My Response to Another Climate Change Comment on Youtube

Last night I received another interesting comment from another climate change discussion board on Youtube. This one was long and detailed, including many different arguments. I will not produce the person's comments here without his or her permission, but I will introduce the person's first claim, then reproduce my responses. I am sorry that it is a little bit rambling, but I expect that on the whole, those seeking information might find it useful. I include some commentary in square braces [ ].

Perhaps I wasted my time, but I think the discussion might be useful to other people on either side who might be open minded about the issue. I should say up front that I am not a climate alarmist. I am also not a climate change denier. I am a climate scientist with interest in this problem. I am not an expert in all aspects of the problem (as no single person can be).

The person's first complaint was that climate change science originated as guesswork:

Of course it was figured out by guess work. That's how science works. Scientists see an issue, make a guess--Then test it with evidence. That a theory starts as a guess is irrelevant in the end, because of all of the accumulated evidence and logical argument.

[My earlier comment, to which this person had responded, pointed out that a scientist who could overturn the whole concept of CO2-induced climate change would get a Nobel Prize--The person's comment suggested that this possibility was ridiculous to them. My response follows.]

Why would you suggest that my suggestion is ridiculous that someone would win a Nobel prize for overturning it? Because the amount of effort required to overturn the whole theory, including the bold and clear evidence required would be so profound that the person would clearly deserve the prize. [I should add, that I think a person making such a discovery along with the profound evidence required would almost certainly win a Nobel prize--my point is that a person could not get that far just by asserting that they think that most climate scientists are wrong--they would need to prove it beyond reasonable doubt.]

[The person then asked "how are they (the scientists) so sure..."]

No good scientist is completely sure about human-induced climate change. The reason they are "so sure" is that they see evidence for it.

[The person then asserts that scientists have changed the language, from "global warming" to "climate change".]

Your supposed conflict between "climate change" and "global warming" is a straw man. Climate change refers to the whole set of changes, whereas "global warming" is one particular aspect. People still call it global warming, but when their interest is, for example, a reduced total number of hurricanes, increased drought in some parts of the world, increased floods in other parts, reduced tornado activity (perhaps), or ocean acidification, they refer to climate change.

[The person then asserts that science has often been wrong, and changes over time.]

Of course science has often been wrong. That's how science works. People's understanding of almost all natural systems has been improving over time, with new ideas supplanting the old ones. Yet, although there were a few papers in the 1970's discussing potential for global cooling, even then, more papers were published on longterm warming. The first paper on climate change by CO2 was before 1900, by Arrhenius.

Of course the climate has always been changing. That fact in no way refutes that humans can contribute to it today.

I do agree that some people in the environmental movement have developed almost religious behavior with respect to climate change. Also, some people trumpet the very worst possible outcomes as the most likely ones (although some such outcomes may be less likely, there is still the possibility of their development).

I wrote a blog yesterday responding to an assertion similar to yours that scientists make these claims to get grant money: http://roundyeducationblog.blogspot.com/2016/04/do-most-climate-scientists-argue-that.html 

[The person then discussed how he or she thinks that climate scientists are high priests in some kind of religion.]
Your comparison to religion may explain the behaviors of some environmentalists, but it cannot explain how ideas get through peer review. Peer review is a brutal process. An assertion of faith is insufficient, even if they refer to some aspect of anthropogenic climate change. [I should have noted here that many papers arguing for some particular responses in the climate system to climate change do in fact get rejected for too little evidence or poor arguments. Papers don't get accepted simply because they trumpet arguments consistent with the prevailing view.]

[The person then commented again that views of scientists have along history of changing.]

Aspects of scientists views about climate change will certainly change. For example, as evidence has accumulated, many climate scientists have concluded that the number of weak to moderate intensity tropical cyclones will actually decline with time in response to increasing CO2, and that accumulated snowfall in the Antarctic will actually increase for a while (because it is more often warm enough to snow than in the past). But your notion that the whole thing will get thrown out is quite unlikely. Increasing CO2 concentrations do, and will warm the earth. That's a fact measured in the lab: https://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/papers-on-laboratory-measurements-of-co2-absorption-properties/

What will almost certainly change is our understanding of how much warming will actually occur [a point that we will not be fully certain about until we measure it]. I personally don't anticipate the strongest warming amounts proposed, except perhaps in the Arctic. Negative feedbacks in the tropical regions seem too profound to me. Yet that in no way implies that no negative consequences are likely. Negative consequences are already occurring--especially in the Arctic.

Do Most Climate Scientists Argue that Climate Change is Mostly Caused by Human Activities in Order to Get Grant Money?

Earlier today I was reading a Youtube discussion board below an anti-anthropogenic climate change video. I read an interesting comment, which stated that many climate scientists support the view that human activities contribute substantially to climate change in order to get grants from the National Science Foundation. 

