1) I do not understand what constitutes a “consensus of scientists” nor how the “consensus” is reached and proclaimed.

2) If a scientist is not in the “consensus” group is he a legitimate scientist?

3) Apparently Jody has read and deconstructed each and every email that was hacked. I have not. I believe I am informed that I am mislead by people not educated enough to deal with the “consensus science” or who are Luddites who oppose settled scientific fact. I think I am being told that I am trying to grasp concepts well beyond my uneducated reach. This man made global warming thing is the domain of educated elites and can not be shared with the masses except by Al Gore types who should not be held accountable or asked to debate the facts. After all, the facts are scientific truth so there is no debate, anyway.

4) Jody stakes his honor and reputation on the fact that all the data and methods have been open to full scrutiny. That leaves those who say otherwise as liars. So, why do we keep hearing about the “consensus of scientists?” It would seem that the liar scientists would be exposed and driven from the academic world like the Bernie Madoffs and Ward Churchills they must be.

5) We know for certain that paths must be taken to reduce the man made part of global warming and we know what must be done because the consensus of scientists have revealed it. I didn’t know that. How could leaving China and India out of the process be part of the “consensus science” when they have more people to do man made global warming than the rest of the planet? It makes my brain itch. Oh, I know, the Kyoto Protocols are not the work of the consensus of scientists. But, why didn’t the consensus of scientists descend on Kyoto like the harpies at a G-8 conference? But I digress.

6) I am somehow transfixed on the question of why the keepers of settled science do not ferret out the heretic scientists in the field of the settled science. Nowhere do I find any commenter here who is on the man made global warming side allowing for any possible flaw in the data or method for reaching the consensus science. When I meet up with such determined righteousness, I grow wary. Is that because my mind is too weak or because my psyche craves conspiracy? Or both?

7) I understand the science in producing steel and the technology that makes it happen. I look at weather casting as an imperfect science. I was under the impression that climatology was a growing and expanding science. I did not realize that it had reached the mature stage of being able to predict with accuracy and diagnose cures with confidence. That is wonderful news, if I choose to believe it. I don’t.

(I’d note that Dan’s last link, the writer conceeds it’s getting warmer, not that man is making it warmer. As others have pointed out, curse those dinosaurs and their coal fired power plants!)

But he ignores this little detail. “And the CRU has conceded that the at least some of the published e-mails are genuine.”

So we have scientists admitting they manipulated the raw data.

Mr/ French called Jody, he said they’re running an ‘inconvient truth marathon’

In the end, it boils down to the basic disagreement that you believe there is a consensus on global warming and I just don’t buy it. I’ve read too many articles by scientists either critical or skeptial of the theory to accept the notion of consensus.

I will note that it is the advocates of AGW pushing for suppression of competiing arguments. And I, for one, don’t advocating such suppression — or even dismissing out of hand — the research made by AGW scientists.

perhaps if I had time I would follow up and answer all your claims, but the simple fact remains that you’re comparing serious scientists to birthers.

I’m comparing people who are argue the same way with people who are argue the same way — who say one thing and, when presented with the evidence to the contrary, still hold fast to their original proposition, for needs other than the truth. You’ve cited Lawson, who isn’t a climate scientist but who, in his own published literature, recognizes AGW. You’ve cited Lindzen, whose statements were shown to be in error and whose own alternative theory has no research support.

You continue to look past decades of published research that shows AGW is very real. Why?

Um, I’ve called Al Gore “unthinking” but have not used the same adjective to describe any of the scientists on whose data he relies. Simply put, I see Al Gore as you see all the scientists opposing AGW. So, please show me where I called “anyone who disagrees with” me as unthinking as you claim.

It was a little worse than “unthinking”

One might better believe those critical of the skeptics if they expressed their criticism through scientific arguments rather than emotional outrbursts (or by attempts to suppress their findings).Those advocates of the anthropogenic theory of global warming really do want to keep us in the dark. Not only do they wish to suppress (or otherwise ignore) the work of scientists at odds with their theory, but they also wish to hide their own data, consistently refusing outsiders access to their data. What a strange aversion to the public disclosure of information.

As I read it, you’ve accused them of “wanting to keep us in the dark” and of “surpressing (or otherwise ignore) the work of scientists at odds with their theory.” There’s no evidence they’ve done either of those things. You’ve read a few choice out-of-context quotes, whose context you don’t even understand, and decided they, and Gore, and, it would seem, Ms. Eilperin, of engaging in various forms of malfeasance. I posted a link that discusses the emails and the research involved. Have you read it or are you continuing to maintain that they, and others, are simply out to hoodwink and spread ignorance?

