Thanks qanda,

Graeme,

A couple of points:

On the subject of "belief", this article by Met Office senior science, Vicky Pope, sums it up.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/23/climate-change-believe-in-it

"...The first point to make is that it's not something you should believe or not believe in - this is a matter of science, and therefore of evidence - and there's lots of it out there..."

Another point:

Can you explain why "skeptic" sites, if they're so interested in "the science" spend half their time abusing climate scientists, who have undertaken years of training and devoted much of their working lives to studying various aspects of climate?

Every second day on the likes of Watts and Nova, there appears a post abusing and ridiculing scientists....Watts appears to delight in attempting to provoke Michael Mann, for instance. Perusing Nova's site, one is struck by the almost constant abuse and ridicule of anything that smacks of a legit climate scientist who is not a "skeptic".

Yes, I realise that some scientists like Mann and Hansen have decided to give as good as they get.....but really, where else in science are scientists delivered the treatment (including threats and abuse) that climate scientists receive?

The difference as I see it is that the findings of climate scientists have the capacity to influence the status quo...much easier to cast aspersions on their characters, motives and their expertise, than to actually deal with their findings.

Btw, if you check out Marcott on Realclimate, don't forget to read the comment's section - Jeremy Shakun commented as well.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2013/03/response-by-marcott-et-al/comment-page-3/#comment-327407

And then there's this:

http://hot-topic.co.nz/monckton-in-nz-tells-lies-on-radio-threatens-academics-and-journalists/?fb_source=pubv1

He's just finished doing all the same things in OZ.

This man is highly revered in "skeptic" circles.

I think he's an attention seeking joke....

How could anyone quote the met office, or any of their people?

They have not got a forecast even anywhere near right in years, not since they started using their warmist model.

Can't get the next 100 minutes right, but some idiots believe they can get the next 100 years. God help us.

Poirot, it's an interesting question you raise and maybe not so easy to answer. especially if you personally haven't spent much time immersed in skeptic sites. The first thing I'd tackle is that notion that skeptics are somehow motivated by a desire to retain the status quo or are ultimately selfish or purely from the right of politics. I think there is an element of truth to the ideological perspective, but as I noted above, that holds for the 'warmist' side as much as the 'skeptic' side. As an example, a greenie mate and I frequently argue about this stuff. He has a certain outlook I have often run into with greenies - I call it the 'catastrophist' worldview. Everything is always going to hell in a handbasket and it's always because of human beings and their need for money. Yes, there is some truth to that, but it is rarely as bad as they make out. What is always missed is the human capacity to adapt and overcome.

However, many skeptics are simply motivated by a suspicion that all is not what it seems. For me, it was when I started to see my kids come home from school full of nonsense about what was happening to climate. As I read more - in the general media - I read more and more statements attributed to scientists and organisations like the IPCC. And I started to note inconsistencies. So I dug further and found more of the same. So I don't think it's a simple as it's painted, Skeptics are not necessarily motivated by evil desire.

(contd)

(contd)

Abuse of scientists... Welll... yes, I tend to agree. I often cringe at some of the outbursts by the resident long time denizens of some blogs. But to be perfectly frank, I have yet to find a blog or forum hosted by one of the luminaries in the pro AGW camp that isn't far more abusive. Honestly, while the skeptic sites may have some anti-science stuff going on, the pro sites are astoundingly vicious in their attacks. I was recently arguing the toss about SLR over at Deltoid and some of the usual suspects there were using four letter words like it was their mother tongue. The worst behaviours as I see it are at those sites - they are just so closed minded, arrogant, vicious and dismissive that I wonder if that is how scientists all behave.

And that sort of thing, together with things like Climategate, point to a community with a very entrenched perspective. A rigidly entrenched perspective. I've seen that elsewhere too, just check out how Miles Mathis' stuff is received at some of the physics blogs and forums. Yet I find his ideas refreshing for their breadth and sheer insightfulness. He may very well be wrong, but man does he have a mind.

As for Mann and Hansen, those guys are activists. And I suspect happy to use their not inconsiderable abilities to further their causes. That's up to them, but that's not science in action.

Just a further point re the attitudes of the scientific community. Read Irene Pepperbergs book about her research with animal cognition, in particular Alex the parrot. She ran into some very strong opposition from entrenched attitudes and closed minds in trying to further that research and show something about animal minds that was not part of the accepted status quo.

So I don't think science as an institution is especially flexible or accommodating of ideas that buck the status quo... And it's not necessarily always right at all points in time either. Regardless of how many people might think something well proven.