Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

[santafe2]

Well known climate denier Richard Muller has ostensibly changed his mind based on research he completed last year. You can link to the op-ed and read this typical MSM report on the subject in the LA Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...,3167677.story

But before you get too excited or pissed off if you used to like Muller, it doesn't appear this dog is off his leash.

See this link at The Raw Story to get their take on it and to view what Muller said on the Rachel Maddow Show last night.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/07/3...lobal-warming/

We get the same confession regarding global warming but he also adds the very little time dog whistle and calls for using "clean fracking" to solve the problem. He also managed to throw coal under the bus. Adding to the urgency, Muller's research shows a 40% greater rise in temperatures than almost all other research; ~2.5F as opposed to a more accepted ~1.5F. Muller very likely incorrect but the higher number probably supports his new marching orders.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

Great to see you around again, santafe2.

I watched his interview last night and couldn't help questioning the motives behind his sudden public reversal.
My mind wanders back to the many fine jokes written by Dave Barry about Tobacco Institute scientists

[astonas]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

Great to see you around again, santafe2.

I watched his interview last night and couldn't help questioning the motives behind his sudden public reversal.
My mind wanders back to the many fine jokes written by Dave Barry about Tobacco Institute scientists

I took several physics classes from Muller when I was there. He's well-known as a straight shooter, and knows more about earth's climate than almost anyone. He was one of the scientists who evaluated the presence of Alvarez's iridium layers in the earth, established their connection to early earth life extinctions, and postulated the link to the Nemesis disturbance of the Oort cloud, with concomitant asteroid showers as an explanation of periodic mass extinctions. If he went through the data (as an initial skeptic, no less) and concluded that it is real, that carries some serious weight.

He's also proven himself on several occasions to not be the sort of guy who follows any politically correct or incorrect agenda. I remember one day before class he responded to a student's question by defending the math in a new book that was very controversial at the time, "The Bell Curve", and demonstrated that while its detractors were certainly passionate and well-meaning, they had not made their numerical arguments in nearly as rigorous a manner as the "racists" who wrote the initial work. He really does embody objective analysis more than almost anyone else in the field.

This is not the sort of guy one can easily pin a political motivation on. His track record simply refutes the very notion. If his mind changed, it is because he did more rigorous analysis than either he or anyone else had before, and come to a fairly definitive conclusion.

[lektrode]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

I took several physics classes from Muller ....
....
This is not the sort of guy one can easily pin a political motivation on. His track record simply refutes the very notion. If his mind changed, it is because he did more rigorous analysis than either he or anyone else had before, and come to a fairly definitive conclusion.

and this is as good a verify as i/we could expect, mr A
thanks.

[santafe2]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

I took several physics classes from Muller when I was there. He's well-known as a straight shooter, and knows more about earth's climate than almost anyone. He was one of the scientists who evaluated the presence of Alvarez's iridium layers in the earth, established their connection to early earth life extinctions, and postulated the link to the Nemesis disturbance of the Oort cloud, with concomitant asteroid showers as an explanation of periodic mass extinctions. If he went through the data (as an initial skeptic, no less) and concluded that it is real, that carries some serious weight.

He's also proven himself on several occasions to not be the sort of guy who follows any politically correct or incorrect agenda. I remember one day before class he responded to a student's question by defending the math in a new book that was very controversial at the time, "The Bell Curve", and demonstrated that while its detractors were certainly passionate and well-meaning, they had not made their numerical arguments in nearly as rigorous a manner as the "racists" who wrote the initial work. He really does embody objective analysis more than almost anyone else in the field.

This is not the sort of guy one can easily pin a political motivation on. His track record simply refutes the very notion. If his mind changed, it is because he did more rigorous analysis than either he or anyone else had before, and come to a fairly definitive conclusion.

I want to be clear that I did not post to question Muller's credentials. Like Lindzen, he's got his bonafides. I also did not suggest that there is a political agenda with regard to his 'praise Jesus, we're screwed, frack with abandon' moment. I did question his integrity. We don't even know if his research has been accepted for publication, much less whether it will be published but he's on a 2nd tier, politically based program selling "clean fracking" as the answer to a problem he disavowed a year ago. As you point out, we know he's a smart guy, so how do we explain his current position on AGW and the crazy idea that fracking can somehow be "clean"? There is a lot more to this story and it has little to do with a denier changing sides.

[c1ue]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

I think it is funny to say that Muller is a 'denier'.

His track record is anything but - he's only termed a denier because he didn't agree with 100% of the CAGW thesis, only most of it.