And if scientists want to suppress conclusions they don’t like…

What scientists suppressing what evidence? The email releases don’t show that any data was suppressed. I’ve pointed you again and gain to where data can be found.

Consider the plain meaning of that rhetorical flourish–there is more reason now to doubt the seriousness of their science because of how they fudge data and react to their critics.

No data was fudged, Dan. Nothing in the emails indicates it was. And their reaction to their critics was in private email between colleagues, not public statements. Whatever your reasons for your rhetorical flourish, the simple fact is that it isn’t justified.

Amazing that you are trying to lump me in with the birthers when my viewpoint all along has been to say there’s no scientific consensus on global warming.

I’ve lumped you in with the birthers as, like birthers, when provided with cite after cite that the published literature, the science and the scientists involved in studying AGW, runs exactly 180 degrees counter to your statements, you still make that same statement again. You continue to appeal to a scientific controversy that doesn’t exist, anymore so than a controversy exists about Gravity, Germ Theory or Common Descent. There isn’t a controversy in science over AGW. I want you to examine your reasoning with that in mind.

I have no clue what to make of your final paragraph, surprised to see something akin to an insult coming from you.

If I’ve insulted you, I apologize. You are my friend. I have a profound respect for you. It’s also why I’m arguing so forcefully about this. Sometimes friends are the best ones to point out where you are wrong and why you are wrong.

Neither birthers nor 9/11 hoaxers nor Holocaust deniers have science (or the historical record) on their side.

Nor do your statements regarding AGW. Again, to reiterate, you argue there is no consensus on AGW, and I point out the contrary. Your response isn’t “Let me go read a bit more about that,” “I might be wrong,” or even “Even if true, I’m still concerned over the costs of rectifying the problem or having anything but private industry address the need,” but rather “There is no consensus on AGW.” When planetary and climate scientists, their associations, their published research and their expert panels all disagree with you, the error isn’t on their part, but rather yours.

That you would dismiss such folk as akin to birthers…

Yes, I do. The statements by groups like birthers, Intelligent Design proponents, 9/11 Hoaxers and even Holocaust Deniers are perfect examples of the denigration of expertise. Of illogic. Of simple arrogance. I have little patience for that. The issues are just too important.

Jody, perhaps if I had time I would follow up and answer all your claims, but the simple fact remains that you’re comparing serious scientists to birthers.

Um, I’ve called Al Gore “unthinking” but have not used the same adjective to describe any of the scientists on whose data he relies. Simply put, I see Al Gore as you see all the scientists opposing AGW. So, please show me where I called “anyone who disagrees with” me as unthinking as you claim.

I don’t. Just Gore. And I made the point just to contest Newsweek’s silly hagiography. Had that left-wing magazine not called him the thinking man’s thinking man, I wouldn’t have penned those posts.

So what you claim is broad is using the term “unthinking” to describe Gore. And if scientists want to suppress conclusions they don’t like, well, Jody that does give us more grounds (as a writer you should understand the rhetorical use of the comparative) to consider them so. Consider the plain meaning of that rhetorical flourish–there is more reason now to doubt the seriousness of their science because of how they fudge data and react to their critics. But, just because I have more grounds to do something doesn’t mean I do it.

Amazing that you are trying to lump me in with the birthers when my viewpoint all along has been to say there’s no scientific consensus on global warming. I don’t question the science of advocates of AGW, though I do question their methods in addressing critics.

I have no clue what to make of your final paragraph, surprised to see something akin to an insult coming from you.

Neither birthers nor 9/11 hoaxers nor Holocaust deniers have science (or the historical record) on their side. I at least have serious scientists on my side. And a growing number of thinking people.

That you would dismiss such folk as akin to birthers says much about your attitudes towards those with whom you disagree.

Uh, sorry, Jody, the data have not been open.

Dan, you keep saying the same thing over and over again. I keep pointing you to the data, to the models, to the code… be it at NASA or NOAA or others… and you flat out ignore it and return to “the data hasn’t been open.” Where hasn’t the data been open? In four or five postings, you haven’t provided that information.

And to claim AGW skeptics are like birthers is to ignore the numerous scientists…

Dan, again, I’ve pointed you to scientists from the science organizations across the planet, to associations of climate and planetary scientists, to research journals, to research on the research, quantifying what’s been studied. I’ve even noted where the one scientist you cited, Lindzen, what shown to be wrong on both statements that he made. You haven’t provided information in support of your statement.

