[cite]Posted By: Steve Dowman[/cite]Some of the posts by climate change advocates on here are exactly the point that sceptics are making. By calling anyone who disagrees wallies or retards you are plainly losing the argument.Science backing climate change, or warming as it was called until it started cooling, was clearly over stated or lies, one or the other, you decide.When losing an argument, turning to abuse, again, does your project no good at all and just turns people against you. But hey, as you clearly keep pointing out, we are just thick and the ones fiddling figures to show us the 'facts' are the ones we should listen to then we should be happy to pay more in taxes.
Ok, expand and explain that. Give the compelling evidence that first made you doubt what the majority of world scientists were telling you. You're right about name calling or arguing getting the debate nowhere, so outline the reasons without reference to what the 'other side' is saying or what you think they're saying about you, just give the reasons why you know it's over stated or lies.
Hope you kept all those back copies of the Daily Mail for reference purposes, Steve. :-)
I'm with Leroy on this. Except I do have kids and worry about what type of world we are leaving them!
Y2K anyone ? remember that total bollox world wide on tthat 1 ? planes falling out of the sky--lifts plummeting down shafts-- traffic lights going purple--- millions dying etc etc etc.Nope the boffins never get it wrong.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]the boffins nevere ever get it wrong do they ?
Y2K anyone ? remember that total bollox world wide on tthat 1 ? planes falling out of the sky--lifts plummeting down shafts-- traffic lights going purple--- millions dying etc etc etc.Nope the boffins never get it wrong.
Well, I hope they've got it wrong on climate change.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]the boffins nevere ever get it wrong do they ?
Y2K anyone ? remember that total bollox world wide on tthat 1 ? planes falling out of the sky--lifts plummeting down shafts-- traffic lights going purple--- millions dying etc etc etc.Nope the boffins never get it wrong.
That's what WOULD have happened if people in IT hadn't worked our f***ing nuts off to make sure it didn't. For proof of this, see the couple of places where systems failed because they hadn't been checked properly - and there were a few. Would you want that happening to air traffic control systems, power stations, railways, traffic control systems etc? No. Get back in your box and be quiet about things you have no interest in or knowledge of.
Gooner So what do you reckon? They (a convenient lumping of several hundred highly experienced and qualified climate scientists) got it worng and we carry on as before? The gloibal climate IS changing. No one with any intelligence is arguing about this. Even that arse Bush finally agreed. Some sad tossers may divert the message by arguing the toss over the cause - like it matters. It would be like the Captain of the Titanic deciding to do nothing because there were ill informed tossers arguing over whether a torpedo or an iceberg had struck it. Or 'they' and their years and years of research are correct. What do you think? Just leave it yeah? And have a cheap swipe at anyone who wants action? Even the title of this thread shows ignorance that suggests the majority of the planet dont even deserve to be saved by the drastic action which needs to be taken in our lifetime.
[cite]Posted By: Floyd Montana[/cite]Gooner
So what do you reckon?
They (a convenient lumping of several hundred highly experienced and qualified climate scientists) got it worng and we carry on as before?
The gloibal climate IS changing. No one with any intelligence is arguing about this. Even that arse Bush finally agreed. Some sad tossers may divert the message by arguing the toss over the cause - like it matters. It would be like the Captain of the Titanic deciding to do nothing because there were ill informed tossers arguing over whether a torpedo or an iceberg had struck it.
Or 'they' and their years and years of research are correct.
What do you think? Just leave it yeah? And have a cheap swipe at anyone who wants action?
Even the title of this thread shows ignorance that suggests the majority of the planet dont even deserve to be saved by the drastic action which needs to be taken in our lifetime.
The climate is changing and has changed since the earth was created. The question is whether man influences that change or whether it is a natural phenomenon.
The question nobody can or will answer, without hurling abuse, is that if it is so certain that climate change is caused by man then why has it been necessary to fiddle or lose the data?
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]the boffins nevere ever get it wrong do they ?
Y2K anyone ? remember that total bollox world wide on tthat 1 ? planes falling out of the sky--lifts plummeting down shafts-- traffic lights going purple--- millions dying etc etc etc.Nope the boffins never get it wrong.
That's what WOULD have happened if people in IT hadn't worked our f***ing nuts off to make sure it didn't. For proof of this, see the couple of places where systems failed because they hadn't been checked properly - and there were a few. Would you want that happening to air traffic control systems, power stations, railways, traffic control systems etc? No. Get back in your box and be quiet about things you have no interest in or knowledge of.
