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Fun thought experiment: What if this was an epidemiologist criticising the blogosphere for spreading non-peer-reviewed doubts about vaccine safety? Or an evolutionary biologist attacking intelligent design bloggers?

I'm guessing that most people on hacker news have pre-existing opinions on both of those issues in favour of the scientist; while for climate science it's significantly more split. However, if you leave aside personal judgements about the underlying truth, the situations are quite analogous.

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You realize, of course, that one-third of medical research turns out to be wrong, and a high percentage of the remaining studies are usually either mis-reported or mis-understood by the professional community. Link: http://www.livescience.com/health/091026-medical-research-fr...

(I remember reading a much higher ratio, but I think that was from a decade or so ago)

The reason why this is not more of a scandal? Twofold.

1) Doctors are wise to this. They rarely recommend sweeping changes based on a few studies.

2) The fraud and errors are out in the open. In most places the politics has not "gotten ahead of the science" where the researchers are actually rooting for the outcomes to fit one narrative or another.

Neither of these are true about this particular topic. Great expensive changes are being requested, millions or billions are already being spent at the fringes of this issue with the damage to endangered habitats being "exaggerated" by climate change, and for many, many scientists (not all or even the majority, but a lot)? They already know what the answer is, and scientists or studies that don't fit with that narrative get excluded, shunned, de-funded, and ostracized.

Not trying to be snarky, but does that explain the differences well enough for you?

Also not trying to be snarky... but what's your point here? It seems to be an explanation as to why you personally find one scientific community trustworthy, but not another. Fair enough.

But this: "excluded, shunned, de-funded, and ostracized" is exactly -- word-for-word -- the alleged situation for vaccine-autism researchers and "darwinist" sceptics. I don't see where you've demonstrated any real divergence in the parallel dynamics between the scientific consensus and its external critics.

(edit: added 'parallel' for clarity)

I'm not trying to compare scientific communities.

Epidemiological studies are a completely different kind of science than physics, and both are a completely different kind of science than "scientific consensus"

If you understand the differences in the way the science is done, you understand why your analogy doesn't hold up. If you don't, it all just sounds kind of the same: creationism is the same as vaccine paranoia is the same as global warming "denialism"

Different sciences have different pieces that are put together different ways. This is due to the nature of the topic being studied. The problem with "softer" sciences is that, without falsifiability, you're always playing some Bayesian or statistical game. Things are true mostly because of other things. When you start piling up these statistical linkages into a CA model, or even without the model, you easily cross the threshold into creating totally useless correlations without even realizing it. This is a known fact in medicine, and medicine has thousands or millions of different subjects to test theories out on. We only have one earth. Some climate scientists and climate politicians feel as if they're exempt from these facts, but that's sadly not the case. That doesn't mean that those sciences are useless, just that different standards apply -- standards that don't hold up so well when presented as political movements.

My point is this exactly: It does sound the same.

That is to say, from the outside, the the back-and-forth, the actions and reactions, the allegations of blacklisting, etc., between these scientific communities and their external critics are identical.

In other words, whether you find one instance of excluding a viewpoint from science to be egregious or justified depends entirely on whether you believe the view is full of crap or not.

You're moving from asking what the difference is to saying that from the outside there is no appreciable difference. That's a different point entirely.

I believe I've explained what the difference is. Now you can explain it to the next person that asks, right?

Look at it this way: everything that science knows about the world could be full of crap. We really don't know. It's all based on empirical evidence, reproducibility, and induction. Each of these has its problems. Induction is a great tool, but it has known limitations. On Thanksgiving Day, the farm turkey may believe he's going to be fine because every other day in his life nobody has cut his head off. But he's in for rude awakening on this particular day.

That doesn't mean that it's all pointless or useless -- if that's all you've gotten you've missed it entirely -- it just means that deep skepticism about consensus and detachment from politics are the qualities that are absolutely required of science and scientists. Especially climate scientists in such a strong political area. So without knowing anything at all about the underlying science -- whether the world is on a course to oblivion or nothing unusual is going to happen any time soon -- we can observe the scientific discussion and reach certain conclusions about the process. And quite frankly, in this case the process doesn't look so good. That's a useful piece of data no matter who says what about whom or anything else, right?

I don't believe my point has changed at all; sorry if I haven't been clear enough, but I've been asserting from the beginning that there's no appreciable difference. ("analagous situations" from my first post.)

Further, I wasn't asking for a difference, I was asserting that you had failed to demonstrate one. Finally, I completely disagree with the point in your final article, which is the absolute opposite of my point.

Let's take a real-world example; you can tell me whether it is an example of a healthy process or a not: A handful of authors are banned entirely from submitting articles to a widely known, widely respected, online repository. (They were submitting topical articles, not random junk.)

