Sorry to fail your hypothesis! My science education concluded with biology, chemistry and physics o levels, too many years ago to mention, followed by history, politics and economics a levels, and a law degree, followed by a career as a solicitor.

My stepson is an engineer, and I regularly quiz him, however; and many of my more scientific friends are equally sceptical.

I think experience of life is as likely to lead to scepticism (whether about climate change or generally) as anything else.

You can do worse than Euclid.
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stewgreen, that is why the Green Blob use bullying and intimidation tactics, to suppress dissent.

Latimer Alder. I'm not certain I completely agree with the thesis being discussed. Certainly at UEA-ENV their were many scientists using the "hard" sciences and mathematics to address questions in Oceanography, Meteorology, physical Climatology, Hydrology and Hydrogeology and Ice studies who never, to my knowledge expressed any critique of AGW. Whether this was because they were true believers or where paying lip service to the dominent creed I was never able to establish. Certainly they gained much in terms of research grants from any association with climate change.

I was not alone, there was Paul Dennis, a stable isotope expert, at least two of my geoscience colleagues who I believed were closet skeptics, and most of the faculty who didn't care about my weird climate beliefs.

So I don't believe I have any personal knowledge that would support the proposition that hard science background = scepticism. Bloody mindedness and seniority perhaps.

Thanks for all the responses so far.

My question was posed becuase I have noticed over the years that many of the Bishop Hillers I have met face to face have first degrees in Chemistry or Chemical Engineering. And a case can be made that Chemistry is the most 'show me' of all the physical sciences.

We are convinced by demonstration (did it actually go BANG?) not by theory (my new untested calculations lead me to believe it might go BANG?) or argument by assertion (a clever person or society of clever persons has said they think it might go BANG)

I'll not embarrass anyone else by 'outing' them without their permission, but it is well known that our host, Andrew is indeed a chemist by training

Latimer Alder, I have gained qualifications and worked in surveying, engineering, sailing, and scuba diving. They are all things that when somebody makes a mistake, it can be expensive and fatal. I have worked in many varied fields, gaining "on the job" experience as a result.

Much of my work has been about trouble shooting, and fixing things that have gone wrong. Having made mistakes because I assumed someone else was honest and telling the truth, because they were deemed to be a qualified "expert", I am wary of assuming someone is competent, just because of fancy job titles and qualifications.

The expression "take nobody's word for it" seems a bit hypocritical of the Royal Society, given their support of so much bent science. I did ok in O Level Physics, but thought it was the most boring subject as a 15 year old! Chemistry was more interesting, but I loved Biology. Marine Biology was a serious career option, maybe I would have ended up in the Green Blob!

Instead, I am currently doing Practical Haematology, and have developed an aversion to needles.

What makes a sceptic? The ability to be honest with yourself and your own pre-conceptions. The ability to read, learn, mark and inwardly digest.

Tony.

Latimer Alder,
I have a technical backgrounf Highers in Physics, Mathematics, Engineering Drawing, plus others. I did Science based further education and spent most of my working lifer in electronics test and reliability. I have been a long term sceptic. My elder brother is in the finance field and is equally sceptical. My younger brother was an Art Teacher and his wife was a librarian both are believers. I don't know if that adds anything.

I think that a lifess experience has led me into the sceptic camp. I component reliability and operation faults which manufacturers will spend years saying don't exist until finally skewered leads to only beleiving your own lying eyes.

Perhaps learning the truth about Santa Claus lead to caution about what even your nearest and dearest say.

Martin A 9:42 Your middle paragraph strikes a few chords with me!

So called "technical errors or failures" are often down to human error or mistakes. The "Experts" involved with the human errors, are normally the last people to admit their mistakes. Personal pride and financial interest play a major part. The Consensus view that we know our systems and designs are right, and therefore it must be an external factor that caused the problems, can lead to far greater waste of time and money, than the original problem.

Climate Science operates a closed shop, for "independent" verification, and therefore remains incapable of acting scientifically, and identifying and correcting its own mistakes.

BSc Biology, PGCE Education, PGCE Biomedical science.

Science teacher, Haematology technician, museum guide.

I see a correalation between the type of experience and scepticism. Those in mature sciences/technologies like chemistry and engineering, or in fantasy professions like IT are accustomed to knowing exactly what is happening. Their chemical reactions behave as mature theory predicts. Electronic circuits behave as calculated. Software does as programmed (GIGO excepted).

Such people look at biology, climate change or other sciences where variability and uncertainty are unavoidable. Since uncertainty is outside their experience, their heads explode and they reject it outright.

Another group have no technical or mathematical education. The reject unpleasant information because it conflicts with their political, emotional or religious beliefs.

Remember that everyone regards their own view as rational and correct. Anyone holding a contrary view must be mistaken, deluded, mad or part of a conspiracy. This is probably why we all get so frustrated and rude to each other at BH

I've found someone who understands how sceptics think.

EM, we from the practical fields are often confronted by warmists, or should I say believers, who do not admit uncertainty in very uncertain claims and predicitions. Climate change science is all about uncertinty, but climate activism does not acknowledge that.

