Sorry Peter, I gave up on the Judith Curry thread when BartR starting showing off about "contrapositive conditionals" in the context of meaningful climate periods to base conclusions of whether a trend had occurred.

Back to stochastic school for the lot of them! For me AGW became irredeemably stupid when it substituted the criteria for determining whether human activity was polluting the environment from what was of benefit or not to humans with the aesthetic of nature and therein that nature itself should not be interfered with by human activity at all.

In addition to that nonsense there are so many aspects of AGW 'theory' which are problematic, laughable, bizarre, misanthropic, and that is before we get to the lies, scams, frauds, economic disruption and distortion.

What interests me is the psychology of the 'believer' of AGW; they are incredibly aggressive and unyeilding; and they really hate any doubt or scepticism of their belief. Lewandowsky is a good example, using his background to attempt to besmirch 'disbelievers' as basically insane.

The mentality behind that, while grotesque, is still frightening.

This post, along with the different versions at Jo's:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/10/man-made-global-warming-disproved/

And the Climate Sceptics:

http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/has-global-warming-been-disproved-part-2.html

Really establish that sufficient doubt exists about AGW so that policy based on "the science is settled" needs to cease. However, I don't think that is going to happen.

Peter Lang, there is an important caveat to having an open mind. One's mind should not be so open that one's brains fall out.

From USA Today (h/t Bill Hooke): Stealth war to redefine science. Some excerpts:

In our state of political gridlock, the scientific community fears the impact of the looming federal budget cuts known as “sequestration.” But there is something else they should be fearful of: the redefining of science itself.

Indeed, there appears to be an increasing trend to change the definition of what is widely considered to be science. Why?

Two reasons: Money and politics.

First, the money. Relatively speaking, science departments are lavishly funded compared with the humanities. If a field becomes widely perceived as being scientific, it is likely to get more money from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other government sources of funding.

Second, the politics. It’s not a secret that academia, particularly the humanities, skews heavily left.

http://judithcurry.com/2012/10/05/week-in-review-10512/

Agronomist, I can't agree with your description as to how science works. It is contrary to any philosophy of science that I am aware of. You don't need to have an alternative theory, or conduct a literature review, to negate an existing hypothesis. You just need to have an experiment that is robust and replicable that shows the existing hypothesis is not predictive.

Can we agree, for example, that the models depend on positive forcings to arrive at their projections? That doesn't require a literature review. And then, if we agree that, if there is experimental evidence which shows this forcing doesn't exist, then the models need to be adjusted. That's what the work of Lindzen and Choi and Spencer and Braswell suggests. There is no theory under-pinning the positive feedbacks - they are just parameters fed into models, so hard to have an alternative hypothesis to a heuristic!

On your points:

1. Just doesn't appear to be so from what they have written in their paper. I think we'll just have to disagree on this.

2. Figure 9 uses the figures that Dressler uses. If they cherry-picked, then so did he I guess. Or can you refer me to a graph which shows a longer time series and that their analysis does not hold on that?

3. I thought the point of Lindzen and Choi was that they weren't trying to determine what was or was not causing feedbacks. Are you getting confused with Spencer and Braswell?

Peer review doesn't count for anything in terms of the accuracy of a paper. We know at least 50% of peer-reviewed published studies are wrong on the basis of other studies that have been done investigating that subject. So your last par makes no substantive point.

Peter Lang, re: your link to Judith Curry's blog. Of note is your comment/s :

"You and other alarmists continually post articles implying catastrophe. However, the connection isn’t made. How does the presence of 1,700 Pg of carbon in permafrost mean catastrophe. I know you argue it will be released, warm the atmosphere and cause all sorts of unspecified deadly consequences. But the planet has been with out ice at either pole for 75% of the time multi-cell life has existed. So what is the problem with warming? Furthermore, life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder. So what is the problem with warming?"

Do you understand what a Petagram is?
Do you know how many billions of tonnes make up 1,700 Pg.
Do you understand methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2
Do you understand that methane is released when the tundra permafrost melts?

Re: the "stealth war"
The comment is in response to this article:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/09/27/169856/stalling-science-threatens-every.html

Perhaps you can comment there, no?

For example, would it not be prudent to increase (or at least maintain) funding NASA research into Earth's climate system?

As it is, the US Republicans want to slash and burn this particular research. Why do you think that is?

Before you answer, consider your response in light of your comment above about politics, money and the humanities.

Peter Lang,

"Second, the politics. It's not a secret that academia, particularly the humanities, skews heavily left."

Perhaps this evens things out a bit:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/01/rightwing-insurrection-usurps-democracy/