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A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

andrewgelman.com

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Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#91

Post by nonbel »

throwaway729 wrote: post #86
nonbel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"This figure shows projected greenhouse gas concentrations for four different emissions pathways." https://www.epa.gov/climate-change-science/future-climate-ch... The biggest greenhouse gas by far is water vapor, not CO2. So it makes no sense to call a plot of CO2 a plot of "greenhouse gas concentrations". This type of "information" is low quality and will only make people not trust them.

You're being pedantic, and worse than that, you're wrong. It's not a plot of C02. A full description of the methodology and what exactly is being plotted is available in papers linked to here: http://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at:8787/RcpDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&pag...

Ah, I see now it is a plot of CO2 equivalents... that ignores water vapor while the others (BC, OC, CH4, Sulfur, NOx, VOC, CO and NH3) are rather negligible (which is why the ppm values are close to those for CO2 alone).

Anyway you can deny what I am telling you, but it is usual for people to go to supposed authoritative site like that, then check wikipedia and see H20 is the biggest greenhouse gas.[1] As a result they just shrug and figure no one knows what they are talking about, since they can't get the story straight.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#92

Post by nonbel »

tyingq wrote: post #63
nonbel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be certain. A lot of researchers really are clueless about anything to do with statistics. It takes much more work/time to do real research, so the funding system has actually been selecting for people who can remain ignorant (so it is not fraud) and just produce p-hacked "results". In many areas, this has been going on for multiple generations now and you are trained to do it as a grad student.

It's worse than just not knowing statistics. These errors were in a table in one of the published papers. Every single row is calculated wrong. > (43.67 - 44.55)/sqrt(18.5^2/43 + 14.3^2/52) should be 0.2551872, rounds to 0.26, he put 0.25 > (68.65 - 66.51)/sqrt(3.67^2/43 + 9.44^2/52) should be 1.503114, rounds to 1.5, he put 1.38 > (184.83 - 178.38)/sqrt(63.7^2/43 + 45.71^2/52) should be 0.556064, rounds to 0.56, he…

There are variants on the t-statistic calculation. I assume these were all checked? Either way this should be mentioned in the methods of the paper, along with the software used... I wonder if they used excel, in that case who knows what may have happened. I've seen excel change numbers/names to dates, and all sorts of wackiness.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#93

Post by throwaway729 »

nonbel wrote: post #91
throwaway729 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being pedantic, and worse than that, you're wrong. It's not a plot of C02. A full description of the methodology and what exactly is being plotted is available in papers linked to here: http://tntcat.iiasa.ac.at:8787/RcpDb/dsd?Action=htmlpage&pag...

Ah, I see now it is a plot of CO2 equivalents... that ignores water vapor while the others (BC, OC, CH4, Sulfur, NOx, VOC, CO and NH3) are rather negligible (which is why the ppm values are close to those for CO2 alone). Anyway you can deny what I am telling you, but it is usual for people to go to supposed authoritative site like that, then check wikipedia and see H20 is the biggest greenhouse gas.[1] As a result th…

> Ah, I see now it is a plot of CO2 equivalents... that ignores water vapor while the others (BC, OC, CH4, Sulfur, NOx, VOC, CO and NH3) are rather negligible (which is why the ppm values are close to those for CO2 alone).

Unless you're planning on boiling an ocean or great lake some time soon, humanity isn't directly effecting the amount of H20 in the atmosphere at appreciable levels as a first order effect. It's not a parameter under variation.

C02 equivalents are a parameter under significant variation, and as a first-order effect of human action.

We are interested in the dynamics of the system as we vary a parameter that we can, and are, directly manipulating.

Larger atmospheric, oceanic and whole system models then incorporate H20 and other effects in a simulation as the parameter we actually control is varied.

If this were explained on the page, you'd complain it was too technical.

> Anyway you can deny what I am telling you, but it is usual for people to go to supposed authoritative site like that, then check wikipedia and see H20 is the biggest greenhouse gas.[1] As a result they just shrug and figure no one knows what they are talking about, since they can't get the story straight.

Is that really common? I mean, there are actually a large population of people who will read [1] but don't bother to click on the link right under the graphic and see how the graphed data is used in climate predictions?

I'm highly suspicious that there's actually a significant population of people who are open to being convinced but make such a sophomoric mistake in their reasoning.

Someone can always find reasons to be uncharitable and dismissive if that's their predisposition. People with that predisposition and willingness and disregard evidence for even the most superficial of complaints aren't going to be convinced anyways.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#94

Post by ajkjk »

nashashmi wrote: post #58
ajkjk wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just statistically likely.

But then he is called a conservative.

No, that's not true. One's beliefs about climate change are not their politics; they just tend to correlate highly with politics.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#95

Post by nonbel »

throwaway729 wrote: post #93
nonbel wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I see now it is a plot of CO2 equivalents... that ignores water vapor while the others (BC, OC, CH4, Sulfur, NOx, VOC, CO and NH3) are rather negligible (which is why the ppm values are close to those for CO2 alone). Anyway you can deny what I am telling you, but it is usual for people to go to supposed authoritative site like that, then check wikipedia and see H20 is the biggest greenhouse gas.[1] As a result th…

> Ah, I see now it is a plot of CO2 equivalents... that ignores water vapor while the others (BC, OC, CH4, Sulfur, NOx, VOC, CO and NH3) are rather negligible (which is why the ppm values are close to those for CO2 alone). Unless you're planning on boiling an ocean or great lake some time soon, humanity isn't directly effecting the amount of H20 in the atmosphere at appreciable levels as a first order effect. It's no…

The reasoning is simple. A warming is said to be due to the "greenhouse effect", the major portion of which is due to "water vapor in atmosphere". If you show me a chart of "greenhouse gas concentration" and leave out water vapor, something is not making sense.

