Quote of the Day
Bart Verheggen, a climate scientist and an unfailingly temperate voice in the climate wars (who inexplicably was not invited to the recent Lisbon climate conference), implores:
I’m all for bridge building, but let’s at least make sure that reality remains somewhat in view while standing on the bridge.
I don’t disagree with Bart here, and the quote is infinitely quotable. Poor communication, or mis-representation, of scientific evidence is indeed a foul, and it deserves to be highlighted.
But after everything that’s just come to light and burst into flames over the last couple of days, I find it (almost) odd that Bart would select this single data point to blog about rather than anything else that’s notable today, of all days. I’d have expected Bart to be talking about Eric Steig, today, since he’s “an unfailingly temperate voice in the climate wars”.
I’m surprised Bart wasn’t invited to the conference. Would he have attended? (that’s to Bart, incidentally. I don’t expect you to know, Keith.) I’m quite sure the conference would have benefited from Bart’s input.
I’m not sure I’d criticize the Lisbon conference organizers for not inviting one person and claiming it was “inexplicable”. Too much of a slippery slope. How many of the thousands of published climate scientists did they not invite?
http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/climate_authors_table_by_clim.html
Should we have expected them to? If so, why weren’t they invited, or if they were, why would they turn it down? If we listen to conference leaders/antagonizers, it’s because they are too scared to debate and are part of the cabal of corrupt scientists they are trying to replace with themselves.
Lisbon was intended to boost positive PR, but it was a massive PR failure. One candidate for Quote of the Day:
Judith, As someone present at the Lisbon meeting the claim that Gavin Schmidt was not attending on the grounds that the “Science was settled” was already circulating on the first day of the conference. One of the other attendees asserted the “science is settled” statement to me as fact. I questioned this, since it seemed completely out of keeping with what the articles of Gavin that I have read. My interlocuteur then found another attendee to back up this claim. It is clear to me that rumours about Gavin’s email were being disseminated from the beginning of the conference if not earlier. The fact that my fellow attendees were so eager to believe the rumours rather undermined my hopes for the meeting at a very early stage. (Chatham House Rules prevent me from identifying the two attendees in question on this blog).
Best wishes, Bill Hartree
http://deepclimate.org/2011/02/07/post-normal-meltdown-in-lisbon-part-1/#comment-7924
A candidate for Quote of the Year from Chris Colose:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/bullseye/
and a very nice analysis of the Post-Normal nonsense:
http://shewonk.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/pns-pretty-nonsensical-stuff/
Bart, in addition to being a scientist, has been engaged for years in the climate blogosphere–via his own site and as an active participant at other blogs. Additionally, his style and tone make him an obvious choice of mine for a conference whose theme was reconciliation. And he lives in Europe.
Not inviting him was a mistake on their part, IMO.
If style and tone similar to Bart’s was important, many of the key participants would not have been invited, including McKitrick, McIntyre, Mosher, Curry, and Goddard, individuals who’s tone and rhetoric has been quite shrill. Seems sort of a double standard to invite nice and extraordinarily patient individuals from the mainstream side to talk with those who misrepresent mainstream scientists and falsely accuse them of various evil deeds.
That would explain why Gavin was invited.
I think the way you portray the different major players in the debate speaks vast sums to your own twists, NYJ.
Keith, I don’t get your continued praise for Bart Verheggen. He has never lived up to your descriptions with me, and after reading Bart’s hit piece on Willis Eschenbach, I can’t understand how anyone would take him seriously. His post was about as divorced from reality as is possible.
Brandon, I can understand disagreement, but really? A ‘hit piece?’ Maybe you could explain what you found so through-the-looking-glass about Bart’s post.
PDA, I suppose it depends on what you consider a “hit piece.” Personally, I consider any article which posts obviously untrue criticisms of people as being a hit piece. I don’t know what the actual definition of the phrase is, and Google didn’t give me any easy answers, so I’m just going off the impression I have of the phrase’s meaning.
Issues of semantics aside, Bart Verheggen’s post is completely ludicrous. He tries to paint Willis Eschenbach’s remarks as contradictory when they obviously are not. I’m not sure what more there is to say other than to highlight what Eschenbach said which supposedly is dishonest and contradictory:
Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”. Yes, possibly all of the water molecules in my glass of water might be heading upwards at the same instant, and I could conceivably win the Mega-Ball lottery, and I might still play third base for the New York Yankees, but that is idle speculation that has no place in scientific inquiry. Give us facts, give us uncertainties, but spare us the stuff like “This raises the possibility that by 2050, this could lead to the total dissolution of all inter-atomic bonds “¦”. Yeah, I suppose it could. So what, should I buy a lottery ticket?
