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‘Global Temperature’ — Why Should We Trust A Statistic That Might Not Even Exist?

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  • Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
    [ATTACH=CONFIG]39461[/ATTACH]
    When the data rolled in, it was clear the science had political implications. There was a choice between accepting the science or standing firm on the politics.

    We made different decisions, MM.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
      Fair. Why would the mean be that metric?
      That is just one and perhaps the simplest of many things that can de done with a large data set. It is an interesting basic result about a real physical system; much more interesting than the average of all telephone numbers.
      “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
      “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
      “not all there” - you know who you are

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
        There was a choice between accepting the science or standing firm on the politics.
        Isn't that a false dichotomy? Science may promise to tell you the physical consequences of possible actions--what are the physical tradeoffs available (perhaps with some degree of uncertainty). But it doesn't tell you how to decide those tradeoffs (e.g., where to make the tradeoff between safety and freedom and other things)--especially in the presence of uncertainty. Science may be able to tell you how to achieve a particular goal, but it doesn't tell you how you ought to prioritize various possible goals. Science may tell you the physical consequence of an action, but is not sufficient to tell you the economic cost/benefit, or the moral cost/benefit.

        Any given academic field lacks knowledge (including of cause and effect) known by other fields. So climatology by itself lacks knowledge of causes and effects discovered by economics (and vice versa). So just one of the two is insufficient to fully inform or determine one's political views. E.g., climatology isn't going to tell you that Pigouvian taxes/subsidies is the only (or the best) option. And climatology and/or economics might be able to tell us that such and such action may cause the death of half the human population of earth, but it would still require moral/political philosophy to tell us whether that action ought to be taken. (I saw lots of articles claiming Thanos is the hero. And some, extreme environmentalists are openly misanthropic.)

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Joel View Post
          Isn't that a false dichotomy? Science may promise to tell you the physical consequences of possible actions--what are the physical tradeoffs available (perhaps with some degree of uncertainty). But it doesn't tell you how to decide those tradeoffs (e.g., where to make the tradeoff between safety and freedom and other things)--especially in the presence of uncertainty. Science may be able to tell you how to achieve a particular goal, but it doesn't tell you how you ought to prioritize various possible goals. Science may tell you the physical consequence of an action, but is not sufficient to tell you the economic cost/benefit, or the moral cost/benefit.

          Any given academic field lacks knowledge (including of cause and effect) known by other fields. So climatology by itself lacks knowledge of causes and effects discovered by economics (and vice versa). So just one of the two is insufficient to fully inform or determine one's political views. E.g., climatology isn't going to tell you that Pigouvian taxes/subsidies is the only (or the best) option. And climatology and/or economics might be able to tell us that such and such action may cause the death of half the human population of earth, but it would still require moral/political philosophy to tell us whether that action ought to be taken. (I saw lots of articles claiming Thanos is the hero. And some, extreme environmentalists are openly misanthropic.)
          I interpreted him to mean the politics that tries to deny what science shows about global warming. Especially since MM has bought hook line and sinker into both the pseudo-science funded by industries threatened by a move away from fossil fuels and the conspiracy theories that tend to partner with it.


          Jim
          My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

          If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

          This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

          Comment


          • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
            I interpreted him to mean the politics that tries to deny what science shows about global warming. Especially since MM has bought hook line and sinker into both the pseudo-science funded by industries threatened by a move away from fossil fuels and the conspiracy theories that tend to partner with it.


            Jim
            This is Joel, Jim:
            Since, I've brought up economics, the errors of Keynesianism ...

            Don't bother with him. He's a crank, dragging his economics bęte noir from thread to thread, hoping for a nail to fit his hammer.

            Oh, and it's tobacco science, not pseudo-science. Get the sourcing right, and pretty much everything else follows.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
              This is Joel, Jim:
              Since, I've brought up economics, the errors of Keynesianism ...

              Don't bother with him. He's a crank, dragging his economics bęte noir from thread to thread, hoping for a nail to fit his hammer.

              Oh, and it's tobacco science, not pseudo-science. Get the sourcing right, and pretty much everything else follows.
              Never heard that before, but yeah, tobacco science fits it perfectly.

              Jim
              My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

              If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

              This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

              Comment


              • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                Never heard that before, but yeah, tobacco science fits it perfectly.

                Jim
                It doesn't just fit, Jim. It IS tobacco science. This is not a metaphor. Same foundations, same researchers. Naomi Oreskes tracked it back a bunch of years ago, and put together the history in Merchants of Doubt.

