qanda
What kind of answer is that?

Dessler himself says the correlation is weak. A child can see that *any* line drawn through that cloud of data could have fit as well as Dessler's.

Your technique has been to weigh in with *nothing but* ad hom, and when challenged to show how anyone could justify Dessler's conclusion, you answer with more irrelevance and talking-down, as if the problem is that I don't understand, when it's you who can't provide a rational justification of what you defend.

"I understand the Dessler paper you link to can be difficult to digest"

ad hom - "You're too stupid to understand"

" particularly for the those riding this particular hobby horse"

ad hom - "You are motivated by irrelevance"

"However, it does not help to take papers such as Dessler's out of context"

Misrepresentation - the context is I am evidencing my allegation that climate scientists take a cloud of data and draw a facile line that *just happens* to lend their authority to allegations of global warming - a conclusion not supported by the data

Ad hom - implication of bad faith in taking out of context.

"or try and spin it with one's own rhetorical and ideological bent"

ad hom - allegation of bad faith motivated by irrelevance

"as you clearly do"

no evidence or reason offered for this aspersion.

Okay, let's cut to the chase *again*
-how can you justify Dessler's
a) trend line given the pattern of data, and
b) conclusion given such a weak correlation?

You are only showing, again and again, that AGW is *not* about science, reason, or climate.

qanda "No real scientist says "the science is settled" - it never is"

So why is it only skeptics who say this, never "real" scientists?

If "real" scientists came out and dissed this sort of comment and speculation, you might come a long way to getting skeptics to believe most climate scientists are not driven by selfish agenda.

Is it better for climate scientists to STFU when someone in the media or some flim-flam man says it, because it ultimately is serves their purpose, and supports the AGW cause and at least they do not want to be seen undermining it? (so where is science then? Do these people have "beliefs?)

Until "real" scientists come out and dismiss rubbish like the science is settled, group-think rules, then yes, climate scientists tend to be seen as "tainted" .. why would they not be?

(Dr Judith Curry and a very few others do dismiss this rubbish of course, but are then attacked by "real" climate scientists .. what a surprise.)

Hume: Thanks for the link, but doesn't support your assertion.

"-how can you justify Dessler's
a) trend line given the pattern of data, and
b) conclusion given such a weak correlation?"

Because the conclusion does not rely on the correlation trend. In fact the conclusion is made because the models can faithfully reproduce this weak correlation. You would know this if you read the paper.

As I said, this sort of thing doesn't happen. The conclusions in this paper are sound. Your belief that they are not is the irrational one.

>>Thanks for the link, but doesn't support your assertion.

Yes it does. You don’t say what that assertion was.

It was that I have seen climate scientists
“…faced with a data set in the shape of a cloud, to draw a regression line through it, trending *up*. The same degree of arbitrary licence could obviously produce a line trending down.”

Therefore the link *does* support my assertion, and you have not shown reason why it doesn’t.

I said:
>"-how can you justify Dessler's
>a) trend line given the pattern of data, and
>b) conclusion given such a weak correlation?"

You said:
>>Because the conclusion does not rely on the correlation trend. In fact the >>conclusion is made because the models can faithfully reproduce this weak >>correlation.

The fact that the models faithfully reproduce a weak correlation *up* which is no more justified than other possible weak correlations *down*, is obviously no defence of the models. All that proves is that the models are just as suspect as Dessler’s conclusion that the trend line is up!

I also asserted, which you have not refuted, that the process of interpretation of data involves value judgments which are not themselves scientific. For example Dessler’s choice of regression analysis was “traditional”. Other regression analyses chosen on other criteria would have yielded different correlation results. Why weren’t they chosen?

“As I said, this sort of thing doesn't happen.”

What sort of thing doesn’t happen?

“The conclusions in this paper are sound.”

They are no sounder than the weak correlation on which they rest.

In fact the conclusions are weaker and more partial than the correlation because the correlation stands on its own merit regardless of other possible correlations, while the conclusion is problematic in concluding that the short-term cloud feedback is “likely positive” when the weak correlation left open the obvious possibility that there was as much ground to conclude that it was “likely negative.”

Therefore the link proves my point and you have not shown that my objection is irrational.

I reject the mind-reading and personal argument which comprises the balance of your post.

Just when I was about to go to bed ...

Hume, if one was to say "stick to your day job", that would be ad hom - yes?

You may believe that you have interpreted this paper correctly, but you have not. The conclusion does not rest on the trend line. If the trend line was slightly up or down it wouldn't matter, the conclusion would be the same, because what it showed was that the correlation was weak, which means that the feedback from clouds is complicated by additional factors. The overall conclusion does not rest on the 'trend' (actually correlation, not a 'trend') being positive, it rests on it being WEAK.

I can see that this exchange is not going to be productive.