Hilarious.
I avoid the climate change debate for the most part because, although I believe in man-made climate change and that it should be addressed, I do find the science behind the issue to be quite confusing and cannot claim to fully understand it or argue on the subject.
However, I do understand the Y2K bug and how the Y2K "hoax" created millions of new IT jobs in India and put them on track to becoming a super-power in the IT sector and creating huge new Indian firms like Satyam and Infosys.
Anyone who thinks that Y2K was a "hoax" should seriously considering expanding their reading repertoire beyond the tabloid sector.
The climate is changing and has changed since the earth was created. The question is whether man influences that change or whether it is a natural phenomenon.
The question nobody can or will answer, without hurling abuse, is that if it is so certain that climate change is caused by man then why has it been necessary to fiddle or lose the data?
Ok, first can you explain your statement, with evidence to exactly what you mean by fiddling of data
Then if you do in fact have isolated examples, please explain how you know the majority of scientists do this. There's thousands and thousands of scientists involved, there may well be some dirt on a few of them. But for it to be an international consensus, backed by all the major international scientific bodies, you have to implicate an awful lot of people, and then you'll have to explain why they would be ordered to hoax it all in the first place.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]the boffins nevere ever get it wrong do they ?
Y2K anyone ? remember that total bollox world wide on tthat 1 ? planes falling out of the sky--lifts plummeting down shafts-- traffic lights going purple--- millions dying etc etc etc.Nope the boffins never get it wrong.
That's what WOULD have happened if people in IT hadn't worked our f***ing nuts off to make sure it didn't. For proof of this, see the couple of places where systems failed because they hadn't been checked properly - and there were a few. Would you want that happening to air traffic control systems, power stations, railways, traffic control systems etc? No. Get back in your box and be quiet about things you have no interest in or knowledge of.
Hilarious.
I avoid the climate change debate for the most part because, although I believe in man-made climate change and that it should be addressed, I do find the science behind the issue to be quite confusing and cannot claim to fully understand it or argue on the subject.
However, I do understand the Y2K bug and how the Y2K "hoax" created millions of new IT jobs in India and put them on track to becoming a super-power in the IT sector and creating huge new Indian firms like Satyam and Infosys.
Anyone who thinks that Y2K was a "hoax" should seriously considering expanding their reading repertoire beyond the tabloid sector.
LOL @ Satyam. Remember Dr. Millennium? They should have stuck to what they were good at (BIOS-level fiddling with 1s & 0s) instead of branching out into mainstream computing. I've worked alongside some of their database (ahem) 'consultants' - most of them wouldn't know a varchar from an integer.
As for the last quote - there's no such thing as 'science' to be found anywhere in the tabloids. I read a great piece in a book recently (can't remember who it was by or what it was called) which explained that the reason for this was that tabloid journalists are all thick humanities graduates who were too stupid to understand science in school so have a massive inferiroity complex about anything involving it - and take every opportunity to ridicule it as a pathetic way of 'getting their own back'. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable assessment to me.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]the boffins nevere ever get it wrong do they ?
Y2K anyone ? remember that total bollox world wide on tthat 1 ? planes falling out of the sky--lifts plummeting down shafts-- traffic lights going purple--- millions dying etc etc etc.Nope the boffins never get it wrong.
Even leaving aside the refutations of this particular example above, what exactly is your point? If experts find out something, we should assume they're wrong and just leave it?
UEA is recognised as the centre of excellence in climate research and their recommendations shape political policy.
The numbers involved are irrelevant and a red herring because it is all about the INFLUENCE wielded. To take another analogy it only needed Bush and Blair to be convinced of the merits of waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq for it to happen. They then, in the case of Iraq, manipulated data to suit the objective.
This link explains fiddling of data as I put it above.
[cite]Posted By: Goonerhater[/cite]the boffins nevere ever get it wrong do they ?
Y2K anyone ? remember that total bollox world wide on tthat 1 ? planes falling out of the sky--lifts plummeting down shafts-- traffic lights going purple--- millions dying etc etc etc.Nope the boffins never get it wrong.
That's what WOULD have happened if people in IT hadn't worked our f***ing nuts off to make sure it didn't. For proof of this, see the couple of places where systems failed because they hadn't been checked properly - and there were a few. Would you want that happening to air traffic control systems, power stations, railways, traffic control systems etc? No. Get back in your box and be quiet about things you have no interest in or knowledge of.
