What a man was the "Admirable Crichton". At 17, James, son of Robert Crichton, Scotland’s Elizabethan Lord Advocate, could successfully dispute any subject in twelve languages at the Sorbonne and defeat all comers in a jousting tournament at the Louvre. Add to this Aristotelian legal prodigy’s qualifications a Harvard MD, an extra foot of height, and disarming modesty, and you get a creature akin to the present Crichton, Michael, who is by some accounts even able to change minds in Washington D.C. But what about his own? His sense of modesty is about to be tested.
In 1928 Bertrand Russell adduced a principle relevant to today’s climate change debate. One he feared would “ appear wildly paradoxical and subversive.
The doctrine is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition
when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.” Yet he warned
against going so far as Plato’s friend “ Pyrrho…who seeing his teacher
with his head stuck in a ditch… walked on, maintaining that there was
no sufficient ground for pulling the old man out. “ Decency and
commonsense instead dictate admitting “ any well-established result of
science, not as certainly true, but as sufficiently probable to afford
a basis for rational action.”
Michael Crichton’s ‘State Of Fear
“ is in many ways admirable. But like Pyrro, he takes its skeptical
exposure of environmentalists in denial a step too far. Hype is not
synonymous with hoax. To characterize global warming as nothing more
than a manufactured consensus based on the deliberate misrepresentation
of science risks self parody , even if the American Enterprise
Institute is too obtuse to get the joke.
The basic problem is
one State Of Fear addresses --science cannot be proven by a show of
hands. Though Crichton’s fans are legion, national climate policy
cannot rely on a work of science fiction whose author is shy of
debating its premises- a principle that applies even more acutely to
Al Gore , whose eminently fiskable film makes a mockery of his
ownmanta'The Debate Is Over!"
Interdisciplinary problems deserve
serious dispute. Russell noted: “ There are matters about which those
who have investigated them are agreed. There are other matters about
which experts are not agreed. Even when experts all agree, they may
well be mistaken... I advocate … (1) that when the experts are agreed,
the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they
are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert;
and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds … exist, the
ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment. “
Crichton
correctly points out that climate science has much to be modest about.
‘State of Fear’ voices the skepticism many, including myself, voiced
two decades ago- that peer-reviewed temperature records invited
authentic confusion as to whether global temperatures were going up,
down or sideways.. But when I wrote in 1990 that the jury was out on
the quality of the data , I had to allow for the contingency of ”an
unambiguously toasty third millennium-when I have spoken of
uncertainty I have meant what I said.” Not ‘State of Fear’. Putting
his faith in temperature readings from satellite radiometers,
Crichton defies the scientific majority, and concludes that the theory
of greenhouse warming is in practice mistaken.
He invokes
satellite temperature data not once but a half dozen times,
providing footnotes for emphasis, and contrasting its presumptive
objectivity with ground-based records corrupted by urban warmth and
shifting demographics. “State of fear’s heroes demand to be shown
global warming globally, and when satellites orbiting the globe fail to
deliver the proof, they adamantly conclude that reports of warming are
a fraud, and computer models of future climate a delusion.
To
confirm us in the belief that he is right and not a quixotic
representative of intelligent design or another neoconservative
scientific counterculture, Crichton points to an authority figure of
his own :“ the most visible of global warming skeptics” Professor S.
Fred Singer, once America’s “Director of Weather Satellite Service and
Director for the Center for Atmospheric and Space Sciences.” There is
something odd about this sub-secretarial characterization, but much
can be said for taking things on authority, and Crichton, like
Russell, clearly doesn’t believe that all is doubt and indeterminacy.
Yet the distinction between productive and reflexive skepticism is not
a trivial one..
Pure contrarians tend to be wrong half the
time, but some. Like Singer, are not so lucky. Singer did not believe
in ozone depletion either, but his views did not prevail over the
evidence-- the Reagan Administration signed the Montreal protocol
anyway, for Singer’s dissent failed to make the grade by getting
published under scrutiny in skeptically peer reviewed science journals
- the eloquent contrarian never adduced any experimental evidence to
refute the prevailing consensus.
Like Crichton, neoconservative
policy makers have bet the farm on the failure of decades of
satellite based temperature observations to demonstrate global warming
on a par with the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But a
year after ‘State Of fear appeared the disparity between the
international scientific consensus Crichton rejects and the satellite
record he accepts was the object of a peer reviewed study published
in the flagship journal of The American Association for the Advancement
of Science. The literal rocket scientiststs responsible for the
satellites reexamined exactly what it was that they were measuring,
and the results were clear and emphatic. A host of Singer’s former
colleagues , including some eminently skeptical about warming,
concluded that for decades, errors in (ironically) computer models
,had disconnected satellite temperature readings from their correct
locations on the ground.
Instead of staring down at local high
noon, and clocking in peak temperatures in the midday sun, the walleyed
gaze of a flying circus of satellites had systematically underreported
daytime highs. The missing several tenths of a degree Celsius of
warming separating the ‘consensus’ from the computer models had been
found – hiding in plain sight in the very satellite data that underpins
‘State Of Fear’.
Crichton’s book repeatedly emphasizes the duty
of scientists to change their minds when the data does. Now it’s his
turn to do so, or risk joining the ranks of those who have disregarded
the evidence to sell the very factoids, like ‘nuclear winter ‘ that
Crichton has so admirably deplored.
