Kieran, not an assumption but an observable fact. A human being is a flow of physical and mental phenomena, arising and passing away with great rapidity [cf my post on Richard Castle’s 11/8 article]. There are several parts of the mind; consciousness, which notes phenomena at our sense doors – eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind; perception, where each phenomenon – say a sound - is recognised and evaluated as good, neutral or bad; the sound generates a sensation in the body, which perception evaluates and, depending on the evaluation, is pleasant or unpleasant. Finally, there is a mental reaction to the sensation, liking for pleasant, disliking for unpleasant; these reactions develop into intense craving and aversion.

This process is constantly at work in our so-called subconscious, the major part of our mind, which in fact is always conscious, always evaluating, always reacting. To come out of ignorance, delusion, suffering, we must learn to observe the sensations with detachment and to understand their nature, which is impermanence, substanceless.

The process of detached observation, with no reaction, brings to the surface the products of old reactions, deep-rooted habit patterns and complexes, and dissolves them. With this process, we have control; without it, we are the sum of our reactions.

This process, taught by the Buddha but not “Buddhist”, is called Vipassana meditation. With a few days of practice in a conducive environment, you can see these processes for yourself, within your own mind and body. They are observed facts rather than assumptions or “learned” (and therefore very limited) wisdom.

Further info: www.dhamma.org

Sams, just popping in.

You may wish to look at this thread in a site run by a statistician, well versed in climate science. The particular post by Lazar (and some that follow) relate to Stockwell's report.

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/open-thread-5-2/#comment-20905

I would be interested in reading your comments (if not on OLO then at 'Open Mind'). If you are new to the site, you could check out other threads by entering keywords in the search field.

While I thought my undergraduate degrees covered stats in a comprehensive manner, not until I did postgraduate doctoral work did they start to play a significant part.

However, I certainly am not an expert in statistical analysis and prefer to look and learn from someone like Tamino, particularly when it comes to climate change issues.

Sams, You said at 8.39 a.m. that I (Castles) didn’t seem to have anything new to add ‘so I think our dialogue ends here’; but by 3.23 p.m you’d abandpned your self-imposed vow of silence and had weighed in with a new round of criticisms. Allow me to make a few points in response.

You argue that ‘people with actual PhDs in mathematical statistics and climate science might have better credentials [than me].’ Yes they might, but for some issues they might not. For example, in 2005 Stephen Schneider of Stanford, who has an actual Ph D, forwarded to a wide mailing list a letter I’d sent to the World Bank’s Chief Economist under cover of a note saying ‘Hi all, in case you haven’t seen Castles latest ride on the PPP horse. Any reactions? ...’ The immediate reaction of Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, FBA, FRS, Professor of Economics at Cambridge was ‘Castles is, of course, quite right.’ Who’s the expert here: Dasgupta or Schneider?

You question my statement that the data underpinning the models used in the DECR would not have been released but for the pressure from blogs. Surely that’s the only possible explanation of the chain of events. David Stockwell asked Kevin Hennessy of CSIRO for the data. Hennessy declined to provide it, citing ‘Intellectual Property’ constraints. Stockwell published the correspondence on his website. Andrew Bolt picked up the story on his blog and attracted over 150 comments in 24 hours. And CSIRO phoned Bolt (not Stockwell) to say that the data would be published ‘within a couple of days.’ What conceivable reason did CSIRO have to change their minds, other than the heat from the bloggers?

That uses up my 350-word allowance for this post. I’ll reply to some of your other slurs tomorrow. Please don’t come in again until after my next instalment

dogstarr: "you revert to talking about Dr Castles in the third person"

Do you think that might be because I was responding Faustino in that context? It was right under where I quoted him.

If you think it was so clear that I lost the debate, why do you feel the need wade in to come to Ian Castle's defence? Do you feel that he has been such a high-ranking bureaucrat that he deserves to be above criticism?

dogstarr: "Castles was previous head of Aust Academy of Social Sciences".

Social science isn't the same as atmospheric sciences, now is it?

dogstarr: "You have some infatuation with PhDs and peer-review".

