Re: [asa] Creation Care

*There is essentially a complete concensus among the specialists that human
activity, esp. the burning of fossil fuels, is dramatically altering Earth's
atmosphere and climate, and that alteration will lead to devastating
effects, including the extinction of many species and the destruction of
human habitat.*

Terms like "dramatically" and "devastating effects" are hard for me to
swallow. What do you mean by "dramatically?" Dramatic in terms of
geological history? Maybe, but does the literature really support that?
Dramatic in terms of its effect on human society? How could a climatologist
make a scientific judgment about whether a change is likely to be "dramatic"
in that sense or not?

And what are "devastating effects"? On human social and economic activity?
Again, how could a climatologist make a scientific judgment about that?
What is the relevant literature on the projected effects on human and social
activity, and is there a consensus on that front?

*Given all of this, the rest of us have a choice - do we trust what the
specialists are saying, or not?*

Specialists in what, and trust them with what? Am I willing to trust
climatologists to decide the best public policy course? No. They are not
specialists in a host of relevant disciplines, economics and law not the
least of them.

It is a real problem, and I don't disparage the work of the climate
modelers. But I don't think the policy questions can be settled on the
basis of that work alone. (Note, and let me say again, that I'm not in the
"do nothing" camp. I just can't occupy the "panic and turn things over the
United Nations" camp at this point).

