Bill Nye the Scientism Guy

Billy Nye was on the Tucker Carlson show last night.

In previous posts, such as Scott Adams: The Climate Science Debate Illusion, John Oliver is a Moron: John Oliver is a Moron, and Climate Change Science: So Convincing It's Unreal, I've made the following determinations surrounding the climate change debate.

1. Most climate-change advocates can't even state basic evidence to support their conclusions.
2. A consensus of the scientific community does not constitute scientific fact.
3. Climate study is not truly a science.
4. The prediction of a model is not a fact.
5. Climate researchers have now 3 times been caught conspiring to produce fraudulent results to support the warming conclusion.
6. Scientism is a belief system similar to religion, as opposed to science, which is a process for discerning objective truth.

Many of these examples are on full display in Tucker's interview. Bill Nye comes on to talk about the cognitive dissonance of climate skeptics. He doesn't even want to really talk about the science, as it is "settled". Note the meaning of the phrase cognitive dissonance. It is the state of holding two or more contradictory beliefs. It also implies some level of discomfort with the condition. One is troubled by the contradiction, perhaps at a subconscious level. The discomfort marks the difference of cognitive dissonance with Orwellian doublethink, which can be thought of as an immunity to cognitive dissonance. Those who exhibit the Oliver Effect are also immune, because they are not knowledgeable enough to even comprehend the contradictions of their beliefs.

So in the case of the climate skeptic, what is the cognitive dissonance? According to Nye, the contradictory beliefs are something like this.

• Climate change is a fact because of the scientific consensus.
• Climate skeptics are skeptical about climate change.

That is not cognitive dissonance. That is just being skeptical. Think about it. Nye went on the air with the sole intention of talking about cognitive dissonance, and he doesn't even know what it means. He thinks cognitive dissonance means not believing something you should believe. It's a slightly more refined version of the liberal tendency to call everyone who disagrees with them a racist. Everyone who disagrees with me has cognitive dissonance. The man really doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. I wish Tucker would have pushed him on that. 

Tucker did push him hard on point #1 from up above, that climate-change proponents can't state basic evidence to support their claims. He really drills to the heart of the matter. To what degree are humans impacting the climate? What would the climate look like if humans didn't generate CO₂? This is the fundamental question of climate change, is it not? Nye said the science was settled, but he can't provide the answer. He should be able to, if he's correct. It would be like going on the air to say that drugs raise crime rates, that all who disagree have cognitive dissonance, and then not even know what percentage of crimes are drug-related. Except it's even worse than that. The drug crime percentage is a knowable statistic. It would be possible to be correct about the causation and not know the statistic, just irresponsible. But in this case it's impossible to know precisely what the climate would look like without human input, just like it's impossible to know if it will rain two months from next Tuesday.

Nye either doesn't understand the concept, or he does but he knows if he admits it he will invalidate the entire premise that there is no room for skepticism when it comes to climate change. His evidence is always in the form of a conclusion. Grapes growing in England is his evidence. But that doesn't say anything about the role carbon dioxide has played. Similarly, he talks about rate increases or coastal cities threatened if sea levels rise. None of this addresses the question. That he can't provide basic evidence for his own beliefs is pretty bad.

It gets even worse. Nye does finally field an answer. He says that without manmade effects, the climate today would be the same as around 1750. After stating that the climate naturally changes, he goes on to assert that without human activities, the climate would not have changed in almost 300 years. That, my friends, is cognitive dissonance.

Scott Adams: The Climate Science Debate Illusion

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) posted on the climate science debate. Naturally he framed it in terms of his favorite subjects: persuasion and hallucination. He hit hard on an idea I have also discussed on this blog: that two sides of a heated debate can actually be having almost completely separate arguments. My usual example is the abortion debate. Pro-lifers and pro-choicers are not really having the same debate. Pro-lifers are arguing about the rights of the fetus, pro-choicers are arguing about the rights of the mother.

