if you want to be taken seriously.
Notice I didn’t use insults, which I would be fully entitled to under the “well you started it” rule that applies here. If the insults stop, I promise not to use them myself.
Here’s a question? How does a scientific fact become known? My guess is that experimentation, observation and replication of results is important, and concensus comes from that, until someone demonstrates an exception or contrary result, then the whole process has to be re-done.
If you agree, how does AGW science fare on that score?
SJT
Michael Crichton is a medical scientist and thus trained in the empirical method. That he chooses to write novels is neither here nor there but dismissing his contribution as a mere novelist is really nothing more than another ad hominem.
As for Paul’s question above about how scientific becomes known, ir arises from repeated observation of some phenomena, thinking of an explanation for it, the hypothesis, then testing it by falsifying it, and if, at the time, it cannot be falsified and is able to predict consistently then it is accepted as provisionally a scientific fact.
Crucially no scientific theory or fact can be proven right, it can only be proven wrong. Hence there are no absolutes in science, only religion.
And if a hypothesis cannot be falsified, then it is’t regarded as a scientific hypothesis but as pseudoscience.
How does AGW stack up? Badly.
Global temperatures sine 1998 have been slilghtly decreasing while CO2 emissions have been escalating. To a scientist that fact falsifies the AGW hypothesis.
(See a more detailed analysis of this by Prof. Fred. Singer among others).
No it doesn’t.
What an utter load of crap from someone who can only hold one issue in their mind at once.
Reductionist !
The fact that you would try that on Louis shows how ratshit your science is.
Singer’s a tobacco shonky.
Louis, are you suggesting that the legitimacy of AGW hinges on global average temperatures (which you don’t believe possible to measure, so not sure how you can bring it into the debate just quietly) increasing in perfect sync with CO2?
Tut tut Luke. Strike one, failure to address the question. Strike two, name calling, to wit; crap, ratshit, shonky. (I’ll let reductionist slide for now, ’til I figure out what you mean).
You’re on shaky ground sunshine.
Anthony, strike one as above. Strike two, exaggerating an opponents statement (slightly mitigated by posing it as a question). I’ll call that one and a half strikes.
Do either of you want to have a go at my question? Seriously?
Paul
Piers Corbyn is a nutcase. He’s a poster boy for TGGWS. He makes claims, and refuses any scrutiny.
Paul;
read the ar4
It has references to hundreds of pieces of research. Read them all, and let me know which ones you have a problem with.
Mann and Hansen are but 1/1000th of the work done on the topic.
Paul – knowledge is a justified true belief. There are many ways by which something can be justified as true, the scientific method being one of them.
How does AGW stack up? well, I would say it is a fair way down the path of being a justified true belief.
Fact 1 – CO2 (and equivalents) cause warming
Fact 2 – Humans responsible for systematically increasing CO2 levels
To be resolved:
how much warming is caused by CO2e relative to other factors
how climate responds to warming
it appears the scientific community is a long way to resolving those issues. Im not sure when you cross a line and it becomes a justified true belief, but if I was a punter i’d say the line is pretty close to being crossed. Hindsight may tell us we have crossed it already.
How do you think AGW stacks up Paul?
It seems Luke, SJT, Anthony etcetera are hell bent on turning everything into an argument! So,
Anthony, what is the consensus about? How does the AGW consensus stack up?
Luke, I’m ignoring you for the moment … you bait and switch, switch and bait too much.
SJT, I reckon you are just another version of Luke. So I’m also ignoring you for the moment.
Luke is demonstrating great fear, he wont step outside unless he has 100% double blind peer reviewed guarantee that he wont be hit by a golf ball.
If luke barks can sjt be far behind. Pity neither have anything worthwhile to say.
What you guys wanna be nice and have a nice discussion. Wow !
Jen – it’s the height of hypocrisy for you of all people to talk about baits or censure us for an argumentative style when the other commentators present as they do.
But given Paul wants to play “nice” and has a swear jar established I’ll try to be “nice”.
Just nobody call us turds, Taliban allies, scum or marxists OK?
