Big Yin, I agree with your comment of 10:22 PM above. Also, I know from previous posts that you have delved into the theory in some depth. Are you familiar with the work of David Evans who claims to have identified flaws in the models?

TheBigYinJames

I also know the difference between seeing what is actually there and seeing what you want to believe.

Well you would be a unique human being if that was the case.

What an odd response!

For many people this skill is a professional necessity; scientists, engineers, police officers, civil servants, ministers of state, judges.

It also expected of jurors, who are regarded as normal members of the public.

I am hardly unique.

EM,

No, it's only a requirement that they try their best. It's nigh on impossible to actually do it, especially if the incentives and disincentives are working in a highly politicised environment. For the junior scientist looking to get his citations up, the temptation to throw in an attribution to climate change must be immense. Thus the ever growing list of things caused by climate change

The history of science is littered with examples of confirmation bias, it's the primary reason science requires reproducibility, and to hear that you imagine science is now immune to that is surprising to me. One of the reasons climate science is flawed is because of the small number of interconnected scientists all citing each other and giving each other gongs. This situation cannot provide the level of critical scrutiny that you have in other mature branches of science, where you have rival teams actively picking holes in the other's papers.

What isn't surprising is you imagine you are immune form it, and this may go some way to explain some of the certainty that you and people like you feel about this matter.

EM,

I am also appreciative and cognizant or the portions of my posts you are not disagreeing with.

EM - Having said what I said above, I'd go on to add that many commenters here, me included, admire the dedication and persistence with which you work to understand things to do with climate for yourself, rather than simply accepting it as presented by (for example) the Met Office.

And the dedication and persistence with which you attempt to address what, to you, are evidently mistaken views, despite the responses sometimes being less that completely polite.

Ratty, you may not have noticed but the profit motive is pretty good at de-industrializing the West too. All companies need is a new cheap source of labour and a free sink for all the pollution they can create and they're off. They probably even tell themselves they are doing people a great favour by paying them slave wages because it is better than the alternatives - something early industrialists probably told themselves too while they exploited the poor to benefit themselves.

Big Yin,

The actual science is on a knife edge. There is compelling evidence for both cases.

Martin A
I can remember in the days of comments on the BBC Environment pages how much time EM took in protecting Richard Black's back. Seems to concentrate his efforts in one place.

And Raff's post demonstrates the real differences between him and Entropic.

Raff is so threatened by the idea of an alternative opinion with scientific weight that his personal mission is to prove we're either mad, bad or stupid. It is impossible for him to coexist happily with a legitimate controversy.

BTW we're the 'realist' side, raff, just before you get carried away with purloining the term for the output of the alarmist industry.

Enough blather, define the other "case" in a way that more than just you could agree with (say a subset of those here, like Ratty, Sandy, the Cat, Golf Caddy, Diogenes, Martin and you) and then outline what "compelling evidence" is there for this case?

The BigYinJames

EM,

I am also appreciative and cognizant or the portions of my posts you are not disagreeing with.

I am quite busy at present, so must confine myself to brief comments. I don't have time to pursue too many multiple threads. Could we stick to one disagreement at a time, please.☺

Both sides think of themselves as "the realists" and the other side as "the believers". That is why we should be debating evidence and hypotheses, not psychology.Ultimately scientific arguments are won by the side with the best evidence, not the best lobbyists.

The observed climate data is sort-of consistent with the AGW hypothesis, but it is also sort-of consistent with the natural hypothesis. This is because we have lousy data, which is not lengthy or broad enough to provide a conclusive answer. Torturing the data to find trends which are within the error bars of the individual measurements can be indicative only, never conclusive. Reducing your station set over time, 'accidentally' keeping the warming ones, and discarding the others is one way of keeping the show on the road. Inventing new statistical methods with questionable amounts of efficacy in order to produce scary graphs is another.

We simply don't have conclusive evidence, either to prove AGW or to disprove that it's natural, or more likely a mixture of the two. One of the spectrum of scenarios in between. We don't have the data, and what we do have is hoarded, adjusted and selected by the people pushing one thesis.

This is why the 'climate wars' won't end until the quality of the data and statistical methods improves, until data is collected and held by truly independent sources, until real statisticians do the stats work, and real auditors do the checking.

Nobody here is claiming there is NO climate change, we are only doubting that science has measured it yet. or even understood it. Once we get there, then maybe we can start to think about ways of fixing it, if required.

In some ways, the arrogance of climate science is holding back proper research. We're in the dark ages of science where an orthodoxy is ruthlessly policing the free critical thinking required to progress.

Okay, if you wont provide any "compelling evidence" let's take just the first step. Define the "natural hypothesis".

Raff, are you reading my posts?

THERE IS NO COMPELLING EVIDENCE.

I am reading, but it is hard to know what you think. First you say "The actual science is on a knife edge. There is compelling evidence for both cases." and now that there is no compelling evidence and you wont identify your "natural hypothesis". Once again, two different Yins.

In some ways, the arrogance of climate science is holding back proper research. We're in the dark ages of science where an orthodoxy is ruthlessly policing the free critical thinking required to progress.