At least, the scientists, scholars, pundits and bloggers like yours truly who don’t believe there is a scientific consensus on global warming don’t paint all those holding a different view with a broad brush.

The title of your three most recent posts on the subject have been”The Unthinking Al Gore”, “On the Unthinking Al Gore & Our Critics”, and “On the unthinking nature of global warming zealots.” You moved from just labeling Gore as unthinking to anyone who disagrees with you as being unthinking. As brushes go, that’s pretty broad.

Though with the disclosure of the e-mails from the University of East Anglia, we certainly have more grounds to do so than we did last week.

As I noted in my earlier posts, you don’t.

Like the Democrats and the Liberals you criticize, like the commentators on here you disagree with, you continue to make the same statements over and over again with out elucidation, elaboration or explanation.

You argue the data isn’t be published? Fine. Where? What data? You argue there isn’t consensus among planetary and climate scientists on AGW? Fine. Who and where? Which scientists and what studies? You argue that you aren’t using the same techniques, the same lack-of-thought, the same b.s., as birthers, Bush-election-stealers, 9/11 Hoaxers and Holocaust Denialists? Great. It should be incredibly easily to note the clear differences between your process and theirs. Let’s see it.

And there are certain AGW proponents with a similar description.

At least, the scientists, scholars, pundits and bloggers like yours truly who don’t believe there is a scientific consensus on global warming don’t paint all those holding a different view with a broad brush. Though with the disclosure of the e-mails from the University of East Anglia, we certainly have more grounds to do so than we did last week.

The IPCC studies buried contradicting data and use computer models that can’t emulate current weather patterns, they’re in question.”

Live, all you need to do is provide your citations that the 10 years of IPCC reports andthe 30 years of data it’s based on is wrong. Should be pretty easy.

You may have misunderstood my point. Shall we peel the politics away from the science and throw the data and methods open to scrutiny, or not?

Helio, the data and methods have been open. I’ve provided links to the data, to the models and the source codes. The studies are in peer-reviewed literature, complete with the commentary and criticism and revisions. The conferences are full of scientists arguing over finer points of the modeling, forcings and feedback mechanisms. AGW skeptics are treated like birthers, 9/11 hoaxers, and Holocaust Denialists because they act just as those groups do, claiming conspiracies, selectively (mis-)quoting sources, citing fake experts, utilizing logical fallacies and moving goal posts.

On this you will stake your reputation, your honor and your fortune?

My reputation and my honor. I don’t have a fortune. Maybe one day.

Yet all of these nonresponses manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn’t have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them.

Tano, I guess you need to contact the fools at the WSJ with your soothing claims: ” The scientists say what their science reveals.”

If we did that, there would be no controversy. The scientists say what their science reveals. Almost all of the skeptical position is politics driven – by people who oppose, ideologically, some of the remedies for the problem that have been proposed.

Undermine the policy by trying to undermine the validity of the science – irrespective of what the truth may be. That is the strategy of the right wing – a position that is entirely concerned with economics and political posturing, not about the reality of how the climate is or isn’t changing.

The science is abundantly clear. The problem rests with you, not with the data.

On this you will stake your reputation, your honor and your fortune?

You may have misunderstood my point. Shall we peel the politics away from the science and throw the data and methods open to scrutiny, or not?

Obviously, those who have hitched their carts to the political ramifications of the science are having a hard time selling their consensus opinion.

Why are the man caused global warming skeptics treated like “birthers” who want to see the concrete evidence and documents?

And now you’re appealing to use the IPCC studies to bolster your arguements?

Let me see if I follow this.

“The IPCC studies show global warming.”

The IPCC studies buried contradicting data and use computer models that can’t emulate current weather patterns, they’re in question.”

“No they’re not! I will show you! Check out these IPCC studies that prove my point.”

Jody, why do you think that appealing to popularity and authority, as you do in the quotation, will advance this argument,

Theo, generally speaking, an argument from authority is only fallacious if the what’s being argued by the authority is outside the expertise of the authority. Absent evidence that the authority is wrong about an issue germane to their expertise, their statements are appropriate and citing them is perfectly valid.

To begin with, your reasoning is fallacious: you appeal to heads of scientific adacemies and, of all things, the government of South Africa when the topic is AGW theory.

