Originally Posted by B Butler

I would kind of like some sort of consistency in the discussion. A while ago there was an assertion that all the AGW people have is models that show a hockey stick no matter what data you feed the models. This would be an interesting claim if it could be backed up. No references, though. I don't doubt the sincerity or the intensity of the belief, but claims like this made in a vacuum reflect values lock more than anything vaguely scientific.

With a scientific question, referencing reviewed scientific papers seems valid methodology. I know you don't like the results. The science conflicts with your political world view, therefore the science must be wrong. Thus, I seem to be hearing that science is 'argument from authority' and ought to be ignored, or that science is a 'show of hands' and ought to be ignored. This seems to only be true when the science conflicts with your politics. Otherwise, science is science, a useful tool for learning about the universe and solving problems.

Now, I do agree, keeping up with the field is a good idea. When the Himalayan glaciers thing recently surfaced yet again, I knew the issue. On the other hand spending a few minutes with Goggle can also be useful. When you disparaged the arctic ice proxies, I could only vaguely guess what proxies might have been used, but it didn't take long to find the Nature article. No, the main stream press and the various propaganda groups pushing one side of the issue or the other aren't going to include much data or details on methodology in their intended for public release articles. Still, before disparaging the data and methodology of professionals in their field, one might make some token effort to at least look at said data and methodology.

Yes, I'm too much into values lock. As such, I've looked hard at my own perspective. I'm science first, politics second, religion third. While I have great emotional attachment to Jefferson's self evident truths, there is a need for reality checks. In an era when money buys advertising which brings votes, is the Will of the People checked by the Rights of the Individual being implemented reasonably well? (Short answer... No.) Belief in an ideology, from my perspective, should not blind one to possible flaws in the ideology. Given my values, an ideology that requires one to disparage and disregard science is flawed. If I see an ideology that requires its followers to live in an alternate reality, I am not inclined to take the ideology seriously. Such an ideology would be more a danger than a boon.

So, no, muttering "argument from authority" and "show of hands" does not invalidate the scientific method. To me, these are not magic worlds that alter my bedrock. They are merely symptoms of values lock. I am apt to be as stubborn about this as another might be to his interpretation of the Bible.

As Newton said, "This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses."

OK, you have to understand that Justin's background is mechanical engineering. ME is established to the point of being dogma. I can see how the more loosey-goosey climate science memes might seem moore akin to philosophy than hard science. OK. I get that. Nonetheless, the science needs to proceed. We have no second earth to use as a control, so we have to make judgements based on best available data, test them to the fullest extent possible, then implement them. The alternative is the Hamlet solution ... and let's not forget what happened to him.

Originally Posted by B Butler

Too true. Would you object to my calling out people who make such unsubstantiated claims, asking for studies that show such to be true? Or would this be in your opinion "show of hands" or "argument from authority?"

Asking for proof is not the same thing as asking "how many people think that this is true?" You do recognize the difference?

Oh, come on. Do you really want to claim there is no correlation between small government political world views (such as Libertarian and Republican) and rejection of the main line AGW science? All the usual names on this thread are pretty much hanging out with their usual mates. Would you care to run a statistical analysis?

See, Bob? You can snark with the best of them .

At the same time, libertarian and republican are not only not synonymous -- they're not even related. Similarly, the field of non-Faithful on the AGW question very clearly seems to cover a wide swath of ground, some parts of which are fundamentally and significantly unlike each other. In short, don't argue against a scientific criticism the same way you argue against a biblical-fundamentalist one -- their apparent accord is a very thin illusion.

For me, the precise details of where the ice was over the last several centuries isn't that critical. People have been looking for Northwest Passages and not finding them for quite a while...

Except there's that whole Greenland agricultural development thing, and Vinland up in Nova Scotia. The wiggly line you gave us sort of implies that none of those events occurred when the ice coverage was even nearly as low as it has been in the last ten years. Makes one wonder a little bit about those missing error-bars, is what I'm trying to say.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

OK, you have to understand that Justin's background is mechanical engineering. ME is established to the point of being dogma.

Hmm. Thermal/Fluid Dynamics not only isn't 'established to the point of dogma' (try telling that to a guy working with surface boiling or pretty much any natural convective flow modelling) -- it's actually much of the bulk of the science behind climate studies, at least at it's nuts-and-bolts level. If anything, my background is in that very modelling side of the broad field falling under the ME heading. So I've also got at least a semi-decent background in the art of making and using computer models for complex systems.