???
Jen, I was asked questions by Paul and answered them. Ok ok, I confess my crimes, I asked him a question as well!
‘What is the consensus about?’ I’m not sure Jen, what is the consensus about?
‘how does the AGW consensus stack up’ – ummmm, did you read what I wrote?
ok then, beer o clock.
don’t have too much fun without me
“How does a scientific fact become known?” well after years and years of endless testing with comprehensive verification theories become “laws”.
Every time you test it over and over again the same happens. You have vast scientific proof. You have a mechanistic explanation. Youi can simulate and predict the effects of an experiment before it is conducted.
Although like relativity you can be still be right with norms of measurement. Newtonian mechanics breaks down with Global Positioning Satellite clocks not adjusted for relativity effects or the orbit of Mercury similary not adjusted for relativity. But most of our experience time Newtonian mechanics works AOK e.g. for driving a car.
So you could argue about the domain of measurement or relative scale of measurement
But you can essentially say that nothing is ever totally proven. But that leads back to my “who cares” stance – decisions still need to be made. If you are not going to help bugger off (nicely of course).
AGW is massively more complex – multiple forcings, only replicate to work with (the Earth), century long integration times, chaos, internal variability, oscillations, non-linearity etc.
So isolating something out for a simple “correlation” type analysis in a reductionist style is pretty darn difficult outside of modelling. No replicate planet, ecology and economy you can try 40 different future scarnarios on.
“If you agree, how does AGW science fare on that score?” – the consensus is really relatively small – simply most scientists or persons as is demonstrated here every day as few can understand the science involved. There are really not that many domain experts.
So this is the most complex problem humanity faces.
However decisions still need to be made. If you don’t like consensus from hand-picked supposed domain experts – your recommendation to the UN is to do what??
And I wonder how many people have read the 4AR documents to get a broad appreciation? Have you Jen. (Oh that’s right you’re ignoring me).
I have not attempted to divert the thread – I’m simply sick of the ragging and ongoing denialist onslaught be Paul – I’d suggest there would not be a single AGW positive story if I did not contribuute them. But the point is that in Australis we currently need to make serious risk assessments and climate related decisions.
So let’s not beat around the bush here – if consensus if flawed which I assume if your post’s intent is to assert and debate – give me something useful to work with.
Has the IPA got a neat package ready to roll? Has the Scientific Alliance? Don’t just tear it all down and piss off feeling the job is done. That’s not very helpful. (Another dollar in the swear jar).
Basically – there is no ‘neat package’ and those that wish for one are dreaming.
Efficiencies will be made when resources tighten up, there is no way a politician or group can mandate efficiency.
Consensus is flawed, it is not the saviour, never has been, it is aspirational.
Anthony, thanks for your reply. The scientific method was what I was referring too, of course.
Your fact 1, as I understand it, is that CO2 etc re-radiates energy from the sun. Ok, I’m nit picking. But I agree.
Fact 2, I agree that humans are emitting CO2 in the atmosphere. There may be other reasons for the increase in CO2 levels since systematic records were kept. Outgassing from warming oceans being one. I’m not sure that humans are solely responsible for the measured increase. Is that a fact beyond dispute, do you think?
How much much warming is caused by CO2 compared to other factors? Even the IPCC admits to a low level of scientific understanding of other factors, so how can they answer this question?
How does climate react to the warming? I’d have to say, what warming, since 1998 anyway. It seems that other factors are at play. What are they, and how powerful are they, especially compared to CO2.
A question that I believe is still in dispute is, what warming would increasing CO2 cause if all other factors were held constant? Well actually pretty much everyone agrees, very little, because AGW had to invoke the enhanced greenhouse effect to make the rising CO2 match the rising temperature, back when temperatures actually did seem to be rising.
The facts on past climate seem pretty elusive too. If it is to be proven that the current CO2 levels are causing unprecedented warming, then it first has to be shown that unprecedented warming is occurring. I don’t think that has been shown, and some of the work supposedly showing that has come unstuck.
