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One is not like the others

Journal by khallow
I ran across a recent study ("Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues", published July 2022) that had some interesting results. The study asked subjects to rate their opposition to some scientific claim that is generally held to be true (a "consensus"). They then asked the subjects to evaluate their own knowledge in the area and finally tested the subjects on their actual knowledge of the subject. This resulted in a three value data set of "opposition", "subjective knowledge", and "objective knowledge". The opposition questions are listed in the above study.

For example, one on GM foods:

"Consuming foods with ingredients derived from GM crops is no riskier than consuming foods modified by conventional plant improvement techniques."

The primary conclusion is that for a number of claims that are generally held to be true by consensus, opposition to those results show interesting correlations: opposition correlates negatively with objective knowledge (what the final test indicated that the subject knew about the field), and positively with subjective knowledge (what the subject thought they knew about the field). Those who were most opposed tended to exhibit a large gap between what they knew and what they thought they knew.

Here's the list of subjects and then I'll get to the punch line:

  • GM foods
  • Vaccination
  • Homeopathic medicine
  • Nuclear power
  • Climate change
  • Big bang
  • Evolution

Which one wasn't like the others?

Climate change!

The question was in the same vein as the rest:

Most of the warming of Earth’s average global temperature over the second half of the 20th century has been caused by human activities.

Unlike every other field listed in this research, there was a slight positive correlation between opposition to the claim and objective knowledge of the subject (see figure 2).

What other consensus viewpoints are out there where agreement with the consensus correlations with greater ignorance of the subject? Economics maybe?

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @01:09PM (12 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday August 23 2022, @01:09PM (#1268102) Journal

    The evidence is presented in the linked journal papers that discuss each of the three events that were listed. In short, because you don't want to click through and actually look at the papers, you're denying that there's any evidence. It's plainly obvious that you haven't even looked at any of the three papers that are linked on that webpage, and because you couldn't be bothered to click the links, you're pretending there's no evidence provided. That is incredibly lazy, and your reason to claim that no evidence was provided is asinine and disingenuous. The evidence is literally two clicks away from this comment: one to https://www.ametsoc.org/ams/index.cfm/publications/bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society-bams/explaining-extreme-events-from-a-climate-perspective/three-extreme-events-that-were-not-possible-in-a-preindustrial-climate/ [ametsoc.org] [ametsoc.org], the second to one of the three journal papers. You do understand how to identify and click links on a webpage, don't you? The linked articles are BAMS articles, which are intended to be more accessible to people with a general science background than, say, an article in Journal of Climate. BAMS is, of course, still a peer-reviewed journal.

    I see you present no evidence. If it's easy for me to do, then it probably is easy for you to do as well. As a result, I think there's a slight error in your claim as to who is being dishonest here.

    Because they're simulations not actual observations of reality. Reliance on models instead of reality is a common symptom of the problems we have with climatology.

    This is vague and unscientific. It is not a useful criticism. The models are verified against past climates, and generally do a good job of simulating the past. In this case, the models are simulating climates of the past and present day, which exactly what they've been verified against. This is not the same as the scenario of simulating future climates, which have more uncertainty because the models are being extrapolated into conditions for which there's currently no data to verify them against. But attribution studies involve simulating past and present climates. Models have been verified in these climatic conditions. They do a good job of replicating them.

    No, it's quite scientific. The huge problem being missed here is that it's quite easy to build models that fit against existing data, but extrapolate to anything you want. And this practice of claiming that something is too extreme for non-climate change scenario is worse than the scenario of simulating future climates because there is no way to check the claim.

    Now, you could say that there's a problem with a specific model. There are flaws and biases in each model, sure. But you'd also be wrong to involve that argument, because the researchers were using data from CMIP5. It's a collection of data from many models [llnl.gov], so they didn't just rely on one model.

