Times have changed. The paranormal claims of the 70’s and 80’s no longer infest the zeitgeist as much as they once did; UFOs mysteriously vanished from the news with the increasing ubiquity of personal video cameras and the end of the X-Files, Uri Geller has long since been discredited, and televangelists no longer hold such sway on late night television. Pseudosciences like homeopathy, antivaccination hysteria and intelligent design have come to the fore, making the task of distinguishing between science and pseudoscience critical work.

I’d come to be involved with skepticism after an entirely unsatisfying undergraduate course on the philosophy of science. That was no fault of the professor teaching the course, as he was an excellent instructor; rather, it was unsatisfying because it was just too short. That one hour a week for six weeks sparked a lifelong desire to understand how and why we know what we know, and skepticism provided a hands on way to answer those questions. Working in plant sciences had given me a tangential interaction with the topic of global warming, but it was from a practical, scientific perspective: the effect of shifting climate zones on crop production, for example, and the effect of increasing CO2 on plant growth. The science wasn’t in question among my peers; we accepted the data that was out there and just got on with things. My introduction to climate science denial was through involvement with the skepticism / critical thinking movement.

Skeptics rely on the scientific method and the findings of science to resolve the demarcation problem, in particular between what is science and what is pseudoscience. Homeopathy, for example, is scientific-like. Proponents really can draw upon peer reviewed literature that appears to support its use. Yet homeopathy fails on replication, it fails to be supported by high quality trials, and it is entirely implausible, requiring the suspension of well established principles of chemistry and is founded in sympathetic magic. It is pseudoscience, not science, and on that there is a clear consensus in the skeptical – and scientific – community. On global warming, however, consensus in the skeptical community is much more elusive. A lot of skeptics – able to clearly identify pseudoscience in so many other topics, and otherwise accepting of scientific consensus in any other field – have become convinced that the science of global warming is suspect. It is a testament to the effectiveness of decades of disinformation, and susceptibility to the cognitive biases that affect all of us, that organised skepticism on the whole does not hold a clear position on the science of global warming – although there are a few exceptions, both among individuals and organisations, such as CSI. James Randi, a leading light in skepticism, is rather confused on the topic, while Michael Shermer only recently came to terms with the reality of global warming. It is a puzzle that skeptics will push back against anti-vaccination pseudoscience, homeopathy and chiropractic, and are in fact some of the loudest voices on these topics, yet hold little opinion on the science of global warming, despite this branch of scientific endeavour clearly being under sustained attack. That global warming comprises such a vast blind spot for skepticism was a great surprise to me, and I still find it extraordinary that skeptics can be among the most fervent climate science deniers.

So I’m delighted to see Skeptical Inquirer, the magazine for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), pushing back against climate “skeptics”. They have taken a stand on their Facebook blog, with the Credibility Project, and with numerous articles on the subject in Skeptical Inquirer. Predictably, there’s been blow-back, as outraged readers have cancelled their subscriptions to the magazine. How refreshing then to read this robust defence, from Kendrick Fraser, the editor of Skeptical Inquirer:

This is the third SI reader who has cancelled his (it’s always a male) subscription over our climate change pieces in the current SI (not to mention the at least six who did so after our first round of articles several years ago). Boy, they don’t want to hear anything they disagree with, do they.

It is clear the anti-GW science crowd have their minds made up, and nothing anyone is going to say, no appeal to scientific evidence, no attempt to place things into an accurate context, no attempt to point out that many media and blog portrayals are not always fully accurate, no facts, no explanations, no attempts to show they themselves are being manipulated, nothing is ever going to change their minds. Very much like the evolution/creationist controversy, except that these are some of our longtime readers.

They do not want to engage forthrightly with factual, science-based statements or arguments. They only want their own views reinforced. There is no attempt at open-minded discussion or even fair argument. Just a determination to maintain their ideological purity and not have it be contaminated with any scientific information and perspective that doesn’t support their presuppositions. They want to draw a don’t-tell-me-anything-I-don’t-want-to-hear cocoon around themselves. Unfortunately, that cocoon is growing ever larger. And they know they are punishing us, because, even more than most publications, which have advertising, we depend mostly on subscription revenue.
Guess we should just go along with the crowd, the lynch mob. Hop on the bandwagon. Slam those damned ignorant climatologists coming up with all that nonsense about changing climate and a warming planet. Who needs science anyway?

