[Author’s Note: this was updated after some sleep and a re-read of the first half of the op-ed. Now my post details even more logical fallacies than before! 1/31/2012]
[More author’s note: The Science 2.0 site has a similar analysis to the one below. It’s important that multiple people look at this and point out the fallacies. More fallacies = more fun! http://www.science20.com/caution_pondering_scientist_ahead/excellent_study_denialism-86554. The Discover blog “Bad Astronomy” has its own criticism and links to many more, http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/01/30/while-temperatures-rise-denialists-reach-lower/]
Climate denialist literature is a great way to demonstrate logical fallacies that are the hallmark of pseudoscience and anti-science. A recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, signed by 16 scientists, denies the existence of “global warming.” Let’s go through it and see how many logical fallacies we can find. The original article is here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html.
I here reproduce the article and interject commentary, indicating logical fallacies in their argument as we go.
A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about “global warming.” Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers [EQUIVOCATION] do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed. [ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY]
Right in the opening paragraph, we have our first logical fallacies – “equivocation” and “argument from authority.” Equivocation is the use of vaguely defined terms, leaving the reader to assume the real meaning (which then makes it highly subjective). Here, the authors do not define WHAT scientists and WHAT engineers. Do these scientists have a background in climate research? How about the engineers? Do they publish actively, or are these armchair scientists? You are left to guess that these “distinguished scientists and engineers” are either experts or authorities.
The next is “argument from authority.” Quite simply, this is saying “9/10 dentists agree,” which sounds impressive, except that we don’t know why they agree and no evidence supporting their opinion is presented. Here, they use “distinguished scientists and engineers,” but just because you’re distinguished doesn’t mean you understand climate. In fact, 97-98% of actively publishing climate scientists (those engaged in the scientific process) are convinced by the evidence that climate change is occurring and that it is human-induced [1].
Argument from or appeal to authority is a logical fallacy because even smart people can affirm false notions.
In the first paragraph, we also have the authors’ thesis: drastic action on global warming is not needed. We presume they will provide strong evidence – peer-reviewed information gathered scientifically and verified by other scientists – but we must keep reading in order to see this.
Continuing:
In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: “I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: ‘The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.’ In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?” [ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY]
Again, we have an authority figure (Nobel Prize winner) presenting their opinion, but still no evidence from the authors supporting their thesis. Continuing:
In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the “pollutant” carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever [ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY]. And the number of scientific “heretics” is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.
Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now [CHERRY-PICKING DATA]. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: “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.” [CHERRY-PICKING DATA, AD HOMINEM ATTACK] But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.
Finally, we have a presentation of an alleged fact! However, this fact is weak. In fact, it’s not a fact at all – it’s classic cherry-picking of data. This is nicely illustrated in this criticism: http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/01/lying-charts-global-warming-edition. In short – the authors have chosen the last decade rather arbitrarily. Temperature varies year-to-year due to effects like weather (El Nino, La Nina, etc.), and has be to averaged over 5 or 10-year periods to see trends. One must combine MANY 10-year periods to see climate, and not weather.
They also cherry-pick data when they select one of thousands of stolen emails from climate scientists, and then pick one line from the email to try to illustrate their point. They also link the author to the inflammatory term “Climategate,” something which has been thoroughly debunked in multiple independent inquiries. Linking the email author to an alleged controvery is an “ad hominem” attack – make the author look bad, and by implication make theor conclusions look bad (independent of the actual veracity of the conclusions).
But wait – in what context what that sentence written? It was the focus of those multiple investigations I mentioned earlier. Here is one summary of the reality of the context of this quote: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Kevin-Trenberth-travesty-cant-account-for-the-lack-of-warming.htm. In short, Trenberth was not lamenting that climate science could not explain why temperature had not increased in a decade – the claim the op-ed authors make – but rather that there was no complete understanding of where all the energy deposited by the sun into the earth’s environment was going. Some goes to land, some to air, some to water, some to ice. Land temperatures had declined a bit around 2009; but sea, ice, and air temperatures had continued to rise sharply. This suggested solar energy was being trapped deep underwater, where temperature data is thin. So rather than supporting the op-ed writers’ claim, his quote refutes it; warming has continued across most of the earth, but not as much as expected if the heat isn’t also being trapped in deep places where data is thinner.