Granted, there's a heck of a lot of climate that falls outside what I've done. But there's always going to be new stuff to learn -- that's the fun of life.

Originally Posted by Vandal-72

Not actually how Ockham's razor works. In order for a decision to require Ockham's razor both options must be equally good at explaining the facts. Your examples did not meet that requirement. Both Newtonian mechanics and the plum pudding model were dropped because they failed to explain certain facts. Ockham's razor is completely irrelevant.

True enough, and I realized it was a bad analogy but I kept typing like an idiot. But, it is probably worth noting, that even after Einstein showed the math implying a more complex universe than Newton had explained, there remained serious skeptics in the scientific community until those predictions could be displayed in a predictable and repeatable fashion. I believe it was really "settled" only when the sun's gravitational effect on light could be predicted and demonstrated. No such similar test will exist for climate science, so skeptics will remain regardless of how much math is thrown at the topic.

I also don't think Occam's Razor applies well to social and political events. No theory or narrative can possibly hope to answer all of the details about the complex interactions of millions of people, so we're left choosing between concise narratives that fail to predict/explain a lot of consequences, or a dense, rambling narrative that still fails to predict/explain a lot of consequences.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

True enough, and I realized it was a bad analogy but I kept typing like an idiot. But, it is probably worth noting, that even after Einstein showed the math implying a more complex universe than Newton had explained, there remained serious skeptics in the scientific community until those predictions could be displayed in a predictable and repeatable fashion. I believe it was really "settled" only when the sun's gravitational effect on light could be predicted and demonstrated. No such similar test will exist for climate science, so skeptics will remain regardless of how much math is thrown at the topic.

I also don't think Occam's Razor applies well to social and political events. No theory or narrative can possibly hope to answer all of the details about the complex interactions of millions of people, so we're left choosing between concise narratives that fail to predict/explain a lot of consequences, or a dense, rambling narrative that still fails to predict/explain a lot of consequences.

Like the Law of Unintended Consequences, Occam's Razor tends to apply broadly. Neither is an absolute nor is it directive. Both are intended to be used as analytical tools, not as answers to questions. If the most likely explanation is alwasy the best place to start, I will have no interest in creating a new branch of physics as long as the current ones are fully adequate. Likewise, the presense of a freshly baked cake in my kitchen is more likely the result of a little early baking that alien teleportation.

There is no need to over-think this.

Originally Posted by B Butler

I would kind of like some sort of consistency in the discussion. A while ago there was an assertion that all the AGW people have is models that show a hockey stick no matter what data you feed the models. This would be an interesting claim if it could be backed up. No references, though. I don't doubt the sincerity or the intensity of the belief, but claims like this made in a vacuum reflect values lock more than anything vaguely scientific.

Maybe. It could just be that many of the people involved in the discussion are either non-scientists or people in different scientific fields. The idea that science is more trustworthy than is special-interest spin reflects the credibility that science has developed.

With a scientific question, referencing reviewed scientific papers seems valid methodology. I know you don't like the results. The science conflicts with your political world view, therefore the science must be wrong. Thus, I seem to be hearing that science is 'argument from authority' and ought to be ignored, or that science is a 'show of hands' and ought to be ignored. This seems to only be true when the science conflicts with your politics. Otherwise, science is science, a useful tool for learning about the universe and solving problems.

Science at most argues from its own credibility. It has its ways of enforcing credibility -- peer review and double-blind tests. Other parts of academia and such a profession have at most fact-checking.

Now, I do agree, keeping up with the field is a good idea. When the Himalayan glaciers thing recently surfaced yet again, I knew the issue. On the other hand spending a few minutes with Goggle can also be useful. When you disparaged the arctic ice proxies, I could only vaguely guess what proxies might have been used, but it didn't take long to find the Nature article. No, the main stream press and the various propaganda groups pushing one side of the issue or the other aren't going to include much data or details on methodology in their intended for public release articles. Still, before disparaging the data and methodology of professionals in their field, one might make some token effort to at least look at said data and methodology.

For the layman, looking at the sources implies both an extraordinary level of intellectual effort -- and access to the scientific journals to which few people have access.

