Excellent definition, and a personal ideal too, I do my best.
My cited examples are empirical, inarguable, data to me, so logic dictates as I have stated above.
Works for me!

That is a good definition CJ. I suspect though that many climate change 'sceptics' will adopt it as their own.

There are many things I doubt and many things I don't understand.

However, as far as my work goes - I am a sceptic in the narrow scientific sense.

<Simply protesting against the manner in which his ideas were trashed, does not indicate that I "side with him". Merely that I am interested to hear evidence from both sides, free of personal slagging.>

That isn't my understanding of scepticism. I see scepticism as a process of evaluating all evidence before you. The fact that the views of people like Morner are regularly touted as "evidence" against AGW, is more suggestive of ignorance to me than of scepticism.

How many times does a piece of junk science need to be refuted? And how can someone seriously regard himself as sceptical by bringing it up again? How about the self described sceptics being a little more sceptical in future?

Did you know that all those coral atolls that were being inundated by supposedly rising seas,were actually sinking due to tectonic plate activity? Sea levels have not risen any more than 4cm in the last 40 yrs.How does that submerse an island?

Fester, I said - and I repeat - "Simply protesting against the manner in which his ideas were trashed, does not indicate that I "side with him". Merely that I am interested to hear evidence from both sides, free of personal slagging."

Your retort is way off the mark.

>>That isn't my understanding of scepticism. I see scepticism as a process of evaluating all evidence before you. The fact that the views of people like Morner are regularly touted as "evidence" against AGW, is more suggestive of ignorance to me than of scepticism.<<

I did not claim my position to be that of a sceptic - a word that seems to be achieving the same opprobrium as denialist - so there was little value in attaching it to my explanation.

But to a hammer, I guess everything looks like a nail. And if it makes you feel better to label those who prefer to keep an open mind a "denialist", then far be it from me to spoil the party.

I just think that people who insist that everything fits neatly into their chosen little box are missing out on a whole world of interesting nooks, crannies, byways and detours in any discussion.

Interesting discussion. I've trying to work out where I fit in this debate.

- I'm very convinced that climate change is happening - the large scale changes to the worlds ice is hard to refute or ignore.
- I'm less certain of the role mankinds activities have played in that change. I don't have the technical background to make informed judgements for myself and I'm aware of the impact different groups agenda's have on public debate (from both sides). The weight of scientific opinion appears to be towards mankinds activities playing a significant role in that and at this point that seems the most credible explaination.
- I'm fairly convinced that some groups are using "climate change" to push for pet agenda's regardless od the real impact on climate change. Include anybody who uses a privatre jet to travel to the other side of the world to give a speech on the perils of climate change in my list of those who have a different agenda.
- I'm completely lacking in belief that government's wacking extra tax's on things will help reduce the rate of damage to the environment. I suspect that they will increase the size of government and cause people to take shortcuts in other areas to make up for the extra taxes.

Believer, sceptic, denialist, they all seem to fit.

R0bert