                The biggest active name with actual academic credentials is S. Fred Singer. He was a cold warrior back in the day, originally with the Hoover Institution before wandering around a bit and landing at Heartland. He's also the big gun behind the NIPCC.

                Here's some highlights from her research.

                Tobacco:
                Fred Singer and Kent Jeffreys, The EPA and the Science of Environmental Tobacco Smoke, Alexis De Tocqueville Institution, University of Virginia, 1994, Bates Number: TICT0002555, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.
                http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/pwc42f00/pdf

                Ozone:
                Testimony of S. Fred Singer, Scientific Integrity and Public Trust: The Science Behind Federal Policies and Mandates: Case Study 1—Stratospheric Ozone: Myths and Realities, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of the Committee on Science, US House of Representatives, 104th Congress, 1st Sess., September 20, 1995 [No. 31] (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1996).
                http://ia311327.us.archive.org/3/ite...tegr00unit.pdf

                Here's his bio at Heartland.

                S. FRED SINGER
                Dr. S. Fred Singer was among the first and is still the most prominent scientist in the world speaking out against global warming alarmism.

                Dr. Singer, an atmospheric and space physicist, founded the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)

                And here's a bootleg of the award-winning documentary directed by Robert Kenner and distributed by Sony Pictures based on the book. You can watch the real thing for $3 or $4 on Amazon Prime, Vudu, Youtube ... easy to find.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                  It doesn't just fit, Jim. It IS tobacco science. This is not a metaphor. Same foundations, same researchers. Naomi Oreskes tracked it back a bunch of years ago, and put together the history in Merchants of Doubt.

                  The biggest active name with actual academic credentials is S. Fred Singer. He was a cold warrior back in the day, originally with the Hoover Institution before wandering around a bit and landing at Heartland. He's also the big gun behind the NIPCC.

                  Here's some highlights from her research.

                  Tobacco:
                  Fred Singer and Kent Jeffreys, The EPA and the Science of Environmental Tobacco Smoke, Alexis De Tocqueville Institution, University of Virginia, 1994, Bates Number: TICT0002555, Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.
                  http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/pwc42f00/pdf

                  Ozone:
                  Testimony of S. Fred Singer, Scientific Integrity and Public Trust: The Science Behind Federal Policies and Mandates: Case Study 1—Stratospheric Ozone: Myths and Realities, Hearing before the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of the Committee on Science, US House of Representatives, 104th Congress, 1st Sess., September 20, 1995 [No. 31] (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1996).
                  http://ia311327.us.archive.org/3/ite...tegr00unit.pdf

                  Here's his bio at Heartland.

                  S. FRED SINGER
                  Dr. S. Fred Singer was among the first and is still the most prominent scientist in the world speaking out against global warming alarmism.

                  Dr. Singer, an atmospheric and space physicist, founded the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)

                  And here's a bootleg of the award-winning documentary directed by Robert Kenner and distributed by Sony Pictures based on the book. You can watch the real thing for $3 or $4 on Amazon Prime, Vudu, Youtube ... easy to find.

                  It seems to me this connection was brought up a while back here, though im not sure. My interest in this topic was not as strong then. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Ill hopefully have some time to look at it more in depth this weekend.

                  Jim
                  My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                  If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                  This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
                    It seems to me this connection was brought up a while back here, though im not sure. My interest in this topic was not as strong then. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Ill hopefully have some time to look at it more in depth this weekend.

                    Jim
                    I'm sure it was brought up years ago, because I brought it up years ago, though I wasn't alone. And yes, that was also years before the Exxonsecrets files became available showing Exxon had their own scientists telling them what the IPCC has told us, before Exxon made the strategic shift to covering up the link between fossil fuels and warming ... by dusting off the tobacco science.

                    Pretty sure it was the Exxonsecrets info that turned your views, but I could easily be wrong on that one.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                      I'm sure it was brought up years ago, because I brought it up years ago, though I wasn't alone. And yes, that was also years before the Exxonsecrets files became available showing Exxon had their own scientists telling them what the IPCC has told us, before Exxon made the strategic shift to covering up the link between fossil fuels and warming ... by dusting off the tobacco science.

                      Pretty sure it was the Exxonsecrets info that turned your views, but I could easily be wrong on that one.
                      Yep that discussion came during the period when I was doing/had been doing a more serious examination of the data and helped a good bit to let me know my instincts about what I was seeing from the two sides where correct.

