Comments on: Memo to ScienceDebate Supporters – Don’t Fudge Facts

By: mt

mt — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:54:06 +0000

The majority of what is supposedly “climate change” funding goes into NASA for earth observation. While there’s a great deal of room for improvement both within and outside NASA, this conflation of these efforts has served only to obfuscate a topic that hardly needs more obfuscation. This was the topic of a shuffle in the early 1990s to assemble a climate research program out of mostly pre-existing parts that had other names. Most of the growth in climate funding at that time was purely symbolic if I understand correctly.

Anyway, interested folk can chew on these data:

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05461.pdf

and this lovely bar graph

http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/budgets/funding1989-2008byagency.htm

Climate modeling per se would be a middling subslice of the DOE and NSF parts. Not enough to keep me going full time as it happens; fortunately some seismologists are going to pick up half my tab.

Whether a) the modeling field deserves very little because it has had such marginal accomplishments, or b) whether the field has made such little progress in part because it is so modestly funded, or c) whether in fact it has achieved brilliantly in the face of all obstacles is a matter of some debate. You may count me in the “b” camp.

I simply don’t understand arguments begin by asserting that climate modeling is lucrative.

Anyway I hope the links are is helpful.

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By: docpine

docpine — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 18:20:18 +0000

David,

In my opinion, it would be interesting to actually see what climate change research funds are going for in the US.. how much for modeling, how much for new technologies, how much for exploring adaptation. It would be an interesting Masters or Ph.D. project (any students out there?), and difficult to do because of the many research funding sources, even if the study were restricted to the US government.

If we knew the current mix, we could discuss whether that is the “right” mix, and whether different policy framings of the issue of climate change empower or disempower, or focus funding on different research communities. Then we could ask the question “do different research communities advocate different policy framings and could that be related to self-interest?” And policy makers could further wrestle with the question of how to use the science and either lose the self-interest, or design a process to get the self-interests of different research communities to cancel each other out.

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By: Harry Haymuss

Harry Haymuss — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 23:01:26 +0000

As far as fudging facts and its long term effect on the public’s perception of science, I think the greatest damage has been done with “global warming” alarmists. When the models improve, e.g. we really start to narrow the gap between reality and models as opposed to what is shown in the Figure 10 at the bottom of this:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/2000/annrev00.pdf

and many other sides of the current Tower of Babel called climate science come closer together, the public will look back and ask how they could have been so bamboozled in the name of “science”. Then the damage done to science by alarmists e.g. Hansen and Kerr will really be known.

Remember, the end *includes* the means.

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By: David Bruggeman

David Bruggeman — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:15:58 +0000

Great points (though I like to think of myself as a non-token non-climate poster around here).

Your characterization of the op-ed is consistent with much of the science advocacy message of the last few decades – give us money and autonomy, we’ll give you results. Somehow its failure – at least in securing consistent funding patterns – has not prompted changes in rhetoric, tactics, or strategy.

While I doubt you would get anyone to say on the record that such a move (boosting USGS) would be against science, I am certain that any cut to NSF would be characterized as against science. The vast majority of federal research funding is concentrated in five agencies: NSF, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, NASA, and the Department of Energy (specifically in its Office of Science). The scientific research conducted in other agencies (like USGS, the Department of Agriculture, or the Department of Justice) does not receive much attention from either the science advocacy communities or the science policy research communities.

I will leave it to others to say to what extent climate change research is distributed in the way you suggest it should (I suspect it is too heavily tilted toward environmental research, but do not know for certain).

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By: docpine

docpine — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:39:06 +0000

It is interesting to me who claims to speak for science and what science they are speaking for..especially since we are on a mostly climate related blog here.
“We need to fund ACI and double the National Science Foundation’s budget for basic research. The government should fund science at a level that will ensure that the U.S. stays in a leadership position in areas like biotechnology, military preparedness, electronics and communication. We need to pay special attention to health research.”
Note that apparently climate change, as important as it is, does not require one dollar more of agricultural research, environmental research, natural disaster research nor social research to deal with these challenges. And we all know that “basic science” is a code word for science of scientists by scientists and for scientists. So this op ed is basically give us the money, leave other research fields out, or we will claim you are against science.
This raises all kinds of interesting questions- if you tripled the USGS budget but decreased NSF, would you still be “against science?”

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