Consensus Science

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I have tried several times, with varying degrees of success, to tackle the “consensus ain’t science” shibboleth. (See especially here and the comments here).

Andrew Dessler recently took an excellent stab at this in a couple of posts: see here and here.

Might a “consensus” position be wrong? Of course. All knowledge is provisional and subject to future revision as new data comes in. However, as policymakers, the scientific consensus is the position most likely to be correct. In particular, strongly held consensus positions (e.g., smoking causes cancer, the Earth is warming) are verly unlikely to turn out to be wrong. Policymakers can do no better than to follow the scientific consensus in formulating their policy.

El Niño Lurks

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The Climate Prediction Center’s latest ENSO outlook, issued yesterday, ups the odds for a weak El Niño by the end of the year. Last month, they put the odds at 50-50. Yesterday, they said a weak El Niño is “likely” by the end of the year. Here in New Mexico, that tips the odds wet.

In Australia, there’s a strong correlation between El Niño and drought. From The Age: “Farmers fear the worst”

Breathe Easier

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A new paper from Jungclaus et al. at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology says model runs show the melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet is not likely to shut down the thermohaline circulation any time soon:

Our results suggest that abrupt climate change initiated by GIS melting is not a realistic scenario for the 21st century.

That’s Dry

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From today’s Drought Monitor:

Yuma, Arizona, has recorded only 0.23 inches of rain this year, which is 12 percent of normal.

(That’s 0.6 cm for my metric friends.)

I’m not sure who would notice this amid the electronic buzzing and whirring and air conditioning and fountains, but Las Vegas, Nevada, has only had half an inch (1.25 cm) this year.

The Blogging/Scholarship/Media Interplay

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This story got me thinking about what I think has become an increasingly interesting interplay between blogging scholars and journalists. It quotes Jeffrey Lewis, proprietor of the excellent Arms Control Wonk blog and manager of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center.

Reporters depend on smart people willing and able to explain things. Scholars are especially valuable to reporters because of the standards of intellectual rigor that generally attend scholarly work. Before the Internet and blogging, finding those scholars required a lot of trial and error, reading the scholars’ primary literature, having a fat Rolodex and a playing a lot of open-ended games of telephone: “Who do you know who’s smart about China’s nuclear program?”

Those techniques are still important, but blogging scholars seem to be short-circuiting that process, to the benefit of both reporters and the public discussion about the issues with which they deal. By definition, you see, bloggers are people who have already telegraphed their willingness and ability to try to explain things.

Continue reading ‘The Blogging/Scholarship/Media Interplay’ »

Methodist Pies

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I had to put on the leg and arm warmers for this morning’s bike ride. The cottonwood across the street is starting to show yellow. And it’s still dark when the alarm goes off these days. That can mean only one thing: it’s State Fair time! I love the fair for many reasons, not the least of which is Methodist Pies. Over on the Fix, Andrea waxes poetic about the pies made each year by a team of local church volunteers. I can’t add much to what she has to say, except that they pretty much always have no-sugar-added pies on offer.