Hilarious.
I avoid the climate change debate for the most part because, although I believe in man-made climate change and that it should be addressed, I do find the science behind the issue to be quite confusing and cannot claim to fully understand it or argue on the subject.
However, I do understand the Y2K bug and how the Y2K "hoax" created millions of new IT jobs in India and put them on track to becoming a super-power in the IT sector and creating huge new Indian firms like Satyam and Infosys.
Anyone who thinks that Y2K was a "hoax" should seriously considering expanding their reading repertoire beyond the tabloid sector.
LOL @ Satyam. Remember Dr. Millennium? They should have stuck to what they were good at (BIOS-level fiddling with 1s & 0s) instead of branching out into mainstream computing. I've worked alongside some of their database (ahem) 'consultants' - most of them wouldn't know a varchar from an integer.
I have heard from others that they have "issues" but I have been to their HQ on a visit and by Indian standards they are a very, very big firm.
You obviously know this area very well, far better than myself - I have no idea what a varcher or integrer is!
I'm afraid the next few days in Copenhagen are going to be very embarassing/depressing for us (adopted) Canadians.
Our federal government & provincial goverment here in Alberta are basically stooges for the big Energy Companies & I suspect they will put up every obstacle, to at least trying to come up with realistic but profit-negative reductions in pollutants.
Okay, right I've left this thread alone for 24 hours to see how it develops and give others a chances for their say (and my missus a chance to get on the PC).
[cite]Posted By: Sussex_Addick[/cite]Incidentally, why didn't you reply to Leroy? I assume if you took my post personally, you must have also believed him to call you a "f***ing wally, an imbecile"
Starting with the above, I didn't respond to Leroys 'rant' (lets face it that's what it was) because I didn't feel it worthy of a considered response. Making sweeping and incorrect statements, packing your post with generalisations, conspiracy theories, throwing personal abuse about and the deliberate use of such emotive language is pretty much what I'd expect from a 6th former losing their temper not an adult trying to have a sensible debate about an issue that's going to affect us all for generations.
Unfortunately, having read it, you however thought it was a sufficiently accurate to be 'cracking post', made an assumption both on my voting habits/political leanings (you'd be surprised) and intellectual capability. I don't think it was at all odd that I responded in the way I did, although thank you for being big enough to apologise.
In hindsight I regret the use of the term 'sycophantic' and apologise also.
[cite]Posted By: Bournemouth Addick[/cite]Okay, right I've left this thread alone for 24 hours to see how it develops and give others a chances for their say (and my missus a chance to get on the PC).
[cite]Posted By: Sussex_Addick[/cite]Incidentally, why didn't you reply to Leroy? I assume if you took my post personally, you must have also believed him to call you a "f***ing wally, an imbecile"
Starting with the above, I didn't respond to Leroys 'rant' (lets face it that's what it was) because I didn't feel it worthy of a considered response. Making sweeping and incorrect statements, packing your post with generalisations, conspiracy theories, throwing personal abuse about and the deliberate use of such emotive language is pretty much what I'd expect from a 6th former losing their temper not an adult trying to have a sensible debate about an issue that's going to affect us all for generations.
Unfortunately, having read it, you however thought it was a sufficiently accurate to be 'cracking post', made an assumption both on my voting habits/political leanings (you'd be surprised) and intellectual capability. I don't think it was at all odd that I responded in the way I did, although thank you for being big enough to apologise.
In hindsight I regret the use of the term 'sycophantic' and apologise also.
And people accuse ME of being anally retentive!
The reason I posted my 'rant' was because, as I said, it's pointless entering into 'debate' with people who have the intelligence of a crayon.
[cite]Posted By: LenGlover[/cite]UEA is recognised as the centre of excellence in climate research and their recommendations shape political policy.
The numbers involved are irrelevant and a red herring because it is all about the INFLUENCE wielded.
That, for me, if the crux of it. These guys (prof Jones et al) are at the very top of the tree. We hear lots about the consensus that exists among 1000's of scientists re:climate change. Actually, when it comes down to it, there's not that many organisations driving the agenda at the IPCC. Are we really sure we want our governments making such HUGH decisions based on the agenda of people who thought it funny when an opponent died and have aready had a major piece of research rubbished for being statistically flawed yet have been found out trying it again (the Hockey Stick graph)?
