[FRIAM] Climate Change

Sun Dec 31 12:03:09 EST 2017

Hi, Pieter, 

Thanks for this thoughtful post. 

What are the properties of good GroupThought:  i.e., Group Thought that is likely to survive experience into the deep future?

The italicized bit is actually a definition both of “good” and “objective”.  Peirce asserts that this is what we MEAN when we say that thought is good and results are objective.  We MEAN that they are likely to survive future experience: ie,  that the experiences we have (experiments that we do) in the future are unlikely to dislodge them.  Or as Peirce puts it, an objective fact is proposition that does not depend on whether you, or I, or any other particular individual or groups believe it.  His is a statistical model.  The coin that is flipped a thousand times and comes up roughly 50 percent is more likely to be drawn from a population of fair coins than from a population of unfair coins, and one’s confidence rises as the size of the sample increases. Similarly, the coin that comes up fair when it is flipped under a variety of circumstances – replications in different labs.  And yes, statements made about a coin which, when flipped, we have no idea whether it came up heads or tails are unlikely to endure.  

The Congregation has heard all of this from me before and are beginning to roll their eyes as we speak.  I am an alert vampire, and I sense that you are new blood.   Thanks for listening, if, indeed, you are still with me.  

All the best, 

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of Pieter Steenekamp
Sent: Sunday, December 31, 2017 12:39 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Nick,

Referring to your What are the properties of good GroupThought:  i.e., Group Thought that is likely to survive experience into the deep future?

How does one define the "good" in "good GroupThought"?  It obviously depends on the context.

I want to refrain, for now, it could be part of another discussion, from commenting on cases where the "good" in "good thought" involves moral judgment.

For now, I want to restrict the context where it involves measurable judgments or falsifiable hypotheses. If the result of the group's thinking is measured against objective criteria the "goodness" can be measured.

An example of where groupthink went spectacularly wrong is in the groupthink of the quantum mechanics' experts in the 1920's rejecting the guiding wave theory. Especially after John von Neumann "proved" that hidden variables are inconsistent with the mathematics. The guiding wave theory requires hidden variables. The unknown Grete Hermann showed the wrong assumptions of von Neumann's proof, but the groupthink of the time rejected her findings and accepted the expert von Newman's proof. In the 1960's John Bell showed that Hermann was right and von Neumann wrong. Although the guiding wave theorem is considered incomplete today (as opposed to "wrong"), rejecting the groupthink of the 1920's up to 1960's, and accepting Grete's criticism of von Newmann's work, lead to today's accepted standard model of particle physics. One could argue that almost half a century of progress in particle physics was lost to groupthink and accepting an expert's judgment? 

There are simple principles to guide against groupthink and nurture constructive interaction that leads to wisdom of the crowd.

a) One is to never soft punish people that reject conventional thinking, even if the conventional thinking is supported by the views of experts. 

b) Emphasize objective tests and insist on falsifiable hypotheses.

I referred to Philp Tetlock in a previous post, and want to that again. He has achieved amazing success in establishing what to do to get good judgment. I want to recommend to those that are interested in this topic to read up on his work. 

As a final point of this post, I want to mention that I experienced the replies to me challenging the accepted scientific views on climate change as contributing to the wisdom of the crowds and not groupthink. I was not punished for rejecting the conventional thinking. 

Pieter

On 31 December 2017 at 01:29, Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

Pieter, 

Seeing my question, out in the open, away from the underbrush of my other words, I am inclined to edit it: 

What are the properties of good GroupThought:  i.e., Group Thought that is likely to survive experience into the deep future?

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Pieter Steenekamp
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 1:32 PM

To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Nick,

What are the properties of GroupThought that is likely to survive experience into the deep future?

Philip Tetlock has done excellent work answering exactly that question. His view is simply that you can test and develop the ability of individuals and groups to increase the quality of their judgments. (His focus is on forecasting).

Pieter

On 30 December 2017 at 19:20, Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> > wrote:

Pieter,  

Some months back, at the Friday Meeting of the FRIAM Mother Church at St. Johns, we had a long discussion about the degree to which ANY of us ever made judgements in such matters on the basis of EVIDENCE.  I think, just for fun, we spent some time trying to PROVE to one another, on the basis of raw experience, that New Mexico is not flat.  Harder going than one might suppose.   So, I think we concluded that most of our judgements are based on circles of trust.  So then, the question becomes, what sorts of circles of trust are evidency.  The point is that, whatever one takes to be raw evidence always comes baled with a set of inferences and assumptions that are themselves not evidenced but which come by authority and seem trustworthy.  

Your pointing to historical climate anomalies seemed evidency to me in that it was plausible,  I had vaguely heard of those things and it seemed logically plausible to me that we should be able to POSTDICT these anomalies from present conditions, if our models are strong.  Thus, in the context of that particular network of trusted (plausible) propositions, I momentarily joined you in your skepticism.  But none of that is EVIDENCE in the sense that we all like to use that term.  

In short, what is the relation between evidence and trust?  Aren’t we all guilty of group think?  Isn’t all science (following Peirce) a kind of organized groupthink?  Isn’t the point NOT that some of us think independently and some of us are victims of Groupthink, but rather that some groups think better than others?  And if so, why?  What are the properties of GroupThought that is likely to survive experience into the deep future?