While some of the bloggers are just using this to add fuel to the fire of the "there is no such thing as Global Warming" movement, the evidence against what these 'scientists' were doing is pretty damning.

What we have here is a dishonest person that fudged his work in a dubious manner attacking other people who used the evidence of his transgressions to further their own political goals. It's literally like the pot calling the kettle black. Though there are probably some moderate bloggers caught in the middle somewhere, but that happens when you make blanket statements with things like "all bloggers" in them.

So, if these 'scientists' were trying to get a publisher fired and a journal shut down for publishing a paper that cast doubt on the scientific consensus, would that be pretty damning in and of itself?

I don't think so: That was the exact situation when a paper was published that attempted to cast doubt on evolution, and I believe that, far from being damning, it was fully justified.

Whether you judge that action as censorship most foul, or simply upholding standards, depends thoroughly on how you felt about it in the first place.

You're comparing "discredited scientist lashes out at his critics (some of whom are poor journalists and/or political mouth-pieces)" with "scientists try to silence someone who doesn't tow the party line."

The only reason that I would find the latter to be okay, would be if the paper itself was fairly substandard. Then I could see a boycott of (or outrage against) the journal in question for publishing something that doesn't meet certain standards in an effort to maybe gain readership through controversy (e.g. if they publish a paper where the only 'evidence' presented that supports certain conclusions is quotes from the Bible or the Qur'an, I wouldn't think it that outrageous for people to be disappointed in the journal for even allowing it to be published).

I would appreciate a link to the incident that you are talking about as I don't follow the news that closely anymore.

> "discredited scientist lashes out at his critics (some of whom are poor journalists and/or political mouth-pieces)" with "scientists try to silence someone who doesn't tow the party line."

But here's the rub: How do you know which is which? Well, if you agree with one party, it's the former; and if you don't, it's the latter.

The incident I mentioned is the centrepiece of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" -- a documentary about how the evolutionary biology community allegedly silences anyone who doesn't tow the party line.

I'm not so sure they're as analgous as you might think. In this case, a central part of the controversy surrounds allegations (based on the leaked emails) that the researchers at East Anglia were attempting to manipulate the peer review process itself. In my opinion, this is by far the worst part of the whole climategate fiasco. If you assume all their research and methods are solid, it is still inexcusable to try and prevent contradictory evidence from going into the literature.

A good example of this is Barry Marshall's initial work on stomach ulcers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Marshall). The common wisdom until the 1980's was that they were caused by spicy food and stress. Marshall and a colleague had isolated Helicobacter pylori from the gut of patients afflicted with stomach ulcers. They were unable to show the bacteria were the causative agent (a crucial point if you're alleging infection). Nevertheless, his initial paper was published. Subsequently, he actually drank a flask of the things to prove that they caused stomach ulcers (and later published those results). This wasn't 50 years ago either, it was only in 1984. His initial paper could have easily been spiked by the reviewers since extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. But it made it through, even through it contradicted the position of the vast majority of physicians. I often wonder what would have happened if his peers had spiked his initial paper and labeled him a crazy 'stress caused ulcer denier' who should be marginalized for threatening the safety of patients.

You think allegations of peer-review manipulation don't exist for vaccines or intelligent design?

http://justgetthere.us/blog/archives/Scientific-Censorship-o...

(The allegations of censorship far pre-date the email leak -- the leaked emails simply added fuel to the fire.)

(Edit: one too many "don't"s)

I am well aware of the allegations by these groups. The difference here is that there is actual evidence that there is substance to the allegations. Especialy when it's clear data was being withheld. That combination is very different from the other cases. Especially the vaccine case. You would have to demonstrate that pediatricians in multiple unrelated circumstances would knowingly conspire to hide information that kids were being harmed. This requires serious proof that does not exist.

Did the epidemiologist in your question participate in deliberately preventing peer-reviewed studies about vaccine safety being published? Did the evolutionary biologist deliberately block peer-reviewed studies from being published? And then go on about how there's no peer-reviewed evidence?

(The combo is more distressing than just manipulating the peer review process alone. Doing that you could argue is just firm belief that the other side isn't science, but then using that as an argument against their position makes it hard for me to conclude anything but malice here.)

To answer your questions: Probably yes, and certainly yes. The intelligent design movement has made a whole documentary film about their systematic exclusion from the scientific process, for pete's sake!

For a specific example, a biology journal associated with the Smithsonian published an intelligent design paper -- and as a result, its publisher was immediately forced out, and the newly installed publisher printed a complete retraction. Further, many evolutionary biologists don't just work to prevent ID papers from being published; they actively advocate shutting down any journals that do publish it...

The thing is, if you believe that evolution is on solid footing, and the ID movement's attempts to cast doubt on it are junk science, then all of the above is perfectly appropriate -- but if you believe that evolution is actually a flawed theory, then all of the above is evidence of ideologically driven 'bad science'! The parallels continue.