His latest 'change of heart' - pure theater as was his jumping the shark on BEST.

Some past Muller to show just how much of a 'denier' he is:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/a...armists_cheer/

Richard Muller a sceptic?

In fact, here’s Muller last year:

“It is ironic if some people treat me as a traitor, since I was never a skeptic -- only a scientific skeptic,” he said in a recent email exchange with The Huffington Post. “Some people called me a skeptic because in my best-seller ‘Physics for Future Presidents’ I had drawn attention to the numerous scientific errors in the movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth.’ But I never felt that pointing out mistakes qualified me to be called a climate skeptic."… For his part, Muller doesn’t dispute that human activity plays a large role, but the scientist in him remains uncertain of just how to quantify that.... “The IPCC says that ‘most’ of the 0.6-degree Celsius warming of the past 50 years is anthropogenic. If ‘most’ means between 0.3- and 0.6-degrees Celsius, then that is certainly within the realm of possibility.”

And Muller in 2003:

Let me be clear. My own reading of the literature and study of paleoclimate suggests strongly that carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuels will prove to be the greatest pollutant of human history. It is likely to have severe and detrimental effects on global climate.

Muller was the “champion” and inspiration of Australian sceptics?

False. I’ve critically fact-checked his past claims but never quoted him in support of anything, and nor has any prominent Australian sceptic, to the best of my knowledge. (I did, however, once post a video of Muller discussing Climategate.) In fact, Muller was chosen by warming evangelist Anna Rose to put her side of the argument in I Can Change Your Mind About ... Climate. Yes, he was the champion of ... the warmists. The opposite of what Faine claims.

So the reality is: Muller was demonized as a skeptic/denier by the CAGW crowd because he didn't toe the CAGW dogma 100%.

Muller has, however, for years believed CO2 was the big driver in climate change.

In other words, the CAGW crowd demonized Muller then tried to make him a 'Road to Damascus' convert - which he also pushes back on.

Pathetic.

[jiimbergin]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

I think it is funny to say that Muller is a 'denier'.

His track record is anything but - he's only termed a denier because he didn't agree with 100% of the CAGW thesis, only most of it.

His latest 'change of heart' - pure theater as was his jumping the shark on BEST.

Some past Muller to show just how much of a 'denier' he is:

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/a...armists_cheer/



So the reality is: Muller was demonized as a skeptic/denier by the CAGW crowd because he didn't toe the CAGW dogma 100%.

Muller has, however, for years believed CO2 was the big driver in climate change.

In other words, the CAGW crowd demonized Muller then tried to make him a 'Road to Damascus' convert - which he also pushes back on.

Pathetic.

Thanks, C1ue, I knew you would clear this up.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

I took several physics classes from Muller when I was there. He's well-known as a straight shooter, and knows more about earth's climate than almost anyone. He was one of the scientists who evaluated the presence of Alvarez's iridium layers in the earth, established their connection to early earth life extinctions, and postulated the link to the Nemesis disturbance of the Oort cloud, with concomitant asteroid showers as an explanation of periodic mass extinctions. If he went through the data (as an initial skeptic, no less) and concluded that it is real, that carries some serious weight.

He's also proven himself on several occasions to not be the sort of guy who follows any politically correct or incorrect agenda. I remember one day before class he responded to a student's question by defending the math in a new book that was very controversial at the time, "The Bell Curve", and demonstrated that while its detractors were certainly passionate and well-meaning, they had not made their numerical arguments in nearly as rigorous a manner as the "racists" who wrote the initial work. He really does embody objective analysis more than almost anyone else in the field.

This is not the sort of guy one can easily pin a political motivation on. His track record simply refutes the very notion. If his mind changed, it is because he did more rigorous analysis than either he or anyone else had before, and come to a fairly definitive conclusion.

Thanks, astonas, for the first-hand account.
I therefor respectfully withdraw my comparison to scientists from the Tobacco Institute and my insinuation that the gentleman's opinion might be for sale.

[we_are_toast]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

Of course Muller wasn't a denialist, here's some of his quotes:

"Temperature has been rising over the last 100 years. That's pretty clear. How much is due to varying solar activity and how much due to humans is a scientific issue that we're trying to address."

...

"The issues that there is strong agreement on is that we have seen global warming over the past 100 years. An issue, though, that isn't really settled yet is how much of that is due to humans? And that's a subject that really can use more investigation."

...

