The Credibility Spectrum
Let’s face it, there’s a lot of “climate science” out there that’s absolute rubbish.
Whichever side of the debate you’re on. Whether you believe global warming is a political hoax or that all skeptics are funded by Exxon. No matter what your opinions are, chances are that you’ve seen or read claims that you dismiss as outlandish.
Type “climate change” into Google. Within seconds you can find statements that the Earth is warming or that its temperature is stable (or cooling since 1998!). You can find “proof” that the warming is caused by the sun, volcanoes, flaws in the temperature data, or fossil fuel burning. You can read that the Hockey Stick graph is broadly accurate, or that it was manipulated by the IPCC to agree with a predetermined conclusion.
Whatever you read about climate change, chances are that there’s another source saying the opposite thing. It’s not like we’re all climatologists who can see straight through misinformation. So how do you possibly sort out what to believe?
When people ask me this question, I invariably respond with, “Assess the credibility.”
The ”climate change analysis” you read could be from a national academy of science, or from a blogger. It could be from an atmospheric physicist or a economist. It could be from a scientific journal or a political think-tank. If we calculate credibility to be “expertise + objectivity”, it’s obvious that some sources merit more weight than others.
I’ve put together a climate change credibility spectrum, inspired by Greg Craven from the Manpollo Project. This is a basic way to assess credibility and assign weight to a source. Keep in mind that this is only a guideline. The sources in the middle, especially, could be shuffled around based on the situation. The spectrum is also only used for scientific statements, such as “the Arctic is losing sea ice”. Matters of policy, such as ”cap-and-trade is our best bet”, are much more a personal opinion.
- At the bottom of the spectrum we have the individual. This is someone with no formal education in the field of climate science. Bloggers generally fall into this category, which is why I plan to refrain from creating my own “expert analysis” of data on this blog.
- Above that we have the professional. This is someone who is not a scientist, but is in an occupation that requires them to keep up to date with science. High school teachers are a good example, as well as politicians or CEOs.
- Then we have the non-publishing scientist. Someone with a scientific background, but who is not currently publishing peer-reviewed literature, does not necessarily follow methods which are accepted by the scientific community. They have a good knowledge of science, but lack the “peer-reviewed” credential.
- Above that is the publishing scientist in any area, such as medicine, physics, or chemistry. Even if they do not study climate change, they have the basic scientific background to understand it, as well as the “peer-reviewed” check on their scientific methods.
- The publishing Earth scientist specializes in areas closer to climate science, such as geography, geology, or environmental science. They have a more in-depth knowledge of the way the biogeochemical systems of the Earth work.
- The publishing climatologist (or atmospheric physicist/radiative physicist/any other area that’s so relevant to climatology that we can basically classify it as climatology) is the best you can get in terms of the individual professional. They understand more about climate change, and have more widely approved methods, than any other scientist.
- Above the individuals come groups. Universities are generally quite up-to-date in their scientific knowledge, as they are training scientists-to-be, and have a large number of scientific professors behind their statements.
- Peer-reviewed scientific articles are often written by more than one scientist, and have undergone an extensive review process. These articles minimize bias or misconceptions as much as science possibly can.
- Finally, professional scientific organizations employ thousands of publishing scientists, have massive reputations to uphold, and often publish their own peer-reviewed journals. Their statements carry more weight than any others.
This isn’t to say that the NAS is infallible, or that the blogger is always wrong. The credibility spectrum is simply a tool used to decide how much weight to give a statement.
So go do some reading. Do some searching and reading and watching. See what individuals, professionals, groups and scientific bodies are saying about climate change. Assess their credentials. Decide who you’re going to believe.
Nick Palmer said
Hi,
You may like to know that Greg Craven’s book, based on his videos has just been published.
This is his website http://www.gregcraven.org/
and this is a link to the book on Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0399535012?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwgregcraven-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0399535012
It hasn’t gone “viral” yet so maybe you might like to do a review?
sincerely,
Nick Palmer
http://nickpalmer.blogspot
climatesight said
I’m reading it right now and will do a review when I finish, hopefully by the end of this week. I like it so far but I think it puts a little too much trust in people to be logical and just. I know a lot of people who would refuse to think that way simply because it might get them a conclusion they don’t like. The How it All Ends series was better, in my opinion, he wasn’t so ridiculously non-partisan.
Colin Reynolds said
‘Ridiculously non-partisan’?
I haven’t read Greg’s book (‘What’s the Worst That Could Happen’) yet myself — I’m still, ironically, waiting for the archaic systems of the carbon-wasting publisher to ship the books to Blighty.
