bugsy, please try to keep up: as i pointed out earlier, it's a magic envelope.

mil-observer. i don't take young seriously. but, perhaps mistakenly, i took your posts seriously. fraud is a serious accusation. you describe as "pedantic" my questioning of exactly what you meant? that is absurd. in fact, your flippant use of the term in reference to my posts suggests i have good cause to be "pedantic".

now:

1) my term "denial scientists" was not in any way meant to be pejorative. i tried to acknowledge at the outset that the term was clumsy. i can see one might think i meant "in denial", though everything esle i wrote makes clear that i didn't. in fact, i meant something akin to "denying the majority position", which i think is correct and contains no value judgment on either the majority or the minority.

2) i do not automatically interpret "dangerous fiction" as akin to fraud. i would think of thomson's plum pudding and descartes' vortices as (non-dangerous) fictions, though they are definitely not frauds.

but it doesn't matter. if kinimonth is charging something more serious, it will also be covered by my remarks on le blanc-smith.

3) the ipcc is an inherently political process based upon the science. it is not the primary research. it is not the modeling. and even on its own terms, even if on political terms the process is far from perfect, that is not in any way automatically fraudulent.

4) le blanc-smith's comment is indeed clear. but it is not precise, and as it stands it is pointless to debate. the charge is so overwhelmingly broad that there is no way to respond.

the question is, what are the specific examples of fraudulent acts to which le blanc-smith alludes? and what is the evidence that these acts were fraudulent?

yes, yes, i know it's pedantic of me to ask for evidence of serious charges. forgive me: i'm just built that way.

RobP,
If others in this forum had read Gleick's book, Chaos, maybe we could start looking for answers instead of arguing what scientist do and do not know. I understand that scientist look for answers and usually find more question. The science will never be settled untill something physically happens to settle it. Whatever decissions are made on climate change they will be made with incomplete infomation. That does imply lack of respect for science, it recognises that all science is a work in progress. I didn't dare mention fractuals, that really would confuse fungochumley.

...Or even FRACTALS daviy.

I will let you have that one fungochumley,

Billie quotes Penny Wong telling us that the current heat waves are definetly a sign of AGW.We have always experienced weather like this is the past.I remember heatwaves in the 60's in sydney that would last for a week at temps over 40 deg C.Currently in the northern hemisphere they are experiencing record cold temps.

Whenever statistics are done you knock out the highest and lowest scores to remove distortions.The current weather in Adelaide and Melbourne is caused by high pressure systems pushing desert air over the coast.Central Australia this time of year is well above 40 deg C
consistantly.So is central Australia getting hotter or are these just unusual configurations of high pressure systems?

Penny Wong is proving to be very irresponsible in making such unsubtanciated statements.

Arjay
It is indeed a pity that there isn’t a better word for differentiating levels of ‘sceptic’, even dictionaries offer several alternative meanings.

It one thing to say :
• I have my doubts aspects of AGW
• To be fully convinced that AGW as presented needs more proof
• The proof doesn’t fully support AGW theories
• And AGW doesn’t exist. All evidence that says it does is hog wash.
All four claim sceptic status and are therefore claim they are reasonable.
The 4th version to me isn’t sceptical it is simply flat denial.
One can be questioning or even hold doubt but to be sceptical one MUST have an open mind.

Those of the 4th persuasion are split between GW doesn’t exist and those who chant it is due to natural causes. Both these fail to offer a scientific convincing/provable coherent alternative. Their best efforts are fragmented and a bit like [PE] potentially important for understanding the mechanisms but doesn’t change the basic premise of evolution.
Journalists live/act in a world sensationalism…the problem is science is most often a grindingly slow accumulation of highly qualified advances (rarely journalist friendly). Realclimate com has a good discussion of this.

Even after 150 odd years aspects of evolution are still unclear i.e. there are currently those who maintain change is gradual (traditionalists) and those who maintain change is in steps (punctuated equilibrium [PE]).That is the nature of science nothing is cut and dried for long.
The 4th optionalists are analogous to the evolution denialists (intelligent design) in that :
• They both need to offer a scientifically plausible alternative.
• They both usually have ulterior motives for their denial.
Modelling chaotic situations is inherently inaccurate but in climate they are still regarded as scientifically useful as tools not necessarily as absolutes. Hence previously stated prima facie starting points. Again AGW is more than just models denialists tend to focus on that and miss the herd of elephants in the room