"Luis Alvarez taught me the fundamental scientific rule, which is you've got to show everybody your dirty laundry...My problem with the way the hockey stick was derived was that there was none of this...if you hide something...the person you are most likely to fool is yourself."

...

"claims that global warming has harmed the Earth so far are not scientific"

...

"Not a single polar bear has died because of receding ice."

...

"What we know is when it gets warmer carbon dioxide leaves the oceans. When it gets cooler it goes back in. It dissolves better. So carbon dioxide is a result of climate change not a driver of climate change in that period. You can even see this in the delay because when it warms up it takes 800 years before the carbon dioxide comes back out. There's a slight delay that Al Gore never talks about. That old linkage is simply junk science."

...

"80 percent or 90 percent of what's in Inconvenient Truth is wrong or exaggerated or cherry picked."

Nope, no denialism here.

As many climate scientists have said about Mr Muller's new revelations, he's only 3 decades behind the science now.

We're now at a point where denialists not only deny science, facts, and data, they deny their own denialists!

[santafe2]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

I think it is funny to say that Muller is a 'denier'.

"Call me a converted skeptic", Muller says of himself in the NYT. His backers, the Koch brothers must also be "skeptics".

His track record is anything but - he's only termed a denier because he didn't agree with 100% of the CAGW thesis, only most of it.

And Muller goes on, "Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, to my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming." To be charitable, that sounds like a bit less than something close to 100%.

Muller has, however, for years believed CO2 was the big driver in climate change.

His own words appear to contradict your point. He doubted the very existence of global warming.

In other words, the CAGW crowd demonized Muller then tried to make him a 'Road to Damascus' convert - which he also pushes back on.

Pathetic.

Without outside help he creates his "Road to Damascus" moment. He describes the hallmarks of a convert with statements like, "My total turnaround..." and "Humans are almost entirely the cause.", And of course his lead in where he refers to himself as "converted"

[astonas]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

Of course Muller wasn't a denialist, here's some of his quotes:


Nope, no denialism here.

As many climate scientists have said about Mr Muller's new revelations, he's only 3 decades behind the science now.

We're now at a point where denialists not only deny science, facts, and data, they deny their own denialists!

I would argue that these quotes actually AREN'T those of a denier. Muller simply has a far higher standard of scientific proof than many who jump to conclusions - one way or the other. This -- by definition -- means that he will always be one of the last people to declare that all the evidence is in, and the debate is over. That is his role in the scientific community.

It is also why, when he comes in with his conclusion, certain people should sit up and take notice.

He's the debate-ender.

You see, it all comes down to the issue of "standard of proof". The scientific community has a very different notion of "proof" than the political community, and this has permitted some unscrupulous politicians to misrepresent the state of the scientific community on this issue, as on others (eg. evolution).

To a politician, something is "right" when the majority of people agree it is. And something is "undeniable" when ~90+% of people agree. But to a true scientist, even 99.99% agreement would not matter. Because 99.99% of people, at one point in human history, "knew" the world was flat. And so the question comes down, not to the early standard of "does this fit better than another explanation", but to the much higher standard of "can we definitively prove that no other model, other than our hypothesis, can best explain this data."

This sort of transition happens constantly in the scientific community. In the vast majority of cases, it simply isn't seen by the broader public, because it isn't being dragged into the political process the way climate change has been. Here's how it works:
There is a place for the "idea guys" (theorists) who come up with an initial hypothesis. There is a place for the people who make the first observations. There is a place for the ones who reproduce experiments or observations until first "most", then "everyone", believes the hypothesis. And finally there is a place for the guy who insists that every last alternative explanation be eliminated, so that the idea cannot be reasonably challenged any more. Muller is that last guy. It's not that he doesn't understand or believe that the hypothesis is correct. He's no doubt known that for a long time. He just thinks that it hasn't been proven yet.

This role of universal skeptic - questioning all data until a conclusion is not just reasonable and dominant, but has been unquestionably proven - is a crucial one to the scientific process. At the end of the day, someone has to actually crunch the numbers and say what has been numerically proven, instead of what merely provides the best fit explanation. That is what makes science different from any other field. It requires a standard that is far higher than just "99.99% of scientists in the field think so" before the story is done. And that's what Muller has continued to insist on doing, regardless of the pressure on him to simply agree with everyone else.

The fact that many more people were willing to draw a conclusion earlier does not make them more right, or more insightful. It merely means they were willing to take a bigger leap from a smaller pile of evidence. That's fine; as I've said, there is a place for that. It certainly means that they were at the position first, in some cases, decades earlier. But that is very different from saying that they proved their point best. Some scientists want to be "first". Others want to be "best". Both are respectable and necessary roles in the scientific community.

