From the TDC article:
The conservative bias stems from several sources, scientists say. Part can be attributed to science’s aversion to drama and dramatic conclusions
and
The pattern, said Oreskes in an interview, is under- rather than over-projection. “These data simply do not support the allegations by skeptics that scientists have been alarmists,” she said.
Yes, I’ve noticed such “aversion to drama and dramatic conclusions” as well as “conservative bias” and understatement in the pronouncements of IPCC Lead Author (recently appointed British Columbia Green Party Deputy Leader and aspiring member of the provincial legislature), Andrew Weaver.
In February, 2007 Weaver had declared that AR4:
“revealed climate change to be a barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles“.
How much more evidence of “aversion to drama” and presence of “conservative bias” does one need, eh?! But if you do need a few more pixels in the picture of Weaver’s non-alarmist, conservative claims, you can find some here.
Not to mention how much more non-alarmist “conservative bias” can one find in the IPCC’s reports than in Michael Mann’s iconic hockey-stick – and its various iterations and reincarnations?!
But that aside, I find it quite interesting that this TDC article makes absolutely no mention of the InterAcademy Council’s 2010 findings regarding the IPCC. Amongst many other areas for improvement, the IAC had noted in Chapter 3 – IPCC’s Evaluation of Evidence and Treatment of Uncertainty:
The quantitative scales used by Working Group I raise four additional issues:
1. It is unclear what the use of separate confidence and likelihood scales accomplishes.[...]
2. It is well-documented in the literature that people interpret the terms
‘very unlikely,’ ‘likely’ etc. in Table 3.3 in different ways [...]3. The use of the likelihood scale conveys less information than a probability distribution. It should not replace ways of communicating uncertainty that convey more information when they are available.[...]
4. The likelihood scale used by Working Group I includes more categories than the likelihood scale presented in the IPCC guidance [...] introducing inconsistencies in the way likelihood is presented in the Fourth Assessment Report. Moreover, the use of overlapping categories can lead to logical inconsistencies.[...]
Oh, well … perhaps the authors of this TDC article – along with those quoted – have very conveniently adopted redefinitions of “non-alarmist” and “conservative bias”.