On 1/19/07, Charles Carrigan <CCarriga@olivet.edu> wrote:
>
>
> David,
>
> I understand that you do not completely grasp all the data and issues
surrounding climate science. Neither do I. There are many unanswered
questions in my own mind about it. I think it is human nature to doubt
things that we do not understand. So I want to point out a couple of things
relevant here:
>
> The US government has spent many millions of dollars funding climate
change research. I wish I had a more exact figure on this, but I bet it
would be startling.
> There are thousands of journals articles in tens of peer-reviewed journals
where specialists who are most familiar with the generation and quality of
the data have placed their arguments into the public record.
> There is essentially a complete concensus among the specialists that human
activity, esp. the burning of fossil fuels, is dramatically altering Earth's
atmosphere and climate, and that alteration will lead to devastating
effects, including the extinction of many species and the destruction of
human habitat.
>
> Given all of this, the rest of us have a choice - do we trust what the
specialists are saying, or not?
>
> You say there is no argument from authority. But do you believe that so
many of those specialists are simply turning a blind eye to some critically
important fact? Do you think that the specialists have not considered all
of these objections you raise, as well as many others that you and I don't
even yet imagine?
>
> We have spent an incredible amount of funding on this, and the answer
comes back very clearly - this is a problem.
>
> Note that here I'm concerned with climate science - climate policy inputs
a whole new set of variables where there is no concensus.
>
> Best,
> Charles
>
>
> _______________________________
> Charles W. Carrigan, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor of Geology
> Olivet Nazarene Univ., Dept. of Physical Sciences
> One University Ave.
> Bourbonnais, IL 60914
> PH: (815) 939-5346
> FX: (815) 939-5071
> ccarriga@olivet.edu
> http://geology.olivet.edu/
>
> "To a naturalist nothing is indifferent;
> the humble moss that creeps upon the stone
> is equally interesting as the lofty pine which so beautifully adorns the
valley or the mountain:
> but to a naturalist who is reading in the face of the rocks the annals of
a former world,
> the mossy covering which obstructs his view,
> and renders indistinguishable the different species of stone,
> is no less than a serious subject of regret."
> - James Hutton
> _______________________________
>
>
> >>> "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com> 1/19/2007 8:08 AM >>>
>
>
>
> Strikingly similar to the "evolution controversy".
>
> Charles, in some ways I think you're right, and that's unfortunate I
think. Our gut reaction is to shy away from questioning the consensus
because we don't want to get caught with our pants down around our ankles
(like many of us did when we first had to face the facts about YEC).
>
> At the same time, though, the argument from "consensus" bothers me
deeply. At the end of the day, it's just an argument from authority, which
is no argument at all. I'm not willing to commit to a radical greenhouse
gas policy only because climatologists have reached a consensus about a
warming trend. First, I need to understand exactly what the consensus
really reflects. Then, I need to understand the basis for the consenus.
Then, I need to understand the social and economic implications, which
requires input from other disciplines.
>
> In this regard, I think it is fair to point out that climatology is a
relatively young science, that weather systems are dynamic and notoriously
hard to predict over the long term, and that the computing power simply
doesn't yet exist to model climate change in any realistic detail. Thus,
while the science so far strongly supports a human-caused warming trend, it
can't yet say with any degree of accuracy how rapid or extensive that trend
will be over a century or more. Do even climatologists dispute this?
>
> It's also fair to point out, I think, that, while there is a non-trivial
volume of climate modeling literature, comparatively speaking, the
literature remains thin compared to other established disciplines. I read
about one literature review that surveyed 900 or so journal articles, which
I took to be the corpus of major work in the field. It would be interesting
to see how many authors and academic institutions are represented in those
900 articles, how many of those articles present truly new models or
approaches to modeling, how extensively the models have been cross-checked
through work in other disciplines, etc. It's not a trivial amount, I'm
sure, but it doesn't approach the volume of work that's been done, say, on
biological evolution.
>
> Finally, I think it's fair to point out that there are politics involved
in this science. This isn't to suggest that the people publishing in this
field are purposefully misrepresenting results or engaging in any kind of
unethical activity. It is to suggest, however, that the politics might
influence funding opportunities, doctoral and post-doc work, research
choices, departmental hiring and tenure decisions, and peer review, perhaps
in subtle ways. Maybe this sounds like some kind of attack on the
scientists working in this field, but it shouldn't sound that way.
Everyone, everywhere, in every occupation, is influenced to some degree by
social and political pressure. With a highly charged political hot potato
like warming, it defies experience to believe that the science is pristinely
objective.
>
> Of course all of the above sounds like the criticisms ID folks raise
against evolutionary science. I guess there's an extent to which I have
some sympathy for those criticisms on the sociological level. Consensus
should always be subject to challenge. Even scientists with the best
motives are influenced by social and political factors. Where warming is
different from ID/evolutionary science, I think, is in the extent of the
conclusions that legitimately can be drawn from the science to date and in
the breadth of the consensus. The volume of work done, the
cross-disciplinarity, the correlation with predictions and observations, all
are far more extensive in evolutionary science than in the science of
climate change at this point in the respective research programs. At the
end of the day, it seems like apples and oranges to me.
>
>
>
>
> On 1/18/07, Charles Carrigan <CCarriga@olivet.edu> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Strikingly similar to the "evolution controversy".
> >
> > Best,
> > Charles
> >
> > _______________________________
> > Charles W. Carrigan, Ph.D.
> > Assistant Professor of Geology
> > Olivet Nazarene Univ., Dept. of Physical Sciences
> > One University Ave.
> > Bourbonnais, IL 60914
> > PH: (815) 939-5346
> > FX: (815) 939-5071
> > ccarriga@olivet.edu
> > http://geology.olivet.edu/
> >
> > "To a naturalist nothing is indifferent;
> > the humble moss that creeps upon the stone
> > is equally interesting as the lofty pine which so beautifully adorns the
valley or the mountain:
> > but to a naturalist who is reading in the face of the rocks the annals
of a former world,
> > the mossy covering which obstructs his view,
> > and renders indistinguishable the different species of stone,
> > is no less than a serious subject of regret."
> > - James Hutton
> > _______________________________
> >
> >
> > >>> "Randy Isaac" < randyisaac@adelphia.net> 1/18/2007 9:05 PM >>>
> >
> >
> > Dave,
> > One of the questions I particularly wanted to investigate was the
source and extent of the controversy and uncertainty. As we all know, the
key to good science is to know what you know and know what you don't know.
Folks outside any particular specialty often don't understand what is known
and what isn't. In climatology, the factors are so vast and complex that it
is very easy to believe that we know very little. What I found is that the
"controversy" and "uncertainty" within the scientific community of
climatology is vast indeed--but not regarding the big picture of global
warming trends, anthropogenic influences, likely consequences of action or
inaction, etc. The uncertainties lie in the range of specific impacts and
detailed factors. The source of the idea that climate models are very
inaccurate and highly untrustworthy seems to be those who are outside the
professional community and who amplify various uncertainties, extrapolating
them to the point where we can't really trust what the scientists say.
> > In other words, the scientific literature has no significant
controversy. One review I found in Science scanned 928 papers on the topic
and found 75% explicitly or implicitly in agreement and 25% that didn't
address that issue and none with a contrarian view. Another review analyzed
2,000 papers and found 2 that disagreed with the consensus perspective. That
means that contrarian views are being expressed elsewhere and not in the
professional scientific literature. No one has published a model that
substantively differs from Jim Hansen's climate modelling, for example.
Quantitative details differ but the conclusions aren't significantly
different. In other words, people outside the professional community seem to
have taken differences and uncertainties of details and extrapolated to a
"controversy" which isn't really going on inside the community. There are
also some scientists who have published alternative scenarios--like a strong
solar effect, which I discussed with some of the folks--and have received a
lot of publicity outside the scientific community while the mainstream folks
have published corrections to the erroneous assumptions in those papers. I
don't consider that a "real controversy."
> >
> > If anyone is interested, I can provide a few more details in coming
days.
> >
> > Randy
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> >
> > From: David Opderbeck
> > To: Randy Isaac
> > Cc: asa@calvin.edu
> > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 7:28 PM
> > Subject: Re: [asa] Creation Care
> >
> >
> > To my surprise, for example, the global warming issue is quite clear
with no controversy in the community of scientific expertise in the field. I
found that global warming is significant and is primarily due to
anthropogenic sources.
> >
> > Based on what I've read and also not being an expert by any stretch, I'm
inclined to agree that warming is a real problem with anthropegenic
sources. I don't know how you can say, however, that the issue is "quite
clear with no controversy in the community of scientific expertise in the
field." What I've seen suggests the question is clear as mud, particularly
when it comes to the extent of human causation and the projected rate,
trends and effects of warming, and further that every position in the
scientific community is significantly affected by politics. Why are you
saying it's so easy to brush off every criticism?
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David W. Opderbeck
> Web: http://www.davidopderbeck.com
> Blog: http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
> MySpace (Music): http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Web:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com
Blog:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
MySpace (Music):  http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke
To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.