[lrenaud]

That gives me even less faith in the quality of findings.

Having seen the pathetic state of literature review in the various engineering fields, I cannot expect it to be better in meteorological fields. No doubt there is a certain subset of effective and critical reviewers, but I expect dogma, exciting findings, and name recognition still rule the day.

The most the volume of politics in engineering where our work is not overtly political to those outside outfield is astounding. I don't buy that in a field with so many non-expert pressures applied the review process escapes unadulterated.

[makmanalp]

I don't find this type of argument very useful because usually instead of making specific, falsifiable criticisms of the literature, this argument starts with "wow, scientists can be wrong or prone to human biases sometimes" which turns into a general "I have a touchy-feely sense that maybe some stuff is wrong with climate science", which quickly turns into "I guess most of the literature out there is completely wrong and thus we can do away with those conclusions regardless of the volume of evidence" to "I guess everyone and every viewpoint has an equal chance of being right".

Of course scientists make mistakes. Of course there is dogma and politics. Of course this has an effect, and of course we should take this seriously - and scientists can and do take it seriously. For example, look up the "reproducibility crisis" - some of the harshest criticism of existing science is yet again made by practicing scientists. But this is different than armchair handwringing.

[cderwin]

You're right that non-scientific pressures existing isn't sufficient to support the position that scientific research is inaccurate. However, it certainly is solid ground for exercising a bit of skepticism about scientific research -- particularly when it is well documented that the political distribution of scientists does not reflect that of the greater population and the scientific issue at hand has become political.

Moreover, there seems to be a knee-jerk reaction among non-experts to discredit this skepticism as being "anti-science" or being the work of climate-change "deniers." For example, see here[0]. The commenter laments that non-experts might suggest a criticism of peer-reviewed work without being an expert themselves on that criticism. He or she even accuses them of arguing in bad faith ("They'll put on all the plumage of reasonable dissent") and suggests that anyone who has not undergone the rigor of peer review is not qualified to have an opinion ("peer review or STFU"). I fear that if there were valid criticism to be heard, it would at best only fall on deaf ears.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13739382

[euyyn]

> particularly when it is well documented that the political distribution of scientists does not reflect that of the greater population and the scientific issue at hand has become political.

The issue at hand has become political in the USA, whereas there's plenty of science outside. This is like the "teaching evolution" debate. Even within the US, what would the "political pressure" argument be? That the Democratic party is trying to make people believe in AGW just so they can get to power and raise taxes?

[makmanalp]

> I fear that if there were valid criticism to be heard, it would at best only fall on deaf ears.

I'm not closed to this point of view, but it sure seems to be a rare case indeed.

If you look at it from the reverse perspective, climate scientists have been explaining /basic/ material and conclusions to deniers for decades now. If you want to criticize, I don't think there should be a peer-review barrier but you sure should at least be familiar with the body of work you're criticizing. Or else, how could you possibly contribute anything of substance? Go read the IPCC reports, or /something/. That's just common sense. A lot of criticism fails to meet that minimum bar, and also has usually been addressed beforehand.

I'm not a climate scientist, but right now I'm taking a graduate level class in databases and data systems. We're reading a lot of papers, some from academia and some from industry. But what I'm realizing is how lacking in nuance and content the discussions on even highly technical places like HN can be at times. Like when I see stuff like "NoSQL is bad for joins", it's like "really? on what system? under what conditions?". The ease with which laymen can assert conclusive-sounding statements on a whim is terrifying. The more you learn, the more you get the opposite instinct - to withhold judgement until something seems very clear. This destroys conversation dynamics when scientists are pitted against climate deniers. And a lot of times, I suspect that the arguments made fall in the "not even wrong" category. Then, the people who make the assertions aren't even willing to listen to the counterargument because it's "too technical". As if everything has a pithy one-liner response. In the end, this results in a massive amount of frustration on the part of the scientists, which leads us to the pickle we're in today.

Anyway, this discussion reminds me of the whole discussion in the 50s/60s about the health effects of smoking, and how it took forever for doctors and scientists to convince people that this was real. All the tobacco industry had to do was to criticize specific bits and pieces, discredit specific researchers, call things "inconclusive", and suddenly their criticism was as legitimate as a huge body of research. That's the dangerous bit here. Take a look: http://www.who.int/tobacco/media/en/TobaccoExplained.pdf

[euyyn]

We're talking about a pile of papers that have been accepted at Nature and Science over a span of decades, not a paper about how Agile is the best programming methodology.

