Steven

Why is that “NOT” an appeal to authority?

Why is it true that saying
“continuing to pump CO2 into the atmosphere poses a risk of severe negative consequences because the Science group says so”

is “not saying anything of the sort”

“Adding CO2 to the atmosphere poses grave risks because scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say so”?

They seem to me to be identical in their methodology.

What do you say is the difference?

Actually Mr Hume, I think Steven defined what he meant by amateur pretty well in the post above yours. The scientists you listed may not have received pay, as many scientists in those days were men of leisure and most in those days did not make money from their pursuits, although they were professionally trained at universities. Galileo was not an amateur astronomer, he was actually a professional scientist and taught astronomy among other things.

But this doesn't matter, if all we can do is argue over the definition of 'amateur' in Steven's piece, then that's pretty weak.

But yes, you are correct: science does not make the value judgments needed for policy action, that's politics. This is not a concession, it's always been my position. It's also why I don't generally comment on policy. But it's also a reason why I think it's irrational for complete amateurs (in Stevens and common usage of the word) to argue that the science is false and that nothing bad is happening.

Well, actually it isn't completely irrational, if you want to undermine the fact that the science says that something probably bad actually is and you don't want to give up your stuff to prevent it.

Hi Graham

Realistically, I think you do need a certain level of smarts to get to grips with a complicated scientific issue. That doesn't mean you have to be a genius. Most OLO posters could do it.

Anyone can comment on anything. But should uninformed pundits expect to be taken seriously.

How to become informed?

PASSION. Without passion you cannot do the hard yards needed to gain understanding of something this complicated.

I would guess I have devoted 400 hours to studying climate science over the past three years while holding down a full time job. I have been fortunate in that I've had friends in the climate science community who have responded with saintly generosity to all my pestering.

I've put in the hours because I find this such an intriguing issue.

But there is a difference between understanding a scientific issue and being able to make a useful contribution. I understand the theory. I have a reasonable knowledge and understanding of the major issues. I can write about climate science in the same way that a good journalist can explain economic issues without claiming to be an economist.

But I'm not a climate scientist. Someone who works with climate ten hours a day five days a week would find any attempt on my part to instruct him risible.

And this brings me to another point. Some posters here seem to have the view that the whole climate science enterprise is made up of fools, charlatans and villains who plot daily to deceive humanity. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of climate scientists work in the field because it is their passion. They are as anxious as anybody to learn the truth.

Perhaps they're right when they warn of impending calamity. Perhaps they're wrong. But few are engaging in deliberate deception. And none I've met are fools. All the issues I've ever seen raised on OLO have already been considered by professionals in the field.

Respond in more detail after 24 hours.

Why not submit your question to a working climate scientist?

Steven your post makes it even worse.

You tell us that the so called climate scientists are professional, & god knows, with hundreds of millions of dollars spent on them, & by them, they damn well aught to be.

But this is where it all unravels. The IPCC report was authored & prepared by the select few of your professionals. It was put together at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. It was the very best tax payer money could buy.

Then the rot sets in. Those enthusiastic amateurs derided by you, working in their on time, with no funds, find so much wrong with it, that it could not have earned a pass in a high school test.

They find so many errors of fact, misinformation, & damn right fraud that I am surprised someone like you could ever defend the thing.

Every time your "professionals" come up with a new line of argument, at huge cost to us, those pesky amateurs tear it apart, in their own time, & for free.

I am surprised you can side with these shysters. I am afraid it is this solidarity among academics which is protecting a bunch of half baked con men who are doing more damage than has ever been done before, in the name of science.

Until they can produce something that is not easily destroyed by these amateurs, they are not worth the time of day. Please do some of the math yourself, without reference to hypothetical tipping points, & without multiplication by extremely doubtful feedback.

Without these very doubtful assumptions, the thing doesn't hold water, & sinks like a stone.

Steven,

"Some posters here seem to have the view that the whole climate science enterprise is made up of fools, charlatans and villains who plot daily to deceive humanity. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of climate scientists work in the field because it is their passion. They are as anxious as anybody to learn the truth."

Hear, hear. Whatever we may think of their theories, I agree entirely that the attacks on climatologists as being part of some Masonic-style plot to deceive the Western world are completely without merit, and serve only to discredit the skeptic's position. Most scientific researchers do not enter their profession to win prestige or earn lots of money (they certainly don't do it to pick up chicks) - they do so because they have a passion and an aptitude for their job.

And I agree that they're probably right - but only for a very limited value of right. A theory in which:
"* We do not know all the parameters. Most likely we do not yet know all the important ones.
* We cannot quantify the interactions of even the known parameters with precision.
* There is no compact set of equations that enable you to predict with precision the way climate will behave as parameters are changed. Climate science will never achieve the predictive precision of QED."

Seems of limited value to me. Mind you, it's certainly better than no theory. And it should be noted many of the predictions of "grave dangers" do not come from climatologists at all - they come from economists, and I personally regard economics not so much as a science as a black art. You might as well read entrails to divine the consequences of climate change as trust the word of economists.

TBC

continued:

Of course, it is quite possible that current climatological theories will go the way of phlogiston - that whilst there might be good scientific reasons for accepting them at the time, they will be later found to be bunk. Although if/when this happens, it will almost certainly not be the work of amateurs - it will be the work of those nasty climatologists, and the theories will have been submitted for peer review.

GrahamY,

"But you don't have to be very smart at all to know whether climate science is right or wrong. Science proceeds on the basis of falsifiability. If you make a prediction based on your theory and it proves to be wrong, then your theory is wrong. This is not a logical test, but an observational test, and doesn't require great intelligence."

Theories are rarely discredited on the basis of one falsifying observation. For example, Newton's laws of motion were not immediately discredited by their erroneous prediction of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit. A number of dissatisfying ad hoc fixes were proposed, but the problem wasn't resolved until classical mechanics was superseded by Einstein's theory of general relativity.