I think it is a good framework for establishing scientific fact. Pretty much all scientists would agree.

dogstarr: " If you are in some sort of old people's home for dementia"

These days I'm the managing director of an IT company, and am in my early 40s. Back when I was doing science (80s and early 90s), my PhD is in the area of quantum chromodynamics. So nice of you to ask, and what do you do?

tragedy: "It certainly doesn't mean [Sams] has a higher authority than anyone else to comment on climate science"

I never said I was, although I expect I have a better handle on the physics aspects than most. Evidently though, I've also got a better idea of what constitutes scientific method and sources than Ian Castles does. I felt it was necessary to comment on that.

tragedy: "Phd's today show a poor standard of analysis, are full of grammatical errors and lack proper statistical analysis"

You've checked them all, have you? :-)

Sams, You acknowledged my bureaucratic experience in statistics ‘up until 1994’, but implied I’d done nothing in the succeeding 14 years.

That’s not quite true. The current OECD/EUROSTAT ‘PPP Methodological Manual’ says that “Castles’ review of the Eurostat-OECD PPP Programme [submitted in 1997] was an important milestone in its history.’ The report of an expert committee set up by the UN Statistical Commission in 2000 to examine my criticisms of the UNDP’s Human Development Report (HDR), including in a peer-reviewed paper, upheld my main criticisms and said that the HDR had made ‘material errors’. This was accepted by the HDR Office and led to substantial improvements in its statistical reporting.

I’ve made many submissions and given presentations or been a panelist at meetings on climate change issues convened by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), the IPCC, the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), the Australian Academy of Science (AAS) and the Garnaut Climate Change Review.

I was a member of the Organising Committee for two conferences on climate change convened by the Joint Australian Academies, and of the Committee of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) which supervised the commissioning and publication of ASSA’s ‘Uncertainty and climate change’, incorporating peer-reviewed contributions from three Australian experts.

I was a co-author of several climate change-related papers that have been published in the leading UK journal World Economics, including one that was republished electronically by the ANU with the publisher’s permission ‘because of its importance’
.
I’m surprised that, after excoriating blogs, you have a naïve faith in Wikipedia and Sourcewatch. So I’ve appeared at an event for the IPA which is supposedly fossil-fuel and tobacco industry-funded? Quelle horreur! The event was supported by the Australian Greenhouse Office and other speakers included Minister David Kemp (now at University of Melbourne), Dr. Jonathan Pershing (then at the International Energy Agency, now at the World Resources Institute), Professor Warwick McKibbin (ANU and Brookings Institution), Professor Ian Rae (Melbourne University) and Professor Chris Fell (Macquarie University). It's revealing that you pick on me.

IanC and other factual posters
Researching this issue has lead me (someone not in the relevant disciplines) to the following perceptions.
• The debate on the CSIRO models is that they are inconclusive and flawed in absolutist terms.
• The specific criticisms are focused on specific parts and open to debate.

Moving on there appears to be some debate about: the real world effect of the CO2 cycle as mechanism for GW.
• The effect of anthropomorphic CO2 @ 3% of the whole being the issue.
• The overall increase in CO2 is comparatively slight.
• Science for the causal link isn’t that clear in real world science.
• That water vapour (higher %) is a factor or has a combined effect.
Then the scientific internecine squabble over Modelists V Climatologists. Is that about it?

GIGO is true in absolutist terms therefore given the complexity of the issue climate model can, at best, only give probabilities.
As one person said it’s a bit like ‘describe the world and give two examples’.

My concern is that the debate is scientific navel gazing providing an opportunity for vested interests to argue for doing nothing. What the non-scientific ‘nay sayers’ are not recognizing deliberately are the LINKS and the effects by cherry picking and deliberate misinformation as the conclusions are “inconvenient” to their financial interests.

Literal Global Warming is irrelevant. Hence Most of the scientists I know have always argued Global Weather Change (the real problem)

In real world terms we have a number of issues.
• Melting of the tundra
• Melting of the Greenland ice sheet, artic.
• Melting of landlocked Glaciers
• Species (flora) moving to higher levels. And the top ones going extinct.
• Changes in Sea chemistry and associated effects
• Etc. ad nausium
The causal link of many of these events has been established to be anthropomorphic.
Surely the issue has to be the cumulative effect of all these scientific observed occurrences and harm minimumization. Comparisons with Y2k are bogus as it had no observable related occurrences, GCC does. Comments please.