It's funny that Ben Goldacres book on Bad Science keeps getting dragged out by those in favour of the current consensus. I read this book (again) recently, and although mostly aimed at the medical profession, his own background, it lists time and again situations where scientists have manipulated figures, cherrypicked, misinterpreted results, refused to have their work peer reviewed or publish their data, worked back from the result they wanted to achieve to justify their hypothesis and describes the sensationalisation of their results in the media.
I can't see how this is helping their argument that we should implicitly trust the science behind it?
[cite]Posted By: Leroy Ambrose[/cite]And people accuse ME of being anally retentive!
The reason I posted my 'rant' was because, as I said, it's pointless entering into 'debate' with people who have the intelligence of a crayon.
In that case Leroy, please do us all a favour and lets those of us who would like to use this board to discuss the issue, do so without your abusive contributions? To be honest it's water of a ducks back to me but there are others out there who make like to make a contribution but are wary of getting involved because it will results in personal abuse such as this.
AKFA/Lookie etc are good enough to let us use this board to discuss this sort of thing. Please pay them the respect they deserve for that decision by taking your abuse elsewhere or ignoring these sort of threads if you can't contribute to it properly.
The question nobody can or will answer, without hurling abuse, is that if it is so certain that climate change is caused by man then why has it been necessary to fiddle or lose the data?
............
And why do the denialists feel the need to fiddle the data or dredge up scientifically absurd theories (eg it isn't that sea-levels are rising, but the Maldives are sinking)?
Around 150 years ago Darwin published the "Origin of the species", even today there are those who believe despite our increased knowledge of geology and evolution etc that he was plain wrong. There are those who will proclaim with a straight face that the links between smoking tobacco and lung cancer are non-existent etc. I see the same reaction to the denialists in these and other examples.
Be sceptical of science by all means but sometimes it can be a case of how right the scientists are, not how wrong. It's pretty clear, despite some fudged data, that the case for AGW has been made. In any case the East Anglia CRU is just one of many institutions researching this subject, but there has been no evidence of collusion or conspiracy. In the meantime another Climate Research Institute - in Canada, nearly had it's computers hacked into over the weekend. Why are the denialists using criminal methods to attack climate science research?
There does seem to be an extremely hugh degree of scientific accord on the issues, way above that which is normally considered reasonable. Despite having a scientific background. I genuinely find it hard to understand all the data. Thus coming from a position of relative ignorance on the arguments, I end up in favour of erring on the side of caution. If the climate change guys are right, and we do nothing, then millions of people will lose their homes due to flooding, millions of others will experience weather extremes and become unable to farm enough food to keep them alive. At its most basic, I would prefer not to have 'blood on my hands' and hence am very willing to accept any further limitations that need to be imposed upon my current activites. One or two heavily misinterpreted e-mails haven't changed anything for me.
I've done the 'reasoned debate' thing before - on here and on other forums. When you're dealing with people who either don't want to believe the reams and reams of empirical evidence, cannot (or choose not to) understand the scientific evidence put before them and continue - either wilfully or ignorantly - put their head in the sand then it just becomes pointless arguing about it. The idea behind a debate is to try and put your point across to people who need to be swayed one way or the other. When all the evidence points so conclusively to mankind having a devastating impact on the climate and ecology of the planet yet people still choose to want to believe otherwise, what's the point in 'debating' the topic any more?
It's the same as arguing with a creationist - no matter how much smoking gun evidence you show them, they'll still drag up the same stupid arguments to try to 'prove' God created Heaven and Earth in seven days. Like I said - believe it, don't believe it - I don't give a shit any more.
[cite]Posted By: Leroy Ambrose[/cite]I've done the 'reasoned debate' thing before - on here and on other forums. When you're dealing with people who either don't want to believe the reams and reams of empirical evidence, cannot (or choose not to) understand the scientific evidence put before them and continue - either wilfully or ignorantly - put their head in the sand then it just becomes pointless arguing about it. The idea behind a debate is to try and put your point across to people who need to be swayed one way or the other. When all the evidence points so conclusively to mankind having a devastating impact on the climate and ecology of the planet yet people still choose to want to believe otherwise, what's the point in 'debating' the topic any more?
It's the same as arguing with a creationist - no matter how much smoking gun evidence you show them, they'll still drag up the same stupid arguments to try to 'prove' God created Heaven and Earth in seven days. Like I said - believe it, don't believe it - I don't give a shit any more.
I begin to feel that way too sometimes and i dont blame you. Some peole are so narrow minded they cannot comprahend having a normal debate without getting irrate its very sad. Thats why i have not commented on the subject at hand as so people just wont look at all the options and believe they are always right especially when it comes to this.
