Inconvenient uncertainties
by Jack Stilgoe
I've been shouting about this quite a bit at the moment, to whoever will listen - academically, journalistically and Demostically. As we saw with MMR, the science does not speak for itself. The argument will be about what remains unknown and what we should do about it anyway. Armed only with their copy of Kuhn, any sociologist of science worth her salt should be able to punch holes in a scientific consensus for fun. Environmentalists and governments have to make sure that, rather than making bad arguments for good causes, they win the sociological battle as well as the scientific one.
UPDATE - just seen Monbiot's piece in today's Guardian.
Tom Richardson
Right. We have to accept that there is no single theory of science that can explain why we should unquestioningly take scientific theories to be fact. However, scepticism is hardly a sensible way to continue.
The problem seems to me to be around resonance networks of belief. "It isn't possible for me to accept that global warming is a fact because I like driving my car" being a simple one. It is worth pointing out that different beliefs have different strengths for different people. So. I would go in to that in more detail but I am dying to hit you with me stratosphere troposphere thing.
However you look at it there are two things that make scientific theories likely to be approximations to the truth. The first is that there is no evidence that conclusively disproves the 'core' of the theory. The second is that the theory makes reliable and good predictions (and that any 'false' predictions are not the cause of the core of the theory). Also, it should be remembered that this theory is one that is not ad hoc, and so is open to falsification. Furthermore, bearing these two in mind (and running kuhn stylee) the general acceptance of a theory in the scientific community is at most demonstration of its likely validity and at least demonstration that it is the closest explanation going. In short it is not sufficient to go all Hume on us, it is necessary to disprove the basic facts, or at least the basic theory explaining those facts. When I hear that global temperatures aren't rising, or that CO2 levels aren't rising, or that somebody has a valid alternative explanation. Then I'll listen, and I won't if you just tell me you think scientific theories are usually proved wrong (but usually less wrong than their predecessors). Aaah!
Right. So. Good predictions huh?
Global warming is based on the theory that rising CO2 levels are causing an increase in the temperature of the Earth by trapping radiated long-wave energy from the earth's surface. A while back we had identified rising CO2 and rising temperatures and put the two together. A response to this, and one that we still hear now, was that this was part of a natural cycle from the sun. Fine. However, when we were able to send measurement balloons into the upper atmosphere we discovered something rather strange. The temperature in the upper atmosphere (stratosphere) is falling, even though the temperature in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) is rising. This was exactly what our CO2 warming theory predicts. There is less energy reaching the stratosphere because it is being trapped in the troposphere. Hence, the temperature is rising because less radiation is escaping.
I would go on. But I have to go to Liverpool. By train.
Jack Stilgoe
Nice. See my soft constructivism and raise me hard epistemology. But I and no epistemologist. And whereof one cannot speak... etc. For me, this has gone way beyond the science. It is now a punch-up about what uncertainties mean and who has the right to speak about them and imbue them with meaning. The interesting thing about the complaint from the scientist that Charl mentioned is that it he claimed the programme took his private uncertainties, understood them within a different paradigm and used them to build a picture he didn't want to be associated with.
Rosy Hosking
My comment goes off the point of scientific uncertainty, and back to the problems of global warming: what gets me hottest under the collar is the furore over proving whether it is or is not CO2 that is causing the temperature and sea level to increase and whether or not it is humans to blame. That's not the point! The point is that the climate IS changing - piles of nature and science papers prove it. People WILL be displaced by sea levels rising, water shortages, freak weather. Who cares who fault it is? Why aren't our governments spending more time on future planning and strategy to cope with the changes we are already committed to (latent sea level rises are inevitable given the warming we have seen so far), and less time making bland statements about cycling to work? Argh!
Charlie Edwards
Jack - I have just read Monbiot's piece - it was about as exciting as peeling my banana - but I read on and was hooked by Carl Wunsch's (one of the experts on the programme) comment.
"I have some experience in dealing with TV and print reporters and do understand something of the ways in which one can be misquoted, quoted out of context, or otherwise misinterpreted. Some of that is inevitable in the press of time or space or in discussions of complicated issues. Never before, however, have I had an experience like this one. My appearance in the "Global Warming Swindle" is deeply embarrasing, and my professional reputation has been damaged. I was duped---an uncomfortable position in which to be."
This, surely, is a good example of the problems associated with the public's engagement in science - that in order to critique an issue as complex as climate change the evidence often gets left on the cutting room floor... leaving the public bemused and scientists wondering why they bothered in the first place.