So even a casual observer such as me can pick up what looks to be areas of uncertainty. Then how has the idea of a concensus arisen? What are all these people agreeing to?
Luke, I hope you’re not getting the Pauls mixed up. I know how confusing it is.
I think the first step is yet to be proven, that unprecedented warming is taking place. I think it is that simple.
And that’s strike three, use of the offensive term denialist, you WARMongering nitwit. I tried to play nice.
sorry paul, I was going along with you ok there until you said that warming stopped in 1998. If you can’t get over that, then you can never understand AGW
ps: CO2 leaves a signature, we know what we emit…
‘what warming would increasing CO2 cause if all other factors were held constant?’
irrelevant question. The world is not a black box handling single inputs and single outputs. Need to look at the feedbacks.
Why do we need unprecedented warming to prove AGW? I don’t think anyone is saying this warming has never occurred before. They are saying it is caused by factors different than before – i.e CO2 is in the drivers seat – not solar, not axis tilt, not galactic fairies….
If your first demand is ‘show me unprecedented warming’ by the time you are satisfied you will be fried. Start grappling with the complexity and start managing the risk
So, Anthony, do we have a climate crisis now? Will we be fried next year?
As far as I am aware – no-one is suggesting climate science has anything like a full understanding of the climate system and is therefore planning to shut down climate research and save $billions. No, a Consensus that is protected by attacking scientists involved in research that goes agianst the consensus or questions the basis of the consensus, is actually preventing or slowing down the process of scientific advancement. Withholding data, or failing to archive data is part of the consensus protection process and suggests such data will not stand up to objective scrutiny. Climate science has therefore become more about political advocacy than science.
The derogatory term ‘climate denier,’ is used against ‘climate realists’ in order to try and shut down a debate the ‘climate alarmists’ can’t win.
I have to laugh – Jen suggests we have to be frying before acting. Globally we don’t have a climate crisis. In Australia we have a hum-dinger of a drought ongoing for years. Crisis – nah – not yet – but there’s an awful lot of ducks lined a row which you’d have to be at least curious about. You can explain a few away but not all. (Typical denialist methods are to pick one at a time which is why the 4AR text hardly ever gets touched – too big!).
Climate realists? ROTFL – you guys uncritically let bilge like Archibald’s stuff bounce around with nary a comment. When you clean up your own backyard you may get treated seriously.
In any case it matters not – government and business have moved on. Even the coal industry. You guys have already lost whatever it was you were trying to accomplish.
P.S. Paul do you know any of the scientists involved in AGW – say at Hadley – do really know what they think?
There is no global frying – climate remains within the bounds of natural variabilty.
Weather is a natural event, including Australia’s.
I’m concerned about the bilge allowed to bounce around in AR4 presented as 90% certain.
I’d like to see an anonymous survey of all working climate scientists.
This is odd.
“Science is Not Agreement on a Course of Action, but the Pursuit of Truth.”
But isn’t an agreement to pursue truth an agreement on a course of action?
Stuff like this is written by those who haven’t studied philosophy and don’t understand science.
Natural is what you’ve haven’t experienced before. yea sure Paul.
As usual the AR4 is unchallenged by any substantive arguments. Just whinging.
Schiller – science isn’t about wanky philosophy. That’s for soft systems gimps and arts students. Man have you gone soft and commie on us.
Jen, we will not be fried next year.
I think the only way we will know if we are at crises point will be looking back at today in about 20 years time.
In the interest of risk management, I’d suggest we pull the proverbial finger out and get serious about reducing emissions and planning for adaptation.
Here’s a little thought experiment. Imagine you are an alien who’d just landed on earth and you’re asked; What is causing global temperatures to do what they are doing?
First thing you would?
Anthony, what is the explanation for temperatures over the last say, nine years? I’m NOT saying that temperatures must mirror CO2 exactly or AGW is wrong. I’m saying there must be an explanation for what temperatures do.
On CO2, do the increases in atmospheric CO2 match the output by humans, both in amount and isotopically? I’m not sure that they do.
