Svensmark and those “objective” scientists: when research and politics interface, watch out
The hallmark of scientific research is objectivity. Its goal is the attainment of truth about the universe in which we live, knowing of course that we can only learn by bits and pieces, and that total truth is probably not attainable. But truth is what scientists strive for, and the entire scientific method is designed to ensure that personal biases are eliminated as much as humanly possible.
As much as humanly possible—ay, there’s the rub. Because, humans being what they are, there are many roadblocks in the way of getting to objective truth. Even in science, politics and special interest groups often intervene.
Some topics are more charged than others, and the explanation for the cause of global warming has attained a rarified status near the pinnacle of the politically vital pantheon (women in science is another such issue, as the ever-unpopular Larry Summers discovered a while back, much to his sorrow).
The July 2007 issue of Discover magazine features an interview with Henrik Svensmark, the Danish scientist whose theory emphasizing the role of the sun in global warming has received some press lately.
I’m not going to debate the science of his findings, but suffice to say they’re stirred up controversy and even anger, as you might imagine. Svensmark’s description of the atmosphere in which his work has been received is chilling. For example, in 1996, when he first announced his findings, the chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel called his his work “extremely naive and irresponsible” (words that might be better applied to the chairman’s own pronouncement, I’m afraid). Svensmark, who was originally trained as a physicist, says [my emphasis]:
I was just stunned. I remember being shocked by how many thought what I was doing was terrible. I couldn’t understand it because when you are a physicist, you are trained that when you find something that cannot be explained, something that doesn’t fit, that is what you are excited about. If there is a possibility that you might have an explanation, that is something that everybody thinks is what you should pursue. Here was exactly the opposite reaction. It was as though people were saying to me, “This is something that you should not have done.” That was very strange for me, and it has been more or less like that ever since.
This idea that certain research should not be done because its results conflict with the party line might be understandable, I suppose, in laypeople. But in scientists it is antithetical to everything they are supposed to represent.
Of course, Svensmark’s attackers accuse him of being the political one (Projection, anyone?). He’s been accused of working for oil companies (he doesn’t; he’s had trouble getting funding, but most of his comes from a beer company). But he’s decided the best response is to continue to do good science and let history and the emergence of further facts vindicate him—or not.
That’s what always happens in science, anyway, as Galileo would know if his spirit is anywhere looking on. But in the meantime, much damage can be caused, both to people and to the truth.
Svensmark is pretty environmentally conscious himself. He uses compact fluorescent lightbulbs, thinks energy conservation is a good thing, and is not averse to the idea that manmade emissions play a possible role in global warming. He believes, however, that his research indicates strongly that their role is much smaller than that of the sun.
This angers people who have a quasi-religious belief in the fact that global warming is mostly the result of human endeavor, specifically the burning of fossil fuels, especially by highly industrialized Western countries such as the US. This fits into the favorite scenario of many on the Left, as well as Luddites and Rousseauvians everywhere, who would like to either blame the West for everything bad in life (the Left) or blame industrialization and modernity for the same (Luddites and Rousseauvians, some of whom are on the Left as well).
There are practical and psychological ramifications to the answers to the question of what causes global warming. After all, as Svensmark points out, we can’t control the sun, and so if that’s the main cause of the phenomenon, it’s one we are powerless to affect. On the other hand, it might mean global warming will go more slowly and be less destructive than otherwise predicted.
Whatever the ultimate answers, Svensmark will go on doing his research—at least, as long as Carlsberg beer keeps making profits. What motivates him? The thing that should motivate all scientists: truth—and even, to a lesser extent, beauty:
It is something which started as a simple idea and seems to be continually extending, or expanding. That has really been the most important thing. I mean, for instance, I would never have thought that we would find these correlations between the cosmic rays and the evolution of the Milky Way and life on Earth. I never expected that all of these things are connected in a beautiful way.
space.comI don’t know; I had considered the shrinking Martian ice caps (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/mars_snow_011206-2.html)
to be a side-effect of fossil-fuel consumption by dimunitive veridian anthropomorphs.
What I have always found interesting about the Gore eco-camp is the sheer hide-bound mindset of the group: that the temperature of the 1950’s is the ideal temperature for planet Earth, and that humanity would be so incapable of adapting to a change in climate that any and all effort must be expended in order to avoid it, regardless of consequence.
One might draw analogies from your recent pieces on the Left’s view of Iraq.