    Now, we're making a silly argument that because there's a lot of models, then the models must be right. The obvious rebuttal here is confirmation bias. For example, we have a several decade history [soylentnews.org] of that mass of models understating carbon sinks - models running hot and making predictions that overshoot actual warming but interpreted otherwise once one adjusts the model for actual greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

    Your criticism is unscientific and would be dismissed out of hand if you provided it as a peer reviewer.

    Note, that doesn't make it a false claim. Or for that matter, something that would be dismissed out of hand if I were to present it as a peer reviewer. If the journal really would ignore my concerns about paper two, for example, then they would be heavily biased. It's such an elementary concern.

    TL;DR: These studies are simulating climates of the recent past. The simulations can be trusted because the models have been verified against those climates. There are many models, so the results aren't because one single model is flawed.

    No, they haven't been so verified. You merely claim they have. There's only one genuine test here - testing against unknown, future data rather than fitting to existing data. And as I noted above, they're failing that test collectively.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @07:02AM (11 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @07:02AM (#1268201)

    I see you present no evidence. If it's easy for me to do, then it probably is easy for you to do as well. As a result, I think there's a slight error in your claim as to who is being dishonest here.

    I literally told you how to see the evidence for yourself, two clicks away from this page. The evidence is in the journal papers. You refuse to click the links and look at the papers, then claim I've presented no evidence, which is basically Pacled-level laziness and stupidity. Your denials might be even stupider than aristarchus claiming that he doesn't have sock puppets, which is truly remarkable. In contrast, when you finally got around to mentioning specific droughts that you stated were on par with the current drought in the UK, I accepted your statement in good faith. You are intentionally being obstinate, just like Pacleds and aristarchus. Holy fuck, your school teachers must have hated dealing with a student who apparently was that lazy.

    No, it's quite scientific. The huge problem being missed here is that it's quite easy to build models that fit against existing data, but extrapolate to anything you want. And this practice of claiming that something is too extreme for non-climate change scenario is worse than the scenario of simulating future climates because there is no way to check the claim.

    No, they haven't been so verified. You merely claim they have. There's only one genuine test here - testing against unknown, future data rather than fitting to existing data. And as I noted above, they're failing that test collectively.

    BS. Models have already been verified against future data: https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2943/study-confirms-climate-models-are-getting-future-warming-projections-right/ [nasa.gov].

    Now, we're making a silly argument that because there's a lot of models, then the models must be right. The obvious rebuttal here is confirmation bias. For example, we have a several decade history [soylentnews.org] of that mass of models understating carbon sinks - models running hot and making predictions that overshoot actual warming but interpreted otherwise once one adjusts the model for actual greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

    FatPhil's reply to your comment noted that your source is unreliable. You made no attempt to defend the accuracy of your source. That tells me that your comment should be ignored as it is highly likely to be BS. Even if your source wasn't BS, you admit that given the correct CO2 concentrations in the models, they do a really good job of predicting temperatures.

    It's not worth my time to discuss this topic with someone who can't be bothered to click a link, then uses his own laziness as an excuse to say that no evidence has been presented. Until you improve the quality of your posting, I'll just stick to pondering whether you're a Pacled because of the extreme laziness, or if you're a Ferengi because of your worship of capitalism. If you want good discussion, post better comments.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:42AM (10 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:42AM (#1268206) Journal

      I literally told you how to see the evidence for yourself, two clicks away from this page.

      No, you claimed there was evidence there and have provided nothing otherwise. I'm not playing your game. It's your argument, you do the work.

      In contrast, when you finally got around to mentioning specific droughts that you stated were on par with the current drought in the UK, I accepted your statement in good faith.

      Because I did the work. I provided specific dates and a citation that backed that up. Do you really not see the difference?

      FatPhil's reply to your comment noted that your source is unreliable. You made no attempt to defend the accuracy of your source. That tells me that your comment should be ignored as it is highly likely to be BS. Even if your source wasn't BS, you admit that given the correct CO2 concentrations in the models, they do a really good job of predicting temperatures.

      They do a better job once we ignore their understating of carbon sinks. We still have the problem that half of predicted warming from existing CO2 increases hasn't happened yet and may not ever happen!