[cite]Posted By: WSS[/cite]So, when do the dinosaurs come back?
They never existed. Have you not been listening to the Creationists for God's sakes?
Au contraire, according to the Creationist "Museum" which boasts exhibits where "Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil....", that dinosaurs and humans existed on the planet at the same time:
[cite]Posted By: LenGlover[/cite]UEA is recognised as the centre of excellence in climate research and their recommendations shape political policy.
The numbers involved are irrelevant and a red herring because it is all about the INFLUENCE wielded. To take another analogy it only needed Bush and Blair to be convinced of the merits of waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq for it to happen. They then, in the case of Iraq, manipulated data to suit the objective.
This link explains fiddling of data as I put it above.
If the issue is so clear cut that man causes climate change then there should be no need to "sell" it by manipulation of figures.
The numbers aren't a 'red herring' at all. Ignore the furore and really look at what happened. They have been quote-mining from thousands of e-mails in just one institution, ending up potentially implicating just a handful of scientists, and even then most of those have been explained when put into context (I'll quote the explanations if you want them)
I'm not going to say it didn't reflect poorly to some extent on the individuals involved, as it did, but to pretend this stacks up against international consensus on the matter is exaggerating to an extraordinary degree. Every scrap that be blown out of proportion is. There's all these claims about the original data being 'conveniently discarded' when it's common practice in a lot of fields to discard the raw data once it has been transferred into a more workable form. And this data have been discarded for OVER 20 YEARS now, it's not as though they burned it in the middle of the night to hide the evidence of some manipulation.
BFR's comparison to Evolution is a very good one. In fact you could compare these e-mails to the 'Piltdown man' which was a fossil hoax, that creationists still cite as if it weighed up against the extraordinary amount of evidence for evolution. There were in the past lots of cries that evolution was some sort of leftist conspiracy designed to bring down religion, but once the furore died down the science had to win out eventually, as I believe it will with Global warming.
It’s also a poor analogy you use. If George Bush says ‘let’s go to war’, then the country goes to war because he’s the president and they do what he says – ultimately he doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone (and indeed didn't, there was no evidence found by weapons inspectors). Politicians can ignore the data, but if they'd put it in front of every major scientific institution to study whether there were WMDs, then it would obviously be exposed because the evidence simply wasn't there. It's extremely easy to just lie to your populace that there are 'probably WMDs'. It's an entirely different story to argue in a scientific and detailed paper using evidence and data whilst still lying, and then have that peer-reviewed and corroborated by thousands of global scientists and major institutions without it being exposed.
You seem have a mistaken assumption that this is a handful of scientists suggesting something as some sort of party line and then all the others thousands of scientists just shrug and go ‘what he said’. Scientific journals reward novelty, and fresh takes on an issue, no one is interested in someone just endlessly rehashing someone's else's work. This isn't what happens in science, which is extremely self-correcting. Otherwise we'd never get anywhere on any issue.
The consensus is a synthesis of all the different opinions on global warming, not some high power that doles out what everyone must think. How do you think the theory came about in the first place? Did someone somewhere plot this all, and then the other scientists just went along with it? No, it gained momentum because more and more climatologists' separate work meshed to form this theory, and thus it was investigated further, and found to have more evidence, and then international bodies got involved, and the evidence was such that the IPCC was set up to try and synthesise it all.
Even scientific bodies with huge vested interest to oppose it have grudgingly moved away from their previous dissent. The "American Association of Petroleum Geologists" (i.e. strong links to the oil companies) officially opposed it up until 2007, but received such criticism from some of their own members that the stance wasn't backed by evidence, that they had to change their position.
You could see more and more scientists agreeing with the theory as some sort of unstoppable collusion momentum yes, but you know, it's also what we see when scientists start to find the right answer. Why simply assume the former, and implicate thousands of respected figures in either lying or lazily just going with the flow? They didn't become respected figures in the first place if they hadn't made significant contributions to the field with their own individual work, not through being yes men. It's still very simple. You have to imply the majority of scientists are lying (or at least 'colluding' and not bothering to do their own research, instead simply listening to what they're told to think) and then you have to explain why almost all of them would lie and collude. Even if they somehow are all money grabbing sheep, it's novelty that gets you into journals, and it's those who claim Global Warming is a hoax that get on TV and sell books.
This is the only way you can justify it, because on one side is decades of scientific work and multitudes of respected figures and the other side is mostly furore and snatches of what people think they've sort of heard but don't know much about. What happened to all the scientists 'suing Al Gore' by the way? Did they win? That was oft quoted, but it was in fact funded by Exxonmobil, and now that it has performed it's role at raising controversy has disappeared without actually carrying through any of its threats.
This of course applies to your idea that it's all fiddled. This doesn't apply to valid skepticisms of Gobal warming such as whether the economic changes of carbon cutting will cause as much disruption as the climate disasters etc. But the science is sound, otherwise it wouldn't be very strong consensus. You shouldn't underestimate the significance of that particular word
[cite]Posted By: Bournemouth Addick[/cite]
Actually, when it comes down to it, there's notthatmany organisations driving the agenda at the IPCC.
"People from over 130 countries contributed to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report over the previous 6 years. These people included more than 2500 scientific expert reviewers, more than 800 contributing authors, and more than 450 lead authors"
I've got quite into this issue (probably because it's procrastination from an essay) and found this, which is an excellent breakdown of the rhetorical techniques used to distract from and dispute good science:
Comments
Hope you kept all those back copies of the Daily Mail for reference purposes, Steve. :-)
I'm with Leroy on this. Except I do have kids and worry about what type of world we are leaving them!
Y2K anyone ? remember that total bollox world wide on tthat 1 ? planes falling out of the sky--lifts plummeting down shafts-- traffic lights going purple--- millions dying etc etc etc.Nope the boffins never get it wrong.
Well, I hope they've got it wrong on climate change.
So what do you reckon?
They (a convenient lumping of several hundred highly experienced and qualified climate scientists) got it worng and we carry on as before?
The gloibal climate IS changing. No one with any intelligence is arguing about this. Even that arse Bush finally agreed. Some sad tossers may divert the message by arguing the toss over the cause - like it matters. It would be like the Captain of the Titanic deciding to do nothing because there were ill informed tossers arguing over whether a torpedo or an iceberg had struck it.
Or 'they' and their years and years of research are correct.
What do you think? Just leave it yeah? And have a cheap swipe at anyone who wants action?
Even the title of this thread shows ignorance that suggests the majority of the planet dont even deserve to be saved by the drastic action which needs to be taken in our lifetime.
The climate is changing and has changed since the earth was created. The question is whether man influences that change or whether it is a natural phenomenon.
The question nobody can or will answer, without hurling abuse, is that if it is so certain that climate change is caused by man then why has it been necessary to fiddle or lose the data?
I avoid the climate change debate for the most part because, although I believe in man-made climate change and that it should be addressed, I do find the science behind the issue to be quite confusing and cannot claim to fully understand it or argue on the subject.
However, I do understand the Y2K bug and how the Y2K "hoax" created millions of new IT jobs in India and put them on track to becoming a super-power in the IT sector and creating huge new Indian firms like Satyam and Infosys.
Anyone who thinks that Y2K was a "hoax" should seriously considering expanding their reading repertoire beyond the tabloid sector.
Ok, first can you explain your statement, with evidence to exactly what you mean by fiddling of data
Then if you do in fact have isolated examples, please explain how you know the majority of scientists do this. There's thousands and thousands of scientists involved, there may well be some dirt on a few of them. But for it to be an international consensus, backed by all the major international scientific bodies, you have to implicate an awful lot of people, and then you'll have to explain why they would be ordered to hoax it all in the first place.
As for the last quote - there's no such thing as 'science' to be found anywhere in the tabloids. I read a great piece in a book recently (can't remember who it was by or what it was called) which explained that the reason for this was that tabloid journalists are all thick humanities graduates who were too stupid to understand science in school so have a massive inferiroity complex about anything involving it - and take every opportunity to ridicule it as a pathetic way of 'getting their own back'. Sounds like a perfectly reasonable assessment to me.
Even leaving aside the refutations of this particular example above, what exactly is your point? If experts find out something, we should assume they're wrong and just leave it?
The numbers involved are irrelevant and a red herring because it is all about the INFLUENCE wielded. To take another analogy it only needed Bush and Blair to be convinced of the merits of waging war in Afghanistan and Iraq for it to happen. They then, in the case of Iraq, manipulated data to suit the objective.
This link explains fiddling of data as I put it above.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/04/jo-nova-finds-the-medieval-warm-period/
If the issue is so clear cut that man causes climate change then there should be no need to "sell" it by manipulation of figures.