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Firstly, let me say that I hope that what you mean by ‘objectivity’ is that scientific endeavours are always subservient to observable fact, and correct methodology in obtaining that fact, and interpretations that address fact, the entire body of fact and nothing but fact.
That said, it looks as though you haven’t done enough research into the matter, NNC. The data underneath the 1991 Friis-Christensen-Svensmark hypothesis were proven to be erroneous multiple times by a variety of different peer-reviewed sources. In the formation of this hypothesis they were using satellite data which didn’t accurately reflect the cloud cover. Another report, published by the AGU journal Eos 13 years after the Friis-Christensen-Svensmark study, showed that not only was there no positive correlation between the length of sunspot activity and temperature change, but actually a slight negative correlation.
Intellectual honesty would seem to demand that Friis-Christensen and Svensmark go back, re-evaluate their methodology and conduct the experiment again. Unfortunately, it was Svensmark who tried to play politics with his findings, refusing to revisit his experiment and simply reiterate a hypothesis (in popular literature) founded on bad data. If this is not a demonstration of naivety and irresponsibility (on a strictly intellectual scale, not a political one), I don’t know what is.
You say you’re not going to debate the science? How can you refuse to debate the science when dealing with something that is, firstly and foremostly, a scientific issue? Let’s get the facts straight first, and afterwards ask what this means in terms of policy.
It would be poisoning the well (as well as falsehood) to say that Svensmark is on the payroll of oil companies, but I have not seen that particular fallacy appear in any of the criticisms I have seen of Svensmark’s work. In fact, most of these criticisms have not been ad hominems directed at Svensmark himself, but at his shoddy experimental design.
I thought your mention of Galileo was apt. It often occurs to me that most people today, if asked, would claim that had they been alive at the time of Galileo, they would of course have sided with him, because they’re so open minded and so willing to evaluate the evidence. But I’m pretty conviced that most of them would not have. People underestimate how hard it is to go against the grain intellectually. It’s not just that it’s easier to go with the crowd, it’s that even if you are trying to be “open minded,” you often don’t realize how many assumptions you have internalized to the point where you aren’t even aware of them, or of the fact that they might be wrong.
On a completely unrelated note, I was unaware of the word “Rousseauvians.” I wonder if there is an organization of Rousseauvians from Glasgow and Manchester. You know, the Glaswegian and Mancunian Rousseauvian Society.
oh, Lord. This post could generate a comment explosion… which overwhelms the typical numbers of comments on other posts… in similar ratio to the way a sunspot explosion affects carbon dioxide in the Ozone layer about a hundred times more than all man and plant an animal emissions combined affect the caron dioxide in the Ozone layer. We could experience blog warming.
This Svensmark fellow kind of reminds me of the phsyicists who say that 9/11 couldn’t have possibly happened by planes flying into the buildings.
Oh, but those are all crackpots, right? Not like this guy.
naverhtrad:
It would be helpful if you could provide links for your comments about Svenmark.
I know, of course, that there are factual and scientific arguments over his data. That is virtually always the case. In fact, it is the case with the data supporting fossil fuels as the cause of global warming.
I’m not a scientist, and have neither the time nor the expertise to study the dueling data in detail, and to evaluate which side has the better case. Therefore I can’t get into that particular part of the dispute.
My point is a totally different one, and that is that the debate on the causes of global warming has become very politicized, and that there are many allegations (not just Svenmark’s) that one side appears to be stifling the research of the other.
That’s certainly what happened to Larry Summers’ suggestion about doing research on why there are few women in the upper stratosphere of science.
climateaudit.org___—Global Warming equals Catastrophic Global Warming. This is what the elect few who write the IPCC reports are trying to promote. Anyone who dares to challenge that idea is regarded as a heretic.
One can follow these debates at ClimateAudit, and RealClimate. Note: RealClimate refuses to link to ClimateAudit because they are heretics.
Today we learn about how unhinged James Hansen is: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1946
For a middle of the road perspective there is Roger A Pielke Sr who believes the CO2 effect is substantial but is not alarmist enough for the high priests of global warming: http://climatesci.colorado.edu/ (Pielke’s blog)
It is key that you must believe that CO2 is public enemy number one. Pielke Sr.’s sin is that he regards land use changes as having more impact on regional climate than CO2. This cannot be tolerated.
