Q&A: David Gelernter, Possible Science Advisor to the President, The Scientist
“TS: Where do you fall on climate change?
DG: My own belief is that global warming is real, that it is happening. . . . After all, the Earth’s climate has oscillated clearly in the past. We expect not stability, but oscillation. The evidence I’ve seen has not convinced me that the cause of this global warming or an appreciable contribution [to it] is human activity. But not until I spend a lot more time with the topic . . . would I be in a position to give anybody advice on it. … The fact is, the Earth is a very, very large object, and scientists especially think of themselves as gigantically important, and pushing culture around, and changing civilization–which they do, occasionally, to some extent. But I think some of them haven’t fully grasped what a gigantic proposition it is for measly human activity, whether it’s good or bad, to change something like the climate of a planet in the Solar System.”
Q&A: William Happer, Possible Science Advisor to the President, The Scientist
“TS: Did climate change come up at all during that first conversation?
WH: Very briefly. I said, ‘I’m sure you know my position that I think climate change has been tremendously exaggerated–its significance. Climate is important, always has been, but I think it’s become sort of a cult movement in the last five or 10 years.’ So in just a sentence of two, I said, ‘That’s my view of it.’ And he said, Well, I agree with you. But that’s all we discussed.”
Very informative, if not completely unexpected. As always, those who have made an effort to understand the science will have to consider what they can do to influence policy. The once course that we must avoid is inaction. Beyond that I am open to suggestions.
Actually, I am very much in favor of one sort of inaction. Stop burning things. That is, technical, inaction rather than action. If burning hydrocarbons may be a problem, then just don’t do it if you can avoid doing so.
I’ve used the analogy of a full glass on a table. If you don’t want to spill it, don’t kick the table’s legs. I don’t need a detailed, mechanical engineering analysis to tell me that kicking the table’s legs would be bad idea.
The strong anti-intellectual bias that runs through much of mainstream America is not a positive trait. I’m curious how Gelernter thinks that non-scientists have a better grasp of physical scale? My experience would lead me to the opposite conclusion. Once again, being an expert in one field, like parallel computing, doesn’t make you an expert in another field, like, I dunno, physics. Being smart is not a shield against being dumb.
Because scientists just can’t grasp how HUGE the Earth is.
The subtext is that he probably assumes that all scientists are doing the same thing he is, just claiming that science supports their political biases without any actual theories or data.
A computer scientist and a physicist, neither have the training in climate research, and neither published any peer reviewed papers on the subject, are very qualified to express their personal opinion as if they are some sort of higher authority, and both feel no shame that such opinion may actually influence science policy. What world are we living in?
That is the nice thing about science and engineering, in the end, Nature doesn’t care if you are an “expert” or not.
Yeah, but scientists are supposed to care whether they understand a field or not. If a scientist is willing to give his opinion and at the same time admits he doesn’t know the issue well enough, he would be a poor science advisor. A good science advisor would say: I don’t know this stuff, so I don’t have an opinion, and I will only have one after I confer with the very best people on the subject.
Those in the fields of science are taught how to think in a methodical and logical manner. They should be able to understand a logical explanation. Saying that because you’re not a specialist in a field so you can’t understand it is very dishonest. That’s like saying everyone here commenting on SpaceX rockets do not know what they’re talking about unless they are actually in the field producing rockets.
I’m not saying he is incapable of understanding. I’m saying he shouldn’t be issuing opinions BEFORE that full understanding. Gelernter admits that himself: “But not until I spend a lot more time with the topic . . . would I be in a position to give anybody advice on it.” And then goes on to say what he thinks about it — even though he admitted at this point his opinion is worth [deleted]. How sensible and honest is that??
Gelenter sqays he has has examined the evidence and formed a pretty clear opinion about climate change:
“The evidence I’ve seen has not convinced me that the cause of this global warming or an appreciable contribution [to it] is human activity.”
Gelernter has formed a clear and strong opinion about climate scientists: “I think some of them haven’t fully grasped what a gigantic
proposition it is for measly human activity, whether it’s good or bad, to change something like the climate of a planet in the Solar System.”
He is quite clear on both points. On what basis did he form these opinions?
ans.: Our God is an awesome God!
clarification update: sometimes people make decisions based not on fact but on faith. Or something.
