[Vision2020] 96 Responses to "Yamalian yawns": "A Perfect Epistemic Bubble"

[Ted Moffett]

A recent Realclimate.org discussion from NASA's climate scientist Gavin Schmidt
 ( http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/gavin-schmidt/ )
regarding Steve McIntyre's (well known critic of anthropogenic climate
change science) charges against certain climate science work, is at
the website below.

I was not going to post this rather technical discussion to
Vision2020, but Gavin Schmidt's phrase, "a perfect epistemic bubble,"
is such wonderful concise wording, I changed my mind.  Indeed, we all
live in our own "epistemic bubbles," our self justifying circular
systems of logic that lead us to interpret the facts of the world to
suit our preconceptions and biases... The best that can be done is to
be aware of bias, unavoidable for emotional mammals such as humans,
and deliberately try to understand the world through as many
viewpoints as possible, to temper bias.

I only pasted in Schmidt's response to one of the comments in the
comments section, where he uses this phrase:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/05/yamalian-yawns/#more-11699

Actually it won't be that interesting because I guarantee that
whatever judgement calls that Briffa et al make (on the level of
coherence necessary, significance levels, magnitude of common signal,
statistical method etc.) they will still be accused of fudging it to
produce a desired result - because that is so easy for the 'critics'
to do. Every analysis involves judgement calls - even McIntyre's. And
so if people don't like the result, they will attack the judgements -
regardless of how they actually impact the final result or how
justified they are. If you are already convinced that scientists can't
be trusted, then no amount of justification from those scientists will
change anything because people see nefarious intent everywhere. It is
a perfect epistemic bubble - impervious to any actual contact with
reality. - gavin

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett