No doubt some will blame climatologists for not predicting earthquakes and volcano eruptions.

For the deft, extreme weather events are becoming more common, as expected ... others will say nothing out of the ordinary.

The analogy is a bit stretched, but essentially the adversarial system proposed by the author is the scientific methodology proposed by the eminent philosopher of science Imre Lakatos as a development of Poppper's methodology - a three-cornered fight between rival theories and evidence, rather than Popper's two-cornered fight between a theory and evidence. Personally, I regard Lakatosian methodolgy as the most rational scientific methodology.

The broken system the author refers to is what Paul Feyerabend was talking about - that science may not always proceed rationally, but nevertheless, it still proceeds (hooray!). As I said, I think science would be a more rational system of knowledge if it followed Lakatosian methodology - but it doesn't, and it probably never will, and the system we've got at the moment ain't so broke it needs fixing.

bonmot .. ah yes, "deft" as in, can quickly make things up to suit 20:20 hindsight. E.g. "of course, we do expect more extreme events of all kinds".

So as I said, it's climate astrology at its best .. everything fits!

What happens when there are no extreme events? Is that also expected .. it's not like there are extreme events events every day.

What happened before "current extreme events", since now the extreme events are becoming more "frequent"? Is there any, (I hesitate to ask a believer since I know I'll get some squirrily half non-answer in return), proof that there are increasing extreme events?

Or is this just AGW believer throw away frivolous lines, "of course there are more extreme events now".(no substance required .. it's science, AGW astrology style)

We used to get lots of cyclones in SE Queensland, why aren't there more now? OMG, is a lack of cyclones an extreme event?

I remember Al Gore forecast more extreme weather events, in the way of land falling hurricanes, but there have been none for 4 years .. so what's up with that?

Are less extreme events also forecast by the ever prescient AGW believer?

I'm sure somehow, that less, more, none at all will all somehow fit AGW science.. eh bonmot?

Hey I can do this too .. I forecast, earthquakes may happen in our future, as will volcanic eruptions! There you go, easy isn't it.

That's done with no backup science at all, the same way AGW believers predict .. every kind of weather fits their "science".

What a farce .. AGW belief no longer requires science at all, does it, you can go off predicting everything .. and if you do, sometimes of course it will fit .. brilliant!

And you wonder why AGW belief is falling apart.

Our ideas about the history of the universe are dominated by big bang theory. But its dominance rests more on funding decisions than on the scientific method.

The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed-- inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory.

In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, RAISE SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT THE VALIDITY OF THE UNDERLYING THEORY.

What is more, the big bang theory can boast of no quantitative predictions that have subsequently been validated by observation. The successes claimed by the theory's supporters consist of its ability to retrospectively fit observations with a steadily increasing array of adjustable parameters, just as the old Earth-centred cosmology of Ptolemy needed layer upon layer of epicycles.

Yet the big bang is not the only framework available for understanding the history of the universe. [However] ... in cosmology today doubt and dissent are not tolerated, and young scientists learn to remain silent if they have something negative to say about the standard big bang model. Those who doubt the big bang fear that saying so will cost them their funding.

Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies. Funding comes from only a few sources, and all the peer-review committees that control them are dominated by supporters of the big bang. As a result, the dominance of the big bang within the field has become self-sustaining, irrespective of the scientific validity of the theory.

An open letter to the scientific community, 2004 

Kenny accuses Peter Ridd of sounding like a creationist. Leo in return accuses Kenny of being creationist like, but with even less scientific support than the creationists themselves. 

How insulting! Is there anything lower than a creationist?

The delicious irony here is that the country's leading authority on laying slander upon and insulting creationists, the highly esteemable Prof Ian Plimer, is now in the unenviable position of defending a despised minority view, that of the GW skeptic. With some type of mystic karma, he now sees the insults coming back his way.

Why the insults? Whatever happened to the pristine integrity of the scientific pursuit? Has the priestly purity of the white lab coat evaporated? 

We all know that scientists can be divided into two types: male and female. They are both essentially human, and have inbuilt pride, preferences, presuppositions, personalities, prejudices, and priorities, the first being to find funding which puts food on the table.

Scientific pursuit is a noble endeavour, but as Ridd points out, like other human pursuits, it has established its institutions and defense mechanisms that can sometimes work against itself. 

While I don't necessarily agree with his solution, his basic thrust is that we need more open and honest discussion and debate rather than less. Less insults wouldn't hurt either.
 
Thanks, Peter, for articulating your view, a view that has relevence to many areas including cosmology and origin of life issues, and has been aired by creationists for quite a while now. 
 

If there is one thing I regret about my original article it is the work broken. I wish I had said slightly broken. Obviously the scientific system has done wonders for human beings and I believe that in the end Science will get there in the end, but sometimes it takes time as the history of science reveals. However on occasions we need to get to the right answer fast, and the big environmental issues of our time are examples of this.
Coming from Queensland I grew up under the Bjelke Peterson era when we had a far from perfect police force. There was corruption, but the vast majority of police were straight. For the most part, their only sin was that they knew bad things were happening and never spoke out. But who would blame them, they would have lost their jobs and nothing would have changed. One of the basic problems we had was that Police investigated Police. One of the reforms of the QLD system in the late 80’s, echoed around the world, was the Crime and Misconduct Commission. Now, the CMC investigate police. It was a small and inexpensive change in the system which now works much better than it did in the past.
Do we really think systems in science are perfect ? Is there no room for improvement?
I am proposing a minor and inexpensive change to the system in science. I am a little bewildered by some of the posts that seem to claim I want to pervert the scientific system. I cannot see how what I propose can do any harm unless the organisation I propose becomes itself political.