I know nothing about Mr. Gelernter. But his comments are consistent with a certain Christian view that holds the universe to be so vast that we cannot comprehend it.
What is a full understanding? I believe that an engineer or scientist when briefed by experts in a field such as climates and getting answers to questions by those experts is capable of rendering sound opinions and decisions. They don’t have to have a full understanding but rather an understanding of how well understood a particular topic is by the experts.
When I hear that the earth’s temperature has risen by 0.001 deg C, as an engineer my question is what’s the accuracy of that measurement?
Where did you get 0.001 deg C? It seems you’ve been fed “alternative measurements”… 😛
He was probably exaggerating to emphasize his point. If you heard a claim based on surprisingly high precision, you wouldn’t have to be a specialist in the field to ask questions about measurement uncertainty.
My first question, and one I haven’t heard a good answer to, might not be about measurement uncertainty. What, exactly, does “global temperature” mean? It’s clearly an average of some sort. But what sort? The measurements are not uniformly spaced in location or time. The calculation must involve some sort of weighting, interpolation or fitting (or assume the irregular sampling doesn’t cause a significant error or bias.) I’d like to know what they do, if they all do it the same way, and if they have checked how sensitive the results are to the technique they adopted.
This is exactly how the denialists attack climate change: by attacking both the data and the aggregation process.
Climate Science is a little like the social sciences in that a reliable control is very hard to find.They therefore depend on duplication, as far as I can see; when the same results are seen in tree rings and in ice it’s fair to draw a conclusion.
They are further open to criticism by incessant construction of models. I know, and you know, that models can be useful tools to explain data, but in the case of CS they are very far from predictive. Moreover many suffer from the ‘hind casting’ problem.
As to your question on global temperatures: this has always bothered me as well. Too many sigfigs for one thing. And too many new reports over the transom about how much heat can be stored by the oceans, or the ability of forests particularly in the tropics to soak up carbon.
I know and I don’t disagree. These concerns are exactly the ones people who do not believe in climate change point to. This is why researcher working on the subject must address them, and do that well.
I run into this frequently, writing grant proposals or helping others to write them. If your technical approach isn’t perfect (it never is), you have two choices. You can avoid mentioning those issues and hope that no one notices. If you do that, you are open to criticism from anyone who notices. The alternative is to admit those issues and explain how you are dealing with them. Some people feel this is a bad idea. It opens your work to criticism which might have gone unnoticed. I think pointing out those issues, and explaining how you dealing with them, is better. Rhetorically, you remove a strong argument (“This is wrong because they ignored something important”) and leave the people who disagree with a weak argument (“ok, they know about the problem and are dealing with it, but they aren’t dealing with it in the way I would”)
I think that is why people working on climate change need to take a very careful look at their own work. Find the obvious limits and assumptions someone might point out and admit them. But also put together an extremely clear and well-written explaination of how they have handled those issues.
Well-written and extremely clear can be hard to do for scientists. Our professional training rarely includes the classical, liberal arts.
Being intelligent or science-trained doesn’t always equate to being knowledgeable nor to being an expert. Can you imagine making the same argument about someone who has never been to medical school, who is quite intelligent and a logical thinker – maybe even a world-renowned engineer- giving you medical advice about a serious or even life-threatening illness?
“Knowing what you’re talking about” on an online message board is not equivalent to defining and creating national policy, or interpreting and analyzing results in a field that is not even close to your own. Despite that, some of the people here actually are trained, practicing rocket scientists so yes they would be experts in rocket science. If I were to do a hardcore binge on cancer research for the next 6 months straight, you would still tell me to take a hike if I wanted to take a look at your medical test results. It’s not even close to good enough in the real world. And these two OSTP guys aren’t going to do even close to that.
Another good indicator of authenticity is whether a publisher would accept a manuscript on the topic based on a person’s credentials (not titles) and its content. And would someone have the dedication and motivation to produce such a document?
Think about Dr. Oz. He’s well-respected, right (sarcasm)? It’s not education, training, and experience alone – it’s sticking to your field on top of that AND ensuring that your integrity as a researcher and an advisor is not compromised by any number of factors (bias, a viewing audience, money). If you have none of these things (education/training, experience, respect in your field, and clean motivation), your opinion is not worth much.
