Mat says:

global warming deniers talking about arctic ice cores,

You were doing well until you threw in that gratuitous comment.

Take a look at Climate Audit.

You will see that the so-called Climate Scientists have an infantile knowledge of statistics and, IMO, it would not be wrong to claim that some of them commit scientific fraud.

Yes, it would seem that global temperatures have warmed, but none of the work done by these so called climate scientists goes anywhere near enough to demonstrate that human caused CO2 increases in the atmosphere are the cause.

Perhaps the most laughable aspect of this is they audit each other's work and give themselves a passing grade.

Paging Gregory Cochran . . .

I've seen that site, thanks, but it's beside the point: McIntyre, whatever his failings, at least makes it his job to study this stuff. I'm talking about people who plainly do not have even remotely the background knowledge to evaluate this stuff but nevertheless will grab onto anything that fits their worldview to use as a cudgel. I could have just as easily chosen the Stern report as an example from the other side.

I predict that next someone will take me to task for speaking of Card & Krueger in a disrespectful tone.

But the problem, Matt, is that you are using inflamatory language.

You are likening those of us who are skeptical of the AGW position to Holocaust Deniers.

Talk about poisoning the well.

Ironically, though, a counter-example was the recent battle between knowledgeable skeptic Lindzen and clueless science-reporter Bill Nye, who ended up looking rather foolish, much to the consternation of real climate scientists who wished they were there to debate Lindzen instead.

As for M&M, their main argument, that Mann's use of Principle Components Analysis to derive his hockey stick graph was flawed and their methodology poorly document, has been largely vindicated, however sloppily they might have arrived at it.

But Matt, I agree with your basic premise. In fact, it was when I started noticing commonalities between the global warming debate and the g debate that made me much less of an environmental skeptic. In both cases, there are all kinds of people debunking the basic premise, but it seems the scientists most deeply studying the issue pretty much all agree on the basic conclusion: yes, there really are heritable, group differences in intelligence and there really is anthropogenic global warming.

"You are likening those of us who are skeptical of the AGW position to Holocaust Deniers."

Learn to read for comprehension, Richard. I won't respond to any more comments that impute things to me that I plainly haven't said.

Ziel, thanks for that second link. I've also noticed the parrallels with GW and g -- another being that for both issues you have a non-trivial number of people (referring here to non-experts) on either side who want it to be true/false for rather unsavory ideological reasons.

Matt says:


Learn to read for comprehension, Richard. I won't respond to any more comments that impute things to me that I plainly haven't said.

Creationists making reference to Haldane's limit, global warming deniers talking about arctic ice cores, price control fetishists banging on about Card & Krueger, race-skeptics quoting Lewontin's infamous 85/15 figure, etc etc etc.

Well, I look at all the words you chose to use and their connotations.

I not that with respect to one group of people you used the term creationists which, while some people think of it as an epithet, I see it as simply a label denoting the group of people who disagree with Evolution. With respect to another, you used a very neutral term, race-skeptics but with respect to two other groups, you used very value and emotionally laden terms, deniers and fetishists.

I find these differences interesting and instructive.

Of course, I will admit to referring to so-called scientists but then I have difficulty with scientists who cannot provide the data their claims were based on when asked to. However, even then, I think I chose a far less value laden adjective.

I don't consider the term "denier" to be emotionally-laden -- I'm a denier about a whole bunch of things -- and the word choice was mostly stylistic: I could have used "skeptic" in place of "denier" but I thought it would be repetitive. If you have a better alternative for people who remain recalcitrant to admit that GW is a real phenomenon, I'm all ears.

"Fetishists" was a deliberate choice, however: I really do not get why some people are so attached to the idea of fucking with the price system when there are perfectly good alternatiove ways to help the poor that don't screw up the normal functioning of markets.

The other perfectly good alternative ways to help the poor are a lot less viable politically.

I would say Card & Krueger is more along the lines of the German children of Af-Am army guys study, in the sense that Charles Murray described it. There have been tons of studies on the subject and the one thing that makes that study special and people reference it so much is the result.

fwiw Matt, the "denier" line jumped out at me too. When I hear someone use the term denier it implies to me, correctly or not, that the speaker believes what is being denied to be true.

"[T]here really are heritable, group differences in intelligence" -- I have a hard time parsing the meaning or implications of this sentence. What groups are being discussed and how are they defined? How can group differences (whatever those actually are) be heritable? Won't any grouping plus measurement of any non-discrete characteristics show differences amongst the groups?

If you have a better alternative for people who remain recalcitrant to admit that GW is a real phenomenon, I'm all ears.


Ahhh, then I must have misunderstood ...

I am skeptical about AGW. It is clear to me that there has been a warming trend, perhaps a little like the MWP (for which there is evidence that it extended to California, despite denial from the AGW camp), but it is not clear that it will continue or that we actually are anywhere close to understanding climate enough to predict what will happen (in detail over say the next 100 years).