Admit the true uncertainties. The mis-treatment of uncertainty in the IPCC reports, and the underestimation of true uncertainty in climate science in general, is a scandal.
Er, sorry for the extra line breaks. I forgot to trim the white space after I copied the text. I really am not used to handling formatting on this blog. Speaking of which, I would have loved to use blockquotes in my comment. Is there a way to do that here?
I stilll don’t get how you describe uncertainty without words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”.
PDA, are you kidding me? Nobody said you should.
Simon,
As I wrote in a comment at my site:
In principle, I would have liked to go if invited, since the concept of reconciliation appeals to me. Meeting people in person almost inevitably leads to some reconciliation (with the odd exception of course).
That is based on the initial premise of the meeting. The way the meeting panned out (hockeystick discussions are not my interest for example) decrease my desire somewhat in retrospect. A different scope (more on the science-policy-society interface and the big picture rather than on contested (at least in the blogopshere) details, and wider representation from the mainstream scientific side (and perhaps also the acitivist side, since the anti-actitvist side was heavily represented) would make it more useful IMHO. I plan to still write up some thoughts about that.
I think it perfectly explicable that I wasn’t invited; I’m not a high profile participant in these debates at all. The organizers have probably never heard of me (though it’s not unlikely that I’ll meet Jeroen vd Sluijs at some point, and he seems someone worth listening to).
Brandon, your quote (#9) from Eschenbach provides an enormous catch 22 in how to communicate complex information to your scientist-peers, to policymakers and to the public. Eschenbach’s words were as clear of an exposition of that catch 22 as I’d seen, so it seemed very quotable to me. A “hit piece”? Com’on.
Brandon, your comment nr 12 is rather surprising. Didn’t you read your own quote from Eschenbach?
“Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”.”
Bart, I’m sure you can see the difference between “without” and “center”. What’s your objection to Brandon and Willis exactly?
(Sorry that I can’t read your piece b/c wordpress is blocked from me.)
Bart Verheggen, I did read it. I read, “Write scientific papers that don’t center around words like….” You apparently read, “Don’t include words like….”
Your interpretation is absurd. You read a simple statement and came up with something related to it only in the most abstract of ways. You’ve given no explanation for your interpretation, so there isn’t much for me to work with, but let me try this.
You and PDA are acting as though Eschenbach is forbidding sentences like, “The lack of spatial coverage might mean the observed trend in some areas originates from natural variation rather than a climatic trend.” Do you actually think this sentence is described by the first paragraph I quoted from Eschenbach?
I don’t know if this whole thing originates from bias, a lack of reading comprehension or something else, but it is insane.
Do you actually think this sentence is described by the first paragraph I quoted from Eschenbach?
What exactly is the semantic difference between your sentence and “This raises the possibility that by 2050, this could lead to the total dissolution of all inter-atomic bonds “¦” There’s not anything in context (source link) that explains how to distinguish acceptable and unacceptable uses of “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might”.
Brandon,
I wrote about the catch 22 of science communication before. Basically, we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t use scientific lingo and emphasize uncertainty. I we emphasize uncertainty, the message becomes blurry and unclear and communicates the message that “we don’t know anything”. If we don’t emphasize uncertainty, because wanting to convey some understanding necessitates leaving out some complexities, we’re accused of “hiding” uncertainty (first and foremost by scientists-colleagues btw. Popularizers of science are almost invariably accused by their peers of dumbing down the message).
Again, I thought Eschenbach’s twin recommendations were a nice illustration of this catch 22. Not more, not less. No need to get so worked up about.
Bart Verheggen, your response in no way addresses what I said. I don’t care to discuss what other things you’ve posted. You made a serious accusation against Willis Eschenbach, and it was completely baseless. I clearly pointed out the issue, and your response now is to ramble on about irrelevant things then repeat your baseless accusation without ever addressing what I said.
I do not have the words to describe how ridiculous your behavior is. I cannot fathom how there could be such a disconnect in your brain as to cause you to say the things you say. As such, I think I need to take my leave before I say something so rude as to step over the line of what the blog host wants here.
Fortunately, I think you have been quite effective at demonstrating the point I was trying to make.
Brandon, you are way out of line with that last comment. You should have taken your leave before writing it.
That kind of personalizing and flaming will land you on moderation if you can’t reign it in.
Brandon, I can speak for myself in saying that I’m baffled by the intensity of your response. I am genuinely, honestly confused by what Willis is trying to say here, and find it – at worst – wryly amusing, for the reasons Bart points out.