Continuing:
The lack of warming for more than a decade [THIS STATEMENT IS NOW TAKEN AS FACT, BUT IS BASED ON MULTIPLE LOGICAL FALLACIES LISTED ABOVE] —indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause [CHERRY-PICKING OF DATA]. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.
In the above, we have more cherry-picking of data. Here, they are referring to land temperature and the energy absorption on land. However, the Earth is about 75% water, most in liquid form and the rest in ice. Ice takes a lot of energy to melt, and the ocean is good at storing energy. The rapid energy storage in the oceans due to increasing trapped heat energy is well-documented [2]. In fact, considering the whole earth as an energy storage mechanism it becomes clear that heating is occurring (in general), and the melting of polar ice is currently occupying most of that heat energy . . . but that ice won’t last forever, and eventually the energy will go into simply heating the ocean and the land.
Continuing:
The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant [RED HERRING]. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere’s life cycle [RED HERRING]. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth [RED HERRING]. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere. [RED HERRING – WHOLE PARAGRAPH]
This one is a great example of the red herring. The writers are distracting you with an easier-to-argue point. All of what they say is probably true – it’s certainly plausible – but nothing of what they distract the reader with here gets to the point: CO2 is a powerful greenhouse gas. It traps heat, which in turn makes the air more able to take up and store water (thank-you, Clausius-Clapeyron!); water is a significantly more powerful greenhouse gas. A little CO2 is like the amplifier on your electric guitar; a little twang in the string can become an ear-shattering blast thanks to the amplifier. This is what the data tells us has been happening; humans have increased the concentration of CO2, and this has trapped exponentially more energy in the land, air, and the sea. A lot of that energy (thank you physics!) is going into melting sea ice . . . for now.
So the writers attempt to distract you with things that are true or plausible about CO2, but none of which bear on the problem at hand. Classic misdirection.
Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job. [ANECDOTE]
Anecdotes like this are the weakest form of evidence. Again, this is meant to distract you from thinking about the fact that so far, the only “fact” the authors have presented in their argument – that the temperature has been flat for a decade – is itself the result of a logical fallacy – cherry-picking of data. They try to get you to elicit an emotional reaction by telling this story – a story that has nothing to do with the overwhelming evidence for human-induced climate change.
This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before—for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death [FALSE ANALOGY].
Ah, this is a good one! False analogy is an argument by analogy when the analogy is falsely suited. Here, support for the overwhelming evidence for climate change is equated with “Lysenkoism,” the belief that genes have nothing to do with crop breeding. Except, here the role of the Lysenkoists would actually be played by the 16 signers of this op-ed piece. They are the ones who adhere to a point of view in opposition to the scientific evidence!
Mendel’s work on genes and the regular rules with which traits can be bred into plants were well established by the time of Lysenko. By Lysenko’s era, it was understood that there was a genetic mechanism for the passing of traits but DNA’s role in this process was not yet understood. Lysenko, however, ignored and viciously stomped out science based on the evidence for genes and genetic information, and instead based his Soviet crop program on ignorance and ideology, independent of actual evidence and facts. As an historical note: Lysenko’s program, based on anti-science, resulted in massive crop failures, failed to deliver promised yields in crop production, and set back Russian biological sciences by decades.
I think this is my favorite part of the article – when the authors, themselves the Lysenko’s, point the finger at the scientists convinced by actual evidence and shout, “Lysenko’s! LOOK! Lysenko’s!”
I’m tired for tonight. I’ll take a crack at the rest of it later.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies
[2] http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf
[3] http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2009JD012105.shtml and a digest of their conclusions, http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=5585
[RED HERRING]