Two comments.
First, I know a chemist (not of a medical sort) who had cancer. He drove his doctors crazy by asking for references to published work on the treatment they prescribed. He wasn’t interested in checking the interpretation (which he wasn’t competent to judge) but the methodology (which is something a competent, experimental or observational scientist should be able to judge.)
Second, I don’t like judging a scientific paper based on the credentials of the authors. Reviewers are often discouraged from doing so. The paper should stand on its technical content alone. Basing a review on credentials feels too much like accepting a statement like, “We don’t need to go into the details because we’re famous. Just trust us and assume we did everything right.”
It’s not logic that makes science science, it is data. And to understand data, you need to be an expert.
An expert in what? I don’t know very much about gravitational waves, but I’ve seen a whole lot of good (and bad) data. I didn’t need to be a specialist to know the first detection last year was based on very good data. In the same way, I can look at fits to IR spectra and know if the results are subject to correlated uncertainties. That’s an issue which is common to every form of data fitting, regardless of the field.
At the very least, you need to actually _have_ data. The policy of the Trump administration seems to be to eliminate funding to collect accurate data on which to base more precise theories.
I think that depends on what you mean by “this stuff.” Some things are common to a wide range of scientific topics. What are the error bars on the measurement (and why didn’t you show them)? How did you validated your numerical model? Did you take your final result and check that it is consistent with your initial assumptions? How many data points went into your statistical calculation? (The answer had better be, “lots.”) On common issues like that, a competent scientist can have opinions about work which is way outside his own field.
Neither do the “humans” who are in power and do not understand that their own brains are trained and addicted to having and holding that power.
As with all fields, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Solid answers require solid research. NASA is developing new instruments and spacecraft to observe the Earth from space, to fill in the gaps in our knowledge of the atmosphere and climate. This work will continue unless the resources are cut off.
They are familiar with logical thinking and how inaccurate models of the atmosphere and surface can be and their limitations.
Given their statements that does not appear to be the case.
If they care about the subject enough, the only responsible way to share that concern and their understanding is through careful analysis of real data and publish these research in peer reviewed journals.
Or through a fairly brief analysis of the data. It is acceptable to take the exact same data as the authors, analyze it in the exact same way described in their paper, and, if you get significantly different results, publish a comment in a journal saying their seems to be a problem. It is also acceptable to publish a comment which simply says that work with similar data has shown that X can be a source of error or misinterpretation and that the authors apparently did not consider this.
The narrative was deliberately changed recently from climate change denial to human activity is a contributing factor. By getting a seat at many tables, the carbon tax will in no way pay for the trillions required by future generations. “We agree–except where its inconvenient”.
Looks like they found someone in Gelernter who hasn’t studied the problem of the cause and dramatic effects. No effort? Action: 2 degrees, Inaction 6 degrees, with rates 20X faster than ever.
Take a look however at this very recent ‘cost analysis of the impacts’. 100,000 jobs lost and no impact on global temperatures. In the assessment, they cite the climate denying scientists who manipulated the data (arbitrary 18 year average, wrong sign in model which caused night time temps to be higher than day violation all physics).
Did they consider the renewable job potential? Other 97%? No~
http://www.heritage.org/rep…
It is hard to find the cause in an inverse problem when observations are disputed. The result, sadly, ends up being that no one is working on anything of substance. The truly, truly said part is that climate models have a really bad track record in predictive skill. So, the media runs with the alarmist story for ratings; even then, science still is the one holding the short stick.
Which observations are disputed?
Your statements about observations and models are incorrect.
G.
He may be incorrect in this case, but not in general. Inverse problems are chronically difficult. If the forward problem is a complicated function, let alone a massive, numerical model, it gets much worse. Numerical models always have problems with uniqueness.
When you put in the physical processes you believe are relevant, the initial conditions, turn the crank, and get results which match the data, can you conclude that you understand the processes? You have not shown that a different model, with different assumptions about the relevant physics, would not have matched the observations equally well. When the data are uncertain, this problem becomes even harder to deal with.