I’m not sure what the “serious accusation” is that you think Bart’s leveling at Willis. Obviously, if you find this discussion to be enraging, you’re wise to withdraw, and I respect that. I just think you may be misinterpreting what Bart is saying here.
The “serious accusation” perhaps is that an amateur contrarian (Eschenbach) contradicted himself. That could never happen! Hit piece!
@ Bart
If the uncertainty makes the message too blurry then perhaps there is no message to send?
Sashka,
There’s many different aspects to that.
Even though there is substantial uncertainty, there are still things known with a certain probability and confidence level. If there are relevant/interesting for others, they presumably should be communicated, even though there is uncertainty.
How to comunicate such things gets you in a delicate balance (as e.g. Steve Schneider famously noted), which is what I referred to as the catch 22.
One possibility is to leave out the blurry and highly uncertain and speculative and conflicting parts when communicating to others than your professional peers, and keep the message focussed on those things that are fairly well understood. In communicating to the wider public I think that makes most sense, though of course there are cases where uncertain issues are also very important to convey. E.g. where the inherent uncertainties relate to risk, as is e.g. the case for most health issues and also for the climate issue. This makes it extra complicated.
Brandon,
If and when there’s less venom coming from your fingers and you articulate what accusation of Eschenbach I have made that you would like me to address, I will consider doing so. Thanks!
PDA, I suspect nothing I could say would possibly matter. However, I might be wrong, so if you want to understand the issue, I suggest you focus on the prescriptive portion of Willis Eschenbach’s paragraph rather than the descriptive portion. Examples can often fit multiple things.
Eschenbach said not to write papers which center around words like “might.” A paper doesn’t have to center around a word to include the word. As such, it is perfectly possible to admit the true uncertainties without having the paper center around words like “might.” Despite this, Bart Verheggen said:
“Hmm”¦ that might be tricky. Due to the impossibility of complying with both requests though, it’s a good recipe for presuming someone guilty until proven guilty.”
The accusation leveled against Eschenbach is that he created a “catch-22” in his letter. Accusing someone of creating a false dilemma is a serious accusation. I hope that clarifies things for you.
Where the inherent uncertainties relate to risk, the science has nothing to say today. In “communicating” to the general public on such subjects you are overstepping the limits of your qualification. This is exactly what I meant when I suggested that you have no message.
After some thought, I decided it is important to acknowledge my comment above (19) was out of line. I question calling it “way out of line,” but the second sentence of my second paragraph undoubtedly contained a personal attack which I shouldn’t have made. I don’t normally make comments like that, but I’m afraid the absurdity of the situation left me flabbergasted. I didn’t know how to react, and in my confusion I “lashed out.” With that said, it was one sentence (the last sentence could seem to be snarky, but it wasn’t meant as such). The rest of my post was appropriately limited to the topic being discussed.
Ultimately, this entire issue stems from Bart Verherggen conflating the concepts of “center around” and “contain.” He took a simple sentence and came up with an interpretation which had absolutely no basis in what the sentence said. It’s akin to someone staring at a stop sign and saying, “It’s blue.”
When he responded to my protests, he did so by repeating his accusation (without providing an explanation). He then repeated himself again and said, “Didn’t you read your own quote?” In response, I provided a clear explanation of what was wrong with Verheggen’s interpretation. How did he respond? By writing about 100 words which were completely irrelevant to anything I said, repeating his accusation, and ignoring everything I said.
So pardon me for stepping out of line. I don’t like making comments like the one I did, but I don’t know of a good way to react when confronted with someone telling me a simple sentence “clearly” means something it doesn’t say while simultaneously ignoring everything I say.
I stand by what I said, but I acknowledge it was not acceptable on this blog. I will strive to refrain from making comments like that again.
Did Eschenbach give any examples of papers that “center” on “might” etc?
Deep Climate, he didn’t provide any examples in the essay, and as far as I know, he hasn’t provided them elsewhere. It would be interesting to know what he had in mind when he wrote that paragraph.
Sashka,
Is medical science out of line when they communicate a health risk to the public? I think not, and don’t see why it would be different for climate science. When part of the risk is based on the physics of a situation, it makes perfect sense to have the knowledge base for that physics communicated.
Brandon,
Thanks for your explanation and your apology. I think the disagreement/misunderstanding comes from our respective interpretations of “center around”. Funny how a few words can cause so much animosity (see also the Steig/O’Donnel issues and numerous ones before that; the whole “climategate” story).
