Thank you, Heretic Ridley.

Science, as you suggest, is not a democracy. Scientific knowledge does not advance by consensus (bandwagon fallacy), nor by appealing to the (pseudoscientific) Precautionary Principle in its many guises (bogus analogies, red herrings, risk, insurance, subjective "probabilities", etc).

It does not advance AT ALL if statements and hypotheses claimed to be scientific are, in a fundamental sense, unfalsifiable and untestable; where what are often merely descriptions of changing natural phenomena ("climate change") masquerade as causal explanations and are promoted ($$$) as such by too many who should know better; or where they involve predictions (aka "projections") so distant, vague, ambiguous or absurd they are meaningless.

A timely warning. Beware of tricks that deliberatly mingle scientific knowledge and speculation. Just as religion should not pass itself off as science, so too science should not start sounding religious (apocalyptic warnings, climate alarmism, tipping points, etc), especially when its arguments, hypotheses, "proofs" are muddled, confused, inadequate, "complex", ad hoc, etc.

Hasbeen, you state:

"Turn right turn left, the moment anyone starts rabbiting on about the delicate balance of ecology I know I'm listening to someone easily conned.
Nature is most definitely not delicate. In fact it is ruthlessly ravenous, & will obliterate anything you or anyone else does, in a very short time."

You haven't actually refuted any points I made, you just made do with insulting my intelligence. I don't appreciate the condescending tone, but I'll refrain from descending to that level, and I'll actually address your argument.

Sure, nature is vicious and brutal. I don't whitewash the violence and brutality that exists. That's the way it goes.

But to argue that it's not a complex, delicate system is way off base.

Did you pay any attention to the link I put forward earlier?

What would you say to the villagers who starved to death because Chairman Mao decided they should kill all the sparrows?

Would you just tell them that they're easily conned and that we don't actually need sparrows?

Sure, things improved again.

That was because they stopped killing all the damn sparrows - which proves my point.

TurnRightThenLeft

no, the real question is why should anyone listen to the scientists.. those who study forecasting systems point out that there is no evidence that expert opinion by itself matters a damn in making forecasts.. see
http://www.forecastingprinciples.com/

what does matter is does the theory they are using have a successful track record? Evolution has a successful track record, so does Quantum mechanics and vaccination, and so on.. climate forecasting has no track record of any kind, except where they use climate cycles to forecast.

The computer models they are using to make forecasts are virtually assumed to be correct, with only back testing (matching the output to past results) as verification. but backtesting is also known to be useless as a check on models. They have to be able to forecast results unknown at the time of the forecast. In this the models have, to date, mostly failed.

I other words there is virtually nothing underpinning the theory but a co-incidence.. In this instance, a forecast made by a formidably qualified climate scientist is just as good as one you or I might make off the top of our heads.

VK3AUU

The links you provide are fine examples of fantasy dressed up as science (pseudo science). It is beyond belief that any non deluded scientist could believe in such nonsense.

oh dear fail again the author falls into his own trap. Now as everyone knows science is the attempt to understand the world in which we live. Now the main tool in the scientist kit bag.. hell the only tool kit it the scientific method. What's that you ask. well it boils down to this scientist gather fast, they then build a model that explains thaose facts and here the important part.. The model (theory) then needs to be able to predict future behaviour. If it cann't predict future states it's not science.

Now what is the author basically saying. well that science can not perdict future states. what evidence does he have that this is the case....none. Except a vague statment about futurist( who cares we are talking about science). How does he ingornse reality and all of science to do this, and keep a straght face, well who knowns.

Hello all, ah agw, what a concept, steal from 99% of the sheeple, give it to the 1% of the worlds filthy, stinking, super rich, so they can move on to the next "shell game" of gambling on carbon dioxide dereivatives with our money.

"moving forwards" the pollies who do this, the RED/green, getup, GAYLP/alp, Socialist Alliance dare to suggest they are the "workers friend". what a joke & they even wonder why their polling figures are so low.

What happens when an investigative journalist looks at the hockey stick graph?

http://anhonestclimatedebate.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/the-delinquent-teenager-who-was-mistaken-for-the-worlds-top-climate-expert/ there never were 4,000 of these "scientists", heaps of their work was NOT peer reviewed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzNwjfbVt-U&feature=related Dawkins so favoured of the Atheists & skeptics denouncing academic fraud, loony left wing feMANazi politics & their deluded determination to question Logical thought processes, so they can be emotional instead.

What is a communazi to do when their favourite skeptical scientist is not on their side for once