Sadly, researchers (like you?) have to visit the land of politics sometimes. And some your peers were seduced into the land of celebrity and money, where the concept of “consensus” replaced that of scientific method.

Quite frankly, a fair number of us are still pretty p****ed off at how some in the scientific community conducted themselves rallying around “consensus”. If you’re saying that researchers won’t ever do this again, and I won’t hear my politicians talking about AGW, then I’m willing to go back to my normal, beautiful world.

I have a seminary degree — 90 semester hours of grad school work.

I assure you that logic is indeed applied to traditional religious beliefs. And in fact, I can assure you that some religious beliefs today are more the result of Greek philosophy than anything else — and I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

Your use of religious examples in this AGW discussion is appropriate, as I long ago noticed how AGW true believers were more into a religious belief than a scientific conclusion.

Vaughan Pratt re Constructive suggestions:
Some thoughts:
Always explain what is intended when appealing to “climate change”.

1) What trend is being referred to: warming/flat/cooling
2) What cause is being hypothesized: majority anthropogenic/uncertain/majority natural
3) Explain whether the future is being projected / predicted / assumed.
4) Define the time frame being used: 10 years, 30 years, 100 years, 300 years, 1000 years, 3000 years, 10,000 years, 300,000 years, 1 million years etc.
5) What are the full uncertainties involved – including both statistical and bias (Type A and Type B).
6) Explain what verification has been done if any.
7) Explain what validation has been done if any.
8) Explain what action is being proposed, including the presuppositions, and objectives.
9) Describe the predicted benefits and costs, and the basis for those evaluations.
10) Describe the control method being proposed: central planning/motivational/none.

Use “Consensus” only for political efforts.
Use majority/minority for describing scientific popularity.
Use verified and validated to explain the degree of confidence in the scientific hypotheses / theories
etc. etc.

Vauhghan Pratt,

“Notice the ‘we’, Gary. If you think ‘we’ means ‘climate scientists’ then you need to take remedial English comprehension.”

This is almost as precious as the BBC post itself. Of course the we was meant to refer to skeptics. In the same sense that when a kindergarten teacher is lecturing her class on self control she says “We have to ask permission to go to the potty.”

The snarky condescending tone of the post was the reason my comment was written in a similar vein. But thanks for the reading comprehension tips anyway,

Your writing advice you can keep to yourself. If I wanted to write a comment on my skeptical views I would have. Instead I was poking fun at the condescension and lack of self knowledge the BBC blog post demonstrated.

As to another comment of yours above:

“GaryM, Latimer Adler, and Max Manacker seem to consider a field of science to be at its healthiest when its views are all over the shop,”

Latimer and Manacker are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves, but I for one said nothing remotely of the kind. It is so much easier to make up weak arguments for your opponent, than to deal with what they really wrote. There’s a whole website dedicated to this form of specious argument, called skepticalscience. It’s great for the true believers who want their biases confirmed, but it doesn’t have much to do with actual argument, or science, for that matter. Though I assume it is where you picked up your advanced literary skills.

On a final point, not that you were genuinely curious, but as to “So which subset bothers you?”

My skepticism falls mostly under the heading of the hubris of CAGW advocates (like yourself).

I am skeptical that scientists can measure current global average temperature to within tenths of a degree when so much of the globe (oceans, atmosphere and land) are not even measured.

I am skeptical that paleo global average temperature can be discerned to within tenths of a degree based on tree rings, ice cores, and other prozies; again in particular light of the fact that even less of the “globe” is susceptible to such measurements. (How do you find a proxy for different altitudes in the atmosphere or depths in the oceans from 100 or 100 years ago?)

I am skeptical that computer models can predict much of use on climate 50 or 100 years from now, because they all disagreee, none have been tested against actual conditions, and are cosntantly being adjusted (like those oh so precise land temperatures) to be able to even predict the past.

I doubt climate scientists can predict much of anything of use as of yet, with or without models, because there is just too much they don’t know about the climate of the Earth in general. In my opinion, “climate science” is at the level of development medicine was at when leeches were the preferred cure for some diseases.

That’s just three, and I could list a lot more, but you get the gistof it.

We don’t know near as much about the climate as we think we do.

And by we, I mean of course you and your CAGW brethren; in case your reading comprehension skills aren’t up to piercing the sarcasm.

It’s not R, but it’s useful.

Since the point of an Excel-based solution is to benefit the reader, if the writer can’t or won’t write Excel then let them write it in R or MATLAB or Origin or whatever and have someone else convert the result to an Excel proof.

