SO WHAT WOULD FEYNMAN HAVE SAID ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?

Poor old Feynman. He must be turning in his grave to see the way these pseudo-science websites are misusing his famous quote. I know they're pseudo-science because real scientists would have understood the context of Feynman's statement.

So what would Feynman have to say about global warming?

Well anything I attributed to him would be pure speculation. I don't know. But I can make an educated guess.

Murray Gell-Mann, also a Nobel-Prize winning physicist, was for a time a colleague of Feynman's at Caltech. He was the one man Feynman reluctantly conceded was smarter than himself.

So here's what Gell-Mann, the man Feynman called smarter than himself, says we should do about global warming:

http://www.webofstories.com/play/52284

I'm flattered that Gell-Mann has independently arrived at the same conclusion I did. We need to take out insurance.

So I'm guessing that Feynman would agree with Gell-Mann.

Incidentally Murray Gell-Mann is a leading light in the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The NAS has put out some pretty strong position papers on anthropogenic global warming. Gell-Mann has never dissented so again I'm guessing neither would Feynman.

So believe what you want but try and let poor old Feynman rest in peace.

Nobody has ever explained to me why I should believe OLO posters instead of most of the world's actual climate scientists plus the consensus view of most of the world's peak scientific bodies – you know, such nothing bodies as the Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences and Max Planck Institute.

I mean, based on past history they're more likely to be more nearly right than OLO posters quoting websites who in turn quote Feynman out of context.

BTW Feynman had some pretty nasty things to say about people who cherry-picked evidence.

Seriously Steven, can we deal with the papers? I don't presume to know what Feynman would think, and certainly not by projecting from what a friend of his thinks.

Science isn't decided by show of hands, it is decided by facts. The papers that Jo and Tony quote are peer reviewed, not just from some website. They have weight and deserve to be dealt with seriously, not by some flip reference to Galileo.

I think this is one of the few journals on the Internet where you could get some sensible discussion on this issue. I was hoping you'd be part of it.

Yep, spot on Steven ... but it ain't going to sway the doubters one bit - they have too much vested in AGW being; wrong, skewed, biased, un-godly, impossible, catastrophic, whatever.

Sheesh, we even have OLO's 'right' leaning chief editor and moderator spruiking the secretary of the Climate Sceptics Party (a political front to be sure) and wanting to turn the thread/site into a scientific forum. S'pose it's nice to dream.

It might surprise you Bonmot, but this is not an issue about politics - just ask people like Martin Ferguson and Gary Grey who are both on the left and both skeptical on global warming.

This thread is about the article. If you are going to heckle and try to stop people discussing the papers cited in it I will rule you out of order.

cohenite, Tuesday, 2 October 2012 9:53:55 AM

One of my brief points was around the fact that one or two studies do not prove anything: Consensus is more than two studies.

The other is there is no 'AGW rule'.

Curmudgeon,

"To each his own trade". There are some people without the appropriate qualifications, or intellectual capacity, who have "proved" that Einstein's theories are flawed. They're crackpots. The public has been subjected to propaganda by unqualified individuals, who "Don't know what they don't know" and because of vested interest, they're taken seriously.