C4’s debate on global warming boils over

Two eminent British scientists who questioned the accuracy of a Channel 4 programme that claimed global warming was an unfounded conspiracy theory have received an expletive-filled tirade from the programme maker.

In an e-mail exchange leaked to The Times, Martin Durkin, the executive producer of The Great Global Warming Swindle, responded to the concerns of Dr Armand Leroi, from Imperial College, and Simon Singh, the respected scientific author, by telling them to “go and f*** yourself”.

The tirade has caused Dr Leroi to withdraw his cooperation from another Channel 4 project with Mr Durkin on race, The Times has learnt.

The programme, broadcast by Channel 4 last Thursday, featured a number of scientists who disputed the consensus on the causes of global warming.

Dr Leroi was particularly concerned about a segment that featured a correlation between solar activity and global temperatures, which was based on a 1991 paper in the journal Science by Eigil Friis-Chris-tensen. He was surprised that the programme failed to mention that while these findings look convincing superficially, they have been revealed as flawed by subsequent research by Peter Laut.

Dr Leroi e-mailed Mr Durkin about his use of data, concluding: “To put this bluntly: the data that you showed in your programme were . . . wrong in several different ways.” He copied Mr Singh into the exchange.

Mr Durkin replied to both later that morning, saying: “You’re a big daft cock.” Less than an hour later, Mr Singh, who has worked for the BBC, intervened to urge Mr Durkin to engage in serious debate. He wrote: “I suspect that you will have upset many people (if Armand is right), so it would be great if you could engage in the debate rather than just resorting to one-line replies. That way we could figure out what went wrong/ right and how do things better/ even better in the future.” Mr Durkin replied nine minutes later: “The BBC is now a force for bigotry and intolerance . . . Since 1940 we have had four decades of cooling, three of warming, and the last decade when temperature has been doing nothing.

“Why have we not heard this in the hours and hours of sh*t [edited by poster] programming on global warming shoved down our throats by the BBC?

Last night Dr Leroi said that he was amazed at the rudeness of Mr Durkin’s reply.

“It was rather a shocking response,” Dr Leroi said. “It was my intention to make a film with Martin Durkin and [the production company] Wag, but that is something I am seriously reconsidering now. I am no climate scientist, but I was very concerned at the way that flaws in these data were brushed over.”

He said that the global warming film had glossed over flaws in data that it used to make its case, and that it was critical that a documentary about a subject as controversial as race and biology did not make similar mistakes.

“As the subject of our proposed film was race, it is such a sensitive topic that it requires great care and great balance. That he has shown so little respect for scientific consensus and such little nuance is a cause for great concern. I cannot imagine it will go ahead now.”

The film would have addressed Dr Leroi’s thesis that race is a biologically meaning-ful and medically valuable concept, a view that is highly controversial among scientists.

Last night Mr Durkin apologised for his langauge. “As far as I was concerned these were private e-mails. They arrived when I was quite tired having just finished the programme in time for transmission,” he said.

“Needless, to say, I regret the use of intemperate language. It is so unlike me. I am very eager to have all the science properly debated with scientists qualified in the right areas and have asked Channel 4 if they will stage a live debate on this subject.”

Claim: Ice core data shows that carbon dioxide levels rise after temperatures go up, not before

Fact: This is correct, but climate scientists have a good explanation. There is a substantial feedback effect – initial small rises in temperature lead to substantial release of carbon dioxide from natural reservoirs in the oceans, which then produce much steeper warming later on

Claim: Temperatures in the troposphere, the lower part of the atmosphere, have not risen as predicted by the models

Fact: This was once the case, but it has been resolved now that initial measurement errors have been corrected

Claim: Temperatures rose for the first part of the century, then cooled for three decades before warming again. There is no link to carbon dioxide

Fact: Temperatures did follow this pattern, but again there is a good explanation. The mid-century effect fall came about chiefly because of sulphate aerosols – particles that have a cooling effect on the atmosphere. These are no longer produced so heavily by industry because of environmental regulations to combat other problems, such as acid rain

That's nothing more than an enthymeme with a missing conclusion.

If "All M are things F" and "Some M are things U", one recognises the first proposition being A type and the second being I type. These propropositions taken together as major and minor premisis of a categorical syllogism, the only unconditionally valid conclusion would be the proposition:

"some things U are F" (comprising an argument having the form AII-3).

It makes no difference if the second proposition is converted to "some things U are M" (a valid conversion of an I type proposition), for the only proposition that would be unconditionally valid for the conlusion of the enthymeme would also be "some things U are F" (this argument would have the form AII-1).

NZerFromHK's field of studies for his Masters degree was statistics. In his reply (post #7) to Uncle Ike, he said:

"[while] doing a statistical analysis of RF-range EMF and its effects on human health. [I realized] You can produce a mathematical model that "proves" the existence of harmful effects, but some critical foundations of the model itself is based on numerous assumptions that may not have any scientific basis at all."

