stewgreen, the UK is historically a Christian country, and our Legal system reflects that. Issues over abortion or gay marriage get complicated (rightly or wrongly) by Christian interventions for example.

Moslem countries come in for criticism for their reversion to Sharia Law when it suits them.

The Greens believe that their needs and desires over rule alll other religions, demand the Laws are amended accordingly, and have targetted the USA and UK to flex their muscles, possibly due to the accommodating rights of appeal etc. Their 'Trial Run' in the USA with the RICO 20 debacle now looks like it could end up with a genuine trial or two. Who would have thought that US Taxpayers could have been conned into funding such a bunch of deluded fools?

Wasn't there an incident of a senior UK Judge hosting a conference about changing laws throughout the Commonwealth last year? What happened, and are all the participants still quite so keen, or do some of the RICO corruption legal issues need to develop further, in a non-Commonwealth Country first, before gullible politicians have a rethink?

Some of the biggest egos in Climate Science must be horrified that Ed Maibach could be so incompetent, as to get caught holding so many smoking guns.

Does anyone know how the Royal Society came to decide that they agreed with the 97% Consensus?

Was it an honest climate scientific opinion poll?

This is a belief that EM has expressed many times. If there is a theory that is known to be incomplete or partially erroneous, you have to accept it notwithstanding, unless you can come up with an alternate theory that explains things better.

It seems a strange view to be held by someone who repeatedly bangs on about science and its principles.

I have never seen EM concede that saying "we simply don't know/we simply cannot say" is the correct statement for situations outside the zone where the existing theory has been validated.

SImilar views have been expressed here by other CAGW believers - eg even if models don't work, we should use them because we don't have anything better.

M Courtney & Martin A Thank you, you both confirm my unscientific gut instinct.

In my professional dealings with other professionals, I always end up trusting those who admit what they don't know. It doesn't mean that I know any better, but it also helps me to trust what they say they do know.

I have learned that trusting anything produced by climate scientists is a mistake. Why are so politicians so slow to learn?

Martin A May 26, 2016 at 11:11 PM
Entropic Man doesn't concede the Sir Patrick Moore Applies so MRDA for most of his comments.

No.

Donald Trump would allow Keystone XL pipeline and end Paris climate deal

People find it easy to laugh at America. Politically, there is a surface sheen of "respectability", but underneath it is politics in its rawest form. Always has been.

And CAGW is just pure politics, science has nothing to do with it. Of course it is easy to dismiss, as a Guardinista will surely do, that most of his supporters are ignorant etc etc (creationists, evangelical, redknecks). They just haven't bought into the establishment view of the world.

This comment isn't about supporting Trump or not. I do not buy into the cartoon caricature. My personal opinion is that Trump is no different than any of them. The others just have layers of people and processes to massage the message, make them presentable, With Trump you just see what a presidential candidate is really like. They are all like him, you just do not get to see it. Have you seen how much money is collected (needed) in campaign contributions?

There is a natural equilibrium to American politics. Trump may get to the top without having used the political establishment. He so far has written very few IOUs. That loosens the control over him. If he gets in, I do not think the political establishment will just lie down, they will try to restore the equilibrium. Or maybe the Houses turn left to compensate.

In those circumstances, it would interesting to see the compromises made. Long way off yet. Clinton is no better than Trump. Anyone wanting to be Presidential candidate should be immediately excluded from the job.

Of course not to follow the current "Trump is a joke..." meme will turn you into a supporter, therefore I am to be ignored etc... etc...

I was a student at the time of Reagan, and bought into the whole "Reagan is a joke" meme (yes I still laugh at Spitting Image..."Larry Speakes", as his spokeman). Everyone was laughing at him. Yet ignoring the politics, it came to pass that he ran one of the most efficient Whitehouse administrations. He only worked a few hours a day. Ge may have been many things, but from a Presidential workflow point of view, he was one of the best.

I have learned that trusting anything produced by climate scientists is a mistake. Why are so politicians so slow to learn?
May 27, 2016 at 12:48 AM golf charlie

Donald Trump has sussed them out.

I was a student at the time of Reagan, and bought into the whole "Reagan is a joke" meme (yes I still laugh at Spitting Image..."Larry Speakes", as his spokeman). Everyone was laughing at him. Yet ignoring the politics, it came to pass that he ran one of the most efficient Whitehouse administrations. He only worked a few hours a day. Ge may have been many things, but from a Presidential workflow point of view, he was one of the best.
May 27, 2016 at 8:37 AM Media Hoar

I knew a director of Hewlett Packard Labs who told me that he had concluded that Reagan was one of the most intelligent people he had ever dealt with.

Martin A

This is a belief that EM has expressed many times. If there is a theory that is known to be incomplete or partially erroneous, you have to accept it notwithstanding, unless you can come up with an alternate theory that explains things better.

Detection and attribution is not my idea.

It was first proposed by Gilbert Harman in 1965 under the name of abductive reasoning.

Martin A & Media Hoar 8:37am

Reading through the Guardian article, and then the comments, it is clear that Trump is annoying a lot of people. If he is annoying similar people in the USA, then they were unlikely to have voted Republican anyway.

Trump is probably encouraged, as theses attacks seem to attract more publicity, and increased popularity.

EM, you seem to have accepted that climate science's failings require philosophical solutions.

If climate science collapsed, and no one actually heard it, would anyone care?

Golf Charlie

The philosophy of science develops as science changes.

Poppers ideas of null hypotheses and falsification work best when doing controlled experiments in laboratory physics, but less well in the field or if the system studied is stochastic.

The more modern ideas of Kuhn and Harman work better when studying processes on a planetary scale, for which sampling and statistical methods are necessary evils.

EM, very interesting, but on a less philosophical note, how was the science of global warming settled without inviting anybody else to the discussion?

How would Popper and Kuhn have described it?

Golf Charlie

What "settled science"?

Popper's view was that there was no such thing. He thought one should first choose the hypothesis which best explained observation and then set out to falsify it.

Kuhn regarded a paradigm as a consensus on the main structure, while everyone argued about the detail.

Harman thought similarly, that one used the hypothesis which best explained observations until a better one emerged.

I find it interesting that if you Google "settled science" it appears mostly as a sceptic straw man. Do you folk understand so little about how science is done?

stewgreen

Wilberforce was effective, you are not.

EM, so Ed Miliband was completely wrong to bring in the Climate Change Act because the "Science was Settled", as he said at a televised news conference?

You did tell him at the time that he was making it all up didn't you?

Golf Charlie

Ed Millibands a politician. When an elected politician talks about science I never expect much. They have to fake sincerity and certainty to maintain their political credibility. You can only admit to any uncertainty once you enter the House of Lords.

Stewgreen

When the best you can do in Parliament is Lord Donahue's silly questions about statistics, any pretensions of sceptic political credibility go out the window.

Stewgreen

Oh dear. Straw men marching.

EM, your name is inextricably linked with posting strawmen.