"[T]here really are heritable, group differences in intelligence" -- I have a hard time parsing the meaning or implications of this sentence. What groups are being discussed and how are they defined?


Loosely speaking, the historical geographic groups of Europeans, broadly speaking), Asians (East, really) and Africans, but there are others that we can talk about too. Perhaps, more precisely, a number of sets of alleles (and frequencies) that have been adapting to each other and their environments for some time (on the order of at least several thousand years).


How can group differences (whatever those actually are) be heritable?


Within each group the charactaristics are highly heritable. Just look at black hair and black/brown eyes among East Asians. Some others characteristics also seem highly heritable. Take intelligence. It seems clear that the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese are highly intelligent. It is possible that conditions in China (and perhaps Japan and Korea) in the past worked to drive out alleles that pulled average intelligence down.


Won't any grouping plus measurement of any non-discrete characteristics show differences amongst the groups?


Like, say, males and females? Or, perhaps lactose tollerant and lactose intollerant people?

Orkon,

I do believe it to be true, and furthermore I don't think it's reasonable for a layperson to doubt that it's true at this point given that hardly anyone in a position to know denies it to be true. Of course there's always the outside chance that they've got it all wrong, but for someone who's not competent to evaluate alternative hypotheses the default should be to believe the consensus.

Richard,

I'm actually somewhat skeptical of the specific predictions of climate models myself. If you go by the model that the IPCC accepts then I really don't see a whole lot to worry about and adapting is probably the least-cost solution. But past experience with macroeconomic models, which are fairly similar from an epistemological standpoint, makes me think that we can't take these things at face vale. It could be worse than they predict, or it could be better.

I dug that Schopenhauer link from before too, and having read Arty before he never fails to please if what one wants is pure cynicism about humans from someone who thought well and deep about them not behaving well put in a biting and entertaining manner.

I don't think that applies to the global warming stuff. That CO2 lagging stuff really is a nasty problem if what you're doing is computer models. though since ice cores don't go back tremendously far it is not damning only because the sample size is rather small. But in order to do that one must know something about computer modeling, a pretty complicated topic.

Also, given that climatologists don't have any evidence that someone who understands computer modeling would call empirical without laughing, the 'evidence' of man caused global warming is based on the empirically uninformed consensus of scientists, one cannot really call it a scientific consensus since it's not empirically informed. If one goes back into history such consensuses are usually but not always wrong, and certainly not any better than the opinions of poets.

The whole anthropogenic global warming thing is an example of Arty's point, though it's the other way around.

What groups are being discussed and how are they defined?

any population group, really. they're defined by some cluster in genetic space. if you don't want to think in terms of "race", any finer scale grouping on individuals will work as well. see here
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/01...t- consensus.php

How can group differences (whatever those actually are) be heritable?

different allele frequencies in different populations leads to different phenotypic distributions in those populations. consider the phenotype of "level of gene expression". different populations have different levels of expression, and those differences are genetic. see here:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2007/01...ion- between.php

"Mann's use of Principle Components Analysis": surely the question was whether he made unprincipled use of Principal Component Analysis?

I do believe it to be true, and furthermore I don't think it's reasonable for a layperson to doubt that it's true at this point given that hardly anyone in a position to know denies it to be true.

Drudge has been linking every couple of days to deniers/skeptics in a position to know...

Wild, insane, indefensible, but just maybe true guess: with HBD primed to hit the academy, our friendly Marxists with PhDs are looking for something bigger 'n' better to pour their religious fervor into so we all forget about what they said re the interchangeability of human populations...and Global Warming is it.

Also, Matt --

Of course there's always the outside chance that they've got it all wrong, but for someone who's not competent to evaluate alternative hypotheses the default should be to believe the consensus.

Fair enough, but us landless peasants do have a role to play on any topic too complex for us to truly grok. Namely, to ensure that debate isn't silenced on any topic by allowing terms like "denier" to be casually thrown about between experts.

I know it wasn't your intention to do so, but "denier" really is a word designed to close debate, not to convince.

the default should be to believe the consensus

Here's my problem with that. Consensus means squat in science. There have been a number of cases where someone with a new (or modified) theory that makes better sense of the data has overturned the consensus.

As soon as I hear a bunch of people loudly proclaiming that consensus in a field means that its tenets are unassailable, I am skeptical.

FFS, Richard . . . yes, they scoffed at Galileo and they laughed at Boltzmann, but they also scoffed at a thousand forgotten cranks and crackpots while they were at it. Please find me one actual scientist who works in this area who has taken the position that "consensus in a field means that its tenets are unassailable".