[RyanZAG]

While that's true, there is another issue here. If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job. They'd literally have to start over their entire professional career from scratch with almost zero chance of getting any kind of funding. This includes everyone who peer reviews the papers too.

Meanwhile if Agile is proven to be terrible, it would be a huge boon for those writing about programming methodology as they could easily invent a new one and sell that.

So there is far more economic reason for almost every scientist involved to argue that global warming is definitely happening, while there is almost no economic reason for a computer scientist to argue it. So I don't think sheer quantity of papers in journals is necessarily a proof that global warming papers are any better than Agile papers in good journals.

EDIT: Instantly downvoted on posting! I've struck a nerve. That, to me, proves that people have a lot more to hide than they let on. I've certainly never been downvoted when discussing an Agile paper.

I was also thinking about the papers on Agile vs global warming, and the Agile papers generally read as far more balanced and generally go into much deeper detail than any global warming paper. So I think I'd personally trust the Agile papers more because they do at least have significant discussion on the negatives of the approach and generally cite negative studies themselves.

[yongjik]

> If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job.

1. That's a bit like saying if powered aviation goes away tomorrow (as in, it is to be completely proven to be impossible), every single engineer at Boeing would be out of a job.

2. The incentive structure doesn't work that way. If you could show that global warming isn't real, yes, all the other climate scientists will lose their job, but you will be rich beyond your dreams. Every billion-dollar petro-business will shower you with praise and contracts. You will be hailed as a savior of mankind, saving a million jobs and preventing policy mistakes that would have cost many billion dollars. The stake has never been higher.

So who's brainwashing all those French, Japanese, Chinese climate researchers to conspire with NASA against their own interest?

[RyanZAG]

> 1. That's a bit like saying if powered aviation goes away tomorrow (as in, it is to be completely proven to be impossible), every single engineer at Boeing would be out of a job.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. If you were doing a study on whether powered aviation is going away tomorrow, 99% (well probably 100%) of Boeing engineers would tell you that it isn't. Obviously. But you cannot use that as a proof that powered aviation is not going away. Even if it was going away, that's just not how you prove it. See? If every single powered aviation engineer in the world peer reviewed a paper on powered aviation not going away, it's still not any better or any more proof of it. There is too much financial incentive. It's not a good argument.

Now how much more so in the case of climate science where you can't clearly see airplanes flying above your head?

> 2. The incentive structure doesn't work that way. If you could show that global warming isn't real, yes, all the other climate scientists will lose their job, but you will be rich beyond your dreams. Every billion-dollar petro-business will shower you with praise and contracts. You will be hailed as a savior of mankind, saving a million jobs and preventing policy mistakes that would have cost many billion dollars. The stake has never been higher.

There's a few scientists trying to show this. They even have some papers that have convinced many non-climate scientists, although all have massive flaws if you look closely. Regardless, no matter how good those papers were, do you really believe all climate scientists would just sit down and say 'oh well, it was a nice life while it lasted' ? If a paper was released that truly did refute all climate science, nearly every climate scientist would declare it false, probably without even reading it. They'd look for spelling mistakes in the paper and declare it false if they found one. They'd tear it apart and convince themselves it was false, because their lives would literally depend on it.

> So who's brainwashing all those French, Japanese, Chinese climate researchers to conspire with NASA against their own interest?

Do you think researchers work in silos devoted to their own country without using the work of others...? That's not really how it works imo. Besides, climate change is massively good news for China -- they're making a fortune off 'green' solutions. I just checked and France and Japan are also, although to a much lesser extent. So I don't think this works as proof either.

[bjourne]

Your whole argument could be applied to biology too. If someone proved the theory of evolution false, millions of geneticists would be out of a job therefore we should suspect the theory of evolution to be false.

[RyanZAG]

That's a great point -- and maybe explains why the theory of evolution had so much push back for so long? Maybe there's a link to skepticism and these kinds of financial or credibility links? Is it subconscious even? Could be useful in anticipating which theories would face more pushback?

