Timothy Ball: Opinion without evidence
Timothy Ball, a Canadian climatologist scientist, doesn’t believe in human-induced global warming. This puts him in the vast minority of scientists, but in the company of novelist Michael Crichton.
That’s fine. Even creationists are entitled to their opinions. But here’s why I mention Ball: He wrote an essay/editorial for the Canada Free Press entitled “Global Warming: The Cold, Hard Facts?” with a subhed of “Global Warming is not due to human contribution of Carbon Dioxide.”
The editorial is 1395 words long, but it boils down very simply:
1. I have a Ph.D and consider myself a climatologist.
2. I don’t believe that global warming is due to human contribution of carbon dioxide.
3. I don’t accept any of the evidence that contradicts this belief.
4. People don’t like my point of view.
Period. That’s it.
Here’s a suggestion: If you’re going to put forth an opinion notCorrected 2007-10-30 shared by the majority of the world’s climatologists, you really need to put forth some evidence supporting your view. Simply saying that few people listen to you…
…despite the fact that I was the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology and I have an extensive background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of climate change on human history and the human condition.
And…
“Few listen, even though I have a Ph.D, (Doctor of Science) from the University of London, England and was a climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg.”
In fact, Ball isn’t a climatologist; his Ph.D is in geography, according to Tim Lambert. And although he claims to be “the first Canadian Ph.D. in Climatology,” Lambert points out that when Ball received his Ph.D, “Canada already had PhDs in climatology,” and proceeds to list several.
And Ball apparently hasn’t published much if anything on climatology. “During much of the 28 years cited,” Lambert writes, “he was a junior Lecturer who rarely published, and then spent 8 years as a geography professor. His work does not show any evidence of research regarding climate and atmosphere and the few papers he has published concern other matters.”
Further, Ball once stated that “CFC’s were never a problem…. it’s only because the sun is changing,” he was an “adviser” to an oil-industry-funded group called “Friends of Science,” and he once write an editorial called “Warmer is better” about how global warming could be good for Canada.
Just so we know who we’re dealing with.
Hall essentially accuses the thousands of scientists who do believe that humans are at least partly responsible for global warming of having no evidence to support this — despite the hundreds of papers and studies on the subject. I.e., Simply closing your eyes and saying, “I don’t see that evidence!!!” doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Further, Ball offers none of his own. He cites no papers rebutting the majority view, and in fact doesn’t substantiate his argument in any way, other than to imply that, “I’m a climatologist, so I know what I’m talking about.” The entire editorial is, really, just a long whine.
Oh, Ball brings up global cooling. In the 1970s, he says, there was the opinion that we could be entering a new ice age. See? Ball says, We used to think it was cooling, but now we think it’s warming! Neither must be true.
First of all, while the idea of global cooling had some traction in the popular media, as William Michael Connolley,a climate modeler for the British Antarctic Survey points out, there were few researched scientific papers promoting the idea.
Further, Ball ignores the fact that recent studies have been more thorough and widespread, and that we have better technology at our disposal to monitor and study temperature change.
Following his logic, in fact, would lead one to ignore any scientific opinion if scientists once held the opposite. “We once thought the sun revolved around the Earth, now we say it’s the other way around. We can’t be sure either way!”
A perfect example of how thin Ball’s editorial comes in his last paragraph:
I was greatly influenced several years ago by Aaron Wildavsky’s book “Yes, but is it true?” The author taught political science at a New York University and realized how science was being influenced by and apparently misused by politics. He gave his graduate students an assignment to pursue the science behind a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern. To his and their surprise they found there was little scientific evidence, consensus and justification for the policy.
For a scientist, he’s awfully vague. At “a New York university”? (Sounds like a letter to Penthouse — “I’m a student at a small Midwestern college…”) His students studied “a policy generated by a highly publicised environmental concern”? What policy? What concern?
For a scientist to refuse (or be unable) to cite specifics like that certainly doesn’t make me want to put a lot of stock in his argument. Except, of course, that Ball doesn’t have an argument, just a position.
gnomic says:
Fox noise also agrees with this nitwit. (funny only becuase its tragicly stupid!)
http://www.newshounds.us/2007/01/08/brian_kilmeade_has_new_explanation_of_global_warming.php
Why waste time talking about stupid people? Point, laugh, and move on.