As DC’s comment aludes to, it’s a rather vague description as to when a paper can be said to “center on” those words. I could argue that most interpretations in papers are to a more or lesser extent of the “might” variety. I have no clue if you or Eschenbach would qualify it as “centering on”, but at that point the discussion is mainly about semantics. I try to get at the gist of what someone is trying to communicate, and leave semantics issues to others.
I did not mean to imply at all that Eschenback purposefully set up a false dilemma, even though the consequence is such a double bind/catch 22 as I have described. They are close to impossible expectations, at least in my interpretation.
Bart Verheggen, I’m not sure why you would thank me for my apology. I didn’t apologize to you, and I didn’t retract what I said. In fact, I stand by everything I said.
Your “interpretation” is an interpretation only in the sense you are assigning meaning to words. In any other sense, it is just a misrepresentation. The criticism you raised is completely without merit. With that said, I don’t expect anything I say to matter, so I’ll leave you with one final thought.
By your “interpretation,” every paper ever written must either fail to admit (true) uncertainties or center around words like “might.” Every paper you have ever written or read must do one of these two things.
Or your interpretation is without merit.
Brandon (27): “I decided it is important to acknowledge my comment above (19) was out of line.”
Brandon (31): “I stand by everything I said.”
I’m done with you.
Brandon, you’re being ill-tempered and unnecessarily combative. Very unbecoming.
Eschenbach said not to write papers which center around words like “might.” …he didn’t provide any examples in the essay, and as far as I know, he hasn’t provided them elsewhere. It would be interesting to know what he had in mind when he wrote that paragraph.
There’s still a piece I’m not getting. We’re all agreed that Eschenbach’s prescription was vague. No one seems to know what “center around” might mean. And yet Brandon is getting really – rather uncharacteristically for him IMO – upset about Bart’s interpretation of an what we all seem to acknowledge is an ambiguous statement.
Bart’s interpretation seems to me to be that it could possible for a person to use such a vague prescription to impugn any paper. I’m not getting that he thought Willis intentionally structured it such that it would be a catch-22; rather that it’s hard to avoid either under- or over-emphasizing uncertainty, especially for a lay audience.
I’m certainly not trying to rile Brandon any more. At this point I’m just really curious what the disconnect is.
Keith Kloor, the only time I have been ill-tempered is in the one post which I already acknowledged was out of line. I don’t know what gave you the impression I am still being ill-tempered, but I can assure you I am not. I worded my last post as simply as I could. Did being matter-of-fact give you that impression, or was it something else?
As for being “unnecessarily combative,” I don’t want to fight. In fact, my last comment was intended to be my last on this subject. I felt obliged to make the comments I made because I don’t like seeing people unfairly criticized. That’s all.
Incidentally, Verheggen just set up another false dilemma. My two comments are not contradictory. This is the sort of behavior which causes me to keep commenting.
PDA, you say:
We’re all agreed that Eschenbach’s prescription was vague.
What are you talking about? This has never been agreed upon, and I certainly don’t agree as you claim I do. All I ever said which is remotely close to this is Willis Eschenbach didn’t provide any examples of papers which do what he said shouldn’t be done. That I don’t know what papers he had in mind when he said something in no way means I think he was unclear about what he said.
Okay. I withdraw my assumption, then; Bart and DC and myself don’t get what it would mean for a paper to center around words like “possibly” or “conceivably” or “might.”
If it’s clear, and we’re all missing something right in front of our faces, perhaps you could explain it.
PDA, did Deep Climate indicate confusion somewhere else? He didn’t on this page, but I don’t know what he has said elsewhere. If he hasn’t done so elsewhere, your assumption about him is as inaccurate as the one with me.
I had meant to stop discussing this, but since you asked, I guess I can provide an explanation (I am baffled at the need to explain the meaning of a simple phrase).
“Center around” means “to make the focus of.” If a paper centers around words like “might,” it makes words like “might” the focus of the paper. Admitting uncertainties doesn’t require making words like “might” the focus of a paper.
Is that clear enough?
I’m sorry if I left you with the impression that I was unclear on the meaning of the term “center around.” I’m not. So merely swapping in different words for that phrase doesn’t help clarify anything.
My question is more: what raises words like “might” to the level where they become the “focus” of a paper? I did a Google Scholar search for “might+climate.” Do any of these qualify? If so, why?
Brandon, your point is well made and there is actually no confusion. I recommend you just ignore and not waste your time further.
Simon Hopkinson, I think I am going to have to do just that. I really don’t know how anyone could come up with the idea Bart Verheggen came up with.
As a matter of curiosity, I showed the two supposedly contradictory questions to a few people today. I didn’t say anything other than, “Read these.” Nobody found them contradictory, not even when I followed up by telling them Verheggen’s “interpretation.” In fact, each one said his “interpretation” made no sense. Call it petty if you want, but this has convinced me of what I already believed.
