Bishop Hill Getting away with 'Müller' in the climate debate
Mar 16, 2014 Climate: Sceptics Greens Media This is a guest post by Alex H.
As an undergraduate studying classics at Oxford, close to exam time one of my tutors, semi-jokingly, provided us with the following tip for what to do when flummoxed by an exam question: "if you can't think of anything to write, invent an early-20th century German scholar called 'Müller', assign to him the most extreme point of view you can think of, and argue tooth and nail against it". In the context of classics, this could involve assigning 'Müller' with the opinion that Clytemnestra was, in fact, a devoted and loving wife. Or that killing his daughter was the easiest decision Agamemnon ever made. Thankfully, I never had to use this tactic, though it was always comforting to have it in the armoury.
Journalists reporting on the 'climate change' debate (formerly the 'global warming' debate) employ this tactic on a daily basis. Only their 'Müller' goes by the name of 'climate change deniers', referring to people who, supposedly, deny that climate ever changes, and that man can have any influence on it whatsoever. Yet no climate sceptic I have ever encountered, whether in person, in books, or on blogs, has ever had this opinion. Real climate sceptics (of which many are eminent scientists) hold the specific view that: a) climate is less sensitive to Carbon Dioxide forcing than alarmist predictions make it out to be, and b) the dangers of warming are grossly exaggerated. This view acknowledges both that climate changes and that man may play some role in influencing it, it is merely sceptical of the extent and impacts of human-induced warming. And rightly so, given the lack of warming over the past 15+ years despite rises in CO2 emissions, resulting in a warming 'pause' since 1998 that no computer model predicted.
An examiner marking a finals paper would, of course, see through 'Müller' if they had read the Agamemnon (which one would hope to be the case), and, whilst crediting the candidate for his courage, duly fail him in that paper. The equivalent process should happen for any journalist who argues against 'climate change deniers'; yet because in this case the examiner - the majority of the public - has not 'read the book' and doesn't understand the nuances of the debate, journalists are able to get away with 'Müller' time and time again.
My question is: when will writers of major news organisations start writing more like professional journalists, and less like Oxford undergraduates panicking in a finals paper?
Reader Comments (25)
The Berkley Bloke???
Good analysis - and I will remember this tip if I ever wander off my science / tech reservation :)
Don't confuse this with the "Muller-Damascene-conversion" gambit.
Named after Richard Muller from Berkeley who played it recently, it goes like this: "I was deeply skeptical all my life until I saw 'X' which converted me instantly".
Not very convincing in Richard Muller's case: 35 seconds on Google finds all kinds of green affiliations going back decades. In fact he could register at the Kennel Club for a leftie-greenie pedigree.
Maybe we need formal names for these gambits...
"Brian is using the insurance-metaphor gambit"
"Sally is playing the think-of-the-children gambit"
Indeed. I live in hope any one of those journalist will finally release the facts on the "well-documented corporate conspiracy to deny climate change" they so often talk about.
I've been Mullered! Now i realise it.......
Only an idiot, would argue that mankind does NOT influence the earth's climate but it is usually at the micro level.
Anyone who observes the water cooling towers 'pouring' vapour into the sky can see climate change in action. Man changes the landscape, he builds Cities, dams rivers builds reservoirs, arable farming, large scale monoculture in Indonesia, the high plains of the United States - evaporation rates, albedo effects, lowering the water table affecting soil moisture all cause knock on but usually minor changes to the local climate. A particularly egregious example, through the drying out of the Aral sea - engineered by river diversions was a prime example of stupid interference on a to say the least a delicate eco-system, of a large scale interruption and affecting the regional climate which undoubtedly caused a desertification catastrophe of mind boggling proportions.
So, yeah we affect the climate in so many ways, it's also true that the climate of the earth has warmed - naturally.
The Guardian, the political machine of Brussels and it's weevils in Westminster and in the popular press - think this is due somehow to man made emissions of CO2 and use all manner of literary device and just good old plain story telling, lies, obfuscation and bullying to argue their case. The Straw men of the gruaniad et al do their bit but are refuted at every turn they weft and embroider - for it is thin cheap cloth and a rickety spinning wheel - and well past its sell by date.
Amateurish literary artifice, is a poor substitute for plain cold hard facts, the threads of their [alarmist] arguments dissolve ever more quickly. Because it matters not how you dress up an argument, a polemic - if you can no longer back it up - the battle is lost before it is commenced.
