House of Eratosthenes

God bless Roger Ebert, who has been my favorite movie critic, and will be again. Although I disagree with his politics, he has done his job well, and throughout my entire adult life I have read his movie reviews before all others, in an erstwhile attempt to avoid throwing away nine-bones-per-scalp-plus-snacks on a crappy movie.

Nobody else can be counted on to give me a more reliable measurement of which movie was made with some real passion and fun, and which movie is just another “gotta make a boat payment” movie. Besides, the name “EBERT” can be typed while you hold a mug of beer in your right hand. As can the name “FREEBERG”.

But he’s really screwed the pooch here.

I can safely say that before I have even seen “An Inconvenient Truth” because — and it pains me to say this — whatever uncertainties I have as I begin reading Ebert’s review about whether the movie’s any good, I still have those uncertainties when I’m finished. Ebert’s assessment of what kind of experience is to be had from viewing the film, comes out in this:

This is not a boring film. The director, Davis Guggenheim, uses words, images and Gore’s concise litany of facts to build a film that is fascinating and relentless.

That’s all you get, twenty-eight words. Nothing more. Every other paragraph of the review, every sentence, each syllable, is consumed instead with the issue of whether Ebert believes in MMGW (this blog’s acronym for Man Made Global Warming) how much he does, and how important he thinks it is. That’s really all I know from reading this. Er, that’s not the question at hand, Roger. You didn’t do Job Number One. Bad Roger!

What Ebert has ripped off from the practice of reviewing movies, by forgetting to do his freakin’ job, he has gifted to the practice of philosophy, for he has illuminated a previously little-talked-about logical fallacy. Let us call it the “Hundred Percent” fallacy.

Gore says that although there is “100 percent agreement” among scientists, a database search of newspaper and magazine articles shows that 57 percent question the fact of global warming, while 43 percent support it. These figures are the result, he says, of a disinformation campaign started in the 1990s by the energy industries to “reposition global warming as a debate.” It is the same strategy used for years by the defenders of tobacco. My father was a Luckys smoker who died of lung cancer in 1960, and 20 years later it was still “debatable” that there was a link between smoking and lung cancer. Now we are talking about the death of the future, starting in the lives of those now living.

Did you catch that? A hundred percent of scientists agree with Al Gore. When you really look into it, Roger and Al will freely confess the real quotient is 43, not 100 — but when you discard the scientists who disagree, we really are talking about a hundred percent. Put another way, the viewpoint is unanimous when you ignore everyone who doesn’t go along.

And you should, because everyone who doesn’t go along is bought-off by the “energy industry,” or influenced by someone else who is similarly bought-off. This premise, upon which the entire argument depends, is not substantiated anywhere and cannot be substantiated anywhere. We pretty much pulled it out of our asses. But trust us, “everyone” agrees with Al.

A trivial point? That is up to the MMGW people to decide. It hasn’t escaped my notice that one of their most important arguments, probably the keystone without which the entire structure would crumble, is the “overwhelming” number of scientists who agree with global warming. Quantity over quality. It’s good to know about the shenanigans that are being pulled in measuring that quantity, so thanks for that if nothing else.

Now would someone kindly step up to the plate and write some movie reviews? It is summer, after all, and if I’m going to poison the environment with my charcoal barbeques and burpin’-&-fartin’ and driving to hell-n-gone, it would be nice to have a movie or two to watch.

Thing I Know #97. There is always someone who believes what I’ve been told “nobody believes,” and there is always someone who contests what I’ve been told “everybody agrees.” Quite a few of both, actually.

MKF,

While I am neither a climatologist, nor an environmentalist, I am a scientist with a healthy background in computer modeling and the properties and effects of toxic chemicals and aerosols in the atmosphere.
This background gives me no license to second guess the �consensus� of a number of scientists who attempt to model the enviornment and predict what may happen one hundred years from now. However, I can study the models used to make these predictions, look at the data developed, and comment on the voracity of the conclusions. First, the two (2) models selected from an array of hundreds available predict the worst outcomes�by a very wide margin. Second, the models selected, when used to describe retrospectively, weather variability of the last one hundred years, fail miserably.