I have heard from others that they have "issues" but I have been to their HQ on a visit and by Indian standards they are a very, very big firm.
You obviously know this area very well, far better than myself - I have no idea what a varcher or integrer is!
Or even the broadsheets at times
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben-Goldacre/dp/000728487X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260145534&sr=8-1
Our federal government & provincial goverment here in Alberta are basically stooges for the big Energy Companies & I suspect they will put up every obstacle, to at least trying to come up with realistic but profit-negative reductions in pollutants.
A taste of things to come....
"Climate change is cyclical and temperatures will return to normal when mankind becomes extinct".
Starting with the above, I didn't respond to Leroys 'rant' (lets face it that's what it was) because I didn't feel it worthy of a considered response. Making sweeping and incorrect statements, packing your post with generalisations, conspiracy theories, throwing personal abuse about and the deliberate use of such emotive language is pretty much what I'd expect from a 6th former losing their temper not an adult trying to have a sensible debate about an issue that's going to affect us all for generations.
Unfortunately, having read it, you however thought it was a sufficiently accurate to be 'cracking post', made an assumption both on my voting habits/political leanings (you'd be surprised) and intellectual capability. I don't think it was at all odd that I responded in the way I did, although thank you for being big enough to apologise.
In hindsight I regret the use of the term 'sycophantic' and apologise also.
The reason I posted my 'rant' was because, as I said, it's pointless entering into 'debate' with people who have the intelligence of a crayon.
That, for me, if the crux of it. These guys (prof Jones et al) are at the very top of the tree. We hear lots about the consensus that exists among 1000's of scientists re:climate change. Actually, when it comes down to it, there's not that many organisations driving the agenda at the IPCC. Are we really sure we want our governments making such HUGH decisions based on the agenda of people who thought it funny when an opponent died and have aready had a major piece of research rubbished for being statistically flawed yet have been found out trying it again (the Hockey Stick graph)?
It's funny that Ben Goldacres book on Bad Science keeps getting dragged out by those in favour of the current consensus. I read this book (again) recently, and although mostly aimed at the medical profession, his own background, it lists time and again situations where scientists have manipulated figures, cherrypicked, misinterpreted results, refused to have their work peer reviewed or publish their data, worked back from the result they wanted to achieve to justify their hypothesis and describes the sensationalisation of their results in the media.
I can't see how this is helping their argument that we should implicitly trust the science behind it?
In that case Leroy, please do us all a favour and lets those of us who would like to use this board to discuss the issue, do so without your abusive contributions? To be honest it's water of a ducks back to me but there are others out there who make like to make a contribution but are wary of getting involved because it will results in personal abuse such as this.
AKFA/Lookie etc are good enough to let us use this board to discuss this sort of thing. Please pay them the respect they deserve for that decision by taking your abuse elsewhere or ignoring these sort of threads if you can't contribute to it properly.
Yours, Mr Crayola.
............
And why do the denialists feel the need to fiddle the data or dredge up scientifically absurd theories (eg it isn't that sea-levels are rising, but the Maldives are sinking)?
Around 150 years ago Darwin published the "Origin of the species", even today there are those who believe despite our increased knowledge of geology and evolution etc that he was plain wrong. There are those who will proclaim with a straight face that the links between smoking tobacco and lung cancer are non-existent etc. I see the same reaction to the denialists in these and other examples.
Be sceptical of science by all means but sometimes it can be a case of how right the scientists are, not how wrong. It's pretty clear, despite some fudged data, that the case for AGW has been made. In any case the East Anglia CRU is just one of many institutions researching this subject, but there has been no evidence of collusion or conspiracy. In the meantime another Climate Research Institute - in Canada, nearly had it's computers hacked into over the weekend. Why are the denialists using criminal methods to attack climate science research?
Can't see much man made CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere then.
It's the same as arguing with a creationist - no matter how much smoking gun evidence you show them, they'll still drag up the same stupid arguments to try to 'prove' God created Heaven and Earth in seven days. Like I said - believe it, don't believe it - I don't give a shit any more.
I begin to feel that way too sometimes and i dont blame you. Some peole are so narrow minded they cannot comprahend having a normal debate without getting irrate its very sad. Thats why i have not commented on the subject at hand as so people just wont look at all the options and believe they are always right especially when it comes to this.