And the idea that some kinds of practical science don't contain uncertainty and thus we are confounded by it is just plain daft.

(A level maths, pure and applied, and physics. Non-graduate dropout of Imperial College. Helicopter engineer, In IT 39 years.)

EM, 4:11, Tamino presumes a lot based on his own prejudice.

I trust "my" NHS Haematology Team. I am monitored by regular blood tests. My blood is stuck into an electronic box of tricks. It spews out loads of numbers. I am assessed and treated based on a spreadsheet of numbers, and how they have changed, since the last time, and what has been done in the last week/fortnight/month.

I trust and accept the Haematology diagnosis, treatment etc. There is no attempt to "adjust" previous bloodtest results, or recalibrate the machine. I can make very rough self-assessments of how I feel, and compare it with what the numbers say.

The Haematologists never presume to tell me how I am feeling. That would be arrogance. What is Tamino's excuse?

Golf Charlie

Fifteen years ago I was the tech driving those blood analysers. They were cleaned regularly, checked against standard calibration samples.and their output adjusted as necessary.

One of the senior staff spent most of their time validating the blood counts.

They did not stay accurate by accident. You had to work at it.

Golf Charlie

In my days as an Air Training Corps civilian unstructor I once had a conversation with a helicopter engineer on 72 Squadron.at Aldergrove He described how aircraft used by the Royal Family were maintained.

All lifed items on "royal" aircraft spent the first third of their life on a squadron machine. They were then transferred to a "royal" macine. At 2/3 life they were removed and put back in the spares pool for squadron use.

The logic was that lifed parts were most likely to fail early in their life due to defects or late in their life due to fatigue.
By using only mid-lifed parts they minimised the chance of killing a royal.

Entropic man
The Bathtub curve, well known in electronics. We spent a lot of time "life" testing components at the limits of specification in order to predict life times. One interesting thought which caused much discussion and no real resolution was whether the removal from their environment and testing them induced an early failure. We never really came to a conclusion on that, but the sceptics amongst sited Preventative Maintenance of major ATE which having run successfully 24/7 for a year would be given a check over by manufacturer's maintenance engineer would fail within a week not usually by any of the replaced parts. The same thing would happen when a system was powered down either deliberately or accidentally within a week perhaps two something would fail, one random failure was often followed by a second. .

So by changing a component unnecessarily perhaps the Royals were actually no safer and potentially at more risk.

Test engineers used to keep standard documented known good parts for comparing new probrams, ATE and new interfaces. Parallel running of new against old was also standard practice.

I've never seen any reports of any parallel operation of new against old in any meteorological measurements. This makes me very wary of any long term record which involves a change, how many don't have a change of some sort in their history?

SandyS, Martin A

I remember the old adage "If it ain't broke don't fix it.."

I presume that the engineers maintaining the royal transport had factored the risk of problems due to changing parts into their inspection procedures.

In my haematology days Health and Safety taught that any complex but routine procedure goes wrong about one time in 100. When I tested to confirm that donor blood was compatible with the recipient I would occasionally find a mismatch.
If I missed it (a 1 in 100 error) my supervisor would pick it up in his check. He might miss it once in 100 times, giving a cumulative 1 in 10,000 error). The nurse in the ward also crosschecked the donor and recipient blood groups( total cumulative chance of error now 1 in 1,000,000). With millions of transfusions each year, you still et an occasional mistake, but the system is designed to get the error rate as low as possible.

In using station data to measure climate and weather it is possible to check the performance of a station against its neighbours. As a cold front moves across Northern Ireland it cools the stations at Castlederg and Enniskillen. An hour later it cools the stations at Parkanaur and RAF Aldergrove. 30 minutes later it cools Belfast City Airport.

There are local variations. Castlederg is in a rural frost hollow. Enniskillen and RaAF aAldergrove are rural airports near lakes which moderate their microclimates. Belfast City is warmed by UHI and sits on an estuary.

Normally the small differences between the five stations are familiar and predictable. As long as they persist you can have confidence that they are working as they should. If one station suddenly changes relative to the others, the change signals that there is a problem. It may be a problem with the equipment requiring repair or a change in the environment requiring an adjustment to the post-change data.

Offhand the only major recent change was when the Castlederg station moved from the town to the DoE depot just up the valley.The other four have been stable since WW2.

All stations, especially the gchn stations are monitored in this way.

Martin A

It is not just me. There s a correalation between chemists and engineers being climate change sceptics. Similarly biologists tend to accept climate change. Cook and Lewandowsky have observed similar correalations in large enough samples for statistical significance.

There is also the political link. Those on the right are more likely to be sceptics. Those on the left tend towards accepting climate change.

The really interesting question is why these correalations exist. Why do a biologist and a chemist interpret the same data differently, despite both having scientific training?
Why do political conservatives like the US Republicans see the world differently from the Democrats? Note that in the UK Labour passed the Climate Change Act and the retreat from the Act has been led by the Conservatives.

You've answered your own question, EM, without realizing it. It's quality control, a check on the product. Alarmism is a commodity that has been oversold.
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