So, I ask, is public policy driving the science, or is science driving public policy? I�m afraid it�s the former.

The system is too complex to model. It�s like trying to model the shape of the next cloud or snow- flake that forms. Impossible.

Nobody believes a weather prediction two days ahead. Now we’re asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future and make national public policy based on these predictions? Has everybody lost their minds?

Michael Crichton, world-renowned scientist and author wrote an essay on �consensus science�.
Here are a few excerpts of what he had to say:

�I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.

Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he
or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. Inscience consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.�

�Let’s think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horseshit? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses? But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn’t
know what an atom was. They didn’t know its structure. They also didn’t know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer,
or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet, interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction,
superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS. None of
this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn’t know what you are talking about.

Now. You tell me you can predict the world of 2100. Tell me it’s even worth thinking about. Our models just carry the present into the future. They’re bound to be wrong. Everybody who gives a moment’s thought knows it.�

Read the whole essay here:
http://www.sepp.org/NewSEPP/GW-Aliens-Crichton.html

I recently posted a �Short Note To Al Gore� on my blog. Since nobody reads my posts, I thought I would include it here.

Hi Big Al,

Hope all is going well for you. All serial losers need a break from time to time. Sorry I missed the opening of your new flick. I�ve been real busy formulating strategies for my air conditioning clients to take advantage of this coming global warming thing.

I�ve been doing a lot of research too. Found a bunch of interesting articles/papers on climate change, like, the cycles of the sun. Did you know it gets noticeably hotter every 50-75 years, then cools down again? (There are slighter variations about every 11-12 years caused by more frequent flare activity.). Also read up on the orbit of the earth, including; the changing shape of the orbit, the tilt of the axis and wobble around the axis. All of these phenomena occur in cycles of 10, 40, and 100 thousand years and cause all kinds of havoc depending on which fluctuations are coincident. I couldn�t believe it but the sun and moon even have a cyclical effect on phenomena like the elevator effect in our oceans�which has a lot to do with sea water temperatures and�you guessed it� the weather!

Then I strolled through the Ice Ages. Read all (Well, most. OK. A lot.) of the current research and theories on how they occur and how many we could identify occurring in the last 10 million years, including their severity, size and duration. Wow! Really blows your mind to think that almost the entire North American continent was, and will be again, one big mother of an ice cube!

So I guess your theory and �consensus science� predicts that it�s going to get a lot hotter before we freeze our asses off again. Cool!

The only thing that troubles me is that it�s not happening fast enough. I�m writing this note from a place called New Jersey on May 22, 2006 and the National Weather Service just posted a FROST alert for my county for tonight. This is not good for me, my lawn, my newly planted flowers or my clients. So bring on the heat!

Well Big Al, best wishes that you�ll continue to make a fool out of yourself,

RR

PS; I also found out that methane is a greenhouse gas, so easy on the Tex-Mex food!

PPS; You can find out all this stuff, and a lot more by doing a Google search on �Climate�, Earth Orbit�, �The Sun�, �Ice Ages�, �Global Warming� and �Junk Science�. (Too many references to list in a note.)

JCC
- RunningRoach | 06/02/2006 @ 10:43
Unfortunately, your whole notion of the “Hundred Percent Fallacy” is based on either gross negligence or deliberate oversight. You took the 100% remark out of context. He was referring to the fact that “Out of 925 recent articles in peer-review scientific journals about global warming, there was no disagreement. Zero.”
- Trey | 06/27/2006 @ 20:48
It’s a pretty clear distinction. The basis for my comments, and this was clearly indicated, was the eleventh paragraph of Ebert’s review which deals with the scientific opinions drawn from the available facts.

The seventh paragraph is the one with the quote you cited, which deals with a completely different subject — the facts themselves. Whether Gore is correct about “zero disagreement” or not, is beside the point. He’s propped up an artificial veneer of unanimity, here, in exactly the manner I have described: Anyone who fails to go along, is systematically ignored.
- mkfreeberg | 06/27/2006 @ 23:27

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Hundred Percent FallacyFriday, June 2nd, 2006

Hundred Percent Fallacy
Friday, June 2nd, 2006