Jan 29, 2016 at 9:32 AM | Unregistered CommenterTheBigYinJames

It's worse than that. If the damage was just restricted to climatology and meteorology then it could be largely ignored by the rest of us. But not only are they diverting scarce funds from genuine science, they are poisoning the well in terms of how science is done, and the role of science in today's world.

Raff, the evidence supports any number of hypothesis, some may find it compelling for their preferred interpretation. Compelling is a subjective word. I am not compelled by the interpretation that we are headed for doomsday. I am compelled that we're contributing to warming. It's all subjective.

There is nothing else we can get out of the data right now, there data is the data - dirty, incomplete, meddled with, hoarded, lost, selective and spread around in private computers in lost data formats. There is nothing we can do about the data except wait for another 10 or 20 years.

Which is why 99% of climate discussions is not about the data, it's about who is the most trustworthy to 'believe' in.

You feel compelled by the orthodox thesis, that's fine. But it's not a scientific fact, it's just a majority guess by a bunch of babyboomer 2nd raters in a niche field of an immature science, led by a tiny clique of siege mentality nuts. Which is why you lot are so damn touchy when we point this out to you, and are hell bent on selling it as scientific fact.

Well said.

So there is compelling evidence that "we're contributing to warming". That is one "case", one side of your knife edge. Where is the compelling evidence for the other side, the other "case". You said "The actual science is on a knife edge. There is compelling evidence for both cases." It may be subjective, but you said it exists, so where is it and what is this other case? It is an easy question if you believe what you said. There's no need to go off into put-downs (2nd raters etc) and so forth. State your 1st rate case and the evidence. There's lots of evidence that converges on the warmist case, so what body of evidence converges on your other case?

Raff, you are obviously stupid. Only the demented would continue to embarrass themselves in the way you are.

I on the other hand have three STEM science degrees including two postgraduate degrees from Russell group universities, worked in a research lab for 7 years, and have been running two successful companies since then working in diverse mathematical fields including pharma and academia, as well as telecoms, legal, MoD and media.

You seem to be impressed by credentials. Pray, which establishment did you take your liberal arts degree at again?

And yes, I do remember when you didn't understand the CO2 concentration in the upper atmosphere, even when we explained it you to.

Yin, I make it very clear that what I write should be interpreted in the light of my having no relevant experience. I don't need to wave three degrees in people's faces when I'm called out on something I get wrong - I just admit I was wrong. If you claim that the science is "on a knife edge" and that there is "compelling evidence for both cases", waving your qualifications around when you cannot back up your claim is as useful as waving your wonka. It just makes you look like a dickhead.

There is nothing else we can get out of the data right now, there data is the data - dirty, incomplete, meddled with, hoarded, lost, selective and spread around in private computers in lost data formats. There is nothing we can do about the data except wait for another 10 or 20 years.

Radiation measurements a couple of orders more accurate than provided by current satellites could be quite convincing one way or the other.

So hard to believe that it took just eleven years from Sputnik's 1957 wake up call beeps to Apollo 8 orbiting the moon xmas 1968 sending back live colour TV.

Oh NASA, what became of you? Instead of giving us the rantings of the Death Train Mesiah, why have you not given us the precision radiation measurements that would settle all the nonsense?

Raff,

Yin, I make it very clear that what I write should be interpreted in the light of my having no relevant experience. I don't need to wave three degrees in people's faces when I'm called out on something I get wrong - I just admit I was wrong. If you claim that the science is "on a knife edge" and that there is "compelling evidence for both cases", waving your qualifications around when you cannot back up your claim is as useful as waving your wonka. It just makes you look like a dickhead.

Well that's probably true, but what I was demonstrating that in a scientific controversy, it helps if you have some approximation to a scientific background to participate. Just because you have an equal access to the 'send' button, Raff, doesn't give you equal authority to lay down the scientific law. You're not even a combatant. Just because you've chosen a side, doesn't make you part of that army.

What you're doing here is purporting to be talking with the authority of science behind you, and that's fraudulent, because you have no training, education or experience of science. What's worse is you deign to talk down to me and others here whose scientific qualifications and experience leave you in the dirt. Professional research scientists know a lot more about it than I do, but the gap in knowledge between them and me is tiny compared with the gulf in knowledge between me and you, Raff. Your arrogant chutzpah can only come from stupidity.

You're a bystander. A heckler. A rent-a-mouth, if you will. You don't speak for science, you don't understand science, you simply chose a side at some point, and now you think you're contributing to the fight. And what's more pathetic, with little or no understanding of the science, you saw a David and Goliath fight between unfunded amateurs and a massive government backed machine - instead of doing the cool thing, and rooting for the underdog, you chose the trampling machine.

I think that says a lot about your character.

Global warming driven by anthropogenic CO2 emissions since 1950 is alleged. There has been some warming. There has been a rise in CO2.

There has been warming for 200 years. The warming in the first half of the twentieth century matches the warming in the second half. The alleged AGW is within natural variability. There is no evidence to say that the warming has been natural or caused by man. There is currently no means with which to decide.

These are the facts.