I think that this suggestion is completely ignorant of the process of peer review at NSF, and my own experience suggests it is ridiculous. No one gets a grant today based just on maintaining the status quo of the science, or to simply show that human activities have caused most modern climate change. Grants are awarded to address more specific questions. Even in climate science, peer review is brutal, and NSF declines a broad majority of proposals submitted. These proposals don't get declined simply because they disagree with the status quo either. The reality is that NSF proposals don't get funded without disagreeing with some aspect of the status quo, or without presenting a potential solution to some well defined problem that has not been previously addressed to the satisfaction of the scientists. Funded proposals are nearly always written to address questions for which the answers are unknown. Otherwise, they are outside of the mission of the NSF. Although it is apparently true that most climate scientists funded by NSF agree that human activities have influenced the climate, proposals don't get funded simply because they agree with that point of view.

For those who believe that NSF only grants money to work on climate science to those who accept the status quo and only if they address questions consistent with the status quo, I offer the following challenge. Submit a standard 15-page proposal on the climate change problem to the NSF directorate on climate and large-scale dynamics. Choose some aspect that agrees with the status quo, without contributing anything new, and good luck!

The Need for Complete Commitment to Freedom of Speech

Politics can learn much from freedom of speech in science. In recent years, segments of the American left have strived to silence the speech of those who question aspects of their agendas. I am a political centrist. I like to have my own ideas questioned, and I don’t think that any idea from anyone should be immune to criticism. I think that dealing with criticism is the best way to refine our ideas. Every claim important enough to consider as part of public policy should be justified or discarded. Recent years have taken political correctness to extreme. Under the guise of protection for the downtrodden, both written and unwritten laws have grown out of social norms, and activists have worked to silence expression of opposition to these norms. Although many such norms may be well founded, no idea can be justified simply by silencing opposing views. Activists raise cries of racism, misogyny, or homophobia to silence people, even when such claims might be completely irrelevant. I’m not denying that such claims can reflect reality, just that they become inappropriate when intended only to silence criticism. 

True justification of ideas is made by logical arguments, evidence, and reasoned debate. As I see it, the best way to protect the rights of those who might be oppressed is not to suppress the speech of others, but instead to counter such speech with supportive speech. In recent years, even university culture has tried to silence expression of unpopular or apparently offensive opinions. Student groups and even faculty occasionally work to silence people who might express perspectives with which they are uncomfortable. Sometimes the conflict is trivial. Back while I was a graduate student at Penn State, I recall broad campus discussion on the invitation of Fred Rogers, of Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, to speak at graduation. Mr. Rogers was an accomplished educator of children, with what I saw as remarkable talent. At the time, his was the longest running show in the history of public television. Yet, hundreds of students took offense to his invitation and protested to university administration. They were offended because they thought that the university was treating them like children by inviting Mr. Rogers. They were so shortsighted that they could not see Mr. Rogers’ life’s work as relevant to them. I defend the students’ rights to express their own points of view, but I condemn their attempts to silence people by taking offense where none was merited. 

Universities must be inclusive and welcoming to all types of people. Yet, a healthy university-learning environment must include the possibility that any idea be considered critically, including those on questions on religion, race, and politics. Full and unadulterated freedom of speech is not a threat to a healthy society: It is indispensable! 

Expression of Doubt Is Central to Science and Scientific Teaching

As a professor, I want my students to think for themselves and to not completely trust what I tell them. I am not an authority over their opinions—I can only present evidence and arguments. There are no scientific authorities. Every scientist making a claim is expected to support it with evidence in peer review. Although well-established science is extremely difficult to refute because it entails large amounts of evidence collected over time, no scientific claim is immune to the potential to be rejected, disproved, or replaced with ideas that are better supported by evidence. No scientist is entitled to safe space for poorly supported claims, including in the classroom.

I try to follow the scientific process in my classroom. Although students in the classroom are unlikely to overturn prevailing scientific views, encouraging them to express their doubts and raise questions can make the process of learning mimic the process of scientific inquiry. I want students to express reasonable doubt and to criticize my claims. Furthermore, I think that students learn science better when they confront ideas they do not yet understand, with open minds. When students express doubt in a scientific finding because they do not understand it, that expression can help the teacher understand the nature of their misunderstandings. When I discover inadequate understanding I can take steps to clarify the concept.

Renewing My Approach to the Exam in the Information Age

A culture of testing and assessment has come to dominate public and higher education. The purposes of exams and the ways we give them have evolved over time. I decided to contemplate my own experience giving exams as a university professor. When I gave my first exam to undergraduate students years ago, I followed the unwritten law that assessment entails providing students with a set of questions or exercises that they answer themselves, without access to books, the Internet, or their neighbors. By tradition, analysis of their answers provides scores that reflect on the students’ academic records. I saw the exam as students’ opportunity to demonstrate that they understand the course concepts and can apply them in both simple and more advanced ways. I included questions that required them to apply combinations of the concepts of the course in ways not previously discussed, to assess their critical thinking skills. Typically the students would cram the night before, often going without sleep. Months later at the end of the course, I asked the students related questions on a final exam, only to find that many of them failed miserably, even when they responded correctly the first time.