Adams arrives at the same conclusion for climate debate. In his estimation some people are arguing in terms of science, while others are arguing in terms of predictive models, which are not science. I made the distinction myself recently in my post Climate Change Science: So Convincing It's Not Real. Adams makes the same distinction I make; models are not science, they are a tool that scientists might use. He quips that calling a model science is like calling a microscope science.

Adams and I are clearly on the same page with all this. However I take some issue with the example he used. If you didn't read his post that I linked (and you should have...there's still time to go back and read it if you haven't) then here is the tweet he referenced.

He states:

Chelsea’s tweet exchange is representative of the debate illusion around the country.

But is it really? This doesn't sound so much like a comment of the type that Adams and I are both talking about, but more like an example of the Oliver Effect I described in John Oliver is a Moron: John Oliver is a Moron. It is not an example of an argument framed from the viewpoint of the scientific method versus predictive modeling; it's an argument from someone too stupid to know the difference. And could anything better summarize the ditzy liberal wading into a debate on science than, "ummmm, it's like science, duh!" (Remember, The Left Can No Longer Be Satirized).

This is also an example of something I call scientism. [I thought I had a post on scientism to refer back to. I actually have an unfinished draft, so I'll work on getting that finished.] Scientism is science as a belief system. It's adherents typically mock religion as something that has been superceded, however they don't fully comprehend the scientific method themselves, so science hasn't so much replaced religion as it has become the preferred religion. Ridiculing climate skeptics because science (in the lay sense) said they're wrong is really no different than ridiculing other religions because the Bible said they're wrong.

Stop Global Warming in Three Easy Steps

Feeling bummed because John Oliver told you climate change is a fact? That's okay, there's plenty that you, yes you, can do yourself to end the ravages of CO₂ emissions on our planet. It won't be easy, but heck, if saving the planet was easy everyone would be doing it, right?

Stop driving

Personal vehicles are not only the most convenient mode of transportation, they are also the least energy efficient. There is simply no way one can be a credible advocate for the destruction being caused by CO₂ emissions if they are using an automobile for their own transportation. Resorting to mass transportation and ride sharing are much more efficient. But really these still have their own carbon emissions. To really fight climate change one must accept the challenge of walking to all destinations. One exception might be to ride a horse, but make sure it is pasture-fed. No cheating with tractor-rolled hay bales or farm-grown grains!

Stop heating and cooling your home

Central heating for homes generally runs directly off gas, which directly creates CO₂ emissions, or off electricity, which indirectly creates even more CO₂ emissions. Even worse is air conditioning, which is even less efficient than electrical heating. Consider alternate modes of regulating the temperature of your house. Open windows in summer, and lots of blankets in winter. Planting decidious trees on your souther exposure will help with temperate regulation. If you do need to heat your home, only do so by burning wood harvested locally without CO₂ emiting devices such as chainsaws.

Stop consuming products shipped by truck, rail, ship, or plane

The global economy is a massive polluter. Fight back by buying only local products that you acquire on foot. This means all your food will be sourced from the local farmers' markets! Be careful though, as they tend to transport to town by truck. You'll need to journey to the farms yourself to make sure your food sourcing does not leave a carbon footprint. Similar conditions apply for clothing, medicine, shelter, and other necessities of life.

John Oliver is a Moron: John Oliver is a Moron

John Oliver is a Moron

Tenet 1: John Oliver is a Moron

Tenet 2: John Oliver is wrong on virtually every subject.

Tenet 3: If you find yourself agreeing with John Oliver, you are probably wrong.

John Oliver is a Moron

My apologies for the uncreative title, subtitle, and section headings, but sometimes these things just write themselves. Here's a John Oliver meme I recently encountered which reminded me of my long-held belief that John Oliver is a moron. (Apologies to all morons out there of the more benign variety).

