Bennie, what I'm saying is that we haven't seen any society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable. Just as there is nothing to prevent reason from challenging reason, why not understand assumptions like fragmentation, provisionality, chaos, ambiguity, skepticism, conflict, vastness, disorientation, confusion, incoherence and coax out of chaos the rudiments of a civility without borders with a greater consciousness. Sensitivity, judgment, initiative, imagination, reasoning, communication and even persuasion are part of consciousness and necessary for consciousness building in a democracy.

Some people get a bit precious when it comes to science but we are all scientists in some respects because we live our lives immersed in a cause and effect environment. We the public, who fund much science, should not hold scientists above criticism and unaccountable to anyone but their peers because this old system will simply develop a compliant lazy media feeding passive consumers.

As many of my postings on OLO will attest, the internet is interactivity and our new 360 degree medium of communication because it is many to many and beyond the 20th century dictatorship of the modern and beyond the superficial, lateral post-modern.

This doesn't tie in well with your criticisms of the IPCC, which you characterise as a political rather than scientific body. This has been a common claim from polemicists and the energy industry, and one that casts doubt upon the findings by the majority of the world's governments and scientific community.

Perhaps it's a case of knowing when to listen and to whom? Or what constitutes pseudo-science as opposed to useful research? The general population is not that literate in scientific matters and its presentation in the popular media does it no justice.

Keiran, 'play scientists' all you want, but that doesn't make you one, it certainly doesn't change the science.

I agree, the internet can be a great resource, but that doesn't make a scientist, particularly when you have demonstrated your lack of understanding of basic school chemistry and physics.

What you are saying amounts to trolling the internet gives anyone the expertise to argue the nuances of the science with someone who has probably excelled at school, excelled at university and most probably has excelled in post-doctoral work and has achieved a long-standing career in a specialised scientific field. It has got nothing to do with pedestals.

You dump crap on the IPCC but fail to understand the IPCC do not do the scientific research itself. Many thousands of scientists from the many different sciences do - and you want to argue and say you know better than them all, that they have got it wrong.

Most people now believe the real debate is what to do in light of what the science is telling us - as is evidenced by the UNFCCC song and dance act. It really is up to our political leaders and economists to give us direction - they must get it right.

Due to the nature of my work I subscribe to various scientific journals (giving me direct access to a plethora of papers on current research) but I still find it difficult to keep up with it all. Scientific academies and organisations make this task easier. However, I would agree that these institutions could do a better job of disseminating the science but please, don't blame the scientists - they have an otherwise normal life to live.

http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm

Check out what these people have to say.

Q&A, i can "dump crap" on the IPCC if that is what i see in an organisation. I have said it is political and it enlists scientists to do the "science" who may of necessity need to accept this political process. It stands to reason, particularly to an outsider, that if no alarmist human caused climate change can be found then this political organisation with its scientists would be out of business. So one aspect is its motivation and when one sees obviously dodgy assumptions, data manipulations, absurd selective modeling schemes, etc all coupled with a group mindset and inhouse peer review processes ....... then it deserves the utmost skepticism.

I view science to have its proper epistemological place as part of philosophy or the "why" and in this respect to be a posteriori ... i.e. empirical or find and ye shall seek or inductive. This is most important with questions about the universe and indeed earth's climate. Q&A, i'm not sure you can understand this point because your mechanical attitude is quite the opposite and much that i see from proponents of AGW. By the way it's unscientific and quite impossible to prove a negative. You can't. i.e. I do not need to prove anything against AGW because it is the AGW bandwagon that NEED to constructively/positively prove it correct or abandon this perception as false. Good luck here because from what i've ever seen it doesn't seem to be obeying your instructions.

Q&A, perhaps you can comment on why historically rising atmospheric CO2 can have falling temperatures or why CO2 is bad or why the IPCC exaggerates unnatural positive feedbacks for CO2 and Clouds. If this was the case the earth would have overheated eons ago and we wouldn't be debating AGW.