> The intelligent design movement has made a whole documentary film about their systematic exclusion from the scientific process, for pete's sake!

And so on with Astrology, Alchemy, and the Humours theory of medicine. These things are not science and do not deserve the dignity and resources of scientific consideration. ID is an unverifiable postulation (with no explanatory power) about the origins of the universe, whereas the IPCC kerfuffle is all about scientists wanting to do science, review the data, etc.

Thank you for the opportunity to (re-)make my point.

Think if someone had said these exact words about climate sceptics: "These things are not science and do not deserve the dignity and resources of scientific consideration."

Outrageous, unscientific arrogance. If you believe the sceptics have a point. But if you don't, it's completely justified (although politically unwise to say out loud).

In my mind, the question is not whether the skeptics have a point -- it's whether they are doing science. We are presuming that the IPCC is doing science and that the skeptics are doing science. The skeptics may be wrong, and they may not have a point, but they are doing science.

Drawing an analogy to evolution skeptics of the ID variety confounds the issue, because there is no presumption of science being done by the skeptics. I suggest you choose a more faithful analogy.

EDIT, in consideration of

> "These things are not science and do not deserve the dignity and resources of scientific consideration."

That is a bold claim by anti-skeptics, and the burden of proof is on them. Claiming that ID is not science is not so bold, and I can back that up if you really need such.

> The skeptics may be wrong, and they may not have a point, but they are doing science.

If they were really doing science, you'd think they could get something published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal instead of just blogging, wouldn't you? ;)

(Aaaand we've come full circle!)

Publishing has nothing to do with weather or not they are doing science. It has to do with the methodology they employ.

OK, so we are down to the crux of the issue. ;) The claim, then, is that the skeptics are not doing science. That is easily refutable, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_McIntyre and http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/12/13/centre-of-the-storm/print...

Thus, in contrast to evolution skeptics of the ID variety, climate skeptics give much more credence to the idea that the target of their skepticism is flawed at best, and doing bad science at worst.

> The claim, then, is that the skeptics are not doing science. That is easily refutable

Phil Jones doesn't think it's so easily refutable, does he? It's the only non-conspiracy-theory explanation of the tone of the email leaks, and makes a ton of sense.

[[ Sidebar:

Personally I'm not so sure sceptics are "doing science" either. They don't seem to do much hypotheses forming, nor experimentation, nor evidence gathering... They are only pointing out potential flaws in the work of those who are actually doing the full spectrum of activity. Absolutely: There is real scientific value in that.

However, when you couple it with the fact that the vast majority of their efforts are aimed at the court of public opinion and not a scientific dialogue with other scientists, it starts to smell fishy to me.

]]

All of that aside: your entire point above was that you find the sceptics plausible -- that's fine, but realize that my point in posting the 'thought experiment' is that your interpretation of mainstream climate science as a horrible scandal rests entirely on your judgement of McIntyre etc as legitimate in the first place.

No, you got it backwards. It wasn't those challenging the consensus redefining "peer review", it was the scientific consensus in this case. Consensus was manufactured. You cite examples in the opposite direction.

(One can argue about what the real breakdown of opinions on global warming are with the real scientists, but it's objective truth that it is not 100% agreement within the science, or even close to that.)

> it's objective truth that it is not 100% agreement within the science, or even close to that.

Source? If the IPCC is at all representative of climate scientists at large, then I'd say they're pretty close to 100%.

What evidence do you have that any papers where blocked? The papers discussed in the email - McKitrick and Michaels (2004) and Kalnay and Cai (2003) - where both published and even referenced in the IPCC.

One frustrated scientist doesn't have the power to "redefine what the peer-review literature is"

<quote>I'm guessing that most people on hacker news have pre-existing opinions on both of those issues in favour of the scientist; while for climate science it's significantly more split.</quote>

I'm not sure this is true. There is currently an energetic astro-turfing campaign under way on HN and other social media sites that makes the denier community look larger than it really is, certainly among the more educated population that you expect to find on HN.

If creationists start taking a similar interest in HN, you'll come to think that there are a lot of creationists here too.

What evidence is there of widespread astroturfing on climate change, specifically on HN?

I'd call it more of an enthusiasm gap than astroturfing.

Most of us understand that the temperature is in fact rising, ice is in fact melting in record quantities most summers, and ocean acidification is indeed happening. We also know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Those are all facts. If you think they aren't, re-check your facts.

What's up for debate is how much CO2 is affecting the rising temperature. The so-called "skeptics" don't seem to be honing in on this, they're attempting broad brush methods to tar the facts and the uncertainties alike.

So most of us don't bother to engage with those idiots. And you get what looks like astroturfing when in fact it's just a case of being louder.

If you look at the recent rash of posts on climate change, you see some patterns:

- The posts tend to focus on the idea of conspiracy rather than on climate science.