[conistonwater]

Wait a second: with that kind of logic, how would you distinguish "economic reasons" from "scientific reasons"? What, to your mind, distinguishes genuine scientific discoveries from "stuff people believe because they want a job"? Every successful scientific discovery ever got/kept someone a job, and sometimes even a Nobel prize. I can't help but notice that your logic works on every single scientific field, without exception, which tells me it's likely to be flawed, or am I wrong?

In the end, the only proper way to do this is with arguments based on merit, rather than perceived motivations of other people, because those perceptions are much more likely to be flawed than arguments based on merit.

[RyanZAG]

I don't that's true.

For an example that would apply to computer science: "99% of computer scientists agree that computers are the future of mankind". I don't think you even need to do a study here, it's obvious that around 99% of computer scientists would believe that, because it's what their lives are built around. Climate change scientists' lives are built around the existence of climate change, and so obviously they'd have the same beliefs.

Where the value of a scientific paper comes in is within the discipline: how do a I best use this computer to accomplish something? How do I best cut down on the effects of carbon on the atmosphere? If I increase oxygen density, what will happen? Regardless of the answer to these questions, the people involved will be able to continue their lives. They're disconnected with economic reasons because no matter the answer to the question, there is more work for them. Economic reasons come in when the results of a study would directly threaten the livelihood of the scientist. In that case, we can't just assume that because all the scientists agree that it's automatically perfect.

> In the end, the only proper way to do this is with arguments based on merit, rather than perceived motivations of other people.

Correct! My point was more about how the Agile paper is disparaged. I have more reason to believe the results of an accredited and published Agile paper than I do a paper on the very reason an entire field of study exists.

My personal belief that climate change is real and a huge problem is irrelevant here: I still find the Agile paper to be more convincing. The only reason I believe in climate change is because I've checked the science myself to the best of my ability, and not because of the peer reviewed papers which I believe would say the same exact thing even if climate change does not exist. Hopefully that makes it clearer.

[conistonwater]

Why do you insist that the economic incentive is the only, the primary, and most relevant incentive there? Surely you must understand that a lot of people want to do a good job, which in this case means doing good science (which is an abstract concept, unrelated to people's personal motivations). Wanting to do a good job that stands up to scrutiny of one's peers is as much of an incentive as anything. Haven't you experienced that in your own work? Indeed, historically, science has got a lot of things right. I think you might be unreasonably cynical about all this.

[RyanZAG]

> Historically, science has got a lot of things right.

Can you name any historical outcome of science that did not align in some way with the financials? I cannot name a single scientist who ever researched himself out of a job. Yet that is what would happen to climate science researchers if they were able to prove climate change isn't real. It's unprecedented and I don't think using the historical track record of financially beneficial science is a good argument.

As for doing a good job -- sure, I try do a good job always. But that is entirely within the confines of my job. I'm not going to do a good job that would directly get me fired. Most people wouldn't. Most climate science researchers wouldn't.

Economic incentive is usually not the primary incentive, but in the case of climate science, there is a massive peer incentive to prove that climate change is an enormous risk. Saying something like "I don't think climate change matters" is going to get you snide comments from your peers and nobody is going to want to co-author papers with you. It's a big problem of science and exists in many other areas too. Politics matters.

[euyyn]

> every single climate change scientist would be out of a job

That's very flawed reasoning: Do you think these scientists didn't have a job before?

> I was also thinking about the papers on Agile vs global warming, and the Agile papers generally read as far more balanced and generally go into much deeper detail than any global warming paper.

Where are you getting your global warming papers from?

[RyanZAG]

> That's very flawed reasoning: Do you think these scientists didn't have a job before?

A huge percentage of them didn't actually. Most of the current researchers into climate change have always worked as researchers in this field. You have to remember the field has been around since the 60s, but has rapidly begun to attract PHD students and others because of the vast amounts of grant money devoted to it in recent years.

> Where are you getting your global warming papers from?

Nature and Science. Where are you getting your Agile papers from?