But what about Singer?
Wasn't Galileo an obscure scientist persecuted by consensus? Yes, but
we celebrate Galileo not because he was persecuted, but because he was
right. We can and should go on celebrating Singer’s precocious advocacy
of weather satellites despite their calibration having being so
forgetably wrong.It happens - even at highest levels of scientific
gamesmanship, for there is no hypothesis so perverse that two Nobel
laureates cannot be found to endorse it- witness the
misrepresentation of science to the public in the case of ‘Nuclear
Winter .But neither does it matter if the hypesters are late cold war
collectivists tapping the environment as a tool for promoting
societal intervention, or free market advocates trying to keep them
from succeeding.The data must rule both.
Society can’t very
well complain about science descending into the realm of advertising as
long as the gullible volunteer an audience for agenda-driven advocacy
masquerading as contrarianism. Seeing both sides of the greatest of
environmental debates puzzled for decades by reams of dead-wrong data
has a tragic dimension, but sometimes it is better to have science
policy debated as comedy of manners than not at all. As Crichton,
perhaps alerted to the forthcoming appearance of the revised climate
record, candidly noted during ‘State of Fear’s celebration by AEI
”It’s just a movie.” So is “The Day After Tomorrow.”
‘State Of
Fear’ commences with Mark Twain’s observation that ‘ there is something
fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of
conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” Which is exactly
why it is perilous to the Republic when scientific facts are trifled
with politically by either-or both sides.
Crichton is right to
question the motives of some of the darker Greens who dictate the
received environmental wisdom of Hollywood and PBS, but Twain also
famously remarked that a mine is a hole in the ground with a liar
standing next to it, a scene whose modern rendition might feature an
honest geologist being thrown into the hole by two lawyers. Yet it is
to the amply counseled business of profitably extracting energy from
the Earth that Crichton has turned in trying to fathom the statistical
depths of the climate record. If relying on mining economists as
interpreters of weather maps is not enough to alarm the truly
skeptical, perhaps his own words will:’ you deal with a lot of judgment
calls in putting together the climate record…whenever you have one team
doing all the jobs, then you are at risk for bias.”
Which is
why pique at Crichton’s faltering sense of the sardonic should be
tempered by his suggestion, voiced at AEI, Cal Tech and elsewhere, that
all parties to the climate debate be obliged to post all of their raw
data on the internet all of the time, Given the damage done by the 20th
century collision of science and ideology, it is a wholly admirable
proposal. One the IPCC would do well tocherish.
While we're at it, for everyone who believes that they know with absolute certainty what the earth's "correct" temperature should be at any point on the globe at any point in time during the year: please raise your hand, and defend your assertion. Foot stomping, pouting, claims of "piling on", and recitation of Friends of the Earth pamphlets and/or "the team's" debunked Congressional testimony are not acceptable. Show your work, share your models, as well as all of your data. Extra credit for explaining the '06 and '07 hurricane seasons in the US. Don't be shy; there are lovely parting gifts available paid for by the other guy's taxes in exchange for your votes in '08.
Posted by: Jim | November 08, 2007 at 10:50 PM
Consider this thought experiment: You are to be transported back in time to 1907. You will given as much computing equipment as you desire along with whatever is necessary to operate it. You have precise knowledge of the exact state of the weather, solar output, science and technology, and human demographics in 1907, but all of you memories of these things in succeeding 100 years will be removed, except that you will have at your disposal the most advanced modeling and statistical techniques known today. Your job will be to forecast the state of the earth's climate in 2007 considering the growth in human populations, their economic interactions, and state of technology.
Extra points for predicting atomic power and either world war. Points off for over estimating the horse dung problem.
Posted by: D. F. Linton | November 09, 2007 at 05:23 AM
I never read it because it sounds awful, but,State of Fear is supposed to be a work of fiction, is the objection here that it is one? What than about An Inconvenient Truth? That wasn't supposed to be a work of fiction was it?
I have some lake front property on Lake Baikal When is it going to be warm enough to go swimming?
RESPONSE
Try Bastille Day. Being a good republican I am always in the market for waterfront property,especially if there are seal pups to be clubbed for breakfast.
Which shore of Lake Baikal, and how much do you want ?
Posted by: Wondering Aloud | November 09, 2007 at 07:12 AM
First Mr. Seitz you would do well cut the pretentious prose. You are certainly are not convincing me with your vomiting verbosity.
I find it strange you quote Crighton and say he is "correct" or "right" in many instances. Then turn about face and essentially say the opposite. ???
Lastly sir you are clueless as to the sheer numbers of REAL scientists (specifically earth scientists) that are in diametric opposition to the current media hyped so called "science" of global warming.
As a geologist I have a simple question. If man is the primary cause for climate change (specifically global warming) then what caused it thousands of times in the past 500 million years? To say that man is causing the current ebb of warming is tantamount to claiming the up coming summer heat will be due to the hot air coming from your website in spite of the irrefutable fact that summer has been recurring for millions of years.
RESPONSE
Congratulations to the admirable Griffin on his career change- yesterday he was a soi disant 'palaeo climatologist' at RealClimate, but the Scirius search engine maintains he remans unpublished in that discipline as well. It quite restores my faith in the nation's geology journals.
Posted by: C Griffin | November 26, 2007 at 06:33 AM
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