John Oliver is a Moron

Here we see Oliver stumble gracelessly into the dual subjects of climate change and public opinion. First we are told that the opinions of 25% of the population are simply irrelevant. Trenchant commentary if he was talking about a country that is not a democracy. Looking at our handy list of dictators and focusing on the Americas, that would limit him to Cuba (whom he defends) and Venezuela (whom he doesn't defend yet can't bring himself to properly criticize either). In those countries, and many of the other dictatorships throughout the world, popular opinion is very unimportant. However the United States is governed by a democracy (link provided for John Oliver). Under a democracy policy decisions are ostensibly made with large input from the governed citizens. Thus 25% of the population doubting climate change does in fact matter. It matters whether you agree or not, because those people have input into policy making. Granted it might be true that the US is not in fact all that democratic and people don't actually have that much input in policy. Or it might be the case the democracy is an institution doomed to failure because people on the whole are not rational. But Oliver is not making commentary on the principles of democracy: he is just ridiculing rubes for chuckles.

John Oliver is a Moron

Second, you have to love this sentence:

You don't need people's opinions on a fact.

And this is where we really dive into the depths of his moronity, or perhaps just the shallowness of his understanding of the domain in which is he is ridiculing people for their beliefs. (Aside: I've still never had a debate with one of these climate change fanatics who could share even basic details about the climate science they're so sure of.) So why is it that Oliver can be so sure climate change is a "fact"? What they will always respond with is: the scientific consensus. Yes the consensus, or the opinions of experts, is all the proof you need. So Oliver's stance on climate change is driven by the two following premises.

1. You don't need people's opinions on a fact.
2. Climate change is a fact because of people's opinions.

The only thing proven here is that Oliver is highly immune to cognitive dissonance, drawn from the observation that his head has not exploded (unfortunately). Although another explanation is that he has so little intellectual curiosity that he doesn't realize that consensus is the key argument supporting his assertion that "climate change is a fact". This kind of protection from the trivial nuances of the domain should be generally true in any field of knowledge. We shall henceforth refer to it as the Oliver Effect: when one's understanding of a subject is so shallow that the fundamental contradictions of their opinions on that subject are hidden from them. But this is just what we all know colloquially as "being a moron."

He lists a number of facts to compare to. Let's see if we can prove those things.

Which number is bigger, 5 or 15?

You can't really prove this as it is practically axiomatic.

Are there owls or hats?

Pretty easy to prove by providing an example of either.

Climate change cannot be similarly proved! For reasons I previously explained, we can't actually prove anything about a theory given a single chaotic instance of the phenomenon in action. We can't prove it won't rain tomorrow. We've all seen downpours on days forecasted to have 0% chance of rain. That 15 is larger than 5 is a fact. That owls exist is a fact. That it will rain tomorrow is a model-driven probability, not a fact. "Climate change" is not a fact, or even a statement. Scientific fact requires reproducible experimentation. Blind faith in the academy is exactly what science is designed to avoid.

John Oliver is a Moron

In conclusion, with one bumbling statement Oliver has negated the fundamental bases of both democracy and scientific inquiry in his zeal to paint other people as morons so as to take some pressure off of himself. He's like the kid in class who couldn't read well so he made fun of the teacher's shirt to make everyone else laugh. Granted he is funny. So laugh at him, not with him. And for the love of god please don't be making political or scientific opinions based on the quips of a comedian so lacking in knowledge that the phrase "the Oliver Effect" was named after him. 😄

Climate Change Science: So Convincing It's Unreal

My views on climate change have been influenced by Christopher Monckton, who does not take the stance of refuting overall climate change or even of global warming, but of pointing out the flaws of the mainstream "consensus". He is not a climate change denier, as they like to say, but certainly a climate hype denier.

One of the positions put forth by Monckton is that not only are measurements of warming falling significantly short of predictions (and he takes some issues with the measurements themselves) but that there has been an 18-year pause in measured warming. Dubbed the Global Warming Hiatus, it has been attributed by many as the result of a particular faulty data set. The hiatus really came under scrutiny with a recent infographic of NOAA data that has been going around on social media showing a very clear pervasive warming trend right up to the current year. This seemed to refute the hiatus. I found myself wondering if Monckton was succumbing to his own biases and cherry-picking his data. It would seem to lower his overall credibility on the issue.

