tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post113762323069746824..comments2024-02-15T04:42:41.606+00:00Comments on James' Empty Blog: Prometheus: Myanna Lahsen's Latest Paper on Climate Models ArchivesJames Annanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-919629426333045842015-12-21T08:38:48.304+00:002015-12-21T08:38:48.304+00:00Sorry, pressed the wrong button and deleted rather...Sorry, pressed the wrong button and deleted rather than posted this:<br /><br />Collin has left a new comment on your post "Prometheus: Myanna Lahsen's Latest Paper on Climat...":<br /><br />Myanna,<br /><br />I don't think anthropology has much to say concerning climate change. CMIIW but judging from what I've read, anthropology seems to have been taken over by Orientalist idealism.<br /><br />It seems to me condescending to assume that people's views on climate change are "rooted" in their perspective, especially since "particularity" sounds like just a euphemism for "peculiarity". I'd say the root of everyone's view is the same, the problem itself. Individual and cultural perspectives can determine only what one says, thinks, and does about it.<br /><br />The reason it's so important to collect diverse views about climate change is that it's too big a problem for any one person or group of people to have a good solution on their own. Not because you deny that it's happening. The mere fact that you're taking the time and effort to study these views is an indication that you accept reality, including all its inherent uncertainties. Those who deny reality will see you as an enemy anyway, no matter how much you play constructivist. James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-1138020033917374612006-01-23T12:40:00.000+00:002006-01-23T12:40:00.000+00:00Fair enough, James. I just felt a need to make tha...Fair enough, James. <BR/><BR/>I just felt a need to make that point, before the "sometimes" would be lost in other summaries. It tends to work like that in a politicized playing field.<BR/><BR/>Cheers,<BR/>MyannaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-1137722710297356522006-01-20T02:05:00.000+00:002006-01-20T02:05:00.000+00:00Alternatively one sees the value of pissing off ev...<I>Alternatively one sees the value of pissing off everyone in the immediate vacinity so they will be sceptical of all your claims.</I><BR/><BR/>Brilliant, Eli! You've found the ideal post-hoc rationalisation for all I've been doing all these years! I'm just making sure my science is robust!<BR/><BR/>Do you think I can claim it was deliberate?James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-1137722492636249602006-01-20T02:01:00.000+00:002006-01-20T02:01:00.000+00:00Myhanna,Thanks for the follow-up. But please note ...Myhanna,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the follow-up. But please note that just as your original words included the qualifier that modellers "<I>do not necessarily</I> have a consistent, 'healthy scepticism'", so did my summary of "modellers <I>sometimes</I> having an unhealthy level of belief". I really don't see that my words can be considered as a misrepresentation, and I'm certainly not intending any cheap shots myself.James Annanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04318741813895533700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-1137720575370070312006-01-20T01:29:00.000+00:002006-01-20T01:29:00.000+00:00We also have examples of folk who fall in love wit...We also have examples of folk who fall in love with their data (analysis). The issue is not a single modeler or MSU data set analyst, the problem is if the larger community falls in love. <BR/><BR/>Everyone is in love with what they do. Their ardor is restrained by the community around them. Given that people work amidst small to medium size groups of others who are their friends and colleagues, this points up the importance of those trips to NZ and other fine places where one's ideas have to play in the open field.<BR/><BR/>Alternatively one sees the value of pissing off everyone in the immediate vacinity so they will be sceptical of all your claims.EliRabetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07957002964638398767noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9959776.post-1137677928114156502006-01-19T13:38:00.000+00:002006-01-19T13:38:00.000+00:00I'm happy to see discussion of my paper. I want to...I'm happy to see discussion of my paper. <BR/><BR/>I want to point persons on this blog to the first comment to my paper posted on Prometheus. I think it highlights something some may be inclined to overlook when reading the paper, especially if they are already critical of models. I write this because my study can be used as a cheap shot against modelers, wherefore it is important to keep the above things in focus as well. <BR/><BR/>The person who wrote that first comment described my case study of modelers as "an important example of larger issue both in science and in general perceptions of the world," noting that "There is a real human tendency for people to confuse their 'models' and 'constructs' of the world with reality. This is true of economics, psychology and the hard sciences." He also, correctly, points out that quotes in my paper indicate that modelers as a whole "are very aware of the pitfalls, and to some extent the community is partially self correcting. For example: "It is easy to get a bad name as a modeler, among both theoreticians and observational people, by running experiments and seeing something in the model and publishing the result. And pretending to believe what your model gives - or, even, really believing it! ..."<BR/><BR/>(for the whole comment, see http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/000675myanna_lahsens_late.html#comments )<BR/><BR/>With all due respect, I would therefore also prefer to not have my argument summarized as showing that modelers have "an unhealthy belief" in their models. I may have invited the interpretation of modelers’ relationship to their models as “unhealthy” because I at one point in the paper write that modelers “do not necessarily have a consistent, ‘healthy skepticism’” in relationship to their models. Of course, the words "do not necessarily" adds important qualification and nuance to my argument, though the latter understandably might get lost in the transmission process. What needs to be kept in mind is that the same can be said for the use of models - including theoretical frameworks - in general. I make the point about potential lack of critical distance in the context of refuting MacKenzie’s uncertainty trough model for the distribution of uncertainty around scientific productions.<BR/><BR/>What I hope people walk away with from reading the paper is that "reality" is indeed a difficult thing to know, and that no one - including more empirically oriented climate scientists - have privileged access to it: all renditions of reality are mediated by the methods we use to understand it, and by our conceptual frameworks. It may be that simulations have a particularly persuasive hold on the imagination, a notion I entertain in the paper. <BR/><BR/>Something that happens a lot in the US politics around climate science and climate change is that one side suggests that they are objective and know reality, by contrast to their opponents. That rhetoric prevails on both sides, and I can see that my paper might be fodder to climate skeptics in that war. <BR/><BR/>In anthropology, we tend to think that the most robust understanding emerges from considering a plethora of different viewpoints, each of which contributes one part of the whole, and each of which also needs to be scrutinized and understood as rooted in particularity of perspective.<BR/><BR/>Cheers,<BR/>Myanna LahsenAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com