"I don't believe in the conclusion, therefore I don't have to consider the science." This Aitkinian/Curmudgeonish approach is both lazy and insidious. All the science is wrong because the conclusion is wrong. How do I know the conclusion is wrong? Because I say so. Easy.

Aitkin's dismissal of the Skeptical Science website is characteristically shallow. Perhaps he should have another look. He will find that Skeptical Science, while having an opinion (that the science, while incomplete, is generally valid) is careful to quote contrary opinion, and to great lengths in examining contrary opinion, and to very great lengths in providing references to research papers from the scientific literature. If this is advocacy, let's have more of, rather than the un-referenced smears of the denialists.

Raycom links to Quadrant and follows with this gem:

>> Nor did socalled scientific bodies apply scientific method, choosing instead to align themselves with the IPCC for political reasons, as they were influenced by environmental activists and politically-motivated governing boards.

Until such time that warmists stop their arrogant denigration, pull their heads out of the sand, and start to consider opposing views carefully, they are the ones who are being deliberately mischievious. <<

ROFL ... should have taken out insurance on coffee damaged keyboards :(

Don Aitkin, The Australian Academy of Science, as in its “The Science of Climate Change Questions and Answers”, sits squarely in the middle of the road of true scientific agnosticism while doing the rounds of available evidence.
Pulling on your Agnostic colours and taking to the field in this debate, you have played at the opposite end of the field from the Academy. From time to time, some of us punters on the sidelines have observed you kicking an own-goal or two.
One of these was your statement “Carbon dioxide is a fertiliser, the more of it the better”. It is an odd statement, especially for anyone who has heard of Paracelsus, who 500 years ago noted that a remedy becoming a poison depended on the dose rate; or of the farmer who has watched his crop expire from an excessive application of nitrogen fertiliser or of a trace element such as molybdenum.
Neither does it sit well with Arhenius’ establishment, a century ago, of carbon dioxide as the fundamental regulator of the planet’s temperature. Barrie Pittock noted, in his book Climate Change, that during some of previous geological eras atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations had been much higher, and “life thrived”. That was, it bounced back after mass extinctions of species which were adapted to lower levels. Ian Plimer used the same quote as Barrie, but applied it, in an act of dissimulation, to Homo sapiens in the present era.
I, as one of the those inexpert observers as this “agnostic” match is played out, sometimes wonder if you realize which set of goal posts you are heading for. In regard to the author of this article we are commenting upon - maybe he is wandering around the touchline shifting the goalposts

Thing is, science can pretty well measure (with a high degree of accuracy) the energy coming in, and going out of, the Earth System - the terrestial biosphere, oceans, troposphere/stratosphere.

The Earth System is reacting to this increased energy by trying to maintain equilibrium. The manifestation of this process is seen in changing weather patterns.

Despite assertions and protestations to the contrary, natural variability alone cannot explain this change in energy/heat flux that the Earth System has been experiencing. Not the Sun, cosmic rays, magnetics, volcanoes, tectonics, Milankovitch cycles, nothing nada yada yada.

Conservative 'naysayers' want to curtail spending on research (e.g. satellite monitoring) that would provide definitive results on climate change. If not to remove the goal posts, then why?

It seems to me that so called sceptics (agnostics even) are relying on unknown 'unknowns' to explain the global warming that the planet has been experiencing. While some real scientists/sceptics are trying to seal this envelope (Spencer comes to mind) they have not been able to satisfy some basic physical or chemical principles. If they do they will overturn science as we know it, make squillions in the process, and no doubt add a Nobel to their mantle piece.

Don

You really are scraping the bottom of the barrel in referencing Lubos Motl. Do you actually check out any of the people you seem to admire or follow? A cursory google of Lubos Motl will tell you that he was either forced to resign or was fired from Harvard and that he appeared to be "unstable". Enough said.

Yet when it comes to www.skepticalscience.com your standards have ratcheted up from "anyone will do" to "super human". The site has multiple levels of explanation for 158 standard arguments all tied back to peer reviewed science. And by the way it quotes your 31,000 scientists argument and provides a 10 minute video to debunk that. Apparently only 0.1% (about 30) of the survey respondents even claim to be climatologists.

Don, I suggest if you are going to provide links to people you check them out first otherwise you are just left looking silly if your premise that nobody will bother checking them out doesn't hold true.

Rich 2

I think I have trespassed on this thread long enough. As it happens, I don't check out whether people are said to be unstable or whether they have been forced to resign from Harvard. Life is too short. I read what they say, and try to asses their arguments. If they present evidence, I try to assess it against all the other evidence that is said to be relevant. Yes, it's quite a lot of work. But my joint reading of skepticalscience and of Lubos Motl suggests to me that the latter is more often hitting the bulls eye. Part of the reason is that SS is arguing a case, and trying to make every post a winner, whereas Motl has the easier task of pointing out logical inconsistencies, poor argument, and a reluctance on the part of SS to consider inconvenient data. There's quite a lot of that.

I do think you go on missing the point, but I guess that is part of the problem (and of the fascination) of this issue. Because I don't like arguments from authority, and never have, and warned my students against them, I try to find out for myself where i think the matter is important. I've said, often, that the AGW case is plausible, but at every turn it is based on poor data and conjecture, rather than on good data and and a solid base in science. The most solid science is that of radiative transfer, but you can't build the whole AGW structure on that!

I assume that in time we will learn more, and we will then have a better grasp on what to do. I don't think I'm being either bland or complacent. That's just how it appears to me at this moment. You feel differently — well, you are entitled to your view. I neither agree with you nor think your position is sound. And ad hominem attacks on third parties don't, in my view, improve your case.