I appealed to them as advisors on what their memberships know. I could just as easily have appealed to statements by our own academy, those of the American Meterological Society or the experts who wrote IPCC (2007), whose fields are climatology and planetary science Every scientific group consisting of members actively conducting planetary and climate research across the globe states that the evidence of the research is clear: AGW is real.

Heads of scientific academies and the government of South Africa are notoriously wrong about most things.

Yes, but logically it doesn’t follow that they are wrong about this. You now have to demonstrate that they, along with not only the heads of the other national acadamies, but the scientists of the IPCC, the AMS, the AAAS, the NRC, the CMOS, the FCCSP, NOAA, NASA/GISS, AGU, GSA, ACS, The Stratigraphy Comission of the Geological Society of London, the AASC, the USGS, the NCAR, Woods Hole, WMO, CFCAS, ICS, and the Australian Meteorological And Oceanographic Society among many, many others, are wrong.

Please start.

Why can’t you, or some AGW theorist, state some theory in simple and concise terms, a theory that will enable us to deduce predictions from it.

You don’t really have to look much further than Wikipedia to find the theory and models in current use. James Hansen’s, at the GISS, models have been incredibly accurate at modeling and predicting the observed climate change. Mears models account for satellite observations of the Troposphere, Crane models and accurate predicts the observed sea surface trends and the IPCC’s model for anthropogenic causes of global mean temperatures best account for the observed trends.

I believe you do not have a theory.

Which is the real heart of this, isn’t it? Your own disbelief in the theory and data. Well, you introduced logical fallacies in your original comment. You must be aware, then, that an argument from personal incredulity doesn’t mean jack. That you don’t understand, don’t believe, can’t understand or can’t believe in the reality of AGW doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. The science is abundantly clear. The problem rests with you, not with the data.

Huh? Einstein’s equation is extraordinarily simple. E=mc2. How can something be less complicated than that?

The fact is that the relationship between energy and mass is incredibly simple relative to the number of factors that go into the heat budget of our planet. There is a notion common amongst lay people that theoretical physics is somehow the epitome of scientific complexity, but it really isn’t. The way that physical and chemical processes are at play in the real world, in things like climate, are far more complex. And don’t even start considering the complexity of biology….

“Dan, again, factually in error. You have the heads of the national science academies of countries from Brazil to South Africa noting the consensus in the literature on the subject. You even have the Pentagon studying the security aspects of AGW. AGW is real.”

Jody, why do you think that appealing to popularity and authority, as you do in the quotation, will advance this argument? To begin with, your reasoning is fallacious: you appeal to heads of scientific adacemies and, of all things, the government of South Africa when the topic is AGW theory. Heads of scientific academies and the government of South Africa are notoriously wrong about most things. Why don’t you offer an actual theorist who has an actual theory that is relevant to the discussion? Why can’t you, or some AGW theorist, state some theory in simple and concise terms, a theory that will enable us to deduce predictions from it. No such thing exists. And that is so strange, because there is a simple and concise statement of Einstein’s theories that enable ordinary PhDs to understand what is being claimed and to make predictions. But, when discussing theory, you write as if only the people who can solve Einstein’s equations are worthy of being addressed by you. Then why do you address us? Just to hurl abuse? I do not believe that AGW is as complicated as Einstein’s equations or Newton’s equations or even Galileo’s equations. I believe you do not have a theory. You have a patchwork of guesses, and like those burned-out old men at CRU-Hadley, all you can do is massage data that is ten years old. The passion for research and explanation, which requires theories that yield confirmed predictions, has burned out in your heart long ago.

it would seem that it is time to throw the whole process wide open to peer review with no holds barred.

Helio, AGW’s been peer reviewed for 100-some odd years, starting with Tyndall in 1859. Spencer Weart’s “The Discovery of Global Warming” chronicles that history. He has a hypertext of that history here.

You do understand that, right?

Yes.

Michaels and I share a common institutional fellowship. I will chat with him about your statements.

I might add that a lot of loose threads are being pulled resulting in noticeable unraveling. I don’t have a dog in this fight other than an interest in integrity, a concern about the misuse of consensus to overshadow the scientific method and uncomfortable misgivings with the enthusiasm by so many for technological applications based on understandings shrouded in questionable theory and defended with the threats of political force.

When the politics overshadow the science and when the theory verges on religious zealotry, it would seem that it is time to throw the whole process wide open to peer review with no holds barred.

Hush kids. Adults are talking here.

Actually, you guys are just watching a “Jackass” marathon.