Svenmark may not be the best example of these problems. The resignations of Chris Landsea and Roger A Pielke Sr may be of interest. There’s also the persecution of Bjorn Lomborg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjorn_Lomborg#Accusations_of_scientific_dishonesty
edge.orgHere’s Freeman Dyson with some interesting insights.
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html
realclimate.orgNNC:
Note that these people (Damon, Laut and Gavin) are not engaging in character assassination on Svensmark, nor are they stifling him nor anyone else engaged in climate research; they are evaluating his model fairly and treating his work with the same courtesy that they treat everyone else’s work. If they don’t stand to the test of proof, at least they have the decency to say so; that’s the way peer-review works.
The realm of science is not for the faint-of-heart. Scientists can’t afford to get too attached to their pet models, especially not if they’re based on bad data. If Svensmark – on the basis of these criticisms – feels that he personally is being attacked and stifled, then I pity him, since he obviously doesn’t have the stomach for his job.
As for Larry Summers, the man is about as much of a scientist as you are, if not less, being an economist. (You’re a psychologist, if my memory serves?) I know he’s made some assertions about Keynesian economics that were thought a little off-the-wall (though I don’t pretend to be an expert in that field any more than I pretend to be a climate scientist), and there was that big kerfuffle over his remark about women in the hard sciences (though I imagine that most of the blowback from that was generated by the mainstream media, not by the scientific community at large), but I’m not too certain about the specifics. What research has he done on the issue, and in what way has it been ‘stifled’?
Agh… didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.
Here’s the Damon / Laut article in Eos.
Doug:
First off, I agree with your statement that Roger Pielke Sr. has a ‘middle-of-the-road perspective’ on the matter. The man accused IPCC of being too conservative in its conclusions regarding climate change; even though e agrees completely with the anthropogenic global warming model, but he sees variation in the human activities generating it.
But secondly, did you even bother to read the Wikipedia entry you posted on Lomborg? It’s not ‘persecution’! IDGARA about his conclusions; if the man fudged data and plagiarised other people’s work, he should be brought to task for it! Would you say that libellers, intellectual property thieves and video pirates are ‘persecuted’ for their activities?
Boy! Some “consensus”. Sounds like a schoolyard argument over whose dad can can beat up who.
All I know is this post has made me thirsty for beer.
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naverhtrad : about Bjorn Lomborg:
Your comments suggest you know little about the Lomborg case. I don’t have a good article on it handy and I don‘t know that much either. I believe he was ganged up on because he challenged an environmental religious orhodoxy. Wiki is manipulated by liberal trolls, so it would be easy to get the wrong idea about the controversy. It was not about “libellers, intellectual property thieves and video pirates” , that completely trivializes the whole business.
I’d post a link to Lomborg’s version of this but a bug in the software prevents me.
This is another contentious argument that often boils down to personalities. naverhtrad says this is a scientific argument, but it isnt really. Not entirely at any rate.
AGW proponents have their intransigents. Hansen was mentioned above. Here’s more: HansenTestimonyCritique.pdf.
As far as naverhtrad’s vaunted “peer review” is concerned, it hasnt managed to let a few whoppers get by to be etched in the publics psyche as “smoking guns” of catastrophic AGW, (MBH98 as a glaring example), only to find out later the modeling has huge fudge-factors and the “peers” “reviewing” some of this stuff are on the same team.
IMO; AGW is real. Its also of no measurable significance. Everything else is driven by funding and politics.
Anyone who has worked in any type of “scientific research” (the reason for the quotes is that this includes things that aren’t really scientific per se, such as pure mathematics) knows that objectivity is pretty much thrown out.
You live or die by your funding, you funding comes from places like the NSF (national science foundation), governmental departments (for Americans the DoE or DoD or other similar three letter acronyms), and other non-objective based foundations. The other thing that drives your life is the phrase “publish or perish” and that is also VERY non-objective.
For instance – try and study if there is an inherent genetic difference (other than the totally obvious ones that you can not deny) between races of humans. Good luck getting any of those entities to fund that, no matter what your findings are you are stirring up a HUGE storm. Want to publish something that is not approving of Global Warming? Lets see how far you get in the 5’th annual symposium on global climate change.
Then again – want to prove that Whales are going extinct and if they go the whole world will die? Nature, Discover channel, environmentalist, and the news media will kill each other in an attempt to be the first through your door – money *and* high profile publications. Heck, Global Warming not only takes up major media cycles but also gets politicians elected – if you think it is *anything* other than totally politicized there isn’t much hope for you.