Yes, I'm too much into values lock. As such, I've looked hard at my own perspective. I'm science first, politics second, religion third. While I have great emotional attachment to Jefferson's self evident truths, there is a need for reality checks. In an era when money buys advertising which brings votes, is the Will of the People checked by the Rights of the Individual being implemented reasonably well? (Short answer... No.) Belief in an ideology, from my perspective, should not blind one to possible flaws in the ideology. Given my values, an ideology that requires one to disparage and disregard science is flawed. If I see an ideology that requires its followers to live in an alternate reality, I am not inclined to take the ideology seriously. Such an ideology would be more a danger than a boon.

Belief in an ideology implies almost as a rule the inability to see the Other Side as deluded, stupid, perverse, or simply wrong. People need to know what they believe, and why -- and very often what people believe about politics and economics, let alone the necessities of survival reflects what they observed as small children (like whether people are trustworthy or not, whether the world is secure or dangerous, whether they have value as people or are expendable).

So, no, muttering "argument from authority" and "show of hands" does not invalidate the scientific method. To me, these are not magic worlds that alter my bedrock. They are merely symptoms of values lock. I am apt to be as stubborn about this as another might be to his interpretation of the Bible.

As Newton said, "This rule we must follow, that the argument of induction may not be evaded by hypotheses."

Scientific practice may determine which authorities are valid and at what time. I might disagree with Noam Chomsky on politics, but I wouldn't dispute him on linguistics.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

There is no need to over-think this.

Hah, as if that were some sort of switch that could be turned off!

What caused the Civil War? Slavery! Technically correct and simple, but it is far from the best answer and it won't do you much good on the essay section of a history test.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Hah, as if that were some sort of switch that could be turned off!

What caused the Civil War? Slavery! Technically correct and simple, but it is far from the best answer and it won't do you much good on the essay section of a history test.

I laughed at your first line. Overthinking is what I do.

I sometimes use Occam's Razor to "just move on with it" if I can't decide on something, but it always seemed like a potential pathway to being wrong. Sometimes it seems like overthinking is just a way "not to decide (be wrong)".

Yes, I am overthinking overthinking ...

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Hah, as if that were some sort of switch that could be turned off!

What caused the Civil War? Slavery! Technically correct and simple, but it is far from the best answer and it won't do you much good on the essay section of a history test.

No, because it is far from sufficient. Slavery was the issue around which the Civil War spun, but the real problems were the economic and social models in the two sections of the nation. So, in the interim, has this changed in any substantiive way? Occam's Razor would indicate that, the past being prologue and all, this and subsequent 4t struggles will be similar in nature, if not in style and substance, until the underlying issues between the regins are fullly resolved.

In other words, we'll go through a ritual war of the states until we more fully mature as a nation (unlikely, but there's hope) or we divide into separate nations (also not likley, but not impossible). Unless international issues intrude, we're in a DO loop.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Asking for proof is not the same thing as asking "how many people think that this is true?" You do recognize the difference?

Asking for proof is asking for a lot. I think it more fair to ask for the data and methodology. This would be true whether the claim is that AGW people have nothing but models which produce hockey sticks no matter what data is input, or whether the claim is that the arctic ice cap is melting.

It seems to me that the best way to provide data and methodology is to quote a reviewed professional paper.

Thing is, it is easier for an alarmist to quote a reviewed professional paper than for a denialist. There are just so many more papers available to the alarmist. There is just that much more good data and methodology on one side.

One can poll the general public to ask what they think on the AGW issue. One can read the professional papers to get a feeling for the state of the art in the field. The two methods will yield different results. Just muttering Argumentum ad Verecundiam or Argumentum ad Populum does not make the data and methodology go away, nor should the data and methodology be ignored.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

See, Bob? You can snark with the best of them .

That time around, I wasn't particularly trying for snark. I was trying to force a reality check. I suppose from your perspective it would be hard to tell the difference.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

At the same time, libertarian and republican are not only not synonymous -- they're not even related. Similarly, the field of non-Faithful on the AGW question very clearly seems to cover a wide swath of ground, some parts of which are fundamentally and significantly unlike each other. In short, don't argue against a scientific criticism the same way you argue against a biblical-fundamentalist one -- their apparent accord is a very thin illusion.

Oh, I quite agree there are big differences. I wouldn't expect a libertarian to be strong on defense, to advocate putting troops near the oil, to advocate divisions of troops in pursuit of evil doers. Then again, those were Bush 43 era Neocon schticks. A lot of Republicans have backed away from these. Libertarians also seem to tend towards economic perspectives, while many Republicans tend to religious values.