- The articles posted tend to be from fringe sources, or popular news sources that skim the technical details

- The postings tend to cluster, with frequent posts that are nearly duplicate.

People posting out of honest interest on HN tend to focus on the technical and scientific; not always, of course, but you'd expect to see more technical posts than conspiracy posts on climate change, and that's not what we're seeing. They also generally post articles from scientific or technical sources: after all, if we just wanted to read nontechnical news, we'd look elsewhere. Finally, bona fide posters generally avoid posting duplicates---again, not always, but astroturfed posts naturally tend toward duplication because the whole point is to keep the topic in view at all times.

Given the sustained presence of all of these warning signs, I think it's safe to say there's some astroturfing going on here.

Sort of like when Stormfront invaded reddit? ;)

I don't think so. People with a libertarian mindset, which is plenty consistent with a community of mostly US-based entrepreneurs, would naturally find the policy recommendations that follow from climate science being true to be very much against their principles; it's only natural that scepticism of that science would be given heavier weight.

It's not the scepticism that suggests astroturfing; rather, it's the nature of the posts and comments. See my response above. Simply arguing against AGW doesn't make one an astroturfer: repeatedly posting nontechnical articles in order to further a political agenda makes one an astroturfer.

Aren't you overestimating the political importance of HN a little bit if you speak of an astro-turfing compaign?

Speaking for myself, I can tell you what made me a skeptic but by no means a denier and by no means a follower of anyone's campaign. It's the certainty in a context that doesn't allow for certainty.

There are scientists who claim to be able to predict the behaviour of a whole host of complex systems and their interaction for decades and centuries in advance. Not just the biology but also the economics and the sociology. The costs of climate change over 50 years. Stuff like that.

I know a thing or two about scientific methods, but I have never heard of a method that even claims to be able to make such predictions with any kind of certainty. And I don't know of a single instance in the history of mankind when such long term predictions have ever been reasonably accurate.

So in a situation that has uncertainty written all over it I'm faced with a massive, emotionally charged, almost hysterical, political and media campaign that yells CERTAINTY at me and comes with that kind of moral righteousness that I'm very suspicious of in any context.

I guess that makes me a denier of sorts. A denier of certainty.

<quote>There are scientists who claim to be able to predict the behaviour of a whole host of complex systems and their interaction for decades and centuries in advance.</quote>

That may be, but very few of them are climatologists. If you take the time to read papers and articles by actual researchers in the field, you will find that they are careful to caution about making specific predictions about conditions in any given timeframe or area.

They can make some general predictions based on past observations, however, and it's clear that global warming will bring about some drastic changes in local climates. Consequently it's wise public policy to try to mitigate the warming by reducing CO2 production.

Is the scientific community 100% certain? No---as a 'denier of certainty', you're in good company. But you don't require certainty in your own life to make decisions (at least, I hope not for your sake). With the stakes so high, it's best to base action on the most likely scenario, and that is that global warming is caused primarily by human CO2 production.

I guess it depends on the extent of uncertainty. The issue I see is that at any given time we face a rather large number of uncertain dangers. Doing something about them costs resources and we cannot deal with all of them equally. There are opportunities as well, which also cost resources. So it's all about priorities.

I think it's a very difficult decision problem. Do you try to prevent a very uncertain but potentially grave danger proactively, or do you use your resources where you can be reasonably certain about the effects of your actions? I don't know. It's a balancing act.

I tend to lean on the side of not wasting too many resources on very uncertain future dangers. That said, changing something about how we produce and use energy makes sense for many reasons, not just climate change. So I'm willing to act in spite of the uncertainty, but I'm unwilling to ct radically or accept the kind of moral de-industrialisation and de-globalisation mandate that some global warming advocates are pushing so hard.

An argument against action in the face of uncertainty actually favors reducing CO2 production. The climate we have seems pretty good; overall, the world is comfortable and productive. So why risk changing it by pumping unprecedented amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere? Looking at the problem objectively, it seems like our current course of action is the most radical one. Contrary to your suggestion, we ARE acting radically in the face of uncertainty. And it's not even a 50/50 proposition: we are acting radically in the blind hope that the LESS probable outcome will happen.

In this case, those urging CO2 curbs are the conservatives, and those pushing to produce more CO2 are the radicals.

I'm not against action. I am in favor of cutting CO2 emissions gradually because of the uncertainty, but I don't want to change course radically because that would waste a lot of resources. And I'd rather not hear all the lies about certain doom coming from politicians and corrupt scientists.

I agree with you that we are acting radically now. We always have. Industrialisation itself has been radically changing the planet. I'm in favor of doing that and I'm ready to take that risk in order to make life better and simply because trying to stop humans from tinkering with things, even with dangerous things, is futile.

I've noticed no suspicious patterns. The users who comment on stories about climate change are the same ones who comment on other stories.

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