Nick 

Nicholas S. Thompson

Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology

Clark University

 <http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> ] On Behalf Of Pieter Steenekamp
Sent: Saturday, December 30, 2017 5:27 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Glen, 

I'd like to comment on your comment a few posts earlier:

"*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution."

My first reply is that I consider evidence to be much more valuable than expert's opinions. The IPCC is rich in expert's opinions and very light on evidence. 

The second reply is that I certainly do not claim any explicit fraud in climate science. But there is evidence of bias in climate science and "soft punishment" of scientists who disagree with the main narrative. For example, refer to Judith Curry's experience when she started to challenge the main climate science narrative. She is a former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and blogs at www.judithcurry.com <http://www.judithcurry.com> .

My point is that although there is no evidence of explicit fraud, there is evidence of an environment that promotes groupthink. 

Combining the two points, with evidence of less temperature increase than what the models predict and evidence of an environment in climate science promoting "fitting in" and the absence of healthy challenging of climate science, my conclusion is to be skeptical towards main climate science and the IPCC's conclusions. 

On 30 December 2017 at 10:30, Pieter Steenekamp <pieters at randcontrols.co.za <mailto:pieters at randcontrols.co.za> > wrote:

I'm also a big fan of James Lovelock. Interesting that he changed his views on climate change dramatically. I refer to an interview The Guardian newspaper had with him recently (www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/30/james-lovelock-interview-by-end-of-century-robots-will-have-taken-over <http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/30/james-lovelock-interview-by-end-of-century-robots-will-have-taken-over> ). I quote:

"What has changed dramatically, however, is his position on climate change. He now says: “Anyone who tries to predict more than five to 10 years is a bit of an idiot, because so many things can change unexpectedly.” "

On 30 December 2017 at 07:25, Carl Tollander <carl at plektyx.com <mailto:carl at plektyx.com> > wrote:

I would rather,

 than worry directly about the predictability of the climate models we currently have vs the population/variety/intitial conclusions of researchers from decades ago, 

 that we instead consider a range of climate risks, their consequences,  our responses/adaptations, and their consequences.

The latter may prepare us, and it moves that portion of the science along in any case, and may yet eventually show up any deficiencies in the former, but let's get underway.

Personally, I'm with Lovelock on the large grain future: the window of action gets progressively smaller the longer we delay, and that the world will likely experience

a "massive reduction in carrying capacity" (that's a euphemism) over the next century.    Looking at older cultures and how they survive, mutate, die or flourish in analogous upheavals (e.g. mid-8th-century China or black-death eras in  Europe) might be worthwhile at this point. Start by assuming the fan/speed/blades and what/who hits it; what can/should we DO?  We should at least perhaps understand when we are waiting too long to begin adaptations that are cheap, safe, economic or politically acceptable, for Nature bats last.

Hope y'all like mosquitoes. 

カール

On Fri, Dec 29, 2017 at 8:59 PM, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> > wrote:

Nick writes:

< IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now? >

The European weather model assimilates 50+ types of measurements in space and time, including satellite data.   Obviously, these measurements were not possible except in the last few decades, never mind in the middle ages or before humans.   So whether or not there were even particular kinds of climate anomalies is a subject of some debate.    For example, were those periods wet or were they warm?  Were they uniform across the global or localized to certain regions?

Marcus

  _____  

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > on behalf of Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net <mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> >
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 8:27:21 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group'

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

I dunno, I thought Pietr's point was kind of interesting.  IF (and I don't know if the condition is met) ... IF climate models cannot "predict" past anomalies, why should we trust them now?   Or did somebody already answer that.  

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/

-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On Behalf Of u?l? ?
Sent: Friday, December 29, 2017 5:40 PM
To: FriAM <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Climate Change

Well, I mean "models" writ large.  Even when gathering and reducing observational data, there's a workflow for doing that. That workflow relies on a model of a sort.  And integrating different data sets so that they're commensurate also requires models.  E.g. correlating tree ring based with other climate data.

But you're ultimately right.  It's not so much about the models as it is the whole inferential apparatus one *might* use to drive policy decisions, including huge populations of expert climatologists.  There's probably a correlation to be drawn between people who distrust government and those who distrust the "scientific establishment" and/or the "deep state".  People tend to obey/trust whoever they regard as authority figures (e.g. greater shocks to another if a person in a lab coat tells you to do it).  Those of us who inherently distrust authority figures have a particular psychological bent and our impulse can go the other way.  It could be because we know how groups can succumb to bias, or how errors get propagated (e.g. peer review), or whatever.

*That* is why I think focusing on the workflows (modeling) is important.  Those of us who distrust the experts bear the burden of proof.  Hence, we have to really dig in and find the flaw in the experts' thinking.  To do otherwise is irrational.

Those of us who can delegate and tend to trust experts only need to dig in when/if a skeptic produces a defensible counter-argument.  If all a skeptic has to offer are blanket generalizations about human error or whatnot, then it seems rational to ignore that doubt and go with the conclusions of the experts.

If Pieter knows of a specific flaw in the way the experts do their work, then it would be a valuable contribution.

On 12/29/2017 12:41 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
> IMO it is not about models. Models are complicated and controversial. Climate change in the artic is a fact, melting arctic ice is a fact, melting glaciers is a fact. In the arctic regions we can oberve the rising temperatures most clearly.

--
☣ uǝlƃ

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