Climategate thread

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

We "know" that scientists conspired to have people who disagreed with them ousted from editorial positions in some peer-reviewed journals.  We know that the data was manipulated (as is almost all published scientific data) but also that at least one of the scientists who published such work threatened to stop seeking publication if he had to provide the raw data from which he derived the manipulated (aka useful) data.

Again, what this shows is that scientists are human... human enough to try to stop the publication of inconvenient truths.  This should not be news.  I don't think that it can account for the degree to which climate scientists have concurred with the idea of human-based climate change, though.  After all, if this was a conspiracy, it was secret, right?  Secrets don't create wide-spread consensus.

Had a nice reply going, then I accidentally closed the tab...

I agree with this assessment, and have seen it first-hand in other areas.  Sometimes the impact is negligible, sometimes it upsets key components of a body of knowledge.  I've never, however, seen anything amounting to a paradigm shift as a result of new, conflicting data.  Rejecting the idea that humans can change the climate would amount to a paradigm shift.

That said, the high level of politicization this issue has undergone does appear to have created a climate (no pun intended) of widespread confirmation bias.  The effects of that could be very damaging, since policies that have significant socioeconomic impacts are being proposed or enacted based on specific theories of how we impact the climate.  If those theories are incomplete, inadequate, or flat wrong we could be incurring significant costs for useless or counterproductive actions.

One thing I find especially disturbing about this topic is the scientists involved attempt to portray themselves as being above such biases.  This has resulted in increased polarization and the tendency to dismiss critics of specific theories as biased, unscientific hacks.  That there are biased, unscientific hacks amongst the critics just makes it worse.  There are plenty of biased, unscientific hacks all across the spectrum on this issue, but since it gets divided into a nice, clean "pro vs. con" position the "pro" hacks hide behind the mantle of science, in turn doing a disservice to this issue in particular and science in general.

[Sheilbh]

I sort of agree with grumbler's view on the whole 'climategate' thing (when will we stop using -gate to indicate scandal?) except for two points. 

One is that they also tried to suppress data from a freedom of information request which is shameful and should be illegal.  The second is that many of these e-mails came from Dr. Jones the head of the CRU.  He should be more responsible because if the head of a research unit (or a company or anything else) behaves in a way that shows contempt for opponents and for the the process and the spirit of the university (company, whatever else) then that percolates down.

I think he was entirely right to resign.  However does this show there's a conspiracy?  Not by a long stretch.  Maybe there's a conspiracy in Norwich but that's all.

[Sheilbh]

Here's a very dry op-ed piece, but I thought it was pertinent to the thread.  It was in today's WSJ but also appears here: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11072

So based on leaked emails from one university, we know "climate change" is a decades long consipiracy based on manipulated data?

Not quite.  Michaels agrees with the basic science behind climate change.  He accepts greenhouse gases (a theory which has been around for a few centuries) and that temperature is rising.  However he doesn't think it'll necessarily be disastrous.  It could, in his opinion, be minor and sometimes beneficial.

[The Brain]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buXJlBd3Mf8

[Neil]

This isn't to say that there isn't a general scientific consensus that man-made pollution is causing climate change, nor that the opponents of this consensus do not have, at this point, the burden of proof, but the "science" on global climate change is more like the science on gravity than it is like that on evolution.

I'd say gravitation is quite a bit stronger.  Unlike applied climatology, gravity has been studied extensively and at great expense for years.

[Neil]

He accepts greenhouse gases (a theory which has been around for a few centuries)

Fourier wasn't even born 300 years ago.

Actually, I can't think of anyone credible who doesn't accept the concept of greenhouse gases.

[Fate]

There is more consensus on applied climatology than there is on quantum gravity.

Let's see what Sarah Palin has to say on her twatter account in reponse to Obama's Copenhagen remarks:

Arrogant&Naive2say man overpwers nature, Earth saw clmate chnge4 ions;will cont 2 c chnges.R duty2responsbly devlop resorces4humankind/not pollute&destroy;but cant alter naturl chng"

Just think of much better off we'd be with Republicans in control of the executive branch.

[Neil]

There is more consensus on applied climatology than there is on quantum gravity.

Irrelevant.  We have a much deeper understanding of gravity than we do climatology.

[Fate]

There is more consensus on applied climatology than there is on quantum gravity.

Irrelevant.  We have a much deeper understanding of gravity than we do climatology.

Let me know when you can prove the existence of a graviton. 

[Neil]

There is more consensus on applied climatology than there is on quantum gravity.

Irrelevant.  We have a much deeper understanding of gravity than we do climatology.

Let me know when you can prove the existence of a graviton. 

Why would I want to?

[grumbler]

Irrelevant.  We have a much deeper understanding of gravity than we do climatology.

Actually, no.  We don't have a single practical (i.e. applies in the universe that exists) gravity theory of which I am aware.  Laws, yes.  Theories, no.

Ditto for climate.  Lots of observations and "laws" but no real theories.

We don't even know what gravity is; just that it exists.

[Berkut]

We don't even know what gravity is; just that it exists.

Doesn't Einsteins theory of gravity explain what gravity is - the curvature of space around massive bodies?

I don't pretend to understand it, but I thought there was a theory that explains it at least for people who can understand it...

[grumbler]

Doesn't Einsteins theory of gravity explain what gravity is - the curvature of space around massive bodies?

I don't pretend to understand it, but I thought there was a theory that explains it at least for people who can understand it...

Relativity says gravity isn't caused by mass, but by some function that combines mass, momentum, and a bunch of other stuff.  A lot of that is applicable only near light-speeds (which exist in the real universe, unlike my inaccurate generalization above, but are difficult to see/measure/comprehend).  As Einstein himself noted, though, the theory he was proposing was incomplete, and no one has satisfactorily completed it, insofar as I know.  Not for lack of trying...

[Sheilbh]

We don't even know what gravity is; just that it exists.

Doesn't Einsteins theory of gravity explain what gravity is - the curvature of space around massive bodies?

I don't pretend to understand it, but I thought there was a theory that explains it at least for people who can understand it...

Since quantum mechanics has been begun to be understand we've realised there's a problem with Einstein's theory of relativity which is that it just doesn't work at the level of atoms and so on. 

Since then the holy grail (stay away Tim ) of physics has been a theory that reconciles both the observations and expectations of quantum mechanics (which is, so far as we are able to observe, correct) and the theory of relativity (which is, so far as we're able to observe, correct).  They're both right in their own way but on a fundamental point they both can't work.  It's really quite interesting

[Berkut]

Doesn't Einsteins theory of gravity explain what gravity is - the curvature of space around massive bodies?

I don't pretend to understand it, but I thought there was a theory that explains it at least for people who can understand it...

Relativity says gravity isn't caused by mass, but by some function that combines mass, momentum, and a bunch of other stuff.  A lot of that is applicable only near light-speeds (which exist in the real universe, unlike my inaccurate generalization above, but are difficult to see/measure/comprehend).  As Einstein himself noted, though, the theory he was proposing was incomplete, and no one has satisfactorily completed it, insofar as I know.  Not for lack of trying...

Well, the general theory of relativity I think can fairly be described as a theory of gravity. It does explain why gravity exists, and does so better than pretty much any other existing theory, such as classical Newtonian mechanics. It describes gravity as being the consequence of the curvature of space around massive objects. It isn't really in conflict siwht special relativity, I don't think - the kicker is that there has yet to be a general theory that unifys general relativity with quantum mechanics.

But I don't think that it is accurate to say we don't have a theory about what gravity is - we certainly do, and it seems to be pretty good. It may not be complete, but then, very few theories (even generally accepted ones, like ToE) are complete.