Caitlin Wall, one of the students in my Political Communication seminar this semester, has embarked on a very successful job as an international affairs blogger for Foreign Policy magazine. Caitlin's latest blog post is sure to interest Framing Science readers. She analyzes the challenge to Al Gore put forth by climate skeptic J. Scott Armstrong. A Wharton School Business professor, Armstrong wants Gore to take him up on his $10,000 wager that he can forecast climate change more accurately than the climate modeling experts.
Fresh off a recent class lecture on the strategy used by conservative think tanks and skeptics to sow doubt about climate change, here's what Caitlin has to conclude about the wager:
Gore is right to dismiss this antagonistic offer. Subjecting complex scientific issues to a game of gotcha only heightens the conflict surrounding the issue, and doesn't bring us any closer to bridging political divides or solving problems that most scientists agree will plague us for generations to come.But if Armstrong wants people to put their money where their mouths are, perhaps he would agree to this wager: Both he and Gore can purchase vacation homes of equal value, Gore's house on high ground, and Armstrong's on the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu. Then we'll see who's really full of hot air.
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Well... I'm not much impressed with her analysis. We typically applaud skeptics who put various purveyors of nonsense to the test. Science bloggers have been heralding a recent example of this:
http://scienceblogs.com/twominds/2008/03/indian_magician_fails_to_kill.php
Caitlan Wall has just given words to every homeopath and spiritualist and other pseudo-scientist to claim that "complex scientific issues" shouldn't be subjected "to a game of gotcha." Meaning, to some specific test.
If someone thinks current climate models are reasonably reliable, they should be able to figure out a bet they happily would make on some future predictions. The one proposed by Armstrong sounds fishy, because the measurement at just 10 stations doesn't make much sense to me. "Global" doesn't mean "at a few spots." But it ought to be possible to propose an alternate wager that makes sense, such that those who puts stock in the models would be happy to take the money of the deniers.
Posted by: Russell | March 26, 2008 6:50 PM
RealClimate dealt with this issue, too, suggesting a bet based on the offers that James Annan and I have made to denialists:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/07/green-and-armstrongs-scientific-forecast/#more-460
I think honest bets are an effective way to communicate with the public and debunk the denialists - the complexity and fine print in Armstrong's offer shows that it's not honest. Wall's counteroffer helps exemplify that one can come up with an honest bet over the issue.
Posted by: Brian Schmidt | March 27, 2008 3:04 PM
Brian, thank you for that link. In my view, that constitutes a better framing for science: "that test was politically rigged, in this fashion, and here's the actual claim, and a real test of it we're willing to make."
Posted by: Russell | March 27, 2008 4:32 PM
Tamino at Open Mind has also proposed a bet structure that I'd be happy to put money behind, from the warming perspective:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/
-Brian
Posted by: Brian Schmidt | March 28, 2008 6:10 PM