Jennifer
if you read the IPCC reports, you would realise there is no suggestion that we will be ‘fried next year’. The whole idea is to act pro-actively against possible threats to global eco-systems. If we wait until it is happening, it will be too late to stop the process.
Oh, I just had got the impression from Anthony that we would be “fried next year”.
I repeated some of his words as a question … and now we have both SJT and Luke falsely thinking I believe we will be fried next year.
I think that is called cascading to a false conclusion … or is it cascading to a wrong consensus? 🙂
Jen, I think James Hansen called it “jousting with jesters”!
There is science and there is opinion…
The BOM has been criticised for getting it wrong – farmers took their advice about la Nina and spring rains and invested heavily – and now they are asking for help from farmers etc
The Climate Centre nows advises of climate change – and after 6 or 7 years of drought farmers dont believe them
“Farmers want the Bureau of Meteorology to improve its long-range forecasts, or at least be clearer about the limitations of its predictions.
New South Wales graingrower John Ridley says the bureau was clearly wrong to back a wet La Nina year so strongly earlier this year, and many farmers have been caught out.
Head of the National Climate Centre, Mike Coghlan, agrees the accuracy of forecasts needs to be better, and says the bureau is working to improve the models it uses.”
Jen – I was just testing to see if you were ignoring me 🙂 !!
Paul will send you a paper or two through Jen. You can then tell me.
Rog – I know you’ll only mock me and roll your eyes but for the record. There are no absolutes in the seasonal forecasts – they’re 6 out of 10 to 7 out of 10 type technology. You’ll be going to get it 8 out of 10. So if people aren’t up to using this technology and understanding minority odds will pop up – well go back to flipping coins.
Of course it’s interesting that this is a second La Nina to “misfire”. Maybe it’s CLIMATE CHANGE – maybe the next 120 years aren’t like the last. Or maybe it’s minority odds. Or maybe they’re wrong.
You can decide yourself.
Anyway BoM can defend themselves – but don’t read more into the seasonal forecasts than there is – they are not absolute EVER !
However if they got 10 wrong in a row – you’re entitled to complain !
If frmers using the forecast did one of the many climate courses that are out there they’d know the probability story.
Frankly after 6 or 7 years of drought and matching models and observations it would be more rational to have some concern – on SAM for a start !!
It’s 6/10 – 7/10 stuff ! You’d do well at the casino as you can throw the dice every couple of minutes. 10 years is a long time for dice throwing.
Over to the ever cynical Rog.
Pielke Sr has documented IPCC AR4’s cherry picking of papers:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/07/20/documentation-of-ipcc-wg1-bias-by-roger-a-pielke-sr-and-dallas-staley-part-ii/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/06/20/documentation-of-ipcc-wg1-bias-by-roger-a-pielke-sr-and-dallas-staley-part-i/
“The route to knowledge is transparency in disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of” – “scientific consensus”.
Skimming through Luke’s initial response (I need to run some numbers) – I was reminded that in a fit of madness I put truth up as a point on an argand diagram but that was a long time ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number
Then I went on step further and incorporated a third dimension with the complex numbers form that presented another view of learning.
Moving out of structured language concepts about various absolutes provided a great alternative view of possibilities. Everything is relative to our individual brain structures. Any one absolute is only what you make it.
Real and imaginary axis as a tool lets us glide into a host of applications
wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_analysis
In one hit I could cover all this or at least I thought I could by leaving language behind, have a glance through this lot including all the headings and related disciplines (biomedical engineering etc).
NOTE the word SCIENCE is hardly mentioned!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering
Putting the revelation into practice took a while. Control theory (power and process) and surface communications (radio & telecommunications) can be linked with that imaginary axis working of the real planes.
Language is the limiting factor and so is the notion of science in the practice. I feel sorry for those who get constantly hung up in the words.
Just read most of the above, and I use the term “global temperature” because it is a common term in this debate here. While a global temperature is, physically, impossible to estimate, it is, none the less, used by the scientifically illiterate as part of their argot.
(I originally thought of useing the Dutch term Aapeknootjes for global temperature but, on consdieration, realised it would have been demeaning to some here).