I don't know whats going on with that chart, whatever. I am just telling you the end result of showing it to me, and doubt I am alone.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#96

Post by Nomentatus »

MR4D wrote: post #17

It's weird. If conservatives don't believe scientists, it's because the conservatives are labelled "morons". Could it be that conservatives just think there's a lot more of this crappy "science" out there, and that a situation like this is the canary in the coal mine? When presented with examples like this, it's actually _irrational_ to think that there aren't other egregious papers out there. Possibly just a few, bu…

Unfortunately, the academy and profit-driven-science have given anti-intellectuals and science-rejecting conservatives all too much ammunition over the last several decades. (None of which shows that armchair psuedo-science, or just pulling stuff out of your ass is a better way, of course.)

[very good overview:] "https://reason.com/archives/2016/01/19/broken-science/print

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/a-scient... " "The numbers speak for themselves: evidence based medicine is broken and in crisis. Cites: Ramirez JH. Data (i.e., evidence) about evidence based medicine. figshare. http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1093997 http://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g3725/rr/759895

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#97

Post by throwaway729 »

nonbel wrote: post #95
throwaway729 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah, I see now it is a plot of CO2 equivalents... that ignores water vapor while the others (BC, OC, CH4, Sulfur, NOx, VOC, CO and NH3) are rather negligible (which is why the ppm values are close to those for CO2 alone). Unless you're planning on boiling an ocean or great lake some time soon, humanity isn't directly effecting the amount of H20 in the atmosphere at appreciable levels as a first order effect. It's no…

The reasoning is simple. A warming is said to be due to the "greenhouse effect", the major portion of which is due to "water vapor in atmosphere". If you show me a chart of "greenhouse gas concentration" and leave out water vapor, something is not making sense. I don't know whats going on with that chart, whatever. I am just telling you the end result of showing it to me, and doubt I am alone.

The meaning and purpose of the chart is extremely clear. They're varying C02 and similar gasses, and looking at what happens. Water vapor is held constant as a first order effect and so isn't plotted.

I don't draw straight lines on all my plots relating constants to (in)dependent variables. Even fifth grade science experiments follow this convention in their plots. It's an extremely common practice. Water vapor isn't being varied, so isn't plotted. Again, nearly every fifth grade science fair project follows this convention in their plots. It really does count as basic literacy.

For someone with some basic scientific literacy, the author's intent is obvious and confirmable by reading the literature. OBVIOUSLY the authors are aware of water vapor concentrations, and you can confirm this awareness with a superficial investigation into how this metric is used in models.

Sorry, but I do not believe a non-antagonistic reader would jump to the conclusion that climate scientists are unaware of tyoical atmospheric H20 concentrations. That's so far from the realm of reasonability.

At some point, the readers' good faith must be assumed or the entire expository enterprise is pointless. I think this plot is by far on the correct side of that line.

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#99

Post by nonbel »

throwaway729 wrote: post #97
nonbel wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning is simple. A warming is said to be due to the "greenhouse effect", the major portion of which is due to "water vapor in atmosphere". If you show me a chart of "greenhouse gas concentration" and leave out water vapor, something is not making sense. I don't know whats going on with that chart, whatever. I am just telling you the end result of showing it to me, and doubt I am alone.

The meaning and purpose of the chart is extremely clear. They're varying C02 and similar gasses, and looking at what happens. Water vapor is held constant as a first order effect and so isn't plotted. I don't draw straight lines on all my plots relating constants to (in)dependent variables. Even fifth grade science experiments follow this convention in their plots. It's an extremely common practice. Water vapor isn't…

>"Water vapor isn't being varied"

This is another contradiction to what I've been told: "Satellites have observed an increase in atmospheric water vapour by about 0.41 kg/m² per decade since 1988." https://www.skepticalscience.com/water-vapor-greenhouse-gas-...

Re: A researcher's response to people pointing out 150 errors in four of his papers

#100

Post by mattkrause »

nonbel wrote: post #88
viggity wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it took a little searching, but I found one for an alternative manufacturing process of the measles vaccine. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01536405?term=AMP&ran...

Here is another one, apparently we can get a drop of up to 99.5% just by switching to lab tests from clinical diagnosis: "Indeed, an average of only 100 cases of measles are confirmed annually [32], despite the fact that >20,000 tests are conducted [28], directly suggesting the low predictive value of clinical suspicion alone." http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S185.... I just don't think these a…

That's not a sensible interpretation of that measles data.

Since measles is very contagious, there's a lot of effort putting into identifying and isolating cases. This necessarily involves screening many cases where the disease is only weakly suspected. On top of that, the current protocols cast a really wide drag net. Australia, for example, tests every susceptible patient who shared a waiting room with a measles patient, as well as those who entered less than two hours after the index case left. In a busy hospital or practice, this could be a lot of children.

Thus, the high ratio of tested to confirmed cases doesn't mean doctors are bad at diagnosing measles; they may just be cautious.

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