That was in response to:

"whether or not climate change can be wholly attributed to human factors, it makes strong economic and environmental sense to treat it as human-caused and take action now. "
IOW --
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!!"
Sophistry at its finest.....

Uncle Ike's sentiments are absolutely true, in that sophistry is a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.

The conclusion to the statement that Uncle Ike cites is dependenent upon several intertwined arguments (all being ultimately fallacious).

The first fallacy comitted being an appeal to emotion (Red Herring). One distinction between relevant and fallacious appeals to emotion is based on the distinction between arguments which aim to motivate us to action, and those which are intended to convince us to believe something. Appeals to emotion are always fallacious when intended to influence our beliefs, but they are sometimes reasonable when they aim to motivate us to act. The fact that we desire something to be true gives not the slightest reason to believe it, and the fact that we fear something being true is no reason to think it false; but the desire for something is often a good reason to pursue it, and fear of something else a good reason to flee. Nevetheless, even when appeals to emotion aim at motivating us, there is still a way that they may fail to be rational, namely, when what we are being persuaded to do has insufficient connection with what is arousing our emotion. It is my contention the appeal to emotion is fallacious because Argumentum ad Metum (aka Appeal to Fear) is being used.

The argument also makes the fallacious Argumentum ad Consequentiam. And is of the form:

(Belief in) GW leads to bad consequences.
(Where the bad consequences are irrelevant to the truth of GW.)
Therefore, GW is true.

Arguing that a proposition is true because belief in it has good consequences, or that it is false because belief in it has bad consequences (or vice versa) is often an irrelevancy. Since the irrelevancy of belief to truth-value is intuitively obvious, it is often suppressed in fallacious Arguments to the Consequences. However, one can tell that the fallacy is being committed because the supposed consequences do not follow from the proposition itself, but only from belief in it.

There are two types of cogent argument with which this fallacy is easily confused:

When an argument concerns a policy or plan of action - instead of a proposition - then it is reasonable to consider the consequences of acting on it.
When an argument is about a proposition, it is reasonable to assess the truth-value of any logical consequences of it. Logical consequences should not be confused with causal consequences, and truth or falsity should not be confused with goodness or badness.

Appeals to Consequences differ from these cogent forms of argument in the following ways:

The argument is not about a plan or policy, but a proposition which therefore has a truth-value.
The argument does not concern the truth-value of logical consequences of the proposition, but the good or bad causal consequences of believing it.

And finally, with the foregoing in mind the argument is guilty of the fallacy of Wishfull Thinking. From the conclusions stated in the arguments, it does not follow that P is true, or likely to be so, i.e. that GW is man-made. Even if we accept that taking action may be the virtuous or prudent thing to do, there is no basis for the conclusion that "it makes strong economic and environmental sense to treat GW as human-caused and take action now." This is nothing more than an assertation of assertion.

Psychologically, "wishful thinking" is believing something because of a desire - "wish" - that it be true. As a logical fallacy, Wishful Thinking is an argument whose premiss expresses a desire for the conclusion to be true. Of course, this type of thinking seldom takes the explicit form of an argument from a premiss about one's belief to the conclusion that one's wish is true. Such bald wishful thinking would be patently fallacious even to the wishful thinker. Rather, wishful thinking usually takes the form of a bias towards the belief in P, which leads to the overestimating of the weight of evidence in favor of P, as well as the underestimating of the weight against. A pragmatic or prudential defense of wishful thinking is based on the claim that one stands to gain from such belief, and that this is a sufficient reason to believe. If there is pragmatic value in believing a truth, but no evidence for it, then the only way that one can gain that pragmatic value is by a "leap of faith".

The salient point here is that pragmatic/prudential defense to Wishful Thinking is that its defense does not make the claim that the statement believed on faith will actually be true, or is even likely to be true. Rather the claim is that one can gain in some way by believing something that may be false for all that. While this may well be true, it is neither a logical nor epistemological defense of wishful thinking, unless one equates pragmatic value with truth.

Suppose I offer a prize of a million dollars to anyone who believes that pigs have wings. There is no doubt that, if you can only force yourself to do so, you stand to gain from believing this. However, the fact that you win a million dollars in no way tends to show that pigs have wings.

The trouble with both moral and pragmatic defenses to Wishful Thinking is that they do not show that wishful thinking is ever cogent, instead the following types of argument are supported:

P is an article of faith.
Therefore, I ought, morally, to believe P.
I stand to gain from believing P.
Hence, I should, prudentially, believe P.

But from the conclusions of either of these arguments, it does not follow that P is true, or likely to be so. So, Wishful Thinking is still a fallacy, even if we accept that it is sometimes the virtuous or prudent thing to do. And ultimately, the whole argument utterly collapses under the weight of all the fallacies committed, in that there is no evidence that any action purported to be beneficial would actually be beneficial in any way whatsoever (neither economically nor environmentally); in fact quite to the contrary in that practical reality suggests strongly that there'd be great economic hardship imposed for quite plausibly little (if any) environmental gain.

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