                      Jim
                      My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

                      If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

                      This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                        The biggest active name with actual academic credentials is S. Fred Singer. He was a cold warrior back in the day, originally with the Hoover Institution before wandering around a bit and landing at Heartland. He's also the big gun behind the NIPCC.
                        Been a while since I looked this stuff over. The big names to watch for today are Singer, Seitz and the Heartland Institute. The original tobacco scientists were Nierenberg, Seitz, and Jastrow with the George C. Marshall Institute, which was shut down in 2015, with the climate remnants splitting off to become the non-profit CO2 Coalition.

                        Both tobacco and fossil fuels had the same backstory. Each industry had internal researchers saying things privately their corporate sponsors denied publicly, even to congressional committees. They knew they were lying, and they knew they were covering it up. Totally indefensible.

                        This needs stressing:

                        One of the big takeaways from Orestes is that while the funding came from boardrooms making, yes, immoral, economic decisions for their companies, the researchers were not primarily motivated by money.

                        In one of the interviews in the documentary, Seitz, or maybe it was Singer, whatever, one of the big guns, when asked if they'd do the same job for Greenpeace, replied, "They couldn't afford me." But the implication wasn't that they didn't have enough money, but that his price would increase to overmatch anything they could offer.

                        Their motivations for discrediting science weren't financial, they were political.

                        It's important to note this because it says something about how we have to frame our arguments if we're to clear the barricades. In the same sense that it's necessary to show Christians that evolution is compatible with their faith, it seems it's going to be necessary to show conservatives and libertarians, the Friedman and Hayek crowd, that addressing climate change collectively is not a threat to individual freedom.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                          That is just one and perhaps the simplest of many things that can de done with a large data set. It is an interesting basic result about a real physical system; much more interesting than the average of all telephone numbers.
                          That is not an answer to my question. I want a reason why the MEAN is a VALID METRIC in this instance. Not how we calculate it, not why we would want to use it, not its political value - I want the justification for using the mean in this way such that I can rely on it being both correctly calculated (internally valid) and, much more to the point, that it has meaning and tells us something about the climate in the real world (externally valid).

                          The former validity is very much in question but is not my actual concern in this thread. I see no reason why the mean should be externally valid describing the CLIMATE! The system is beyond the pale complex - but I keep being told that it can be reliably summed up in a single metric that can offer predictive value (e.g. if it goes too high, then X) - of all things, the MEAN! What I cannot get a straight answer to - neither here nor elsewhere - is why this should be true.
                          Last edited by Teallaura; 08-31-2019, 01:28 PM.
                          "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                          "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                          My Personal Blog

                          My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

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                          • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                            I want a reason why the MEAN is a VALID METRIC in this instance.
                            Because the mean shows a distinguishable trend in this instance.


                            Okay now, Teal ... will you stop now? This insistence that despite its everyday use in analysis in every other field, a mean is somehow not valid here is ... painfully wrong. Please, please, end it.
                            Last edited by Juvenal; 08-31-2019, 03:29 PM.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                              That is not an answer to my question. I want a reason why the MEAN is a VALID METRIC in this instance. Not how we calculate it, not why we would want to use it, not its political value - I want the justification for using the mean in this way such that I can rely on it being both correctly calculated (internally valid) and, much more to the point, that it has meaning and tells us something about the climate in the real world (externally valid).

                              The former validity is very much in question but is not my actual concern in this thread. I see no reason why the mean should be externally valid describing the CLIMATE! The system is beyond the pale complex - but I keep being told that it can be reliably summed up in a single metric that can offer predictive value (e.g. if it goes too high, then X) - of all things, the MEAN! What I cannot get a straight answer to - neither here nor elsewhere - is why this should be true.
                              The mean does not describe the climate. We know that the mean temperature has gone up by over 1 degree Centigrade since the start of the industrial revolution. And we know if that if the average gets to 2, we have really serious problems. That low number does not sound so bad until you realise what an average means in this case; when climate ensures that warming, and cooling is not evenly distributed. The variability has a multiplying effect.
                              “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                              “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                              “not all there” - you know who you are

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                                Because the mean shows a distinguishable trend in this instance.


                                Okay now, Teal ... will you stop now? This insistence that despite its everyday use in analysis in every other field, a mean is somehow not valid here is ... painfully wrong. Please, please, end it.
                                And yet again, I get anything but an answer to the actual question.

                                Do you even understand the concept of validity? Showing a trend does NOT mean it's externally valid (lends credence, but does not prove, internal validity).

                                WHY is this being used as a freaking metric for a complex system?

                                Oh, and knock off the 'holier than thou' crap - show why I'm mistaken (which you can't because you cannot even answer the actual question) or get lost.
                                "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                                "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                                My Personal Blog

                                My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                                Quill Sword

                                Comment

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