1. The notion that if a majority of scientists believe X, therefore X is true, is one of the most unscientific arguments there is. It is the antithesis of science.
2. Most people have no idea how science is done or funded. It is highly political, and always has been. Scientists need to drive cars, pay mortgages, pay for child care, buy food, etc. What type of grant is likely to support these endeavors, a pro-warming study or an anti-warming study, all other things being equal? Lay people think scientists are like an army of Spocks, but it is more like an army of Kirks.
3. Always lost in the shuffle is the fact that all global warming predictions are based on computer models. All computer models are inherently wrong for anything that does not have an analytical solution (i.e. a mathematical solution). All non-analytical models are wrong to some extent. Period. All global climate models are non-analytical. Some models are useful, and some have reasonable predictive power within a certain set of parameters.
4. I never see anyone ask the question: which model are you using? How was it built? And, most importantly, what does it predict? Prediction is the sine qua non of modeling. I have no idea what the predictive ability of these models is; no one ever seems to talk about it that I have seen. Maybe they do in the actual journals, but certainly not in the popular media. The other big issue is falsifiability, a key concept introduced by Karl Popper. If a model it not falsifiable, it is not science, because it cannot be disproven. What would it take to falsify these models? What experimental observation, if made, would show that the model is in error?
5. AGW belief is more likely to be a political statement as a social positioning argument intended to show that one side is for "science," while the other side are a bunch of idiots.
2. Most people have no idea how science is done or funded. It is highly political, and always has been. Scientists need to drive cars, pay mortgages, pay for child care, buy food, etc. What type of grant is likely to support these endeavors, a pro-warming study or an anti-warming study, all other things being equal? Lay people think scientists are like an army of Spocks, but it is more like an army of Kirks.
3. Always lost in the shuffle is the fact that all global warming predictions are based on computer models. All computer models are inherently wrong for anything that does not have an analytical solution (i.e. a mathematical solution). All non-analytical models are wrong to some extent. Period. All global climate models are non-analytical. Some models are useful, and some have reasonable predictive power within a certain set of parameters.
4. I never see anyone ask the question: which model are you using? How was it built? And, most importantly, what does it predict? Prediction is the sine qua non of modeling. I have no idea what the predictive ability of these models is; no one ever seems to talk about it that I have seen. Maybe they do in the actual journals, but certainly not in the popular media. The other big issue is falsifiability, a key concept introduced by Karl Popper. If a model it not falsifiable, it is not science, because it cannot be disproven. What would it take to falsify these models? What experimental observation, if made, would show that the model is in error?
5. AGW belief is more likely to be a political statement as a social positioning argument intended to show that one side is for "science," while the other side are a bunch of idiots.