David; apologies for the mix-up about your paper on the Exceptional Circumstances Report not being Peer Reviewed; my mistake; it’s certainly worthy of being subject to PR; any plans to do so? At least then my post at Jennifer’s can be correct retrospectively!

choenite: No apologies needed. You know, better to get that out in the open before somebody else does. The great thing about blogs is the way other can prioritize your work, based on the feedback. I have two other papers ahead of it, but your boost make me think I should get it off first. Thanks.

The origins of CSIRO provide some interesting insights. From
http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A110709b.htm

Rivett, Sir Albert Cherbury David (1885 – 1961)

(First Head of what became Australia’s CSIRO).

During an exhilarating six months at the Nobel Institute, Stockholm, in 1910 under Svante Arrhenius, one of the great figures in physical chemistry, his chemical interests moved towards an understanding of equilibria within heterogeneous systems.

In June 1926, he was appointed to the executive committee of the newly formed Council for Scientific and Industrial Research together with (Sir) George Julius and William Newbigin.

Rivett steered C.S.I.R. through the difficult early years and largely set its style and ethos. It adopted the British model of building small research teams around a distinguished scientist, and allowing the group considerable freedom. Excellence was the goal, and leaders of world ranking were sought assiduously. At first few with the necessary qualifications were attracted, but C.S.I.R. was able to appoint many younger Australian graduates of promise. Rivett accepted that applied science should be given priority in the early years, but insisted on commitment to basic science. Thus, a division of animal nutrition was established to investigate nutritional problems of sheep in marginal grazing zones. Somewhat unrealistically Rivett believed that ultimately C.S.I.R. should devote half its resources to basic research, thus leading the organization towards conflict with the universities. He shunned publicity, and preferred that science speak for itself. No patents were applied for on the grounds that no restriction should be imposed on the dissemination of knowledge.

He was opposed to diversification into secondary industries in the late 1930s, holding that research would be spread too thinly. Although accepting the national need, he was even more distressed by the concentration on technological problems during the war, believing that C.S.I.R. had been turned into ‘a mob of housekeepers and testers for industry’. Behind his concern was the ever-present fear that science would be unable to escape the grip of political society, and that the creativity and adventure of truly independent research would not be established in Australia.

Thanks Geoff: I liked this part:

Political exposure hastened the reorganization of C.S.I.R. For some years Labor ministers had been concerned about its governing arrangements, and were anxious to make the organization more responsive to economic and social needs. Accordingly, full responsibility was transferred to a five-member executive, the minister-in-charge was no longer directly involved in all scientific appointments, the Public Service Board was given a general responsibility for staffing, and the name was changed to Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

Rivett was unable to accept these changes, believing that they would destroy the organization’s autonomy.

As an example, in a paper by Ian Smith (from CSIRO not Africa) Global climate modelling within CSIRO: 1981 to 2006. http://www.bom.gov.au/amm/200703/smith.pdf

The first sentence of the conclusion stunned me:

“There currently exists a view that the quality of science can be judged by the extent to which it can drive policy and affect societal change.”

This describes to a tee Australian Science. In the effort to adapt Science to serve society, be more relevant etc, it has become a tool of the social activists. So if you look at the DECR through this filter, it was a high quality product, and having done its job by impacting policy, now its time to move on. Never mind that that if the models had no skill the claims are baseless.

“This describes to a tee Australian Science. In the effort to adapt Science to serve society, be more relevant etc, it has become a tool of the social activists”

that’s a bloody disgraceful comment really.

As a statistician you’ve now generalised a conspiracy theory from your brief encounter with a sample size of one to a whole national population of science.

Bulldust !

Easy exception – social activists probably don’t support much of CSIRO’s GMO research.

Do you even know about their plant science, food science or manufacturing science, materials or astronomy.

CSIRO’s modern climate science effort is a strong departure from the Division of Cloud Physics days where cloud seeding was in vogue (incidentally now being selectively revisited). The research effort was deliberately diversified to studies of the great natural climate variability that affects Australia and potential additional impacts from anthropogenic climate change.

Face it David – you’re just on the partisan anti-greenhouse theorist conga line.

You’re banging on about being an objective statistician but you keep tripping over your own non-objective prejudice.

Luke: the comment is about a quote in a paper by Ian Smith (from CSIRO not Africa) Global climate modelling within CSIRO: 1981 to 2006. Not my comment. I was talking about climate change science so the statement is generalized too much. But I have plenty of first had knowledge of activism in environmental science in general too.

I am not the only person concerned with political interference in CSIRO. So was Sir Rivett. So he resigned from CSIRO.

You’ve made a blanket comment about Australian science.

And of course you have plenty of knowledge of activism in environmental science. You’re now part of it.

Asking for evidence to support a claim isn’t activism Luke, its the practice of science. If you want to discuss whether the “quality of science can be judged by the extent to which it can drive policy and affect societal change” in a calm way fine, else I’ll snip the comments.

Well I hope you do snip the comments. That’s the test of your mettle. You have made a blanket comment about Australian science. Either defend it or retract it.

I am happy to qualify it, as I already have. I was talking about some science within environmental science but mostly the effects of global warming area.

