[Leps-l] predicting the future, changing minds

[Roger Kuhlman]

Excellent commentary Patrick. You nailed it exactly. Thank you for sharing your well-thought out, honest, and reasonable views Roger KuhlmanAnn Arbor, Michigan
 
> Paul,
> 
> We have reached the point in this discussion where there is little left to say.
> 
> Your contention that the Oberhauser study is a climate modeling paper is correct. Since the whole point of this discussion is the future of the Eastern Monarch migration, that is exactly what it should be. You make verbal models based, quite reasonably, on what you believe will be the future; they, perhaps even more convincingly, use other data and other predictions.
> 
> I am a modeler. All models depend on assumptions. As do your verbal models.
> 
> As for your claim never to have made comments about the greed of scientists ... You do realize that all your old emails are archived on the Internet. This has been one of your ongoing hobbyhorses for years: ecologists and environmental scientists are unscientific, corrupt hypocrites raising money through alarmism. Does this theme sound at all familiar?
> 
> In my experience, scientists are alarmists because they are familiar with the workings of the world. Sometimes they are too alarmist for my taste, sometimes too little. But whatever their public policy opinions, every scientist I know goes to considerable trouble to find out what is really going on and convey that to students and other scientists. Scientists pontificate, speak out of their zone of expertise and, like most people, sometimes overstate their case. They also are often arrogant, single-minded and annoyingly pedantic. But on the whole, scientists' greatest virtue (and perhaps their only one) is respect for truth. Of course, scientists are always wrong, because our models do not match the world perfectly. The world is big ... the models tiny. My guess is that the Oberhauser lab (and other) attempts to model future Monarch habitat will increasingly fit the real world as scientific efforts proceed. And if they realize they left something out or got something wrong, th
>  ey will change their minds. Science is not about proving you are right; it is about changing minds to fit reality.
> 
> Patrick
> 
> Patrick Foley
> bees, fleas, flowers, disease
> patfoley at csus.edu
> ________________________________________
> From: leps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [leps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] on behalf of Paul Cherubini [monarch at saber.net]
> Sent: Sunday, February 17, 2013 10:20 AM
> To: Leps List
> Subject: Re: [Leps-l] Potential loss of monarch overwintering   habitat in      Mexico
> 
> On Feb 17, 2013, at 1:13 AM, Foley, Patrick wrote:
> 
> > Paul, The relevance of climate change, to the future
> > of Monarch wintering habitat is discussed  in this paper
> > from the Oberhauser lab: http://www.pnas.org/content/100/24/14063.full.pdf
> 
> Partick, that's another climate modeling study.  As
> Chuck Vaughn pointed out "no climate model has been able
> to predict the present from the past I see no reason to believe
> any prediction made about 2090 using them."
> 
> That climate modeling study also fails to acknowledge that
> that during the past 35 years of global warming the altitudes
> that monarchs overwinter at in Mexico did not change and
> no deaths of oyamel fir trees were observed.
> 
> > your claims that scientists are largely motivated by greed
> > strike many as paranoid, rude or both.
> 
> I made no such comments. Again the topic at hand is whether
> or not any credible science exists to support the contention
> that temperatures in the overwintering region of Mexico could
> conceivably increase by a staggering and unprecedented 3-4
> degrees during the next 18 years and (Chip Taylor's words}
> "eliminate most of the suitable areas for overwintering because
> it would eliminate the oyamel fir trees."?
> 
> Paul Cherubini
> El Dorado, Calif.
> 
> 
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