[conistonwater]

> has rapidly begun to attract PHD students and others because of the vast amounts of grant money devoted to it in recent years

I think you are very likely wrong about the causal link there: the way science organizations allocate money is that they decide what is important to study, so it should make sense that important fields are the ones that attract money and people. And there's a general scientific sense in which some fields are more important to the progress of science than others. But that's just how it should be, and less important fields should have less money. So you observe the expected behaviour (important fields get more research effort), but you think you're seeing a pathological behaviour instead. After all, what evidence would you accept that climate science deserves that particular level of funding?

[RyanZAG]

There's lots of evidence to show that climate science deserves a lot of funding -- our world kind of depends on it. Believe me, I'm not in disagreement with you there.

However, I think there is a massive causal link there. If you're looking to do your PHD and your advisor tells you to research climate change because of all the grant money, that seems like a massive link to me. Then once you have your PHD on climate change, the obvious next step for funding is to do more research on climate change.

[euyyn]

> Where are you getting your Agile papers from?

Same place as lrenaud.

[linkregister]

Why would any climate scientist be out of a job? The climate is constantly undergoing changes that include more than temperature. Air and water currents, precipitation, movement of glaciers, etc.

I don't agree with the down vote applied to your post. However, the rhetorical device of claiming an opponent has ulterior motives is frowned upon on HN.

[RyanZAG]

From a cursory glance into the grants and money devoted to climate science research from the UN and others, nearly all of it directly relates to climate change. There is a market for general studies into planetary climate, but they're minuscule compared to the amount of funding provided by the fear of climate change.

To deny the financial link here is purposeful blindness, in my opinion. If all of the studies showed that no climate change was occurring, and all of the studies were funded by oil companies, you'd no doubt be agreeing with me. Actually the studies that are funded by oil companies do show far less climate change, while those funded by the UN show the most. Coincidence? Not a chance.

> I don't agree with the down vote applied to your post. However, the rhetorical device of claiming an opponent has ulterior motives is frowned upon on HN.

Fair enough, but I literally got down voted 5 seconds after pressing submit. I've never seen that before, and I have a feeling I was downvoted by someone without even having my post read fully. It was more of a personal anecdote to myself that there's more here than meets the eye.

[linkregister]

What resources do you use to look into the funding sources and scope of climate science studies?

I've seen quite a few articles here on HN based off of NOAA and NASA studies regarding other interesting climate topics, such as variation in jet streams and ocean currents, changes in rainfall (especially California), and the development of storms. That's just my haphazard exposure, certainly not a definitive answer.

Are climate scientists so specialized that they can't pivot to another discipline within meteorology?

Do climate scientists even stay within the field more than other academics? I was under the impression that the vast majority of post-docs and PhD candidates perform laboratory work for a few years, fail to get tenure, and then work in private industry in a tangentially related field for much better compensation. Post-docs and PhD candidates are also notoriously underpaid. Wouldn't tenure follow from a groundbreaking study that disproved mainstream scientific belief, instead of boringly replicating existing findings?

Of course there is an economic link to everything. You still haven't established the link in a meaningful fashion. "I'm just asking questions" isn't good enough to present a convincing argument.

[RyanZAG]

Unfortunately, the numbers we need here are all confidential. Here's the list of UN grants though: http://www.unccd.int/en/programmes/Capacity-building/CBW/mar...

Here's a decent article on the economic effects on climate science research: http://www.ucsusa.org/publications/got-science/2015/got-scie... - This is in the opposite direction, but it shows how easily money is a factor. The fact still remains that there are unknown and undisclosed links to research that is paid to give a specific result.

As for climate scientists, yes they are fairly specialized. A PHD is always going to be specialized. And even more so, nearly all work for climate scientists is in research or in explaining climate change: https://www.indeed.com/q-Climate-Scientist-jobs.html

> Wouldn't tenure follow from a groundbreaking study that disproved mainstream scientific belief, instead of boringly replicating existing findings?

Not if even trying to research it would get you immediately fired. Stating you don't believe climate change exists inside a climate science department will almost instantly guarantee you will be axed. You're definitely not going to get funding to study it.

> Of course there is an economic link to everything. You still haven't established the link in a meaningful fashion. "I'm just asking questions" isn't good enough to present a convincing argument.

That we agree that there is an economic link, and that an economic link will influence outcomes, is literally all I'm saying.

[ScottBurson]

There is some risk of institutionalized bias such as you are suggesting. The possibility should not be dismissed entirely.