But the obvious ways to address global warming, such as carbon tax, involve big government doing big things. That's a Democratic schtick. Individuals might be required to forgo their personal interests for the sake of the common good. In this respect, I would expect libertarians and Republicans to share opposing selfish values, quite strong and basic values.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

No, because it is far from sufficient. Slavery was the issue around which the Civil War spun, but the real problems were the economic and social models in the two sections of the nation.

Still correct but still insufficient, and in social sciences that continues ad infinitum. You can add in information about generational constellations, regional economic/cultural divides, the rise of industrialization, debates over the entrance of new states, international diplomacy, etc... but it would still leave out facts. You could add in the biographies of key players, who they were influenced by, and under what cultural climates these philosophies originated. A thousand or two pages later, some details would still be unaccounted for.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Except there's that whole Greenland agricultural development thing, and Vinland up in Nova Scotia. The wiggly line you gave us sort of implies that none of those events occurred when the ice coverage was even nearly as low as it has been in the last ten years. Makes one wonder a little bit about those missing error-bars, is what I'm trying to say.

IMO People like to exaggerate how warm the Medieval Warm Period actually was because the older data was quite Eurocentric. There is also the old "wine vineyards in England" canard, which ignores the fact that wine grapes can be grown in England NOW, there is no hard evidence that the decline of English vineyards had anything to do with the Little Ice Age. England is a beer country and the decline of vineyards could just as well have been the result of the assimilation of the (presumably wine-drinking) Anglo-Norman aristocracy into typical ale-drinking English.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Hey, I posted facts.
You have yet to respond to them.

Irrelevant and very incomplete "facts." What the Chinese do has no relevance to what we need to do about global warming. We started it; we need to lead the way instead of continuing to resist. Bringing up China is a straw man. If anything, the Chinese are already doing more about it than we are. They are bringing green tech up to speed faster. That is a fact I have already posted here, and which you missed apparently. All you could trot out was some irrelevant stuff about whether they officially report their greenhouse emissions or not. It doesn't matter; we know what it is anyway. The stats are available in any almanac.

Libertarian attitudes are a rank, poor excuse for inaction. Give up your values lock, as Bob says, and stop resisting what needs to be done by posting snarky comments.

Originally Posted by B Butler

Asking for proof is asking for a lot. I think it more fair to ask for the data and methodology. This would be true whether the claim is that AGW people have nothing but models which produce hockey sticks no matter what data is input, or whether the claim is that the arctic ice cap is melting.

Data, methodology, and the coherent, cohesive theory that unites them with the hypothesis. Yeah; those have the potential to constitute 'proof' in a science context.

It seems to me that the best way to provide data and methodology is to quote a reviewed professional paper.

Actually, the best way to do a thing is to do that thing. Lacking that, would be to provide directions that can be followed to do that thing (that is, those 'citations' that scientists tend to use). In fact, the whole 'reviewed' and 'professional' are at best irrelevant, and in this instance, often outright red herrings, to the matter of data, methodology, or proof. Those things either are or are not, regardless who the person is making a claim about them. This is one of the benefits (in my opinion) of an epistemologically-consistent reality. Ymmv, of course.

Thing is, it is easier for an alarmist to quote a reviewed professional paper than for a denialist. There are just so many more papers available to the alarmist. There is just that much more good data and methodology on one side.

The third -- the key point -- is neither guaranteed , nor necessarily even implied by the first. Quantity is not quality, nor is volume truth, nor might right. Phlogiston (to keep our metaphors scientific) had quite a quantity behind it for quite a long time. As did the Four Humours.

Oh, I quite agree there are big differences. I wouldn't expect a libertarian to be strong on defense, to advocate putting troops near the oil, to advocate divisions of troops in pursuit of evil doers. Then again, those were Bush 43 era Neocon schticks. A lot of Republicans have backed away from these. Libertarians also seem to tend towards economic perspectives, while many Republicans tend to religious values.