Au contraire, according to the Creationist "Museum" which boasts exhibits where "Children play and dinosaurs roam near Eden’s Rivers. The serpent coils cunningly in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil....", that dinosaurs and humans existed on the planet at the same time:
http://creationmuseum.org/
The numbers aren't a 'red herring' at all. Ignore the furore and really look at what happened. They have been quote-mining from thousands of e-mails in just one institution, ending up potentially implicating just a handful of scientists, and even then most of those have been explained when put into context (I'll quote the explanations if you want them)
I'm not going to say it didn't reflect poorly to some extent on the individuals involved, as it did, but to pretend this stacks up against international consensus on the matter is exaggerating to an extraordinary degree. Every scrap that be blown out of proportion is. There's all these claims about the original data being 'conveniently discarded' when it's common practice in a lot of fields to discard the raw data once it has been transferred into a more workable form. And this data have been discarded for OVER 20 YEARS now, it's not as though they burned it in the middle of the night to hide the evidence of some manipulation.
BFR's comparison to Evolution is a very good one. In fact you could compare these e-mails to the 'Piltdown man' which was a fossil hoax, that creationists still cite as if it weighed up against the extraordinary amount of evidence for evolution. There were in the past lots of cries that evolution was some sort of leftist conspiracy designed to bring down religion, but once the furore died down the science had to win out eventually, as I believe it will with Global warming.
It’s also a poor analogy you use. If George Bush says ‘let’s go to war’, then the country goes to war because he’s the president and they do what he says – ultimately he doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone (and indeed didn't, there was no evidence found by weapons inspectors). Politicians can ignore the data, but if they'd put it in front of every major scientific institution to study whether there were WMDs, then it would obviously be exposed because the evidence simply wasn't there. It's extremely easy to just lie to your populace that there are 'probably WMDs'. It's an entirely different story to argue in a scientific and detailed paper using evidence and data whilst still lying, and then have that peer-reviewed and corroborated by thousands of global scientists and major institutions without it being exposed.
You seem have a mistaken assumption that this is a handful of scientists suggesting something as some sort of party line and then all the others thousands of scientists just shrug and go ‘what he said’. Scientific journals reward novelty, and fresh takes on an issue, no one is interested in someone just endlessly rehashing someone's else's work. This isn't what happens in science, which is extremely self-correcting. Otherwise we'd never get anywhere on any issue.
The consensus is a synthesis of all the different opinions on global warming, not some high power that doles out what everyone must think. How do you think the theory came about in the first place? Did someone somewhere plot this all, and then the other scientists just went along with it? No, it gained momentum because more and more climatologists' separate work meshed to form this theory, and thus it was investigated further, and found to have more evidence, and then international bodies got involved, and the evidence was such that the IPCC was set up to try and synthesise it all.
Even scientific bodies with huge vested interest to oppose it have grudgingly moved away from their previous dissent. The "American Association of Petroleum Geologists" (i.e. strong links to the oil companies) officially opposed it up until 2007, but received such criticism from some of their own members that the stance wasn't backed by evidence, that they had to change their position.
You could see more and more scientists agreeing with the theory as some sort of unstoppable collusion momentum yes, but you know, it's also what we see when scientists start to find the right answer. Why simply assume the former, and implicate thousands of respected figures in either lying or lazily just going with the flow? They didn't become respected figures in the first place if they hadn't made significant contributions to the field with their own individual work, not through being yes men. It's still very simple. You have to imply the majority of scientists are lying (or at least 'colluding' and not bothering to do their own research, instead simply listening to what they're told to think) and then you have to explain why almost all of them would lie and collude. Even if they somehow are all money grabbing sheep, it's novelty that gets you into journals, and it's those who claim Global Warming is a hoax that get on TV and sell books.
This is the only way you can justify it, because on one side is decades of scientific work and multitudes of respected figures and the other side is mostly furore and snatches of what people think they've sort of heard but don't know much about. What happened to all the scientists 'suing Al Gore' by the way? Did they win? That was oft quoted, but it was in fact funded by Exxonmobil, and now that it has performed it's role at raising controversy has disappeared without actually carrying through any of its threats.
This of course applies to your idea that it's all fiddled. This doesn't apply to valid skepticisms of Gobal warming such as whether the economic changes of carbon cutting will cause as much disruption as the climate disasters etc. But the science is sound, otherwise it wouldn't be very strong consensus. You shouldn't underestimate the significance of that particular word
"People from over 130 countries contributed to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report over the previous 6 years. These people included more than 2500 scientific expert reviewers, more than 800 contributing authors, and more than 450 lead authors"
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/about.php