So this study is very important. It is the proverbial "fat lady" singing. The debate is "officially" over, or as much so as the scientific process can ever be. The highest standard of proof that has been demanded, has been met. Human-caused global warming is now not just "agreed upon by the vast majority of scientists" as being the "most likely" explanation; it is numerically proven to be valid, even by the most restrictive standards that have been asked for.

And more practically, this study means that now is the time for all those politicians who have been misrepresenting the scientific process, and claiming that "all the science isn't in" (as though that were relevant to making a policy decision - which requires a much lower threshold of proof) to be quiet, and accept that they were, in fact, wrong.

I wonder if they're ready to do so.

[c1ue]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

And more practically, this study means that now is the time for all those politicians who have been misrepresenting the scientific process, and claiming that "all the science isn't in" (as though that were relevant to making a policy decision - which requires a much lower threshold of proof) to be quiet, and accept that they were, in fact, wrong.

The problem is, the study Muller refers to was his own, which he went out of his way to promote before it was even peer reviewed.

In fact, said study has so far failed to pass peer review - a simple Google search will show that.

The source of the data from which Muller drew part of his study from in fact has come out with its own conclusions which are now open for everyone to critique - and draws a very different conclusion.

So to summarize:

1) A scientist who has historically believed in man's role in climate change, but who would not agree that there was a smoking gun yet, is termed a denier by the consensus.

2) Said scientist performs a redo on the overall climate community's work, makes several PR pushes before the peer review process completes, and then says that his original belief is correct. In the process he angers everyone by jumping the shark.

3) The substance of Muller's demonization by the consensus is that he recognizes full well that the actions of the developed world will make no difference whatsoever to overall CO2 levels rising because of the developing world, especially China. In other words, 350.org and all those other morons are just wasting their time.

He also is pro-fracking which is also a big no no with the environmental crowd.

All in all, sturm und drang over nothing.

The Game Changer isn't Muller, it is the data provided by the surfacestations project which shows clearly that there is a warm bias in poorly sited temperature survey sites, and that this bias is more than enough to significantly affect the overall temperature record.

I'm looking forward to see how this is explained away.

I'd also note that Muller specifically did not look at the above issue - he was only redoing the work done by the consensus.

[santafe2]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

...The Game Changer isn't Muller, it is the data provided by the surfacestations project which shows clearly that there is a warm bias in poorly sited temperature survey sites, and that this bias is more than enough to significantly affect the overall temperature record.

I'm looking forward to see how this is explained away.

I'd also note that Muller specifically did not look at the above issue - he was only redoing the work done by the consensus.

Mostly agree with the cut except the unkind and flippant "moron" accusation of McKibben.

As for the data, my read on these papers is that everyone with a credential to wave respects the manner in which the data was gathered and parsed. Robert Rohde took massive amounts of data from disparate data sets and managed to create a unified data set so impressive that Muller could plant his flag and declare his unadulterated affection for global warming. The data is not the problem, Muller is the problem.

While we would give him different labels, regarding Muller's integrity, I think we generally agree.

[astonas]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

The problem is, the study Muller refers to was his own, which he went out of his way to promote before it was even peer reviewed.

The catch is that this is not a problem at all (except to the ignorant and easily-manipulated press). Here's why:

The peer review process achieves exactly one thing; it determines whether a paper is worthy of publication. That is very different from verifying its correctness, which many non-scientists incorrectly assume its purpose to be.

What happens in the "preprint" model of peer review is this: A preprint of the paper is submitted for publication. The editors of the journal select three or four reviewers who they believe are capable of determining whether the paper is interesting, relevant, and self-consistent. These each get a copy, and provide their comments, and after a few cycles of addressing any concerns they raise, the paper is generally published if it is determined to be worth reading (not necessarily "right", mind you, but just a legitimate contribution to the overall discussion). Note that it is not the peer-review process that determines whether the paper is considered to be "true" or not, but the dialogue in the published literature itself, after publication. There is no shortage of garbage in the "peer-reviewed" literature. Think of the process more as a moderator than a judge.

Note also that the only part that is reviewed in the preprint model is the paper itself. Not the original data. Not the data-processing algorithms that underly the work, except to the extent they are described in the paper's preprint. And the only people who get to participate in the review are three or four individuals, selected by the editor. The identities of these individuals is kept secret, to minimize the chance that they will feel pressured into approving (or rejecting) a paper.