Naturally, you allow the point to soar right past you. Differences between libertarian and republican are fundamental, not details. In fact, while they appear to agree on some details, that apparent accord (here I repeat the point you missed, in the hopes that the second time you'll read more carefully) is an illusion.
The analogy with the lumped-together-by-the-Faithful class 'skeptics' is a very robust one. People like JPT (not picking on; just the first name to come to mind) appear to approach the matter of AGW primarily from a my-team standpoint. His recently-demonstrated unfamiliarity with basic statistics concepts, at least, makes an analysis-based skepticism ... unlikely. At the same time, skeptics such as myself (and, it seems, a decent number of meteorologists and statisticians) are more interested either in data which doesn't say what it is claimed to say, or in methods which do not perform to the standard advertised, or in theories which are insufficiently coherent, cohesive, or comprehensive enough to justify the hypotheses.
It would be really good (in my opinion) to recognize the fundamental qualitative differences there. At the very least, it would allow you to tailor your responses much more appropriately. "My team has the better players / scores more points" is a potential winner only in an argument where teams are of any significance.

Originally Posted by Odin

IMO People like to exaggerate how warm the Medieval Warm Period actually was because the older data was quite Eurocentric. There is also the old "wine vineyards in England" canard, which ignores the fact that wine grapes can be grown in England NOW, there is no hard evidence that the decline of English vineyards had anything to do with the Little Ice Age. England is a beer country and the decline of vineyards could just as well have been the result of the assimilation of the (presumably wine-drinking) Anglo-Norman aristocracy into typical ale-drinking English.

Umm.. Nova Scotia (that is, 'Vinland') isn't in England. Or Europe. And it's safe to say, based on records of sea-travel in northern places-not-Europe (like the northeast passage, Kamchatka, and up around the NW Passage islands -- Icelanders/Greenlanders referred to the Arctic as the 'Middle" ocean -- that is, between the Atlantic and the Pacific) that the 'MWP-wasn't-all-that-warm' meme doesn't have much to back it up.

Outside models-of-questionable-reliability, of course.

Oh yeah, and all sorts of studies appearing to show that China got pretty damn warm during that time, too. And Chile. And Japan. And New Zealand. Hell of a localized anomaly, that.

Essentially, the skeptics had a pretty stable 3-legged stool.

One leg was that the temperature data collection was obviously flawed due to heat sinks and the likelihood of the occasional farting by passerbys or something like that.

The second leg was that warming just ain't happening, the old "decade of cooler temperatures" stuff.

The third leg was that shit happens and its been happening for a long time in cycles - sun spots, medieval farting, whatever...

Then along came the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project, done by a skeptic, funded by the Koch brothers, to finally shove that stool up the ass of every pinko scientist (about 99.9% fo them) talking hysterical nonsense about global warming.

Unfortunately for the skeptics -

"Call me a converted skeptic. Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming. Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause." - Richard A. Muller, founder and Scientific Director, BEST. Professor of Physics, UCB and Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Muller is a member of the JASON Defense Advisory Group who has been critical of other climate temperature studies before this project

So, what the skeptics have left is a one-legged stool, or more commonly know as a shaft.

One would think that sitting on such a shaft would make them feel a little bit more precarious about their position and often stated supposed 'credentials' for such positions.

But apparently that will not be the case.

I guess they’re grumpy from having that 1-legged stool sticking out of their ass. One would think they would be at least a tad embarrassed by that and avoid making further spectacles of themselves.

Wishful thinking.

-yawn-
Muller was never a skeptic, and the Koch boys are playing a much longer game than I think their opponents guess. But you're firmly in the "my team" school of scientific opinion, so w/e.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Data, methodology, and the coherent, cohesive theory that unites them with the hypothesis. Yeah; those have the potential to constitute 'proof' in a science context.

Well, you ought to be correct here, but the AGW people have all these things, and yet not all are satisfied that 'proof' has been achieved.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Actually, the best way to do a thing is to do that thing.

If you want to make a claim regarding a warm period during the viking era, is it reasonable that I ask you to gather your own data and develop your own model? Do you think the people contributing to this forum have anything near the knowledge, time or budget to produce professional level results?

Most wouldn't spend the time and the $32.00 to read that Nature article.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Naturally, you allow the point to soar right past you. Differences between libertarian and republican are fundamental, not details. In fact, while they appear to agree on some details, that apparent accord (here I repeat the point you missed, in the hopes that the second time you'll read more carefully) is an illusion.

I would not disagree that there are large ideological and theoretical differences between Republicans and libertarians. I'd also note the large differences among librarians. In the days immediately following Obama's election, being Republican was unfashionable on these boards, while being libertarian or anarchist was the fad. Still, as a progressive, I had trouble arguing against any particular flavor of libertarian or anarchist thought as all the other libertarians or anarchists had vastly different positions.