From: Testimony of
Professor Michael E. Mann
University of Virginia, Charlottesville
before
The U. S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
The United States Senate
Room 406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
9:00 a.m., July 29, 2003

My name is Michael Mann. I am a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia. My research involves the use of climate models, the analysis of empirical climate data, and statistical methods for comparing observations and model predictions.

... (Lots elided.)

Evidence from paleoclimatic sources overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that late-20th century hemispheric-scale warmth was unprecedented over at least the past millennium and probably the past two millennia or longer. Modeling and statistical studies indicate that such anomalous warmth cannot be explained by natural factors but, instead, requires significant anthropogenic (that is, 'human') influences during the 20th century. Such a conclusion is the indisputable consensus of the community of scientists actively involved in the research of climate variability and its causes. (Emphasis in the original.)

I'll chalk that one up for you, though only because of his very incautious use of the word "indisputable" -- it's indisputably the case that that's the consensus, but the consensus itself is disputable in principle. (Though as a practical matter a disputant has a whole lot of explaining to do.) So yeah, Mann's overplaying his hand for polemical effect -- that tends to happen when researchers get too close to politics.

the word choice was mostly stylistic: I could have used "skeptic" in place of "denier" but I thought it would be repetitive. If you have a better alternative...

"panic-mongers" would have been one possibility. It would've meant reframing the debate slightly, but it appears to me that people who insist that anthropogenic global warming represents some sort of imminent catastrophe are more vociferous and farther from the scientific mainstream than those who deny that it exists at all.

I don't know that I'd call them "farther" (by what metric?), but yeah, I find them even more obnoxious.

So yeah, Mann's overplaying his hand for polemical effect -- that tends to happen when researchers get too close to politics.

At least he is a researcher and closer to the reality based community than an ignorant ONLY driven by moronic "politics".
All arguments of the anthropogenic global warming deniers boil down to "the scientists might be wrong" so let's assume they are since it would be annoying to our dear beliefs and hopes.
Let's not forget either that not long ago the deniers were denying global warming pure and simple as such.

Well, some researchers in the field also doubt the predictions, so that's not quite true. The majority seem to believe the predictions.

The big problem here is that nonspecialists can only evaluate this sort of stuff based on either doubts about their underlying methods (like skepticism that big computer models tell you as much as you'd liek about reality) or observable stuff that contradicts their model's assumptions. We're all smart, technically literate people, and yet, nobody can know enough about every area of science to have a useful opinion on most things. If you want to have an opinion on this stuff, you probably have to spend some serious time learning the underlying science and field.

kevembuangga says:


All arguments of the anthropogenic global warming deniers boil down to "the scientists might be wrong" so let's assume they are since it would be annoying to our dear beliefs and hopes.


You know, I find that highly offensive. I am an anthropogenic global warming skeptic and would be labelled a denier by many in the AGW camp.

I believe my skepticism is built on very solid foundations, and by $DEITY, there are plenty of examples of major climate change in the past to observe that things can go badly wrong, but IMO, there is no credible evidence that we are in anything but a normal period of climate variability, and a great deal of evidence, in my mind, that certain groups of people will use anything to grab and maintain power.

As Greg Cochran (who I do regard as a scientist, unlike Michael Mann) said, people like to believe in lies.

I do think that if you defined groups based on lactose tolerance or hair color or sex or haplogroup and then measured a subset of the individuals in each group with respect to other phenotypic differences, such as intelligence or lifetime incidence of cancer, you would likely find differences between groups in the distribution of the other characteristic. If a person is blond-haired, and the IQ score distributions for blonds shows lower average IQ and fewer individuals below 70 IQ or above 140 IQ, does that say anything about you? Have experiments like this ever been done?

As to measures of intelligence, how are IQ tests normalized across different languages? What languages have IQ tests? How many of the various languages spoken in the Indian sub-continent have IQ tests in that language? If someone speaks one language at home and another language at school does this affect the IQ score in either language?

The great global warming swindle

And there is another rather strange thing - the GW authors aren't much cooperative in disclosing their datasets (as meteo stations names and data) and program codes.

Taking into account, how, for e.g., people doing phylogenies have to send prior publishing all sequences to databases and show their alignments and write down all options and constraints used in the tree modeling, this is very, VERY suspicious.

The Real Richard Sharpe: You know, I find that highly offensive.

WHAAAAT?
You find contradiction offensive?
So here is another "offense" for you : Deconstructing Channel 4's Great Global Warming Swindle

kevembuangga sez:


WHAAAAT?
You find contradiction offensive?


No, I find the simplistic charactarization of my skepticism offensive.

As an example:


All arguments by AGW proponents boil down to: We want another excuse to control the world so we will throw up a bunch of arguments and hope that the rest of the world buys them. If any one seems skeptical we will liken them to holocaust deniers.


Thanks for the link, btw.