A few comments:

HOBBY SCIENTISTS

I don't want to give the impression that amateurs can never make a contribution to science. This is plainly not true. See for example:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=problem-solved-lol

Amateurs who make a contribution are generally, to coin a phrase, "HOBBY SCIENTISTS." Some aspect of scientific endeavour is their hobby.

Hobby scientists are characterised by the following:

--They devote a lot of TIME and PASSION to their hobby.

--They do the HARD YARDS, they take the time to master the subject matter.

I think hobby scientists are somewhere between the professionals and the outright amateurs.

In my experience hobby scientists generally do not subscribe to conspiracy theories. The self-proclaimed experts on the physics of collapsing buildings are not hobby scientists; they're cranks.

Ditto all those folks who have "discovered" that evolution is some sort of conspiracy on the part of evil atheist-scientists who have sold their souls to Satan.

I suppose there are also hobby anti-scientists. Rather than grapple seriously with the issues they surf the internet looking for websites that confirm their biases.

I am not a hobby scientist. I suppose you could call me a hobby science writer.

THE IPCC REPORT

The IPCC report is a flawed document – to put it mildly.

For the life of me I cannot understand how that bit about the glaciers melting in 30 years got in. It took this amateur five minutes of calculation using only high school physics to determine that what was being claimed was physically impossible.

Does that mean that all climate science is junk?

No it doesn't. It means that like ALL HUMAN ENDEAVOURS climate science is imperfect.

I would like to think that the next IPCC report will be an improvement but I am not hopeful. Production of the report is in the hands of a UN bureaucracy. Can’t remember when last a UN bureaucracy produced anything useful.

GrahamY,
"Falsifiability" might work early in a theories 'life', yet a theory can become unfalsifiable eg helicoentrism - the "theory" the earth rotates around the sun.

Regarding "If you make a prediction based on your theory and it proves to be wrong, then your theory is wrong" ...

Hypotheses and alternate hypotheses are formulated for testing. They are often derived form a broader theory. Sometimes the alternative hypothesis is tested (eg for reason of cost, logisitics, etc. The outcomes can ve either
a. "accepting the hypothesis"
b. "failure to reject" the hypothesis (not 'reject the hypothesis')

A rough climate example is the prediction of droughts based on aGW. The problem is testing that. Moreover, global warming is likely to increase the water cycle thus, overall, increase evaporation and increase precipitation (rain).
.

Stephen, you say: "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."

Given that you have done so much work, presumably you have satisfied yourself (as opposed to trusting the assertions of others) in relation to the following questions.

1. You trust the temperature record that purports to show warming. You have investigated the many "adjustments" made to the record, and the elimination of many station records(many cooler ones), and found that they are not a problem. You are sure that the coverage is meaningful. You are sure that the delta UHI effect has been dealt with properly?

2. You have investigated the issue and have satisfied yourself that there is strong evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been the major cause of observed warming over the past (50?) years, and natural factors and land-use factors (as argued by Dr Roger Pielke Sr) are minor.

3. You have satisfied yourself that the arguments advanced by certain skeptics (Dr Roy Spencer, Dr Lindzen and others) that the sensitivity of the global mean temperature to anthropogenic CO2 emissions is around 1 deg C per doubling (as they show evidence for) are not valid. Instead you accept the 3.5 deg C per doubling which the IPCC advances based on ASSUMPTIONS included in MODELS.

It would help us skeptics if you were able to show the evidence that convinced you of these key points. Presumably you have done the work to answer these questions and haven't relied on your chosen "experts".

Steven,

I agree with Graham. And it seems you've avoided answering the thrust of his enquiry.

If the predictions that have been made have proven to be inaccurate, surely the models used to make those predictions are at the very least suspect.

Do you agree with this proposition?

Can you exlpain the current peer reviewed literature that shows a deceleration in the rising sea levels?

Can you explain why the results of experiments at the Hedron Super Collider tend to support the hypothesis in relation to cosmic rays affecting cloud formation?

Bugsy
If an amateur points out a logical fallacy, the fact that he is an amateur cannot save the original proposition – obviously.

The significance of the distinction between amateur and professional is only material if we accept the fallacious appeal to absent authority that it is based on.

I have seen these kinds of errors over and over and over and over again, coming from the “professional”, *peer-reviewed*, so-called scientists, and pointed out by amateurs:
- assuming warming in the premises of their models
- simple linear extrapolation
- conclusions unsupported by the data referred to
- interpretations *up*, when the same interpretation *down* was equally open, without explanation.

We are looking at a “professional scientific” culture characterized by these blatantly unscientific methods. Why?

The arrogance of answering “Well you’re all too stupid to question your intellectual superiors”, which is essentially Steven’s argument, just defies belief.

That’s as to the positive science.

As to the normative conclusions, of course science doesn’t supply value judgments. So sorry, but it’s rubbish to maintain that scientists, in their capacity as scientists, are telling us that “something bad” is going to happen. You can’t have it both ways. Either all the science is telling us, at most, is that temperatures might be going up, and *nothing* follows from that as a matter of values or policy action. Or science supplies value judgments, and the argument is based on a fallacy.

Steven asks for a rational argument, and when he is given numerous refutations, does he do the rational thing, acknowledge them, and re-think his claims? No! He *ignores* the refutations, and *persists* in all the fallacies that have just been identified.

It's demonstrably not about rationality, nor therefore science.

It seems credulous to regard as entirely unproblematic - beneath notice - the fact that on the one hand the knowledge-claims produced are virtually exclusively funded by government, and on the other that there just happens to be a culture of unexplained *unscientific* bias in favour of government.

stevenlmeyer

sorry but you've completely missed the point with earlier posts. The sort of reasoning you use is common in the Australian skeptics, of which I am a member, but its known to be false. The number of scientists for or against a particular proposition, their qualifications, degree of professionalism and degree of passion is completely irrelevent.

What matters is does the theory, or set of theories plus assumptions, they are using have a track record in successful forecasts? The calculations used in astronomy have a track record. Therefore you pay attention if an astronomer tells you a planet will be at a certain place at a certain time. In climate science there is no such track record - in fact its just the opposite.

The earliest IPCC forecasts from 1990 can be shown to be wrong - yet the scientists are refusing to change the computer models used. In particular, they are refusing to change crucial assumptions that would greatly reduce the expected warming. (Most of the forecast warming is not the result of any scientific theory as such, but the result of assumptions about the behaviour of natural systems.) Why are they refusing to change?

Now this has all been kicked around many, many times. This isn't even really a matter of science but a gigantic forecasting exercise that has gone completely off the rails. Time to update yourself.