Certainly, it isn't my place to declare how all libertarians think. Will Rogers famously claimed not to be a member of any organized political party. "I'm a Democrat." I find libertarians are also diverse enough lot that I'm not comfortable defining their first principles beyond a highly vague level. I'll leave that to a libertarian, or perhaps a Republican.

Yet Republicans and libertarians do tend to favor small government, at least in comparison to progressives, and do tend to disparage any need for action with respect to AGW.

Originally Posted by playwrite

So, what the skeptics have left is a one-legged stool, or more commonly know as a shaft.

This is entirely off topic, but my sister the first grade teacher recently mentioned a use for a one legged stool. They have seats on top of the single leg, so they aren't just shafts, but still...

There are certain types of kids that won't stay seated in an ordinary chair. They are generally very physical kids. They have to be doing something. All too often they are running around pulling pigtails. Turns out that sitting on a one legged stool is just physical enough for some of them to keep in one place for a while. The effort is just enough in some cases that they don't feel the need to bounce off walls.

Again, entirely off topic.

Originally Posted by B Butler

Well, you ought to be correct here, but the AGW people have all these things...

As far as I can tell, the last is sorely lacking. I also recognize at least a couple of worrying holes in the first, and a lack of response from AGW-partisans to address at least the most significant (imo) of the objections raised regarding the second. So, they 'have all those things', only the things they have aren't really all that good.

If you want to make a claim regarding a warm period during the viking era, is it reasonable that I ask you to gather your own data and develop your own model?

You might note below, I did what I indicated is a standard procedure in science -- I cited other studies. Please feel free to read and consider them on their own merits (I did; they're not hard).

I would not disagree that there are large ideological and theoretical differences between Republicans and libertarians. I'd also note the large differences among librarians. In the days immediately following Obama's election, being Republican was unfashionable on these boards, while being libertarian or anarchist was the fad. Still, as a progressive, I had trouble arguing against any particular flavor of libertarian or anarchist thought as all the other libertarians or anarchists had vastly different positions.

Again, you are mistaking surface details for the fundamentals of the thing. Stop doing that, and you might have an easier time understanding.

Perhaps the previous analogies were insufficiently emotion-neutral for you to be able to approach them rationally. Let me try again. Consider: the proposition that the Prophet Mohammed should not be revered -- the antithesis of a key fundamental belief of rather a large, coherent group of people -- is held by (among others) three groups: Christians, Satanists, and Atheists.
These three groups, however, are most certainly not like each other -- much less mere differing-in-other-details subsets of a single, larger, Anti-Mohammed group. Fundamentally, the groups are different, necessarily meaning that the bases behind their apparently-uniting belief are also different. Christians believe it because Jesus was the last prophet; Satanists because prophets are enemies, rather than respected figures; atheists because there is no such thing as god or prophets in the first place. These three groups are not the same. They're not even related. When one of them says "don't revere Mohammed", he means a different thing, in the important, fundamental sense, than the others do when they say the same words.
Treating them as if they are related -- even to some degree interchangeable -- is incorrect.
Replace "belief in Mohammed" with "belief (for that's what it is, except for among those who actually do expend the effort to understand it for themselves) in AGW". Replace Christians, Satanists, and atheists with science-skeptics, political-opponents, and republican-followers (or however you feel best naming things). The analogy holds.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

As far as I can tell, the last is sorely lacking. I also recognize at least a couple of worrying holes in the first, and a lack of response from AGW-partisans to address at least the most significant (imo) of the objections raised regarding the second. So, they 'have all those things', only the things they have aren't really all that good.

Hmm. The theory is old. Energy coming in from the sun comes at higher frequencies than energy radiating out. CO2 and other greenhouse gasses block the lower frequencies. There is an instrumental record showing the CO2 going up, and analysis shows that much of the increased CO2 comes from human activities. There are lots of records of how much fossil fuel is being burned. A former skeptic, in response to the climategate brouhaha, recently reevaluated the measured land temperature record from scratch. His version of the temperature record matched the older versions very well. The hockey stick was there.

Mikebert did create his own mathematical analysis based on the data and theory from scratch. It was a fairly simple model, intended to get global average temperatures rather than model the complex global climate system. Still, his results were quite in line with both the professional models and the raw data. The professionals have much more complex models that include local effects. The denialists don't.

Data? Methodology? Theory? They are all there if one has an open mind.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Again, you are mistaking surface details for the fundamentals of the thing. Stop doing that, and you might have an easier time understanding.