All it is, a climate of computer models, straw men and dodgy statistics - builded on a myth.
The whole 'denier gambit 'has its roots in the very 1984 style attempt to make impossible to honestly disagree with 'the cause '
The idea goes that something like this AGW sceptics they cannot be honestly wrong when they doubt AGW because clearly this is unquestionable truth. So they but must be either mad or bad and that is why they challenge the dogma of that should should not be challenged.
If you really want to know how this works , stop thinking science for this idea plans no role in science. And start thinking religion where the 'need' for the evil other is seen , for you cannot have a 'good god' unless you have some opposite evil.
In reality this approach is a sign of weakness in the facts behind the argument combined with the strength of 'belief ' some have in it .
No doubt for some this due to very personal interest they have in keeping this rich gravy train on the rails and you only have to look at the massive ego of people like Mann to see how they could be attached to fame its brought them , while for others they see it as a means to an end ,a way to see their ideology forced unto people who otherwise would never take it on.
I like it!! "It's Muller time!" has a kind of ring to it...(filed for future use.)
Although, if our text is Euripides and not Aeschylus, 'Muller' would arguably be quite correct:
Iphigeneia at Aulis, Menelaus to Agamemnon:
"Then, when Calchas bade you offer sacrifice to Artemis with your daughter's life,
and promised us fair winds, then you were pleased, and gladly undertook to kill her."
Electra, Clytemnestra to Electra:
"Your father, child, brought this on you by his wicked treachery to one he should have loved...
When I married your father, I did not expect to die, or see my children killed...
If he had done it to avert the capture of his city, or to exalt his house, or if,
to save his other children, he had taken one life for many, he could be forgiven, ...
but he must bring home with him the mad prophetess, foist on me a second wife..."
Clytemnestra is loyal to the point of accepting her child's death for all sorts of practical reasons but her love for Agamemnon cannot withstand the scorn of rejection.
The sophist Gorgias made his living by teaching anyone who could pay how to argue that Helen of Troy was a virtuous woman.
But a climate change denier is not someone who denies the climate is changing, it's someone who denies the alarmist predictions. It's just like a racist is not someone who opposes or favors certain races, opposing certain beliefs or traditions could make you a racist. The words have be redefined. It's what they do. Orwell would not be surprised.
What a good essay! It makes a key point very clearly. The sophistry of the climate alarmers is part, possibly a crucial part, of their astonishing success. Occam's broom has been heavily deployed by them, but their carpet is being lifted.
"Real climate sceptics (of which many are eminent scientists) hold the specific view that: a) climate is less sensitive to Carbon Dioxide forcing than alarmist predictions make it out to be, and b) the dangers of warming are grossly exaggerated."
According to that eminent scientist (sarc), Margaret Curran MP, this is more than enough to damn them as 'deniers'. She said so quite clearly and excitedly on the BBC.
@Pax Well said
Although the whole denier thing is a rhetorical trick, allowing the warmists to get airtime attacking, rather than defend their own indefensable case
.. It is outrageous that the media don't keep pressing them to properly debate skeptics... The way warmusts refuse debate is one of the strongest indications thst their case is poor.
Very good way of expressing the problem, Alex, following Jonathan Jones' widely quoted 'It has been amusing to watch the apparent surprise of many climate scientists at their discovery that many "climate sceptics" are actually lukewarmers' nine days ago in Die Klimazwiebel. (Even Mark Steyn picked up on that six days later.)
Not necessarily. Being familiar with the primary source is one thing. Being familiar with the primary source and a good deal of background material including the best-known critics/scholars is another: that's about what you'd expect from someone marking a university paper on the subject. But being such an world authority on the <cite>Agamennon</cite> that you'd feel reasonably certain of recognising every single obscure paper or argument put out about it at the turn of the century is another thing again. The Müller bluff relies on the man sitting in front of a big stack of undergraduate papers assuming that you'd just dug up some recondite paper he'd never heard of instead of getting up and making efforts to prove or disprove the existence of Müller. Obviously it doesn't work as well now that most things are on the Web.