The next year in the same course, I allowed the students to bring notecards crammed with equations and data from their notes. I found that as they worked to construct their cards, they reviewed their notes and became more familiar with the material. However, they still crammed the night before, soon forgot much of what they learned, and many of them were unable to solve problems that required them to think critically.

Since that year, my approach has continued to evolve. First, I allowed the students to consult the Internet while in the exam. Since my purpose was to assess their individual abilities to use the information at hand, I required that they not communicate with each other directly, through their phones, or through the Internet. Their ability to connect to the Internet changed the culture of my classroom. Students began to emphasize not the facts (which were readily available to them), but their understandings of key concepts. I found that their abilities to address deeper concept-based questions improved since my first years teaching.

My most recent exams were not even confined to the classroom. I am presently teaching a course in applied data analysis to graduate students. We recently studied Fourier techniques to analyze the “sizes” in time and space of signals in datasets obtained from measurements of natural systems. I decided to try an approach to exams completely new to me. I asked the students to find online a dataset relevant to a topic of interest to them. I asked them to analyze that dataset using Fourier techniques of their choice, and to explain their conclusions about the natures of the signals in their datasets. I did not specify the questions they should address. Upon completion about a week later, they e-mailed me their results. Each student’s project was unique. I created a simple rubric of my expectations in the context of their results, and I managed to find a satisfactory way to generate a fair grade. I think I learned more about their understandings of course concepts through this exercise than I would have learned from a more standard exam format, and I was later able to address their deficiencies in the classroom. 

My results argue that open-ended, student-driven projects can provide the students and their instructors clear assessment of their understandings and abilities. Exams that simulate the real world may be more difficult to grade objectively, but I think that they yield insights beyond trivia that really matter.

Math Education, a Traffic Cop, a Magistrate, and Intuitive Learning Beyond Computation

Last week I decided to watch a sampling of YouTube videos about the calculus of rotations of curves about an axis. The technique is used to find the surface areas and volumes of objects such as round flower vases, rocket cones, or parabolic mirrors. Some videos were made by math tutors. Others were made by college math professors or high school calculus teachers. I found that most videos were intended to help students prepare for traditional exams and were strictly about practicing the steps in a recipe to carry out the computation. The speakers presented a formula, into which they substituted values to find a solution. Only one out of seven videos provided any intuitive information about how we got the formula, and even that video discussed the path to the solution before explaining the logic behind it.  That speaker claimed that he followed that order because that’s what students want: Assistance to get through the exam. Students have evolved to favor this learning pathway, and traditional exams encourage this preference because they favor exercises that assess computation skills. Most students don’t realize how they are being swindled by this approach. They memorize a formula, pass the exam, and then forget about it. Why take the class in the first place? Math courses should express more courtesy in their use of student’s time.

Yesterday, my wife was pulled over by a state policeman, who informed her of a dead headlight. Instead of simply accepting that she would follow his instructions and respond to her own commitment to safety by replacing the bulb, he presented her with a formal ticket. This ticket meant that in addition to replacing the bulb, we would need to show the repaired light to another state police officer, who would provide affidavit that the problem was corrected, to be presented in court within a month. She was required to enter a guilty plea with the magistrate, who would then table the charges after viewing the second officer’s affidavit. Now, don’t get me wrong, if a citizen who is pulled over for a missing headlight is belligerent and insists that he will not comply, the officer has a duty for public safety to follow through with the formal ticketing process. Yet, the vast majority of motorists in this situation are not aware of the problem until the officer tells them. Sometimes lights, even those that were recently replaced, burn out while on the road.  In a misplaced effort to increase public safety, the system has become unnecessarily complicated, wasting the time of the officers, the magistrate, and the citizen. I found that the problem was that the electrical connection to the bulb had jiggled loose. It took me less than a minute to resolve the mechanical problem. I was subjected to more than an hour of run-around Saturday morning, to get the second officer’s affidavit, and the whole process will not even be complete for at least another couple of weeks as the court processes the paperwork. We also were subjected to an unnecessary sense of guilt and risk from having signed a guilty plea, as if we committed a crime because normal vibrations shook the cord loose.

The time we wasted in this quirk of the legal system pales in comparison with time wasted in math education. I think that students, parents, and teachers waste countless hours favoring the processes of computation. Some focus on computation is needed to generate broader understanding and to build full practical ability to apply the techniques, but I think it should occupy less than 20% of learning time. Time should be more heavily weighted toward exercising mathematical intuition: It is more important to understand the concepts behind algorithms than to learn to use the algorithms themselves. When students build intuition around a concept, they are more apt to innovate with the concept, a trait that would better prepare them to solve the presently unknown problems of the future world.