Well, we do understand a lot about how the planet works, and we also have a good idea about where are the largest uncertainties in the models. Some are in our understanding of some physical processes, others are in the data ingested by the models. The truth is that different climate models converge fairly well, and they have demonstrated good skills. Also, the model outputs come with uncertainties as we understand them and we are very open about these uncertainties.
Your second paragraph needs some careful study. I don’t really understand what you are trying to say. Yes, two models with different physical assumptions are likely to return different results. This is why models are very useful to understand the relative importance of different physical processes. In any case, in my original comment I was referring to climate data records and climate models. We are very careful with the data we produce, and very open about how we get them. The same with the models.
G.
Using different models and showing that they give convergant results is a excellent methodology. Attentinon to measurement uncertainties is also a sign of good work. (Although I am someone who gets picky about how people calculate and propagate those uncertainties, especially in nonlinear calculations.) I am disappointed that this is rarely mentioned in press reports.
As an example of press statements without error bars, a year ago, a colleague complained about a report that 2015 had been hotter than 2014. It was hotter by a fraction of a degree and he wanted to know if that was significantly greater than than measurement error. The American press didn’t bother to report details of that sort.
In contrast, the BBC recently reported that 2016 was hotter than 2015. They also reported that the difference was only half of a standard deviation, and that means it could easily be a statistical fluke. They also said that the trend, over several years, way very unlikely to be a statical fluke. (The face that the BCC bothers with reporting these sorts of details is also why I, as an American, follow their reports rather than following American news services.)
When it comes to your confusion about my second paragraph, I think we are looking at things in different ways because we work in different fields. I work in planetary science, where we have very limited data (compared to terrestrial observations) and we are still trying to figure out the relevant, physical processes. Given those limitations, a model to reproduce the data. It is also possible for a signifficantly different model to reproduce the data. The fact that one model reproduces the data does not prove that another can not also do that.
I’m not sure that the concept of standard deviation applies directly to global temperature trends, because global temperature is not randomly distributed. One can identify contributions of the various known forcing functions (El Nino, Milanchovic cycles, solar variation, atmospheric CO2, etc.) until only a random residual remains, test for randomness and then calculate a standard deviation.
However the question of whether the Earth is warming, and why, does not depend on the difference between 2015 and 2016. It depends on a statistical analysis of the full dataset, and the warming trend is statistically overwhelming. But when we are in a debate with people who adopt different conclusions on political grounds, we have nothing to convince them.
So, when “DG” finishes a full up degree in environmental or geological sciences will he then be able to say he has spent enough time learning about this topic? ……..But not until I spend a lot more time with the topic . . . would I be in a position to give anybody advice on it. …
I fell like I’m in the 17th century… Paraphrasing in that historical context: “I think [the scientists] haven’t fully grasped what a gigantic proposition it is that the Earth is not in the centre of the Solar System.” Lol. We all know how that story turned out.
“scientists especially think of themselves as gigantically important, and pushing culture around, and changing civilization”
Sounds more like politicians to me.
I don’t like putting anyone on a pedestal. I’d agree with the original statement if he dropped “scientists especially think of themselves…” and replaced it with “most people, including scientists, like to think of themselves…” Proper scientific method is supposed to keep that out of the results, and professional ethics would keep people from over-selling their results. But a bias towards self-importance exists; I’d prefer scientists keep that in mind rather than giving them a free pass.
Gee, I wonder if it has anythng to do with professors wanting pliable, indentured servants who work under the threat of having their visas revoked? Wait til Trump. et al find out what percentage of taxpayer money funds the grants for foreign students to get advanced technical degrees.
Well, Gelernter can spend some time on the topic or he can listen to the many well-trained scientists who have spent their careers working and publishing on the topic. Happer thinks climate research is a cult. Enough said. They don’t sound particulalry lucid.
G
I’m just grateful that mendacious jerks like Gelernter didn’t have the same bully pulpit in 1987 or we’d all have died when the ozone layer was destroyed.
The ozone hole turned out to be more complicated and less (globally) dangerous that originally reported. If memory serves, some of the necessary chemistry involved cloud particles at a certain altitude range, and the right sort are largely confined to polar regions.
I do not know how great a hazard was posed by ozone depletion, but it certainly helped the chemical industry which was able to market a number of patented HCFC replacements and a vast range of patented products using them from air conditioners to asthma inhalers.