Shadow Minister: "The whole purpose behind the peer review system was to precisely to have the data reviewed by someone that was not emotionally invested in the outcome"

No. The whole point of the peer review system is to increase the signal to noise ratio by eliminating papers with obvious internal flaws. So it tries to ensure the content is novel, the methodology used is sound and the conclusions could reasonably follow from the information presented. That is all it tries to do. It doesn't try to guarantee the conclusions are a true representation of our world. Thus a peer reviewer is not saying he agrees with the conclusions if he allows a paper to be published. If he isn't a good peer reviewer he might be more likely to let a bad paper through if he agrees with the conclusions, just as a bad judge might be more lenient on a defendant if they share the same skin colour. But one would hope this is rare. Because of this it isn't hard to get a paper published in a some peer reviewed journal, although it might not the most prestigious one. It is not like there isn't a whole pile of these journals out there, all competing for papers.

The job of ultimately determining whether the conclusions are correct is left to another mechanism in science. Other scientists read the paper, and get small numbers of brownie points for publishing a paper re-enforcing the conclusions and a huge numbers brownie points for successfully tearing it to bits. So when the scientific wisdom is that the earth is heading into an ice age (as it was in the 1960's), and James Hansen comes along with a prediction that it is going to warm up, thus attacking the accepted wisdom he was at first a pariah (who nonetheless got his papers published), and then when his predictions ended up being correct for 20 years he was hailed as a climate science giant. His theory is now the accepted peer reviewed wisdom. Currently almost none of his peers are attacking it.

This topic was intended to highlight the idiocy of leaving our fate in the hands of the wilfully ignorant and particularly politicians or those whose motivation is based on political party dogma.

To me this issue is more important than who sit where in a debatably, dubious representative government.

As Abbott said 'he's a politician (not a scientist)" and there in lies the problem. *In this specific case*, I would suggest that the politicians should be arguing how to limit AWG, based on specialists advice. Not gamesmanship about how to get elected, by appealing to their parties 'rumps'(apt!) and second guessing the scientists.

Abbott's choices are more about status quo economics, than what is needed.
Scientifically one either has a limit to AGW or business as usual. The book that he is relying on, is *at best, potentially only a minor part of the solution*
In that area even The Labor govt. plan is in some degree, self defeating.

spindoc, how would you react as a professional code cutter, if a politician who had no coding experience and hadn't had it explained, told you that your code was wrong because he didn't make sense to him?

This is in essence what's happening here. I would challenge some of the naysayer supporters of MM to debate their *science* with those who know.

Q&A posted a credible paper discrediting Plimer's book .

As to what to believe, *I* believe the science, which is indisputable *(not necessarily the prognostications and certainly not without contextual qualification)*.

Who to believe?
There is no absolute omnipotent class of authority on this topic given it run across so many specialisations, disciplines. Notwithstanding I make the decision based on a sliding scale including:
relevance of specialisation,
experience,
capacity, scientific credibility
Is the argument supported by citations and base science
currency of expertise e.g. (15/12/ 09 only) http://www.eurekalert.org/index.php there were 20 new relevant research releases, that affect AWG science all based on the indisputable generic science on, http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/lectures.html. Ask your self how current would a 10 year ago retiree be?

examinator, you ask “spindoc, how would you react as a professional code cutter, if a politician who had no coding experience and hadn't had it explained, told you that your code was wrong because he didn't make sense to him?”

If you take out the word Politician and replace it with CRU Scientist, you are absolutely spot on, that is what did happen at CRU. Other than that I don’t understand the question, what is the context?

The only question to be asked is “why are politics involved at all?”

IMHO, they are only involved for three reasons:

1. Because the UN has invoked their “precautionary principle”, which is an artificial, non scientific “threshold” at which point they deem action is required by them.(just like Acid Rain, CFC’s, DDT and AIDS, all of which they got horribly wrong)

2. Because the science is so inconclusive, that the Pollies have been forced into the scientific domain, like the rest of the public, by the UN.

and 3. Because if a wealth distribution Tax is to be imposed as payment for past emissions sins by developed nations, it will have to be administered by politics and not scientists.

The real answer to your question is that not a single unqualified person should be involved, leave it to science.

rstuart, your link http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html gives ' The page cannot be found 404 Error '. Is that your little joke?

Also, you refer to 'the webpage' that I 'pointed to is somebodies (sic) attempt at sarcasm. As I provided three seperate links, does that mean that you agree with the other two?

You went on '31,486 American scientists have signed this petition, including 9,029 with PhDs
this is definitely a joke. It should be self evident from that statement alone.' How so? Explain. There are many, many more sources with similar figures. Have a look for yourself, they are easy to find.

Realise this, if no-one opposes these proposed draconian (and unneccesary) measures, we will never be able to reverse them. Or maybe you won't mind some carbon cops coming into your house for a compulsory inspection then sending you the bill. Don't be one of the sheeple. Look for the truth.

Austin Powerless: "rstuart, your link http://www.petitionproject.org/index.html gives ' The page cannot be found 404 Error '. "

Sorry, they changed the URL. It should have been: http://www.petitionproject.org/

Austin Powerless: "Realise this, if no-one opposes these proposed draconian (and unneccesary) measures, we will never be able to reverse them."

Our pollies were happy enough to reverse other legislation, such as Work Choices. If this all turns out to be wrong there will be a fair bit of pressure to reverse it as well.

Well what about these brilliant scientists then? Wow these were the people that said we would all be starving to death because the Earth could not grow enough food by the turn of the century. Then the ice age, then nuclear war, then the ozone hole then Y2k bug.
Now what is it again and why has there been this wavering? AGW then global warming now climate change.
Rudd says the hottest ten years but others say no and now cheating in New Zealand and Canada on temperatures. Now why do I not trust some wonk in a white coat with a clipboard telling me pay up or die.
What about we halve the funds going to the climate change scientists so at least half of them are doing a real days work?
This silly Copenhagen conference has used as much carbon as most African countries, give me a break!