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Global warming? Check for yourself

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Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#41

Post by babar »

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…

1. You assume a (fairly) anonymous, amateur source based on a single data point is more unbiased than someone who has devoted most of their lives to collecting data? I totally agree with the movement to make scientific data more open, but I think you are really underestimating the motivations of most scientists.

2. Extrapolating from a single data set leads to huge biases in interpretation. There are too many uncontrolled variables to say anything meaningful beyond what the temperature in this city has averaged. I think the rate of change that people are worried about in overall temps would probably not even register on this graph clearly.

If you are going to criticize how science is done, you should probably learn more about how it is done.

And some basic statistics.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#43

Post by waxman »

ajross wrote: post #25
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…

You're incorrectly using the term "ad hominem." An ad hominem argument is when you try to invalidate an idea with an irrelevant personal attack. The problematic incentives facing climate change scientists are certainly relevant to their research. I'm not saying we should dismiss their data necessarily, but I am calling into question their motivations. Would we be skeptical of public health research on smoking funded by a tobacco company? I hope so. But just because they would have strong incentives to produce a particular outcome doesn't mean their science is wrong, but it could very well be biased. Same here.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#44

Post by [deleted] »

Tichy wrote: post #32
CWuestefeld wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"And given the recent breaches of trust amongst the climatologists" Or maybe you have fallen for the propaganda of the denialists? Anyway, I think usually the actual scientific papers come with data references (otherwise they are indeed useless), but there is also a place for articles that normal people can understand. Not everybody wants or can code up their own verification program for every scientific article they…

[deleted]

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#45

Post by vixen99 »

Tichy wrote: post #32
CWuestefeld wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"And given the recent breaches of trust amongst the climatologists" Or maybe you have fallen for the propaganda of the denialists? Anyway, I think usually the actual scientific papers come with data references (otherwise they are indeed useless), but there is also a place for articles that normal people can understand. Not everybody wants or can code up their own verification program for every scientific article they…

Denialist? You sound like a member of the Spanish Inquisition. Are we talking science (where constant questioning is [or is that just silly me?] was always supposed to be intrinsic to the investigative process) or religion? The latter, it seems, as far as you're concerned.

Has it dawned on you that use of the word is a kind of own goal? "Hey folks, we believe in the true religion and must rout those non-believers!"

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#46

Post by Maro »

This type of analysis and visualization is best done in Mathematica, which incidentally also supports both functional (a la Lisp) and declarative (a la Prolog) programming. It costs money, but it's the right tool for the job.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#47

Post by eru »

oz wrote: post #38
diego_moita wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN is an open prairie where conspiracy theories roam wild, free and careless. People here don't respect science and think they're smarter than they really are.

Honestly, I wasn't thinking about the 'truth' of the claims, I'm FAR from qualified to judge. But rather his approach is something that would be interesting to hackers. Was I wrong?

No, but it seems your comment added nothing to the discussion. (And it was short enough to be misunderstood.)

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#48

Post by Step »

itistoday wrote: post #37
Step wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little disappointed so many commenters seemed to miss that. I thought that paragraph was the entire lesson, with the preceding material there so this point would sink in. Since I'm interested in information design (especially right now) I was quite disappointed with the graph he ultimately produced. I'm hoping someone with a bit more time than me takes up his challenge and goes back to correct some of his mistakes (i…

I cheated and just asked him. :-D If you're interested, his response is here: http://newlispfanclub.alh.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=...

Ha! Well, that explains things rather neatly then. If he was really building only up to that final paragraph, it would have been shaped differently. Instead it seems that was just one conclusion he drew out of a project started for different reasons. Thanks for sharing this.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#49

Post by oz »

eru wrote: post #47
oz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I wasn't thinking about the 'truth' of the claims, I'm FAR from qualified to judge. But rather his approach is something that would be interesting to hackers. Was I wrong?

No, but it seems your comment added nothing to the discussion. (And it was short enough to be misunderstood.)

Touche. Mea Culpa.

Re: Global warming? Check for yourself

#50

Post by Tichy »

vixen99 wrote: post #45
Tichy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And given the recent breaches of trust amongst the climatologists" Or maybe you have fallen for the propaganda of the denialists? Anyway, I think usually the actual scientific papers come with data references (otherwise they are indeed useless), but there is also a place for articles that normal people can understand. Not everybody wants or can code up their own verification program for every scientific article they…

Denialist? You sound like a member of the Spanish Inquisition. Are we talking science (where constant questioning is [or is that just silly me?] was always supposed to be intrinsic to the investigative process) or religion? The latter, it seems, as far as you're concerned. Has it dawned on you that use of the word is a kind of own goal? "Hey folks, we believe in the true religion and must rout those non-believers!"

Well I was responding to "breaches of trust", which seems like propaganda given that all that can be pointed to is some minor errors that are bound to happen in a large scale undertaking. I don't think calling those "breaches of trust" is very scientific. Maybe the one about the Himalya glaciers could be called like that, but I don't think it was the actual scientists being sloppy in that case.

I was only using the word "denialist" to shorten the sentence - what would have been an appropriate word, then?

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