I’m not very good myself at persuading others with entrenched ideas on a subject (I tend to rant too much). I gave it a shot with Dvorak -vs- QWERTY and didn’t get very far with that.
It seems to me that to have any chance at all of opening a dialogue with someone who may be entirely oblivious of suffering from a knee-jerk reflex is to bend over backwards to not trigger the reflex. Either that, or chop the knees off, maybe :)
Adrien said
Outstanding. It’s been impossible for me to find a site wherein the author is informed and disciplined by the scientific method. I’d belong at the bottom of this spectrum. But I’d be somewhat higher on the spectrum of expertise viz the capacity to promote propaganda, I’m a copywriter, and the PR Machine on AGW is something that’d strike Beria green with envy.
climatesight said
Thanks Adrien, I’m glad that you like what I have to say. I agree that the “PR Machine on AGW” is quite brilliant. I wish we had them on our side. We’d all be driving hydrogen cars by now.
Martin Vermeer said
Eh, where do textbooks stand in this hierarchy?
(And I mean real textbooks, not the books they produce for schools, but, you know, summaries of the state of the science by active researchers; perhaps “monographs” is the term).
climatesight said
I’m not quite sure what you mean by these kind of textbooks, I don’t think I’ve encountered one yet in my studies, do you have an example?
I’d guess that they’d fall somewhere around universities, just below peer-reviewed articles.
John Doe said
[inflammatory]
Pan said
Dear Kate:
I read about your blog on Yahoo news, and it is very interesting. Now here is my two cents, if I may….
It is a common fact that great minds think alike, in other words, all great scientific minds think alike. Another way to say it is, WHEN all great minds think alike, then there is the possibility of tunnel vision or narrow mindedness.
It may be true that most scientists believes that global warming is caused by humans, but is it absolutely true? Or is because those scientists were taught this fact without question the contrary?
What if ONE great scientific mind says global warming is not true? Would that be Heresy to the scientific community. Would that leads to destablization of the scientific community and lost of jobs and faith in science? Think of all those scientists who would be unemployed after a lifetime of hard work through tunnel vision. Think of the kids of those would be unemployed scientists if this Heresy becomes public.
Therefore, it is better to believe in one another then to rock the boat of this “Global Warming” theory.
Just my two cents.
[Science doesn't really work that way. It doesn't matter what you say, it only matters how you prove it. The means justify the ends. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a real scientist who would hold a scientific belief that they couldn't prove, or would continue this belief if contrary evidence came out (real contrary evidence, not fluff like "global warming stopped in 1998). -Kate]
David said
[inflammatory]
David said
[citations needed - historical warming was natural, so it must be natural now]
climatelover said
wat is the credibility spectrum?
allowe said
what dose credibility mean!? ive looked everywhere for the answer
[Credibility is a measure of how much you can trust what a source tells you - eg, what NASA says about the moon is more credible than what your bus driver says about the moon. You can trust them more, because there's a greater chance that they are giving you accurate information. Greg Craven has a great video about science and credibility, in three parts starting here. -Kate]
allowe said
what dose credibility spectrum mean!? forget the question ontop :|
Terri said
I just discovered this site while reading about Canada’s deplorable lack of action at Copenhagen. I find it odd that we’re still bothering to debate whether climate change is fact or myth when all around us our Earth is being degraded. Why are we arguing? We all live here. Whether or not the science backs what we can percieve with our own senses, we are all subject to the devastating changes that are taking place.
Paul Baer said
In your reply to Pan you wrote:
[Science doesn't really work that way. It doesn't matter what you say, it only matters how you prove it. The means justify the ends. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a real scientist who would hold a scientific belief that they couldn't prove, or would continue this belief if contrary evidence came out (real contrary evidence, not fluff like "global warming stopped in 1998). -Kate]
First, nothing is ever “proven” outside of logic. Things are just accepted to be true on the basis of compelling evidence. But accepting a more fuzzy meaning of “prove”, it’s also true that 99% of what most real scientists believe they couldn’t prove – they take the word of the experts in the domain.
It’s also true that most of science is accepted because it “works” – if your theory is right (or ‘right enough’, you can successfully manipulate the world on that basis. The fact that we have an Internet is based on a very successful research program in physics (and it doesn’t depend on whether string theory turns out to be true or not).
Part of what makes climate change so difficult is that the much of what is most important can’t be tested with laboratory experiments, or turned into marketable products (or weapons). So the kinds of “proof” that we’re really used to aren’t available. I encourage you to look into the work of Sylvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz on “post-normal science” in this regard.
Best,
–Paul Baer
ps “temperatue” is misspelled in the third paragraph