Now a climate scientist is blowing the whistle that NOAA has been manipulating it's results. The organization was under great pressure to deliver results that underscored the case for dramatic global warming, and to do so before the Paris climate conventions of 2015. (You know the one where all the Hollywood liberals flew private jets across the ocean so they could lecture about carbon emissions.) Does this vindicate Monckton? Well it doesn't prove he doesn't cherry pick data. But when the evidence used to discredit someone is shown to be fraudulent, well there is certainly some level of vindication to the accused. Further you can't prove someone doesn't cherry pick their data, although you can provide strong evidence that they do.

At a larger scope, this serves to invalidate all results that have come for the NOAA for some time. We know that (1) pressure exists in their organization to prefer certain results, and (2) they have caved to that pressure at least once. When a judge is shown to be similarly biased all their relevant rulings are thrown out, and this should be no different. This is a massive blow to climate change advocates, and a major boon to the skeptics. The blow is much greater to their organization and the political causes than the data would have been a benefit. And a large benefit it was, as even I was questioning the skeptics and I'm very skeptical about the climate change situation.

This is not the first climate scandal of recent times. (Witness Climategates 1 & 2). The biggest complaint we on the right have is not with science, as alleged by the left, but with the scientists. We don't believe they are doing purely objective science. The left invariably responds by reminding us about the vast consensus of climate scientists that proves we are wrong. But does this not cut to the core of scientific inquiry? "Don't trust me, observe for yourself.  My results are reproducible," says every true scientist everywhere. "Consensus" is not a scientific argument. "You're anti-science" isn't even an argument at all. If scientific inquiry meant believing what the academy told us was true, then we'd still be stuck at a heliocentric view of the cosmos.

We allege that there is strong bias within the climate research community. Not just of the researchers themselves (there is strong selection pressure within academia for liberal viewpoints) but more importantly, of the funding of the research. Most research is funded by the federal government. We're told we're being naive and just grasping at straws to invalidate conclusions that contradict our political stances. And yet we now have 3 scandals in recent times that all point to manipulation of research towards the warming conclusion being advocated by the left. Once should have been evidence enough; three indicates an epidemic of political bias in the supposedly sober and impartial field of climate research. At this point it is not unreasonable to question all research whose conclusions support the so-called scientific consensus.

It's Not Even Science

Just a reminder that climate science is not really science. Science consists of four steps.

Model → Prediction → Test → Analysis

The model is our representation of reality. We make predictions within the model, we perform tests in the real world, and we use the results to analyze how well our model corresponds to reality.

In climate change there is no reality to test against. All we have are computer simulations and other models. The climate change predictions are not being made against the real world, but against other models, which are prone to the biases of the implementer. The most notorious example of this was the hockey stick controversy, where plugging in the real-world data yielded such a sharp rise in the rate of global warming that it was said to resemble a hockey stick. The controversy was that any data input to the model yielded a similar result. It would be like a Wall Street broker relying on modeling data that always predicted a bear market. Such a model would not last real-world scrutiny for very long. But climate research is heavily insulated from real-world scrutiny.

Some predictions actually are tested against the actual climate, but we need to be very careful here. Climate is a chaotic system. We can't predict how it will act at any given time, only give probabilities for it. This is no different than standard weather forecasts. If they call for rain tomorrow and it's sunny, it doesn't invalidate meteorology. If we look at large numbers of forecasts / outcomes we'll see they tend to get it right. With the climate we don't have the same advantage. We only have one global climate, and it varies on processes that can take millennia to cycle through.

If a field makes predictions that can't be tested against the real world, is it really a science? Perhaps we should call it climate studies instead. Then what of their practitioners? Are they really scientists? They may be smart and very technically capable people, but I don't see how we can give the label scientist to someone who does not fully engage in the scientific process.

If anyone calls you a science denier for being a climate changed skeptic, the best response is to the effect of: I'm a science advocate which is why I questions outcomes from the field of Climate Studies when they've been repeatedly shown to be politically biased to the point of outright fraud.