Proof discovery is usually harder than proof presentation. Excel may not be the best environment for finding a least-squares solution to a nonlinear problem, but in general it’s ideal for presenting the solution.

That’s not to say a short proof always exists, but that’s a bridge we haven’t come near having to cross at this early stage. I don’t know anyone trying to either prove or disprove AGW this way. An easy-to-read Excel-based analysis would be a lot more convincing than all the handwaving we get from both sides. It’s premature to worry about the potential problems of something that doesn’t even exist today.

What was that Josh? You were saying something? Couldn’t have been important.

It is simply not true that there is an “IPCC hypothesis” that is falsified by a short term (scale of a decade or so) variation that is somewhat above or below the general trend.

Short term variations like this ARE a matter of scientific interest and hypothesis and competing ideas. They are not a matter of a clear consensus. And neither does the IPCC make strong claims or hypotheses on them — other than the statement that they ARE comparatively short term and that we expect the longer term trend to continue upwards.

It is also a misrepresentation of what the IPCC does to speak of IPCC “hypotheses”. The IPCC is not a research body. They don’t do scientific work. They summarize it. They make statements with associated confidence levels, based on the combined work of a lot of scientists, but these are not in the form of a “hypothesis”, but a conclusion. Whether you agree with them or not, the distinction matters.

Keep ducking, Chief.

I’ll categorize that post as having precisely the same degree of insight as when you claimed months ago that you were going to take your ball and go home (stop responding to my posts) .

You’re reading my posts, Chief. I know it. You know it. It is abundantly obvious to anyone who has read this exchange (the evidence is right there in your posts).

Prove your case.

Take your ball and go home.

Keep making claims that are self-evidently false.

The choice is yours.

They make statements with associated confidence levels,…

Would that Judith would do likewise on a more consistent basis.

Late comment here.

Consensus in science is not an objective, or a goal, or a way in which scientists resolve questions.

It is a diagnostic, or indication, for the rest of us to get an insight into what questions scientists are getting resolved, by their usual methods.

There IS a scientific consensus that the planet is warming, and that the main cause of increasing temperatures is a stronger greenhouse effect, driven by changes in the atmosphere brought about by human activity. If you think that consensus is falling apart, then you are simply way WAY out of touch with what scientists are doing.

If you disagree with the consensus, then that is a different matter to be considered on its merits. It is not wrong to disagree with a consensus simply because it is a consensus. Arguments still need to be considered on their merits. One, by one, by one. And they are.

Latimer, “Dear Sir Thank you for the book. I shall waste no time in reading it. WSC.”

I have always believed this was not Churchill – who is not the sole source of bons mots in British political history – but Disraeli, who used this formulation. As a novelist at a time when there was a vogue for “lady novelism”, he began receiving fragrant and mostly meretricious manuscripts in far greater numbers than he could possibly review, even if he were not distracted by his day job of running the country/empire. And I think it was:

“Dear Sir Thank you for the book. I shall LOSE no time in reading it. BD.”

This source appears to agree
withttp://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/muirbook.htmh me

Scientists did to science, what bankers did to banking.

Who is to blame? The scientists and bankers?

Or those who assumed that scientists and bankers would not be tempted to cheat?

For everyone’s sake, we need to repair the damage as quickly as possible. Who can do that better than the bankers and scientists?

Chris if:

“Consensus in science is not an objective, or a goal, or a way in which scientists resolve questions.”

Why should we care that:

“There IS a scientific consensus that the planet is warming”

Are you implying that We Unwashed Rabble should use different criteria than The Scientists do when trying to get questiones answered?

Andrew

In complete contrast to the point I want to make, RSS have published in the last 24 hours their data showing precisely no warming at all since 1997.

They also, for those who have been waiting to celebrate for a long while [genuine alarmists who want to be proven wrong] show that for the last 15 years – since the beginning of February 1997, there has been global cooling.

Perhaps this isn’t in contrast to my point after all, which is that such things are essentially meaningless. The globally averaged temperature anomaly has a tiny modicum of virtue solely because there is precious little else. To quote thousandths of a degree is insanity, whereas a tenth or two is just a basic misunderstanding of noise, averages, chaotic systems and the vaguest of measuring coverage.

It seems to me to make some sense to say that the 20th century saw a rise in temperature of approximately three quarters of a degree. But that seemingly included 3 30 year periods that were different to what came before and after. And even then, these observations are barely discernible from a realistic distance.