But I don't think it's true that every scientist expressing a belief in anthropogenic global warming has a conflict of interest. Some number of them are tenured professors, for example. This is a good example of the value of the tenure system in academia.

As for the papers in Nature and Science, well, I haven't read them, but given the extreme politicization of the issue, it doesn't surprise me that the authors are tending to omit qualifications and caveats, since many people who want to dismiss the evidence would pick up on these -- as we're seeing in this very discussion.

[RyanZAG]

> But I don't think it's true that every scientist expressing a belief in anthropogenic global warming has a conflict of interest. Some number of them are tenured professors, for example. This is a good example of the value of the tenure system in academia.

Even a tenured professor still wants to be published in leading journals. Plus he gets a huge amount of credibility within his own university by being constantly published. Tenure definitely is a positive here, but it's not a get-out-of-jail free card by any means as there are a ton of incentives for him to stick to the climate change dogma regardless.

> As for the papers in Nature and Science, well, I haven't read them, but given the extreme politicization of the issue, it doesn't surprise me that the authors are tending to omit qualifications and caveats, since many people who want to dismiss the evidence would pick up on these -- as we're seeing in this very discussion.

Great point! I agree fully. But is it really useful? Now instead of people picking up on these qualifications and caveats to attack the argument, they're pointing out the caveats themselves and saying 'Haha! You ommitted this! You have something to hide!'. So the cure they're trying to use here seems worse than the disease. We put in these qualifications and caveats to protect our work. A good Agile paper would include the criticisms of Agile too -- not because they want to, but because it's important to understand the weak points. Obfuscating it doesn't help anyone in the long run, and it doesn't stop the same people attacking it anyway.

[rodgerd]

> That, to me, proves that people have a lot more to hide than they let on.

Or it proves you're making stupid arguments people can't be bothered engaging with.

[jjoonathan]

> If global warming went away tomorrow -- as in, it were to be completely proven to not exist -- every single climate change scientist would be out of a job.

Your mental model of how grants get distributed to scientists is incorrect.

[RyanZAG]

As someone who has received a number of grants, I don't think I'm entirely incorrect here. Although I was exaggerating, the field would shrink dramatically, departments would be shut down or merged, journals would stop carrying articles on a wide range of subjects which would force the researchers to publish into new fields they have no prior experience in. That puts them in a position of competing with researchers already in those fields. With most institutions requiring their researchers to get into journals, you can hopefully see how this would have a very big impact on everyone's career.

I don't think there is actually a prior example of this ever happening as I don't know of any other field of study where everything is based off a single issue. And if that issue were false (yes yes, I know it isn't -- but if it was!) then the entire field would collapse. Something to think about.

[jjoonathan]

> As someone who has received a number of grants, I don't think I'm entirely incorrect here. Although I was exaggerating

Yeah, and I replied in kind. Apologies. FWIW, I played the grant game too, with a small amount of success before I jumped ship.

While you're right that climate change being proven wrong would cause a contraction in the field, I don't think this fact translates cleanly into incentives that could keep a collective lie afloat. Three reasons, if you'll pardon my bullets.

1. Whoever successfully spearheaded the change would be set for life in terms of reputation (and, more than likely, position + funding), so there's a prisoner's dilemma in favor of the truth coming out.

2. Individual studies often happen at a granularity where it's not clear whether or not they support "The Narrative" until long after they are complete. E.g. if a study's "deliverable" is to measure the blackbody radiation from Earth, the number only has relevance to the climate change argument once differenced against solar influx, inflow/outflow from heat reservoirs, nuclear heating from the core, etc.

3. The whole kerfuffle over heat storage in the deep ocean played out as one would expect if the process works, and didn't play out as one would expect if everyone were part of a coverup, intentional or otherwise. A ton of models broke, the literature generally admitted this was the case, and the cause was tracked down until its source and implications were understood.

[conistonwater]

Your own experience in your own field might not be representative of other fields. Surely you have to consider that possibility?

[mcbits]

The claim was that peer review in climate science is comparable to any other science. Ignoring the semantics of "engineering" vs "science", if your experience with peer review in another field is not positive, then it's fair to say the claim doesn't inspire much confidence.