It is easy to see weaknesses in this approach. Most notably, that those who would continue to deny the realty of human-assisted global warming could simply say that the reviewers were just going along with the consensus, and thus perpetuating a bias. All it would take, after all, is a single "biased" editor to route a given paper to those who are known to agree with the premise. And so it is easy to see why following this method will never cause climate-change deniers to concede. They can simply point to their minority status and claim they are being "oppressed" in this way.


Another, older, and more traditional, model of peer review is actually far more stringent. The author simply makes all of their original data and methods available - to every last person wants to see it, and announces that availability broadly. This is what was done before journals became established as the default way of communicating about science. Anyone who wants to challenge you is free to do so. Anyone who wants to reproduce your calculations to look for mistakes gets everything they need to do so, from the author. Muller has already done this. Every point of data, every assumption he has made, and every calculation he has done, is available on his organization's website for all to access. As he says in his announcement: no group is as transparent as his.

So Muller opted for the second, more challenging method of peer-review. This does not lessen his credibility. This enhances it.


The same goes for his open challenge in the New York Times. Yes, it was self-aggrandizing (and I certainly won't assert that he doesn't have an ego). But in this context, it was also an open challenge to all who disagree to visit the BEST website, download the dataset, and prove him wrong. Again, he is trying to close the discussion, not continue it, and this is the only legitimate way to do so.


A few more factual clarifications:


It should be pointed out that the wording of the statement:

In fact, said study has so far failed to pass peer review - a simple Google search will show that.

might be taken to imply that the paper was submitted for review, but rejected for publication. This is not consistent with my understanding of the facts. Muller specifically states that he has deliberately chosen to self-publish in the manner he did. Since he would likely be contradicted by a rejecting journal editor and publicly embarrassed if he were lying about that, the best assumption is that he did not actually submit for preprint review at all.

But we don't have to take Muller's word, even based on that reasoning. Just look at that facts: Which review is more stringent? The one where you have to get three (selected) people to agree on something that most scientists already accept, or the one where even your most ardent detractors can pick over every detail of your calculation for themselves? It is the more stringent process that also provides the greatest credibility.

Since Muller's goal is not to be another "me too" but to be the final word in this debate, his choice makes perfect sense. He chose the hardest reviewers he could: everyone who hates either him, or his conclusion. And because of his reluctance to throw in with either side in the past (as C1ue has already successfully demonstrated) that means almost everyone in the field.

The source of the data from which Muller drew part of his study from in fact has come out with its own conclusions which are now open for everyone to critique - and draws a very different conclusion.

Actually, the data set itself draws no conclusion at all. It is a compilation of numerous other data sets. The group that consolidated it did draw a conclusion from it; one that Muller demonstrates is incomplete, and corrects.

The Game Changer isn't Muller, it is the data provided by the surfacestations project which shows clearly that there is a warm bias in poorly sited temperature survey sites, and that this bias is more than enough to significantly affect the overall temperature record.

I'm looking forward to see how this is explained away.

I'd also note that Muller specifically did not look at the above issue - he was only redoing the work done by the consensus.

Actually, this last statement is factually incorrect. Muller specifically states that his conclusion is fully supported when the higher-temperature readings associated with metropolitan areas are omitted, and only rural readings are used. This was one of the four major criticisms he successfully disproved. But again, if you don't believe him, you can always go to the dataset and re-run the numbers yourself. Here's the method.


That is the nice part about this method of peer-review. It allows each of us to be a peer.

It's as though the author is saying: "Think that this conclusion is biased because it comes from a bunch of eco-freak pansies with an anti-corporation grudge? No problem! Here's everything you could possibly need to prove your point, equation by equation, data set by data set."

"Now prove it. Show me the line where the bias is inserted."

I expect we'll see plenty more howls of "commentary" about this one. But I doubt that any mathematically rigorous challenges will arise. Muller would have to be an idiot to put his entire method out so publicly before checking it every way possible. And he's not generally considered to be an idiot.

[astonas]

Re: Muller reverses course in NYT op-ed

Thanks, astonas, for the first-hand account.
I therefor respectfully withdraw my comparison to scientists from the Tobacco Institute and my insinuation that the gentleman's opinion might be for sale.

No problem. And I should also say that making the assumption you did is very understandable. It is certainly true that so much misinformation exists around this topic that it is sometimes hard to separate real science from mere political maneuvering, especially when one's information is filtered by a press that tries to boil everything down to a simple story. Such a filter takes everything, from good science to outright lies, and puts it on an equal footing.

Tricky to navigate indeed.