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:01AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:01AM (#1268209) Journal
        On that last point, we have some interesting features. First, a graph titled "Forecast evaluation for models run in 2004" which doesn't mention a source or what adjustments were made. Second, the final bit makes a claim that 17 models were evaluated for accuracy. What they neglected to tell you is that the actual number is far greater than 17. In the actual research [wiley.com], look at figure 2 on page 5. Note the labels "IPCC FAR, IPCC SAR, and IPCC TAR". Those refer to assessment reports by the IPCC (FAR - First Assessment Report, etc). Those are aggregations of dozens of models each not single models. (Elsewhere in the report was a mention of "AR4" which is the fourth Assessment Report, but it doesn't show up in this particular figure.) From page 3:

        Starting in the mid‐1990s, climate modeling efforts were primarily undertaken in conjunction with the IPCC process (and later, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Projects, CMIPs), and model projections were taken from models featured in the IPCC FAR (1990), Second Assessment Report (SAR‐IPCC, 1996), Third Assessment Report (TAR‐IPCC, 2001), and Fourth Assessment Report (AR4‐IPCC, 2007).

        So of the 17 model projections, the last four or so are actually massive aggregations of models. And the report found problems with the IPCC aggregates. On page 5:

        However, the remaining eight models—RS71, H81 Scenario 1, H88 Scenarios A, B, and C, FAR,MS93, and TAR—had projected forcings significantly stronger or weaker than observed (Figure 1).

        For IPCC FAR and IPCC TAR (note they are referred to as "models"), it was stronger, a typical symptom of "running hot" bias. Notice also the use of an "implied TCR metric" throughout the paper to ignore these differences.

        We compared observations to climate model projections over the model projection period using two approaches: change in temperature versus time and change in temperature versus change in radiative forcing (“implied TCR”). We use an implied TCR metric to provide a meaningful model‐observation comparison even in the presence of forcing differences. Implied TCR is calculated by regressing temperature change against radiative forcing for both models and observations, and multiplying the resulting values by the forcing associated with doubled atmospheric CO2concentrations, F2x, (following Otto et al., 2013):

        A typical policy question is when you emit a certain amount of CO2 equivalent, what global temperature increase do you see? By going to a purely radiative forcing viewpoint, they ignore both the increased removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and the positive feedback mechanisms that are supposed to result in higher temperatures in the long term. But that's a huge part of the policy decision!

        To be blunt, your link was significantly dishonest. It alleged to compare 17 "models", but we find that it's actually comparing hundreds with at least two large aggregates showing the consistent bias problems I discussed earlier, and emphasizes metrics that hide those bias issues.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:43AM (8 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:43AM (#1268217)

        No, you claimed there was evidence there and have provided nothing otherwise. I'm not playing your game. It's your argument, you do the work.

        Because I did the work. I provided specific dates and a citation that backed that up. Do you really not see the difference?

        There is no difference. You provided no evidence that the droughts during those dates were actually more severe, just a link. I provided you a link to a page that includes three peer-reviewed papers. You're just too lazy to actually click the three links on the page and read the papers. If we're applying your own standard, you've given me no evidence that those droughts were actually more severe, because I'd actually have to click a link to read the evidence. I dealt with you in good faith. If you can't be bothered to click an extra link, I can't be bothered to do your work for you.

        They do a better job once we ignore their understating of carbon sinks. We still have the problem that half of predicted warming from existing CO2 increases hasn't happened yet and may not ever happen!

        Your only source for this is known to not be credible. Until you post evidence from a credible source, this should be treated as BS.

        AMS and AGU have multiple journals that focus on climate. If this is a known issue, then surely you should be able to provide me a peer-reviewed source from one of their journals. Roy Spencer isn't credible. If he's your only source, then your claim can safely be treated as BS.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @12:43PM (7 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 24 2022, @12:43PM (#1268226) Journal

          There is no difference. You provided no evidence that the droughts during those dates were actually more severe, just a link. I provided you a link to a page that includes three peer-reviewed papers.