You generally even have to know the likes/dislikes of the highest person in your funding chain that will talk to you, even down to do they play golf, tennis, or think soccer is the most boring thing on the planet.
How much the stuff above rules you is highly dependent on what you do. For instance, an astrophysicist trying to study the moment a star reaches the required conditions to go nova isn’t really that effected by it. The main thing they need to worry about is convincing someone that it isn’t a waste of money to give it to them and most reasonable sums for new research are going to be given. For someone doing climate study it is vital. But no matter which one there is still a decent amount of political consideration.
junkscience.comI think this is the sort of politicization of science that Neo is referring to:
IPCC Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC
Second-Order Draft
Despite the exhortation:
“PLEASE DO NOT CITE, QUOTE, OR DISTRIBUTE THE DRAFT REPORT”
we feel we have been left with no choice by the bizarre actions of the IPCC. What kind of “science” distributes a summary and then withholds the underlying report for a further three months editing to make it concur with the already distributed summary? Don’t believe it? Neither did we but the plain language statement of intent is here (search for “grammatical” — it’s on page 4 of 15) and the original IPCC procedures document is (was) here — in their words:
“Changes (other than grammatical or minor editorial changes) made after acceptance by the Working Group or the Panel shall be those necessary to ensure consistency with the Summary for Policymakers or the Overview Chapter.”
From:
http://www.junkscience.com/draft_AR4/
In other words, ‘if you find any errors in data or methodology, please don’t bother to tell us, it’ll screw up the summary we worked so hard on.’
I think I’ll go have a Carlsberg now. Support Denmark!
strcpy:
It would seem that you have a complete lack of understanding of scientific ethics; thus I doubt your credentials as someone who has engaged in ‘scientific research’. Scientists, if they are honest, are beholden to established fact, regardless of where their funding comes from or what they set out to prove. If their hypothesis doesn’t explain the full body of relevant data, it is discarded.
For example, my father is considered a heretic in his field (materials science and engineering) by some, because of his new approach to explaining the dynamics of noncrystalline ceramic structures. But he holds with this approach not because of some agenda he has, but because he thinks that his model accords fully with the facts. If it is shown that his model runs contrary in some way to the facts, he will either modify or discard his hypothesis; he will not (as Svensmark seems to have done) cry ‘persecution’ against his critics.
Yes, he does get funding and no, he does not engage in the kind of croneyism you describe, though he does realise that money talks and that other scientists do take pride in their pet theories. But he doesn’t use this as an excuse to discard the processes and methodologies which have governed scientific inquiry for four centuries, and which has changed and shaped the beliefs of modern society about the world it inhabits. But if you are so hard-set against honest scientific inquiry and want to tar it with a political brush, nothing I can say is going to convince you otherwise, just like nothing I can say is going to talk sense into a creationist or an IDist.
(Speaking of which, for every NSF there’s going to be a Discovery Institute, and for every environmental group there’s going to be an oil company. The entire funding argument works both ways, so be careful what kind of insinuations you make, lest you’re hoisted by your own petard.)
“I couldn’t understand it because when you are a physicist, you are trained that when you find something that cannot be explained, something that doesn’t fit, that is what you are excited about. If there is a possibility that you might have an explanation, that is something that everybody thinks is what you should pursue. Here was exactly the opposite reaction”–
This is the difference between science (“pure” research) and “development” or “the project” in which you have committed to a course of action and are trying to carry it out.
It sounds like we have a massive confusion between the two. They are complementary, not enemies.
naverhtrad:
Speaking as a PhD chemist who has done both “Pure” research and “Applied” research, I think that YOU are the one who is being naive about funding sources.
Practically speaking, it more than helps to be tight with whatever organization (in my case the NIH and NSF) furnishes your funding. This DOES mean smiling a lot and keeping your mouth shut, sometimes against better judgment. After all, finding agencies and foundations are – bluntly – BUYING your mind and SELLING your work product.
I’m insulated in a way since my research interests have always been in fairly esoteric areas of physical sciences. Lately, though, molecular biology has been creeping my way through the general field of genetics. And so maybe my personal ivy tower is starting to crumble…
I agree with a commentator above who remarked that, once politics and politicians enter into science – especially physical science – Katie, Bar The Door. By knowledge and by temperament, they are least likely to do any good. The gulf is too wide between the way they (pols) think and the way we (scientists) think.
I Have Spoken.
