Monthly Archives: March 2017

Hearing about climate science and the scientific method

Posted on March 31, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

I’ve been travelling and so haven’t really had much chance to keep up with what’s going on. I have, however, finally managed to watch the Congressional Hearing on Climate Science: Assumptions, Policy Implications and the Scientific Method. It was all … Continue reading →

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Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, Global warming, Judith Curry, Michael Mann, The philosophy of science, The scientific method, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 84 Comments

Democratising science

Posted on March 28, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

I got into a brief discussion on Twitter about democratising science, which some people seemed to think was a good idea. One thing I was trying to do was simply to work out what people meant. I’m still not sure, … Continue reading →

Posted in advocacy, Politics, Research, Science, Sound Science (tm), The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , | 68 Comments

Bias in science

Posted on March 26, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

There are quite often claims that there are significant biases in science and that this is strongly influencing research results. Typically this is based on known problems in certain fields; the replication crisis in psychology, or the failure to publish … Continue reading →

Posted in ethics, physicists, Research, Science, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 142 Comments

Based on Observations Only!

Posted on March 23, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), who I’ve written about many times before, have released a report which they’ve described as [t]he World’s first state of the climate survey based on observations only. I think it’s meant to the a … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, ClimateBall, Research, Science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 39 Comments

A reduced climate sensitivity!

Posted on March 18, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

Now that I have your attention, I should probably make clear that this post is not about the Earth. I’m just back from a meeting where one of the speakers was Ian Boutle, lead author of a paper in which … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate sensitivity, Research, Science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 14 Comments

The feedback paradox

Posted on March 14, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

Realclimate has a new post, by Rasmus Benestad, that discusses predcitable and unpredictable behaviour. It focuses a little on Judith Curry’s recent report about climate models, that I discussed here. The Realclimate post is well worth reading, and I encourage … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate sensitivity, Judith Curry, Science | Tagged , , , , | 152 Comments

Matt Ridley responds to Tim Palmer

Posted on March 12, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

I came across a response, by Matt Ridley, to Tim Palmer’s talk. I’ve posted Matt Ridley’s response below. One interesting aspect of his response is that it is written as if he is someone with the expertise to actually debate … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Climate sensitivity, ClimateBall, Global warming, Research, Science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , | 53 Comments

Informing versus convincing

Posted on March 11, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

I want to clarify something about yesterday’s post that seems to have at least got one person up in arms. The key point that I was trying to get across (and that I think is the same as Michael Tobis’s … Continue reading →

Posted in ClimateBall, ethics, Global warming, Research, Science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , , , | 116 Comments

Scientists are not salespeople!

Posted on March 10, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

Gavin Schmidt posted a bunch of tweets in response to a post by Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) in which he claims to illustrate how climate scientists can persuade skeptics. If you want to read Gavin’s tweets, Greg Laden has … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate change, Research, Science, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , , , | 52 Comments

The Ivory Tower

Posted on March 7, 2017 by ...and Then There's Physics

This is a post I’ve been thinking about for a while, and my thoughts are still not fully fleshed out, but I’ll have a go at writing it anyway. You sometimes encounter a suggestion that academics regard themselves as living … Continue reading →

Posted in ClimateBall, Global warming, Greenhouse effect, Research, Science, The philosophy of science, The scientific method | Tagged , , | 31 Comments