Crock: "There you go again, Sams. Appeal to authority. Don't you think that's exactly what Galileo would have had to put up with?"

I won't repeat my arguments on why humans have a belief system that is based on "who to trust". Feel free to re-read my earlier post as you clearly didn't get it the first time around. "Appeal to authority" is an indispensable method for forming beliefs for every human. Otherwise we wouldn't trust any information source regardless of who authored them: books, newspapers, journals, etc. Clearly you don't really understand why you believe what you think you know :-)

Scientists in Galileo's time were under the thumb of the Catholic church, as so it was an entirely different situation. These days anyone can train to be a scientist and publish in peer-reviewed science journals (I did for example). Why don't you? There are vast ranges of differing scientific opinions for example in the areas of quantum cosmology - there is no big conspiracy theory forcing people not to publish their theories. The whole idea of such a conspiracy is just a silly story by ignorant people who have never interacted with the science community.

One last logic lesson:

If person A disagrees with a scientific theory and person A turns out to be right, that does NOT mean that every person that disagrees with a scientific theory is right.

Crock, your post: “I'd like to address Q@A's recent comments”.

Your questions are serious and must be addressed, indeed they are. Did you have a chance to watch Professor Ross Garnaut’s address to the National Press Club on Friday? Here’s a press release;

http://www.garnautreport.org.au/reports/Media%20release%20-%205sept08%20-%20Targets%20and%20trajectories%20-%20Supplementary%20Draft%20Report.pdf

I’m looking forward to the details in his final report.

The problem (‘unintended consequences’) the world is having is to do with its (mis)use of energy and its capacity for sustainable development – you alluded to it yourself. There is robust and rigorous evidence that this latest ‘climate change’ is in large part but a symptom of human activity.

I (like you) am also sceptical of the “willingness of the masses”, particularly in their rapacious consumerism mind-set, to now address the issues of global warming.

However, world leaders (from ALL political persuasions) and captains of industry from America to China know there is a problem with global warming, and they are trying (mostly) to do something about it. This is the hard part, because it is up to politicians and economists to take the next step.

Scientists can only do what they do best, present the science. What Brendon Nelson or Kevin Rudd does with the science is their dilemma.

In defence of Sams;
I understand where he is coming from. It is very frustrating for someone from a scientific background to be disbelieved and castigated when their very existence is premised on truth. It is very disturbing to have people from bus drivers to accountants telling them they have got it wrong. Thankfully the real decision and policy makers are not stupid, contrary to popular belief!

Btw, ‘anti-greenhouse gas believers’ are not the ‘Galileo’s of today’ – if anybody was, try Arhenius – the ‘deniers’ (I-don’t-know-what-to-call-them-anymore's) still believe he was a fruitloop at best, heretic at worse.
_____________

Froggie says:

“It is a tragedy that science has become so involved with politics, for if it keeps going in this direction, soon no-one will believe what any scientist has to say.”

No Froggie
It is a tragedy that politics has become so involved with science.

Precisely, Q & A, politics has hijacked science.

As I said, even scientists deeply involved with the IPCC process have disavowed its conclusions and recommendations. I notice you don't comment about that.

Froggie, you say I didn’t comment on your statement:

“... even scientists deeply involved with the IPCC process have disavowed its conclusions and recommendations.”

I apologise if I seemed to ignore you, but we are all limited by word counts, number of posts, etc and I do have another life – particularly on Father’s Day. Besides, this is why I prefer other science sites, they don’t have these constraints.

Anyway, if you look at my history, you would know where I stand on the IPCC.

Let me say this (the brood having departed), some scientists (about 1%) actively engaged in a climate related science disagree with the “consensus” view of the IPCC.

I respect some of these ‘contrarian’ scientists greatly (e.g. Dick Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Nir Shaviv and the like). They are true AGW sceptics (in the scientific sense) and believe me – I want their hypotheses to be right.

But ... they have not (yet) been able to come up with robust and rigorous arguments that can discount CO2-e as a major driver to this current bout of global warming. If they can knock AGW on the head they will become famous and could probably add a Nobel or Fields Medal to their CV!

OTOH, there are some other scientists and groups (including industry lobbyists, ‘think-tanks’, political PR spin-doctors, etc) that don’t like the structure (or intellect, relevance or ability) of the IPCC.

So be it, these ‘deniers, delayers, naysayers, whatever) are perfectly entitled to their opinion.

Further, these same scientists don’t want to critique science in the proper forums (preferring populist media, ‘denialist’ blogspots or shock-jock web sites) ... it can be argued that they have credibility issues.

Science doesn’t work like that and many people don’t understand this.

The IPCC does NOT represent 2500+ scientists.

http://www.ipcc.ch/about/index.htm

May I suggest you also look at the UNFCCC site.

http://unfccc.int/2860.php

Adapting to climate change is a tough task (and won’t happen overnight), so too is mitigating GHG emissions. But to deny or delay taking action is selfish at best, irrational at worst.

Q&A in defence of Sams: "It is very frustrating for someone from a scientific background to be disbelieved and castigated when their very existence is premised on truth."

Yet directly above from Sams himself: "...humans have a belief system that is based on 'who to trust'"

If this were a court room, I'd be glancing at the jury now.

Sams , I "get" your argument, and I suspect you get mine only too well, so you resort to more facile, pre-fab appeals to other authority, just to muddy the water a little more in your favour. Admit the obvious. You don't have the ability to persuade anyone of your arguments using your own skills, so you tell me I should believe it because it's the accepted wisdom (and throw in some abuse to help you along). Of course I accept many scientific concepts I don't fully understand, but I accept them on the basis that they are PROBABLY true because so far nothing has happened to prove them untrue. In other words , with our imperfect knowledge of the universe, we proceed with existing models until other facts prove them wrong, or perhaps just in need of tweaking. Of course you are very careful to give examples of science that is in that exact category. Greenhouse theory is transparently not in that category. The proof of the pudding is not in the heating, so to speak. Just as I don't automatically accept (for example) that any new wonder drug is safe because the bulk of scientific opinion says so, neither will I commit myself wholeheartedly to any new "model" until it has stood the test of time. It's about being able to accept uncertainty, Sams. I think that's very hard for you to do.

Q&A, I think you misunderstand my point. i'll come back to it later.