“Scientists, if they are honest, are beholden to established fact…”
That’s the core of your misunderstanding. Scientists are beholden to OBSERVED fact, not established fact. The speed of light in a vacuum is an established fact, but if tomorrow it was observed to be going twice as fast as before, by too many independent researchers to presume all their measurements are off, it would mean that something had significantly altered the local continuum, not that all researchers should never again be allowed to measure the speed of light, because the previous value is “known” to be correct. In fact, finding out why a a constant on which so much theory has been based would suddenly change might be critical to surviving what would almost certainly be an impending cataclysm.
The AGW scientists demand not only that we never question established facts, but even that we allow them to establish their climate models as facts, despite the fact that they have never successfully predicted any local or global climate changes. They can’t even get a reliable over/under; the month of August has actually been *hotter* where I live than the global warming models predicted it would be.
It’s going to take a lot more than demagoguery to make me give up my consumerist lifestyle.
It would seem that you have a complete lack of understanding of scientific ethics; thus I doubt your credentials as someone who has engaged in ’scientific research’.”
That’s your business if you choose to think so. I worked in the CSM (computer science and mathematics) division at Oak Ridge National Labs. Specifically I developed build/config algorithms for large scale COTS clusters (into tens of thousands of nodes). This is still the group page.
I can only tell you what I saw while working there for about 4 years (2 as an intern, 2 as a full time research associate). You can choose to believe it or not, if your father works around some of the highly politicized groups ask him about their funding lines 🙂
Not only that, but in a field that tends to be “true” or “not true” and have very little political pressure you state he doesn’t get good funding but goes on because he believes in his model. And you think that if politics played a large part it in it nothing would be different?
Ask your father if he hasn’t seen what I describe.
“I’m insulated in a way since my research interests have always been in fairly esoteric areas of physical sciences.”
I always did too – as you can see it’s not like anything I did had political implications. There are, however, some very nice and very decent people in there.
I can’t say I was terribly surprised, but it was a bit disappointing to me the way it worked and what it did on science.
It seems we have a number of anonymous commenters trying to trade on their reputations (or, in naverhtrad’s case, his/her father’s). That’s always an amusing exercise.
I prefer to focus on the facts presented; the quote from the IPCC chair, for example. (“extremely naive and irresponsible”)
Naverhtrad is careful, and only cites one of the many possible fallacies that he has not heard. I’m interested in his take on this one. Assuming the quote is accurate and not twisted, what would he/she say about the idea that scientific research can be “irresponsible”, outside of a content-neutral standard of research ethics? “Naive”, too, might deserve some explanation.
I said before about science becoming the field being patroned by the new “aristocrats”.
it would be only natural for scientists to call upon their blood connections, such as fathers and family and what not.
Bill Whittle has a good rant about the magical thinking associated with most Liberals.
This is very similar to the violation of the Green Orthodoxy seen when one dares to question AGW in any way. Careers are submarined and reputations besmirched. AGW believers are really worse than most evangelists and the whole idiocy has been compared in other places to religion.
Wel, that got mucked up but the link is still there.
Seeing the Unseen, Part 2
Eat a moose; save the world.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070822/sc_afp/sciencenorwayclimate
I am continually amazed that more people interested in climate change issues do not look at the history of this planet through its 4.6 billion years. There is no “right” or “best” climate for Earth (or any other world; there is only climate. Ice ages (many) and ice age fluctuations of advance and retreat (many, many more) ahve come and gone. Warm intervals and warmer intervals separate and are far more numerous than colder intervals. For most of its history this world has been warm and ice-free or almost ice-free with low lying land masses and hig sea levels. For long intervals, carbon dioxide was far more abundant than now and largely ignored has been the very significant increase and decrease in oxygen in the atmospher. Oxygen fluctuations are much more significant than carbon dioxide shifts.
It is a shame that those who pontificate, rarely if ever have looked at the geologic history and data available in the rock and fossil record.
The politicization of the “global warming” debate can be summed up (very braodly) in these sets –
1) individuals (and scientise) concerned about the issue iniate discussion. It is amplified by ecologists and conservationists (generally, but not exclusively, “liberal” individuals)
2) the ideological backlash comes from those who oppose government intervention such as the EPA, or national consevaration programs (such as setting fleet fuel efficiency standards)
neo –
Please delete my post – it was incomplete and posted in error.
I may finish it and post at a later time.
– sorry