Do you agree with statistician Richard Smith that AGW 'skeptics' lose sight of the forest for the trees?

Question

In an American Statistical Association newsletter discussion the statistics of the Mann et. all 'hockey stick' graph, statistician Richard Smith states:

"In the end, it's important not to lose sight of the forest

for the trees, where the “forest” refers to the totality of scientific

evidence for global warming."

Page 3: http://www.amstat-online.org/sections/envr/ssenews/ENVR_9_1.pdf

Do you agree that in criticizing Mann or claiming various climate scientists are biased or trying to show that the surface station data is flawed, etc., that the global warming 'skeptics' are losing sight of the forest (overwhelming scientific data supporting AGW) for the trees? Or do you think Smith is wrong?

Answer 1

It always is neat for me to see how the same arguement can be used both ways for almost any one of these issues.

The Hockey stick by leading off the IPCC convinced many skeptics like my self that "The scientists are so in tuned to having a forest they forget the trees."  

A huge part of the debate, has the earth seen this warming before; IE the MWP or the Roman (fancy word) I will use Roman Warm period.  Until the late 90's the IPCC's Temperature graph showed warming in these periods as rapid and actually warmer than today.  

The fact that a major change to known temperture history science, not only got published, but became the poster child without a singe peer review catching the gross mistakes, does this not make you skeptical of other science?

Have you ever taken a history of science course?  Looked at studies where scientists prove their hypothesis 90% of the time?  Scientists tend to find what they are looking for.  Meaning if you are looking for positive feedback you will not find negative feedbacks.

Mann set out to find that we were warmer now than anytime in the last 1500 years, and that is what he did.

Answer 2

Global warming is real ... but it's just a natural phase of the earth's weather systems. How hard is it to understand? I can't stand those crazy tree huggers who run around telling everyone we're all going to sink into the ocean if we don't start living in carboard boxes in the middle of the forest.

Answer 3

That's a good description.  Deniers just look for anybody saying anything against AGW.  They don't care who it is or if what the person is saying makes sense.  That's why they're always blabbering about the oregon petition and surfacestations.org and garbage like that.  It's not that they lose sight of the forest, it's that they don't care about the forest because they're so focused on finding a bad tree.

Answer 4

Dana, what overwhelming scientific evidence are you speaking of?  The only evidence you or anyone else has is that the Earth's surface temperature has increased following the advent of the industrial revolution which you well know is a post hoc fallacy.

Mann's discredited hockey stick has been a staple of the AWG argument since it appeared in Nature magazine in 1998.  The hockey stick shows a very stable climate for 900 years because of his fake smoothing - creating the shaft of the stick. The MWP and Little Ice Age are basically smoothed out of the graph, erroneously showing a stable climate prior to burning huge amounts of fossil fuels for energy.  A climate that changes without the help of anthropogenic CO2 weakens the AWG theory.  Lies like this and the "mysteriously" increased temperature records at NASA (aka Hansen and GISS) thoroughly discredit the theory.

Answer 5

puhleeze, crabby.

Answer 6

AGW is skeptics versus fanatics.  I'm siding with the skeptics.

Answer 7

Losing sight of the forest for the trees is a problem with everyone in science, and climate change, and AGW.

There are winners and losers in climate change, but there is absolutely no solid evidence that a slightly warmer earth is overall "bad".

A rise in temp of a degree or two over the course of a hundred years or so is just not in the same ballpark as:

a. total thermonuclear war

b. large meteor strike

c. influenza pandemic

d. mega tsunamis, mega earthquakes

e. Yellowstone Nat'l Park super volcano erupting

People like warm weather, they move to disgusting hot places like Florida and Arizona already.  It gets so hot in Phoenix that people use oven mits to open their car doors.

Canada, the US, Northern Europe, Russia, etc. all make out well with warmer temperatures.

So asking people to live in huts, on the edge of starvation, watching their children die before age five for COLDER winter weather ... is just a non-starter with voters.

And finally, check out the Byrd-Hagel Senate resolution from 1997.  That is US policy on global warming, period.  Decided through our democratic process.

China and India have both concluded they are not going to get on board with any Kyoto-type treaty or restrictions ... so maybe it is time to really leave the trees behind and grasp that nothing is going to happen to globally address climate change.

Answer 8

Show me one scientist who has no political opinion on global warming and has proved it.

Global warming is a natural cycle and there is not one iota of scientifc evidence to prove otherwise.

Answer 9

No, I don't agree with Smith.

His suggestion takes as it's starting assumption that the "skeptics" are asking legitimate questions. They are not.  Propaganda is not scientific discourse, and Smith does his profession--and climate scientists--a disservice by treating propaganda as if it were legitimate scientific inquiry.

Answer 10

I think Mann loses the forest for the Bristlecone pine trees.

And deliberately so.

http://www.climatechangeissues.com/files...

http://www.climateaudit.org/?page_id=354

http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=15&page...

Answer 11

I believe Smith to have good intentions, however.... he along with many other scientists are all too trusting of the data that they have to work with.  The surface station data that you mention is too crucial to the whole debate to simply be brushed off as skeptic's rhetoric.  Until the data used to determine climate trends is made credible, the 'trees' will actually be the AGW advocates.