If it wasn’t serious it would be funny; the socialisation of science and its subornation, whether to economic demands or the exigencies of ideology, is not unique; nor is it fair to say that AGW is motivated entirely by either or both of those factors; some people genuinely believe in AGW, and I am sure there is tension within CSIRO about this issue; but when you promulgate a theory on the basis of considerable obfuscation, manifest lack of transparency and sustained high-handed dismissal of reasonable criticism, then these sorts of complaints are going to be made.

IMO CSIRO, BoM, NASA and the like have become subject to political interference (and this is a 2-way street with some of these organisations now becoming activist groups); it is both disingenuous to claim otherwise, and, given, the history, origins and stated charter of CSIR, somewhat regrettable.

I think that there is in part a misunderstanding here, and at risk of making things worse I’ll explain.

The view that science should serve society is not without merit, and I’m not wanting to trivialize any of these arguments. It strikes me that the view that science is not or should not be affected by policy is equally as naive as the science in service of society view. I know a few policy people and wouldn’t be surprised if they thought skeptics were a curiosity to regard facts with such importance.

An overarching view of science serving policy would impact negatively astronomy, physics, all the hard sciences, and promote the soft sciences, and if anything, that is a side effect of what Ian Smith is talking about. While it changes priorities, its not that the view necessarily corrupts the science, but it can when scientists bias their results to serve the policy agenda.

In September 2007 Dr Michael Borgas, President of the CSIRO Staff Association, addressed a Symposium organised by the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) in Quebec. In the course of his speech (entitled ‘Independent Scientific Advice’) Dr Borgas made many comments that are relevant this discussion. Here are a few of his most illuminating remarks:

(1) ‘I will give some independent scientific advice from Australia to balance that from Bob Carter, Garth Paltridge and others, who are Australians associated with … organised Canadian climate-change scepticism. I know Garth who is ex-CSIRO and Bob Carter’;

(2) ‘Climate change sceptics have closed minds and constantly seek affirmation by sacrificing independence to secret alliances to defend their orthodoxy … [C]losed scepticism is a religion in its own right’;

(3) ‘Today groups of Australian Members of Parliament from government are promoting dissenting views on policies … These parliamentarians led by Dr Dennis Jensen, a former post-doc in CSIRO, are influenced by the Lavoisier Group and other climate-change sceptics. Their ghost-written words are not their own or from their electorates; they come from largely unaccountable and undemocratic sources. Dr Jensen should know better’;

(4) ‘Dissenting views are simply used to delay action on climate change to suit vested interests’; and

(5) ‘In the modern world … government laboratories pursuing scientific independence are under attack from resource hungry universities …’.

I have no reason to doubt that Dr Borgas is an able scientist, but he has no right whatever to impugn the motives of Dr Jensen, Professor Carter, Professor Paltridge or so-called ‘climate change sceptics’ generally. I would be sorry to think that he spoke for all of the CSIRO staff who belong to the union.

But I don’t disagree with all that Michael Borgas told his Canadian audience. In particular, I commend him for the following statement:

‘This approach [scientific independence] is to always have an open mind and assess, generate, share and replicate evidence to verify or refute new ideas. Necessary scepticism is first applied to the validity of the evidence and not to the ideas. Scientific independence requires open review and open sharing of the evidence so that ideas can be tested by independent scientists.’

There’s some good advice there, which Dr Ash and the authors of the Drought Exceptional Circumstances Report would do well to take on board.

As an individual who has helped publicise the writings of Bob Carter, Garth Paltridge and others, I can categorically state that I am not a part of ANY organised group whatsoever. I work to no agenda other then the personal quest for better science. I have no closed mind on scientific topics and indeed have corresponded with one of the Helicobacter (ulcer) Nobel Laureates to express encouragement for the type of research that earlier was ripe for trashing by the establishment.

The point is that one cannot/should not pick winners in advance and one should be most cautious to play games with people simply because their ideas are not mainstream. The history of scientific achievement has many examples of the “sceptic” finally achieving the greater fame. Some would say that that is how science progresses. It does not progress in the way that Mao said about government involvement, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun”.

My intent in publicising the work of others is to make it more available to those able to benefit from it. I’m not trying to pick winners.

In that regard, I find regret that Governments are trying to pick winners. I used to know and like Brian Fisher from ABARE and I did not at the time consider him a candidate for the exercise that Ian Castles describes elsewhere in Niche Modeling.

One would hope that the process of ageing begets wisdom, not subservience.

Thanks Geoff.
It’s amazing that the President of CSIRO’s professional union can accept an invitation to speak at a conference organised by a leading Canadian public service union, but can’t see the absurdity of his then presenting himself as ‘independent’ compared with scientists whom he sees as tainted by ‘associations’ with scientists of like mind in another country.

What I found really shocking in the papers DAFF supplied in response to my FOI request was the sheer scale of the effort that the IPCC milieu were prepared to direct towards defending the emissions scenarios status quo.

In his opening speech to an IPA Conference on Climate Change on 28 February 2003, Environment Minister Kemp spoke of the consideration that the IPCC was giving to my criticisms of the scenarios (in fact, unbeknown to the Minister, they’d already dismissed them). I now know that many of those who heard my presentation that day had accepted invitations to attend the workshop held secretly in May.

I’d be surprised if David Kemp, whom I’d known for nearly 30 years, had been told about the workshop – and if he had known about it I’m sure he would have assumed that I’d be invited. The organisers were prepared to pay for Dr Nakicenovic to come from the other side of the world to the meeting when they could have had me for nothing (I live five minutes from the Boat House).