          More severe than what? You haven't presented evidence that there is an unusual extreme weather event against which I need to provide such counterevidence. Thus, what I presented is sufficient (and ignores that it really is evidence such as that 1765-1768 drought). I guess I'll just have to shrug at your ignorance and move on.

          You're just too lazy to actually click the three links on the page and read the papers.

          Indeed. So what? You haven't provided any evidence that I'm missing out by being lazy! Keep in mind it's not my job to make your arguments for you.

          I dealt with you in good faith. If you can't be bothered to click an extra link, I can't be bothered to do your work for you.

          Same here despite several mild signs of bad faith on your part such as that continued whining about laziness rather than just providing evidence for your claim of unprecedented extreme weather due to climate change.

          They do a better job once we ignore their understating of carbon sinks. We still have the problem that half of predicted warming from existing CO2 increases hasn't happened yet and may not ever happen!

          Your only source for this is known to not be credible. Until you post evidence from a credible source, this should be treated as BS.

          My "only source" here was your source (the Gavin Schmidt et al paper that a good portion of your rebuttal link was based on) - that's where I got the evidence for understating carbon sinks. The half of predicted warming not yet happening is just using the IPCC's own models and data (I do the work here [soylentnews.org] and found an independent party who did the same math in this journal [soylentnews.org]).

          Finally, on being lazy, I think that's a good strategy to use here. With the vast amount of research out there, it's way too easy to do a snow job. So often, when I've dug into research I find it's garbage - heavily biased tripe more suited to acquiring funding than to make serious decisions about humanity's future. And let's face it, there's massive, ridiculous propaganda out there (SN examples, here [soylentnews.org] (TL;DR oil company propaganda is magically vastly better than green propaganda) and here [soylentnews.org](TL; DR discussing that Cook paper, a peculiar thing that ridiculously exaggerated scientific consensus on climate change even though they didn't need to).

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:11PM (6 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @09:11PM (#1268287)

            Bless your heart, khallow.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:39PM (5 children)

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:39PM (#1268303) Journal
              My take is that this bout of climate change obsession will end in a decade or two. They've had half a century to show a urgent emergency that required massive societal changes and they already failed. The developing world isn't going to go along with this mess without serious bribes from the developed world, and the latter just doesn't have that kind of wealth to throw around - both to pay off the developing world and to shut down so much of the developed world as well.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:24PM (4 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:24PM (#1268316)

                My take is that you invested your entire retirement savings into fossil fuel companies, and you're afraid that if people believe the truth about global warming, you'll lose your life savings. That's why you spend so much time shilling about global warming. Boomers like you will be dead before the worst effects of climate change are realized. You selfishly want to make sure you can continue to profit from your investments in the fossil fuel industry while leaving future generations to suffer the consequences.

                You're not here to discuss the topic in anything resembling an honest manner. I'm right, and I continue to be right.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:27PM (2 children)

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:27PM (#1268319) Journal

                  My take is that you invested your entire retirement savings into fossil fuel companies, and you're afraid that if people believe the truth about global warming, you'll lose your life savings.

                  Cool narrative bro.

                  You're not here to discuss the topic in anything resembling an honest manner. I'm right, and I continue to be right.

                  Just here to fight to the forces of ignorance. That would be you, bro.

                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:30PM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 24 2022, @11:30PM (#1268322)

                    Just here to fight to the forces of ignorance. That would be you, bro.

                    If you actually believe that and the other bullshit you're posting, you might want to see a doctor and get checked for cognitive decline.

                • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:21AM

                  by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 25 2022, @12:21AM (#1268337) Journal

                  My take is that you invested your entire retirement savings into fossil fuel companies, and you're afraid that if people believe the truth about global warming, you'll lose your life savings.

                  Just to add to this brilliant gem: of course, I would post anti-climate cooties here since that will cause our many, wealthy thought leaders tol stampede to big oil and bail me out. The plan is flawless. I'll name my third mansion after you!