There's a mathematical version. Given an equality to prove, take the given expression and mess it about a bit, turning it into expression A: ideally something that looks like it could be some kind of powerful normal form. Then take the RTP and likewise transform it into B. Then state
A ∴ B ... (McDonald's theorem)where McDonald is a common surname not associated with a famous mathematician or anyone well-known in the field you're being examined on. QED! The management accepts no responsibility for the consequences of trying this one in real life...
It's one of those irregular verbs:
I send the correct climate message to the people,
You spread misinformation,
He is a filthy oil-funded propagandist.
Brilliant.
cc: Bloomberg, AP, NPR, NBC, ABC, CBS, Reuters
Isn't it the technique used by the Left on any issue which swivel-eyed, extreme Right wingnut, neo-Nazis dare challenge?
I read from time to time that globalwarmingclimatechange is not just a Left wing cause, but like globalwarmingclimatechange the evidence to support it is very shy, and what is apparent refutes it.
anonym says-
"There's a mathematical version."
Good comments.
It reminds me of the following amusing demonstration from an undergraduate Physics classmate several decades ago-
sin(ix) = isinh(x)
sin i x = i sin h x
cancel terms on LHS and RHS gives:
h = 1
Planck's constant is unity.
QED
Hey. I never realized that the fabled straw man is actually named Müller!
Yes, great analogy, Alex. The Thermophobes are the ones in denial. They are denying that the most cogent objections to CAGW theory are coming from lukewarmers, whose beliefs you ably describe. It's a matter of degree (pun intended)--more so than a matter of disagreement.
But if you are one using the science to push extreme policy measures, you can't let on that there is some fundamental agreement between you and the opposition. In that way, climate science becomes fodder for partisan politics, although the differences in projections may be only a degree or two over a one hundred year span.
"Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows!"
I certainly hope that Richard Betts has read this excellent essay from Alex Hadcock - and that he doesn't miss the main point as he is far too often wont to do. Because, much to my surprise, during the course of catching up on recent discussions here, I saw Betts ask the following question:
See Predictions for 2014 [Mar 13, 2014 at 9:10 AM]
You'd think that by now Betts might have figured this out for himself, because it certainly isn't complicated, and has been articulated often enough in the past.
But, perhaps he's still into Müllering, as he appeared to be a few years ago when, for example, he chose to embellish a "most important point" - as he chose to perceive it. This embellishment turned out to be completely without foundation. Well, except for the fact that his embellishment was a stray seed planted by himself much earlier in the same thread! (For details, pls. see my summary http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/12/2/quantifying-uncertainties-in-climate-science.html?currentPage=5#comments [Dec 9, 2012 at 2:10 AM]).
Then, of course, there's the more recent "hasty pudding" cooked up by the Met Office, buried in which one finds:
Not once, but twice! Identical twin [propaganda?!] "plums" plucked from an unknown tree, so to speak, which seem to have miraculously survived the writers' (undocumented) excisions and revisions, some of which were at Betts' behest. But, alas, he seems to have missed/overlooked these plums.
I mention all of the above, btw, because in response to Alex's question:
I would respectfully suggest that this is unlikely to occur until the so-called "experts"** in the IPCC stable start writing more like professional scientists, and "less like Oxford undergraduates panicking".
** It is perhaps worth noting that the Met Office's unsourced twin plums are entirely consistent with IPCC AR5 WG1 Co-Chair, Thomas Stocker's "simple key message":
Quelle surprise, eh?!
What an excellent article!
However, I do have a little quibble.
Alex said: "....referring to people who, supposedly, deny that climate ever changes, and that man can have any influence on it whatsoever. Yet no climate sceptic I have ever encountered, whether in person, in books, or on blogs, has ever had this opinion".
Alex has clearly led a sheltered life....to the extent that he hasn't even read what a certain Martin Reed said on this very blog:
" the simple fact that whether or not CO2 is a so-called "greenhouse gas", there is not even the slightest evidence that it has ever had any remotely measurable effect on climate in the real world in the past or present or will do in the future".
I guess this is going to be the new 'skeptic' meme: having denied basic atmospheric physics, basic climate science etc for years, they are now all turning into lukewarmers and pretending they never held the old 'denier' positions at all. Lucky we have the internet to hold them to account!
"having denied basic atmospheric physics"
We uber-deniers to don't deny basic physics. We deny there is any direct evidence that human-generated C02 has a measurable effect on temperatures anywhere.
Andrew