Perhaps the previous analogies were insufficiently emotion-neutral for you to be able to approach them rationally. Let me try again. Consider: the proposition that the Prophet Mohammed should not be revered -- the antithesis of a key fundamental belief of rather a large, coherent group of people -- is held by (among others) three groups: Christians, Satanists, and Atheists.

Again, I don't think it is my place to explain to a libertarian how libertarians think. As a progressive, I've had enough of other posters on the board telling me how I think. I try not to return the favor. If you wish me to better understand the basic world view and values of libertarians, perhaps you could talk of libertarians rather than Christians, Satanists and Atheists?

But I have observed that both Republicans and libertarians favor smaller governments, and tend to reject action to moderate AGW. I am making this observation empirically, not based on abstract theory, though my understanding of their theoretical world view is not incompatible with their words or actions. In making these observations, I am not implying that Republicans and libertarians are necessarily similar in any other way. I suspect that if I cared I could find many more similarities, and many more differences.

Are you really looking to claim that these empirical observations are not true? Do you believe libertarians or Republicans favor tax and spend government intervention to solve big problems? Do you believe libertarians or Republicans favor strong action to halt global warming? Seriously? I can see how your value system might force you to reject climate science, but I don't understand how or why you would be unable to understand basic Republican or libertarian positions.

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

I think everyone holding themselves out as experts and trying to win the "I'm-smarter-than-you" contest here should post their credentials. How many of you are scientists, or have science degrees? Please enlighten us as to the source of your authority on these matters.

*Raises hand*

Not that it matters all that much of course. First you would have to define what you mean by "scientist." The universities tend to not differentiate as much as the layperson might think they would. In the strict sense of the term I do not "do science in a lab all day." My degree (one of them anyway) is in computer science which is a science degree and makes me by educational definition, "a scientist." That is to say that while earning this particular degree I was given a substantial education in mathematics and physics. So substantial that I was actually required to take more (and more advanced) mathematics classes than a friend of mine whose responsibility it now is to teach mathematics to high school students (I still find this amusing).

Of course one of my science professors (and mentors) who was an instructor in physics, himself was actually a biologist (one of the few theoretical biologists on earth today as I understand it). His real passions were in robotics and the possibility of developing methods for downloading human consciousness and experiences into computer systems. Thus (mostly through osmosis) I also have some background in theoretical biology. To this day this particular professor is one of the most brilliant human beings I have ever personally known.

This said, I am not a climate scientist and none of my statements in the history of this particular thread should be assumed to speak from a position of perfect expertise on the subject of climate science. I simply suggest that scientific skepticism be applied to all things great and small and especially on those who make rigid statements that the EOW (end of world) state is imminent due to insignificant (historically) temperature changes, ice core data, heat records or butterfly mating habits.

Originally Posted by B Butler

This is entirely off topic, but my sister the first grade teacher recently mentioned a use for a one legged stool. They have seats on top of the single leg, so they aren't just shafts, but still...

There are certain types of kids that won't stay seated in an ordinary chair. They are generally very physical kids. They have to be doing something. All too often they are running around pulling pigtails. Turns out that sitting on a one legged stool is just physical enough for some of them to keep in one place for a while. The effort is just enough in some cases that they don't feel the need to bounce off walls.

Again, entirely off topic.

FWIW, the original use of the one-legged stool was cow milking. I grew-up near a few Mennonite farms, where hand milking was still practiced, and have seen them used.

Originally Posted by B Butler

The article in Nature is Reconstructed changes in Arctic sea ice over the past 1,450 years. $32 will get you full access to the paper. I confess, I don't have the academic credentials to second guess the editors and reviewers of a major journal, but go for it. If you are feeling cheap, the 'supplemental data' (.pdf) associated with the article might start you into it.

Do you have the data for, say, the past million years? Because, given the fact that interglacial periods tend to exist on the scale of tens-of-thousands of years (if not hundreds-of-thousands), data from less-than-1% time slices just isn't doing it for me. Only minor snark intended. I have actually looked for this data myself and had almost no luck locating it (from multiple sources of course).

Originally Posted by B Butler

Yes, I'm too much into values lock. As such, I've looked hard at my own perspective. I'm science first, politics second, religion third.

Ah, let me stop you right here because I believe we have identified a problem. You built your personal filters around one thing based in reality, followed by two things that are not.