So I’m afraid anyone who is still confused or curious will have to look to someone else for help. I feel like I’ve pounded my head on a wall over and over with this issue for no purpose. People can say those stop signs are blue, and there is nothing I can do about it. Come to think of it, I believe I discussed just that some time back on this blog.
P.S. In my comment at 38, I said PDA’s assumption was “inaccurate.” I should have said “inappropriate.” I obviously have no way of knowing whether or not the assumption was correct.
My life for an edit feature. The first sentence in my second paragraph should read, “As a matter of curiosity, I showed the two supposedly contradictory sentences to a few people today.”
PDA (34) gives a good rundown of the discussion imo, and paraphrases my opinion correctly.
Well, I’m bewildered too, Brandon. I feel like you’ve been asked over and over again to provide some example, some scenario, anything other than just rephrasing what Willis wrote over and over and over again, and you’ve either said “I don’t know,” flat ignored the question, or repeated for the umpteenth time how thick we’re all being. It’s like one side is speaking English and the other is speaking Urdu. Clearly you feel the same way.
We’re obviously going around in circles, so I’ll give you the last word if you want it, or let this thread die a natural death. My opinion, though, is that this is a perfect example of the climate “debate:” interlocutors completely speaking past each other, with attendant frustration and ill-feeling. Wish I knew of a way around it.
@ Bart,
I find the parallel between medicine and climate too loose to be useful. Drug manufacturers warn of risks b/c they had clinical studies. They have some idea of risks because they have actual observations. For them, risk is a definable observable and measurable quantity. For climate it is none of the above.
44 PDA, I’d be much more inclined to respond to your queries if you didn’t keep misrepresenting things. You are making it a huge chore to respond to you. For example, you claimed I agreed to something despite there being absolutely no indication I did so. In your response, you then said Deep Climate held a particular view even though he never indicated such.
And now your latest post takes has misrepresentations in spades. For example, you now claim Deep Climate asked me to provide an example, scenario, or whatever (via your second link). He did no such thing. You also provide a link to my response to Deep Climate, claiming it says something unrelated to what it actually says. How can I discuss what things mean when you do this?
There is plenty more I could say about your comment, but it comes down to a simple issue. You keep making things up. I don’t mind confusion and questions, but when someone repeatedly says things which are obviously untrue, I don’t have a good response. Or at least, not one which I should post here.
Brandon, attacking my character after I indicated I was giving you the last word is definitely not cool.
Fine, Deep Climate asked you if Eschenbach gave any examples rather than asking you for examples, and my statement that DC found the prescription vague was my own interpretation; his comment did not explicitly say that. I’ll gladly withdraw any reference to comment 28, which has nothing at all to do withany my questions, and happily stipulate that it was a grave error on my part to have mentioned that comment in passing and linked it once in a later comment.
How about taking a stab at the substance of my questions?
PDA, my intention wasn’t to attack your character. I was merely pointing out systematic failings in your comments. This was particularly relevant because those failings pertained to the type of issue being discussed. I don’t know if that qualifies as attacking your character, but if it does, it’s an unfortunate necessity.
In any event, I’m not sure what the substance of your questions is supposed to be. Bart Verheggen claimed Willis Eschenbach’s words had a certain meaning. No evidence or explanation was provided. I stated his claimed meaning was incorrect. You seem to be questioning what Eschenbach actually meant, but that doesn’t offer support for Verheggen’s interpretation. You don’t necessarily need to know the meaning of something to know it doesn’t mean one particular thing. This is basically an issue of burden of proof. Those making accusations are obliged to support their accusations. I don’t have to provide an alternative to criticize what has been offered.
So what is the substance of your questions? If you are saying you don’t know what Eschenbach meant, therefore it is justified to go with Verheggen’s proposed meaning, that is a logical fallacy. If you are just asking after his meaning disjoint from the conflict I’ve discussed, it’s irrelevant to the issue. I guess we could discuss it as a matter of curiosity, but is that actually all you intended?
PDA, Brandon didn’t attack your character at all. Your complaint that he did is another example of the pattern of behaviour that he correctly points to. This is not attacking your character, it’s pointing out what you do. We are left to draw our own conclusions about your character, completely independently and without Brandon’s influence.
I guess I won’t get to find out what “substance” PDA was talking about. With this post off the front page, I won’t be following it anymore.
But by the way, thanks for pointing out I wasn’t attacking his character Simon Hopkinson. I didn’t understand his complaint, but I didn’t want to have to worry about the semantics of it.