Kendrick Frazier
Editor, Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science and Reason

So thank you, Mr. Frazier, for taking on the important task of defending climate science and illuminating the vacuity of climate science denial. Would that more skeptics would do the same.

And you know, that reminds me: it’s past time I subscribed to Skeptical Inquirer myself.

The Center for Inquiry (CFI), affiliated with the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), took a look at the ‘United States Senate Minority Report on Global Warming’. This Senate report came out in January 2009 with the tagline “More Than 700 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims”.

CFI’s Office of Public Policy examined the report in what they called the Credibility Project. The results:

• Slightly fewer than 10 percent could be identified as climate scientists.
• Approximately 15 percent published in the recognizable refereed literature on subjects related to climate science.
• Approximately 80 percent clearly had no refereed publication record on climate science at all.
• Approximately 4 percent appeared to favor the current IPCC-2007 consensus and should not have been on the list.

…After painstakingly taking the time to vet many of the scientists now serving as “consensus busters” Jordan says that it is difficult for him and his colleagues not to conclude that “this is one more effort of a contrarian community to block corrective action to address a major—in this case global—problem fraught with harmful consequences for human welfare and the environment.”

It isn’t enough to simply don the mantle of “skeptic”, as so many of the climate science deniers have done. One should also try to adhere to the principles of skepticism, and it wouldn’t hurt to have at least a passing familiarity with the epistemic virtues.

So what happens when the skeptics at CFI apply scientific skepticism to climate science? They find that it is, in fact, good science.

Dr. Paul Kurtz, the founder of the Center for Inquiry, stressed that “It is essential that the government base its policies on the best scientific information we have and it is a preponderance of scientific judgment that global warming poses a dire threat to the future of humanity on the planet.”

And what happens when CFI applies skepticism to the claims of the climate skeptics in the Senate report? They find what I would call pseudoskepticism.

After painstakingly taking the time to vet many of the scientists now serving as “consensus busters” Jordan says that it is difficult for him and his colleagues not to conclude that “this is one more effort of a contrarian community to block corrective action to address a major—in this case global—problem fraught with harmful consequences for human welfare and the environment.”

CFI’s efforts here speak to a particular difficulty that many people have, including in the skeptical community, with identifying credible expertise and sources of information (for some of the best writing on the web on this I recommend readers visit climatesight.org, and peruse the credibility spectrum). What looked like a credible and important list – no less than 700 scientists dissenting on global warming claims – was nothing of the sort. Now if it were 700 peer reviewed papers that together presented evidence of a coherent and credible alternative to global warming theories, that would be something else, but these lists of names serve only to obfuscate. And it works. Even James Randi, a leading light in the skeptical movement, fell for one such list, writing: “…some 32,000 scientists, 9,000 of them PhDs, have signed The Petition Project statement proclaiming that Man is not necessarily the chief cause of warming, that the phenomenon may not exist at all, and that, in any case, warming would not be disastrous,” later adding, “I strongly suspect that The Petition Project may be valid.”

The Petition Project is of course irrelevant to the science. Anyone can sign a petition, and having a PhD does not confer upon one any expertise in climate change; especially if that PhD is in an entirely unrelated discipline to climate change, as was true for the vast majority of the signatories. The scientific research is what matters. Yet the petition appeared more credible to James Randi than the science.

It is gratifying, therefore, to see CFI taking strides in reclaiming the mantle of skepticism from climate science deniers. Scientific skepticism has proven to be a valuable tool for identifying pseudoscience, through its demand that fringe ideas meet exacting standards of proof. Still, the skeptical community needs to do a better job at identifying pseudoskepticism and the tactics of denial, and CFI’s Credibility Project is a very good step in that direction.