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Global warming? Check for yourself

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Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#21

Post by gizmo »

fnid2 wrote: post #3
diego_moita wrote: post #2

What's the point of this? All it shows is that someone without scientific training is incapable of drawing conclusions from data out of context; they can't "check for yourself". I tought the only people that don't know this are journalists, bloggers and politicians.

I was thinking about this particular type of ad hominem argument the other day and decided I loathe it. Imagine if people told Plato he couldn't write about philosophy because he didn't go to harvard and get a degree in philosophy. Or tell galileo that he was wrong because he didn't have a degree in astronomy. Valid scientific investigations don't require scientific training. This person, who wrote some code and plot…

I suspect you completely missed the point of the parent.

The "Check for yourself" part is only in the editorialized headline, implying that the READER of the article is capable of drawing his own conclusions. This is obviously dishonest, because you can't draw your own conclusions unless you do the research yourself (like the independent researcher who wrote the article did).

The No Spin Zone (O'Reilly) uses the "We present the facts, YOU DECIDE" mantra. So do most conspiracy theory movies: "We'll just show you MONEY IS DEBT, and AMERICA is due for RUIN. But is this bad? YOU DECIDE!"

And so on.

But for any scientific work this is unacceptable, because the way in which you present the results matter. Pick one scale on a graph and people will assume the problem is huge, pick a logarithmic scale and people will conclude there is no problem. It's the responsibility of the researcher to both present the facts and to explain what they mean.

The you-decide tactic is manipulative, and it doesn't belong in HN titles.

- I should note that I don't have any issue with the article itself. I liked it, and I commend independent research.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#22

Post by jbooth »

jbooth wrote: post #14

High "average maximum temperature" -- what kind of statistic is that? Why should he use that instead of the average temperature? Randomly picking a 1-day outlier from each year is useless. Meanwhile, from the adults who use crazy concepts like "sattelite data" and "arithmetic mean": http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE61O02C20100225 Last month was the hottest january on record. EDIT: Not to take anything awa…

Funny.. a bunch of people upvote what is clearly labelled by its own author as amateur and naive number extracting, then downvote a link to rigorous statistical analysis saying that last month was the hottest on record.

It's not about the methods, it's about the conclusions? If they agree with me, the methods are ok, if they don't, they're a biased scientist conspiracy?

What the hell.. if someone was linking to an amateur analysis saying that log n was more expensive than n^2, would we be getting all of this philosophy about how everyone's perspective is valuable?

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#23

Post by jbooth »

waxman wrote: post #19

This graph actually carries a lot of intellectual weight for 2 reasons: 1) it is an apparently unbiased inquiry, which means a lot. The allegations against leading climate change scientists, whether they are valid or not, highlight an inescapable reality about the world of academic geologists (no matter how "inconvenient" of a truth it is): like many scientists, these people need to raise large amounts of funding for…

The scientific truth of the matter is that last month was the hottest on record: http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE61O02C20100225

There is room for scientific doubt about whether this is caused by CO2 -- it's a greenhouse gas but correlation != causation and all that.

But if you conclude that the earth isn't actually warming, you're doing it wrong -- there's no doubt about that.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#24

Post by SomeCallMeTim »

abstractbill wrote: post #10

Armagh itself is a smallish town in Northern Ireland, less than 1000 miles south of the Arctic Circle although bathed in the warm currents of the Gulf stream. I wonder how stable the Gulf stream is over time.

Very stable, until it isn't: http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/impact/gulf_stream.shtml

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#25

Post by ajross »

waxman wrote: post #19

This graph actually carries a lot of intellectual weight for 2 reasons: 1) it is an apparently unbiased inquiry, which means a lot. The allegations against leading climate change scientists, whether they are valid or not, highlight an inescapable reality about the world of academic geologists (no matter how "inconvenient" of a truth it is): like many scientists, these people need to raise large amounts of funding for…

Item 2 is just wrong. Even something as (comparatively) well understood as an El Niño event causes wilding differing effects from region to region. Every time a scientist goes on TV to explain this stuff, they have to explain this very point: local measurements don't cut it, you have to look at and correlate very complicated global data sets. Apparently you didn't listen becuase of...

Item 1, which seems to me to be a completely unsubstantiated ad hominem. You could use that same argument to reject any science you don't want to hear.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#26

Post by smcq »

waxman wrote: post #19

This graph actually carries a lot of intellectual weight for 2 reasons: 1) it is an apparently unbiased inquiry, which means a lot. The allegations against leading climate change scientists, whether they are valid or not, highlight an inescapable reality about the world of academic geologists (no matter how "inconvenient" of a truth it is): like many scientists, these people need to raise large amounts of funding for…

That particular visualization wouldn't show an average global temperature increase until after the artic was quite dry.

As the author says, a picture is a story. His story is "at an extremely high level we have seasonal temperature fluctuation."

Your entire second point shows a complete misunderstanding of well, everything.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#27

Post by jazzdev »

jbooth wrote: post #22
jbooth wrote: post #14

High "average maximum temperature" -- what kind of statistic is that? Why should he use that instead of the average temperature? Randomly picking a 1-day outlier from each year is useless. Meanwhile, from the adults who use crazy concepts like "sattelite data" and "arithmetic mean": http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE61O02C20100225 Last month was the hottest january on record. EDIT: Not to take anything awa…

Funny.. a bunch of people upvote what is clearly labelled by its own author as amateur and naive number extracting, then downvote a link to rigorous statistical analysis saying that last month was the hottest on record. It's not about the methods, it's about the conclusions? If they agree with me, the methods are ok, if they don't, they're a biased scientist conspiracy? What the hell.. if someone was linking to an am…

I think the voting indicates:

  data, code => cool => upvote

  statement by some organization with no data, no analysis => boring => downvote

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#28

Post by CWuestefeld »

jazzdev wrote: post #27
jbooth wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny.. a bunch of people upvote what is clearly labelled by its own author as amateur and naive number extracting, then downvote a link to rigorous statistical analysis saying that last month was the hottest on record. It's not about the methods, it's about the conclusions? If they agree with me, the methods are ok, if they don't, they're a biased scientist conspiracy? What the hell.. if someone was linking to an am…

I think the voting indicates: data, code => cool => upvote statement by some organization with no data, no analysis => boring => downvote

And given the recent breaches of trust amongst the climatologists, this is exactly what is appropriate.

Building up open and transparent datasets and models that anyone can work with (or lacking the domain expertise and technical skill, at least be comfortable that somebody can watch over the scientists' shoulders) is exactly what's needed.

Another article that trumpets talking points without mentioning all of the caveats is NOT needed. And the fact that it yet again implies a need for action, while entirely ignoring any assessment the costs of those effects, together with a weighing against the costs of remediation, puts the Reuters article squarely into the fearmongering side of the equation, 180 degrees off of rational debate.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#29

Post by tensor »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #28
jazzdev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the voting indicates: data, code => cool => upvote statement by some organization with no data, no analysis => boring => downvote

And given the recent breaches of trust amongst the climatologists, this is exactly what is appropriate. Building up open and transparent datasets and models that anyone can work with (or lacking the domain expertise and technical skill, at least be comfortable that somebody can watch over the scientists' shoulders) is exactly what's needed. Another article that trumpets talking points without mentioning all of the ca…

You imply that by being a scientist, you are untrustworthy, and that being a layperson without expertise makes you trustworthy. This idea seems quite backwards. A lay person can make any sort of corrupt claim without any repercussions. Meanwhile, if a scientist falsifies data and gets caught, their entire career can be lost.

Not to mention that scientists generally have no vested monetary interest in the results, despite what people here seem to think. Grant money can only be used for research, not for personal gain. By going into the sciences, instead of industry, you are willingly taking a massive loss in pay. To claim that these people are corrupt is both an insult and naive. Like any area, there will be a few bad apples.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#30

Post by aphyr »

Maybe you didn't finish the article: he's performing an incorrect analysis on purpose!

"I've made a number of small mistakes and inappropriate design decisions in this post (some deliberate, or at least, some I'm aware of, others are accidental). But, given the published and freely downloadable weather data, the code listed here, and - of course - the excellent free and open source newLISP language, it should be possible for anyone to retrace my steps, find my mistakes, and present a more credible or compelling view of the same dataset."

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