
Why Climate Deniers Have No Scientific Credibility - stephth
http://www.desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart
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temphn
This is an actual email:

<http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=5718>

    
    
      From: Phil Jones
      To: "Michael E. Mann"
      Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL
      Date: Thu Jul 8 16:30:16 2004
    
      ...
    
      I can't see either of these papers being in the next 
      IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I [Phil Jones] will 
      keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what 
      the peer-review literature is !
    
      ...
    
      Cheers
      Phil
    
      Prof. Phil Jones
      Climatic Research Unit Telephone +44 (0)REDACTED
      School of Environmental Sciences Fax +44 (0)REDACTED
      University of East Anglia

~~~
MaysonL
to fill in the ...

The other paper by MM is just garbage - as you knew. De Freitas again. Pielke
is also losing all credibility as well by replying to the mad Finn as well -
frequently as I see it. I can't see either of these papers being in the next
IPCC report.

------
raverbashing
Appeal to authority anyone? Or maybe Appeal to the people?

If you want a better chart for climate change, the hockey stick should do (or
better ones of climate data if you have, of course)

But all this is saying is "our team is bigger than the other team". Peer
review? Great, who are the peers? Oh the same people that are in favor of
climate change theories? Interesting...

~~~
ghshephard
Yes, it is an appeal to authority. When one want a verdict on the mechanisms
of Gravity, should we not appeal to physicists? When we are interested in
Cancer, should not we look to oncologists? So, when we need to find out about
our climate, it is to climatologists that we look.

From: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority>

The two factors — legitimate expertise and expert consensus — can be
incorporated to the structure of the statistical syllogism, in which case, the
argument from authority can be structured thus: [2]

    
    
      X holds that A is true.
      X is a legitimate expert on the subject matter.
      The consensus of subject-matter experts agrees with X.
      Therefore, there exists a presumption that A is true.

~~~
spindritf
> should we not appeal to physicists?

No, we should not because there is no reason to believe that laws of physics
are in any way dependent on physicists. Science is based on theories producing
verifiable predictions, not "votes" cast through articles.

Yes, if you need to get something done, you hire people with relevant
knowledge, skills and experience. But scientific theories should be completely
inter-subjective and work the same for everyone.

~~~
ghshephard
So, you are suggesting that if hundreds of physicists do various experiments
on some property of gravity, say, the speed of propagation of gravity,
starting with Urbain Le Verrier in 1859, and they publish these experiments,
and their results, in peer reviewed journals, and over 150 years of extremely
competent physicists, each trying to make their reputation by trying to
disprove the commonly held theory (that it occurs at the speed of light),
_none_ of them come up with any answer other than, gravity propagates at the
speed of light - that you don't believe we should, as a society, and
individuals, subscribe to this notion, because all of these experts have found
it to be true and told us it is the case?

After all, there is no way for you or I to determine the speed of propagation
of gravity, so what choice do we have other than to rely on other's authority?

~~~
gruseom
And yet appeal to authority remains a fallacy, and it is possible for social
proof to fail. Some people would like to sweep this paradox under the rug, but
it's not that simple. Not so long ago, a similar survey of published
authorities as the OP's would have yielded results we today would consider
preposterous.

History and philosophy have much to teach us here, for example about the
perils of overconfidence.

------
steve19
Uh, I have not met anyone who denies climate.

As for people who deny climate change, I have found they generally question
the effect humans have had on the climate and/or the extent to which we can
alter the climate if we wanted and/or how much the climate has changed
relative to other periods in recent and ancient history and/or the extent that
unchecked climate change will have on the earth/humankind.

~~~
guelo
All of them are so high minded? Tons of people say global warming is not
happening and it is a liberal conspiracy to take over our lives and destroy
our freedoms and 'murica fuck yea and blah blah blah.

~~~
abrown28
probably wouldn't say that if the liberals weren't using it as an excuse to
take over more of our lives and destroy our freedoms.

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lukifer
Fact? Theory? Pfft. Science is a pipeline: a distillation process. Half-assed
conjecture goes in one end, and a mostly-reliable consensus comes out the
other.

But for the pipeline to work, no conjecture should be dismissed without
consideration, and no consensus should ever be immune from entering the
pipeline yet again for re-examination.

Is climate change happening? Definitely. Is human activity a major cause?
Undoubtedly. But that doesn't mean that skeptics and dissenters should be
vilified and excluded _a priori_ , even if they're deluded, purchased, or
flat-out wrong.

The leap we should be taking is thinking probabilistically: we may lack the
ability to model the climate with perfect accuracy, but given that the data we
do have indicates that climate change is _extremely likely_ to be human-
related, what can we do to act on that likelihood while we continue to refine
the science, including the dissenters in that process?

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jk4930
And how many of those articles are true climate research and not from the
bandwagon around? The whole crowd that does mitigation and adaption research
aren't climate scientists but geologists, hydrologists, even social
scientists. And it's often seen as necessary to get your topic X through is to
frame it under "X under effects of climate change" or so. I did this once in
2005 when I published a paper on epidemiology and included some references to
effects of climate change because the WHO promoted it at this time.

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bmmayer1
The credibility of dissenters has nothing to do with the size of their group,
especially in matters of science. If there is one heretic among 20,000 in the
orthodoxy, and that heretic has better evidence, then the heretic is more
credible. Not that I doubt the confidence of a 20,000 strong wall of
scientists, but I won't discount the credibility of dissenters just because
there are fewer of them. That's intellectually dishonest.

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rpm4321
I think where people get into trouble in this whole debate is by taking one of
two binary positions: Climate Change is a fraud, or Climate Change will turn
Earth into a Martian hellscape within a century. Both are absurd, and are
simply for either PR or negotiating purposes and shouldn't be taken seriously.

It seems to me that the most sensible solution would actually be out of the
libertarian playbook: an ironclad 50-year tax holiday on all revenue generated
from both the production of carbon-neutral energy and the manufacture of clean
energy generating equipment.

You would get a massive investment in clean energy R&D, especially by those
who can afford it like Big Oil and OPEC, without the potentially massive drag
on the economy that carbon caps or tax schemes would create.

I think this seemingly obvious solution is ignored because free market
solutions are anathema to the left, and because the right could give a rat's
ass.

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fleitz
Funny how peer reviewed journals by a vast majority who support global warming
exclude opinions to the contrary, especially when the peers in those journals
are willing to redefine what peer review means to keep papers they don't like
out.

It's really too bad the industrial revolution didn't start 200 years earlier.

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NeonDark
"In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.
The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with
the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus,
it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough.

Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the
consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to
anyone to speak that way."

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iterationx
People who call their ideological adversaries "Deniers" have no credibility.
Feel free to persuade the community with science and not propaganda.

------
Alaskan005
This is dumb. I thought he was going to show a chart that showed that humans
are responsible for it, not that most scientists agree. A few centuries ago
they just asked the Pope, simpler process.:)

They are two types of deniers: we have the earth is not warming type, "Look it
snowed in Colorado, we're warming uh?" and two those that say it's a natural
process and point to the charts where earth went through cycles on it's own
over the millions of years.

(Personally I buy the CO2 layer that act as a sheet acts on us during the
night.)

