It may be naïve to hope for better, but the world cannot afford sly pandering to lying propaganda. Failures of epistemic integrity have real practical consequences, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the middle east. Consider this: ‘In August Sweden’s leading daily newspaper, Aftonbladet, alleged that Palestinians were being killed for their organs.… Read More »Shame on Bioedge
The outrage provoked by Professor Anthony Mathur’s suggestion that patients should sometimes be obliged to enrol in clinical trials (discussed already on this blog by Steve Clarke: 11 December) continues to rage on. Armies of shrill autonomists tell us that all our worst nightmares are real: that Mengele walks again.
Now we move on to virtue in the conduct of enquiry.
There is some evidence giving cause for concern
· There is evidence of dogmatism: ‘The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.’[1] Now it is indeed possible that the data is wrong, but the lack of a continued warming trend (since 1998?) is contrary to the predictions of the models on which IPCC predictions are based, and a common variety of dogmatism is to deny evidence that doesn’t fit your preconceived beliefs.
· There is evidence of arbitrary data manipulation: ‘Another serious issue to be considered relates to the fact that the PC1 time series in the Mann et al. analysis was adjusted to reduce the positive slope in the last 150 years … At this point, it is fair to say that this adjustment was arbitrary.’[2]
· In the computer code there is evidence of data manipulation conducted in order to get a pre-conceived result.
· Remarks from a programmer writing code indicate serious problems with collection and recording of original data ‘another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases’[3]
· For some time there has been controversy over the selective use of data. For a recent example from a Russian institute commenting on the CRU use of Russian data (report here ): the continuous data records from Russia which taken in their entirety show warming of 1.4 C since 1860 versus CRU use of only 25% of that data to show 2.06C rise since 1860; the use by CRU of stations with incomplete and interrupted data where such data shows warming versus the omission of stations with complete and continuous data which doesn't.
· More broadly, local scientists in Australia and New Zealand have found broadly constant original temperature data on which a rising official temperature record has been based through the use of methods of data manipulation originating in or influenced by CRU practices. See this discussion of the problems in raw data and controversy over claims of inhomogeneity in that data and adjustments made to produce estimates of historical temperatures from weather stations in Northern Australia: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/08/the-smoking-gun-at-darwin-zero/
None of these examples demonstrate straightforward dishonesty. For example, all sorts of junk gets left in computer code. People put bits in that they call ‘fudge factors’ because they think they know the broad shape of some other correction process which is not yet coded, so in early drafts a ‘fudge factor’ procedure stands as a proxy for some real adjusting factor. They are, however, evidence that more subtle vices may yet be in play.
Read More »Climate scientists behaving badly? Part 3: the conduct of enquiry.
By: David Edmonds
The
current British inquiry into the Iraq war – led by Sir John Chilcot – is a
cathartic exercise. No issue since New
Labour was elected in 1997 has been so divisive. The war split friends, families and
political parties. While the
catastrophic impact of the war is still being felt in Iraq, in Britain the
inquiry – it is hoped – will bring some closure.
Many
critics of the war are looking for one finding.
They don’t want to hear that the former Prime Minister Tony Blair
miscalculated. They want to have
confirmed their belief that he intentionally misled – even that he lied. Oddly, a verdict of ‘lie’ would be regarded
as incomparably more serious than a verdict of ‘miscalculation’. The ‘Liar’ headline would curdle the
nation’s blood.
As promised at the end of part 1 (here ), I shall now run over the evidence for the failings of epistemic character among climate scientists. I shall be breaking this up into loosely related groups: objectivity, the conduct of enquiry, what is owed to other enquirers and virtue in testimony.
The emails show that these particular climate scientists are neither objective nor impartial. One even harbours violent urges towards a critic: ‘Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted.’[1]
Read More »Climate scientists behaving badly? Part 2: Objectivity
In a recent article on the BBC News website Professor Anthony Mathur, Head of Advanced Cardiac Imaging at Barts and the NHS Trust, argues that cardiac patients should be obliged to take part in medical research (See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8399763.stm). It seems that it is difficult to get patients to agree to participate in clinical trials, however research subjects are required if new heart stem cell therapies are to be developed. Professor Mathur’s proposal has been given short shrift by David Hunter, writing on the BMJ Group Journal of Medical Ethics blog (See http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2009/12/09/should-patients-be-obliged-to-participate-in-research/). Hunter suggests that Mathur’s proposal amounts to a failure to respect autonomy and he further suggests that the way to solve this problem is to devote more time and resources to recruitment, rather than relying on cardiac patients agreeing to participate. Michael Cook writing on BioEdge describes a possible defense of Mathur’s proposal in radical utilitarian terms. (See http://www.bioedge.org/index.php/bioethics/bioethics_article/8777/). On such views, if the benefits of research outweigh the costs then, all things being equal, the proposal is morally justified, regardless of concerns about respect for individual autonomy.
Read More »When Patients Should be Obliged to Participate in Medical Research
Two recent articles highlight the powerful influence that language has over the way people think. Word choice is at the centre of an article about USA ‘abortionist’ Warren Hern . He hates the word abortionist: ‘the opponents of abortion have turned it into a degrading and demeaning word that has the same negative connotations as the most despicable racial epithet’.
But the author argues that it is the right word, an accurate word, and our discomfort with it is only a measure of how poisoned the language of abortion has become. The article does not refer to Hern by his name but uses the poisoned word, the ‘abortionist’, ignoring both the normal convention referring to people the way they want plus Hern’s abhorrence of the word. This produces an accusatory tone that suggests that the author is antagonistic towards Hern, although other that name calling the author does not seem unsupportive of him. Perhaps the author is expressing his mixed feelings.
In a urology journal this month American
surgeons describe transplanting kidneys that would previously have been
rejected as unsuitable. In each case the donor kidneys had been found to
contain a solitary mass during the transplant work-up that was potentially
cancerous. Rather than cancelling the donation the surgeons removed the kidney,
cut out the tumour, and then transplanted the tumour-free organ. This follows
reports from a couple of weeks ago that surgeons are increasingly using ‘risky’
organs from donors who are elderly or who have other serious illnesses.
Read More »Second-hand and second-class organs. Should the patient know?
The Copenhagen climate change summit begins today, and will run for two weeks: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/copenhagen . The aim of this UN meeting is to establish agreements to succeed the Kyoto protocol, in the hope ultimately of limiting global warming to a maximum of 2˚C. After the disappointing results of the negotiations in Barcelona in September, it is looking unlikely that such agreements will emerge from Copenhagen. But it can be hoped that Copenhagen will play an important role in establishing a basis for further negotiations over the next few years. If those negotations fail, then there is a non-trivial risk that the overall quality of human life on the planet will plummet, or even that the earth will no longer be able to sustain human life at all.
I would
like to try and throw additional light on the motives that led a majority of
Swiss voters to a surprise acceptance, on November 29, of an initiative
forbidding the construction of future minarets – already commented on by
Russell Powell in his entry on this very blog yesterday. Some supporters of the
initiative, such as far-right politician Ulrich Schlüer, who co-launched it
(and was already notorious for his questionable campaign in 2004 against simplified
naturalisation procedures), might simply want to prevent any minority with a
cultural and religious background different from their own from expanding and
expressing itself. Others might have been misled into thinking that all Muslims
are extremists, supporting terrorist attacks. Yet I also suspect that a
significant proportion of those who endorsed the minaret ban, while not being
fundamentally hostile to Islam, might have been motivated by the worry that the
further expansion of the Muslim community in Switzerland (and Europe in
general) poses a threat to certain core values of Western liberal democracies,
such as gender equality, freedom of speech, and the separation between church
and state.