It strikes me as a little irrational – though very human – to attempt to extract genuine meaning from 15 years of data. A third of a century? Possibly, maybe, just about – depending on the strength of the signal, but tempting as it is, I think staring hard at messy little bits of noise (from less than half of that time) hoping to see signs and wonders is a little too much to ask.

Check this out from Richard Lindzen – not because it is partisan [it isn't, in this context] but because he uses visual means to make the very same point as I have tried to do.

Sorry, Joshua, but Professor Curry is slowly and methodically unraveling a major crime scene.

Thanks, Anteros, for the link to the excellent presentation by MIT’s Professor Richard Lindzen!

The Climate Science Community owes it to the general public to debunk the “scientific concensus” impression that is so often repeated in the popular media without truthfully documenting the source of this claim. It may be painful for those within the “concensus” to do so, but that would be good science and good ethics. Thank you Dr. Curry for trying to convince your colleagues that this charade has gone on too long.

Last night, at a presentation at the University of Houston by Prof. S. Fred Singer, there was an audience discussion with him about the DANGERS to humanity regarding control of CO2 emissions. These dangers to the economies and quality of life of people in developing and undeveloped countries, by trying to deprive them of cheap fossil fuel energy and preventing increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere that would help food production to feed starving people around the world, need to also be discussed openly in the media by responsible scientists. Otherwise, I will continue to believe there is a conspiracy of the so-called “scientific concensus” to ignore the scientifically proveable harmful effects to global humanity through successful control of CO2 emissions, by only promoting the less certain AGW global warming hoax and their ill-conceived and unproved theory of being able to control the climate through control of CO2 emissions. The science of both sides of this issue need to be openly and honestly discussed with the general public and public policy makers.

There are many folks in the USA hurting for jobs and a decent living right now because our President has chosen to accept the unproven theory that human related emissions of CO2 are causing “unprecedented global warming”. The science clearly isn’t settled and seems to be clearly incorrect in global temperature trends since 1998. This false impression of a scientific concensus regarding AGW is giving birth to harmful public policy decisions, like the decision to not go forward with the Keystone XL pipeline, to use taxpayer dollars to support unprofitable “green energy” companies with subsidies and handouts in technologies that don’t stand a chance of replacing fossil fuels on an acceptable scale, new unrealistic EPA emissions standards for automobiles, new EPA emissions regulations for coal fired power plants, lack of movement on a national energy independence plan, etc. The “greens” may be getting their way on the basis of, at best, flimsy scientific theories, but I am confident history will show their agenda was harmful to the USA and other world economies that may be waking up to the ADW hoax (see Germany discussions above) before we, as a nation, do. China, whose government and centrally managed economy is led by engineers, must see us as a declining world power led by easily deceived and naive leaders. As a US scientist, not inside the Climate Change community, I am embarrased by the scientifically immature and unethical behavior of prominent members of the USA Climate Change community. I am especially embarrased that my former employer, NASA, allows its most prominent climate change scientist to make alarmist public pronouncements using his NASA credentials and unscientific, biased and slanted summary of NASA’s GISS temperature database, while ignoring conflicting temperature data from NASA’s weather satellites and other sources. At least NASA, as an official government agency, has had the good sense not to make an officicial scientific finding or conclusion regarding AGW. However, NASA’s indecision and official silence in this matter, and the lingering “scientific concensus” ruse is fueling the public misconception about current climate trends and allowing other government agencies to waste $billions in response to the ill-defined “AGW problem”.

In a better world you would think that slide would settle it.

This isn’t a better world, it’s a declining one at the moment. AGW advocacy is evidence of decline.

Chris -

I absolutely agree with you.

But I think there is a problem of perception here. Many mainstream scientists think sceptics are people who disagree that the planet has warmed somewhat and human activity is a significant cause. That is simply not true – a very small [but very vocal] group of people, particularly in the US think that. Most sceptics I know do not. In a way, we’re all part of that same consensus.

Most of us – the vast majority are sceptical about something, or many things, that are completely different.

The problem is that there are a few [but vocal] scientists that are claiming the ‘consensus’ is also qualified to speak about the consequences of this warming and that there should be a response. To me these things are entirely separate, and the former consensus means nothing to the debate about the other two subjects. And I also don’t believe climate scientists are any better qualified to talk on either of the other tow subjects than informed members of the public.

If you like, a legitimate consensus about a physical process has been hijacked to be an alleged consensus about something completely different.

My suspicion is that when a lot of people are talking about ‘the consensus’ they are likely to be talking about very different things to each other.