subject I will just head straight ot Google and read what non scientists think scientists are wrong

Ah but you’re forgetting that Bellendpole sees this as the future – “peer to peer” reviews for people to write whatever BS they like and post it on their blog, the ideal solution for those who don’t have time to go through all that pesky time spent gathering data, analysing it, comparing it to previous research and then submitting their findings to peer review by other people knowledgeable in their field, just to get a credible paper published by a respected journal.

Just for the record, and I apologise for the ambiguity, I was not lumping all scientists together. I want to be able to be free to question any study that I may come across, as some scientists, for example those who are sponsored by commercial interests, could well be under pressure to mis-represent their findings. I want to be able to question things without having a cynical label applied to me. The greater proportion of scientists may well be upright and above board, I was trying to make the point that I want to be able to be a sceptic and feel that to be able to question things is a right, and not be labelled as such.

If the science is beyond suspicion then it should be able to speak for itself without having to resort to such cheap and nasty tactics.

some scientists, for example those who are sponsored by commercial interests, could well be under pressure to mis-represent their findings

Name three.

nickf – Member
Whether climate change is man-made or not, these poor sods are facing a bleak future

I read somewhere that there are at least 50,000 more of them than 50 years ago. Anyone else seen that?

I think most of the concern is because they are seen as cute and cuddly by some.

Still if their numbers go down it’ll be good for baby seals which will now be able to pop their noses safely out of a hole in the ice without having the risk of getting scooped out by huge claws and then having their guts eaten out while they’re still alive and screaming.

Just a few bits and pieces

http://poorrichards-blog.blogspot.com/2010/12/new-scientist-plants-false-story-that.html

http://newsbusters.org/node/11879

Strange locations for temperature monitoring devices

http://www.surfacestations.org/odd_sites.htm

http://theintelhub.com/2011/01/24/it’s-all-just-coincidental-vaccines-continue-to-damage-children/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8223165/The-green-hijack-of-the-Met-Office-is-crippling-Britain.html

Nice peer reviewed stuff there Simon… 🙄

want to be able to be a sceptic and feel that to be able to question things is a right, and not be labelled as such.

eh you want to question everything but dont want me to label you as a someone who does this 😯
I get your point only playing 😉 I think everyone would agree with you re skeptisim in general but that does not make the consensus wrong just because it is the consensus. There is consensus that smoking cuases cancer is that wrong ? there are lots of examples of consensus amongst scientists – heliocentric solar syatem for example are they all in the pay of the Sun or perhaps they worship it as a god etc
Simon there is literlayy bilions of observations of temperature picking fault at one or two and giving them undue weight is one of the problems here. Chery picking is what {label of your choice] do and ignore all the othe rdata that does fit the consensus lik sya sea temperatur eand measurment from space. Are all the data points “lies” it shoudl be a random spread of locations so you should have some background noise

The polar bear pic relevance – have scintist used it as data ort lazy non scientists used it to publicise stuff to laymen?

the telegraph one is a journo discussing weathe r in the uk and using t tpo explain global warming – do i need ot point out whay that is a silly thing to do – we have had warmer winters globally
again cheery pics

But in 2007, the computer models got caught out, failing to predict a temporary plunge in global temperatures of 0.7C, more than the net warming of the 20th century. Much of the northern hemisphere suffered what was called in North America “the winter from hell”. Even though temperatures did rise again, in the winter of 2008/9 this happened again, only worse.

global temperaure was higher as he is ignoring the Southern hemisphere in what he says and just telling us about weather again.
Google the temperature records for the last decase and se eif it has been colder globally Myth cause by the 1997 record high but still 7 of the 10 hotest years on record iirc

I read somewhere that there are at least 50,000 more of them than 50 years ago. Anyone else seen that?

You may want to check your source – look at the conclusions here and make up your mind

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/special/polar_bears/docs/USGS_PolarBear_Amstrup_Forecast_lowres.pdf

The polar bear pic relevance – have scintist used it as data ort lazy non scientists used it to publicise stuff to laymen?

No, I’m not a scientist (just a BA in Economics, you see), but I used it as:

(a) I like polar bears. They’re cute and cuddly

(b) It focusses the mind. 2/3 of polar bears will be gone in my lifetime. There’s a reason for this, and that, principally, is climate change. We could debate the extent to which it’s man-made, but the fact is, it’s happening.

Like Paul Nurse said on the program, we need to be able to discuss probabilities more openly – that is the key part. Science, as a discipline, does not allow a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. This is difficult to get over to the public and the government and therefore, it causes difficulty when decisions are being made on something that is ‘uncertain’ even if the uncertainty is absolutely tiny. So thats got to be a key focal point for us science bods – help people understand about uncertainty, why uncertainty is healthy. People need to make their own choices about man-made climate change, but can be easily swayed by uninformed argument – its not their fault as without a scientific background its a difficult thing to interpret. Journalists surely have a responsibility (at least a moral one?) to be as rigorous as most scientists are, but I get the impression that some are happy to write only about the ‘facts’ he found on the internet without referring back to the peer reviewed literature. FAIL. I think it was plain for all to see just how poorly Delingpole stood up to even the lightest of questioning/probing. This year’s Durkin award for crap cliched climate conspiracy goes to…

nickf my comment was at simon who linked to a pic of a Polar bear on an iceberg saying that it was taken in the summer melts rather than winter – aparently another weakness in the argument of those who believe,. It was not aimed at you at all and I dont disagree with what you have said.

http://newsbusters.org/node/11879
this one btw

There is a woman at my work who has a microbiology degree and admitted herself that science is all basically theory, until another theory comes along.

You say ‘admitted’ as if it’s something that scientists are trying to hide.

I’ve had some time to think about my previous remarks and I think emotions probably got the better of me. Having had a think, I think I get more wound up about the presentation of what is still an inexact science.

If you look at comments from 2000:

the warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia,within a few years winter snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event”.

“Children just aren’t going to know what snow is,” he said.

This leads the lay person to expect no snow. However, as well as this year, 2009 had much snow too. One winter maybe but two winters in a row makes comments like this seem like scaremongering.

It is not enough for the scientists such as Viner to admit that their models were wrong. They then say that snow is in fact a sing of global warming, or alternatively, that weather should not be confused with climate, and yet berate laypeople for suggesting that maybe the last few years have not shown overall warming. They are extremely inconsistent.

This hideous near-religious like propaganda is now doing humanity no favours, as yes, I do believe that we are experiencing a new era of unstable climates, and we are living through changes.

Another bugbear of mine is this total focus on the carbon cycle, and no mention of any other system that contributes to the overall stability of the earth’s atmospheric temperature. This to me reeks of financial racket, led by politicians and business people who see it purely as a money making scheme, and another way to induce fear in order to control the population. Look at their actions as opposed to their words and I see no sign of any personal changes in their lives which suggest that they really believe in this, for example, reducing their own personal consumption of consumable products.

As for consensus science, and the peer process of reviewing, well just look at what happened to James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, who developed the Gaia theory, and then the Gaia hypothesis in the 1970s. This suggests that life on earth, and the constant atmospheric temperature, is the result of positive and feedback loops consisting of interactions between living plants, animals and micro-organisms, and non-living systems such as the oceans, rocks and air. Lovelock initially could not get any of his papers published in any scientific journals, and he was accused of developing a teleological theory, since how could such a non-living system be self-regulating.

However, today Gaia theory forms a fundamental part of our understanding of the climate, and is now widely accepted. So much for the consensus. Science always seems be full of people who assume that they know everything, from Aristotle, to Newton, to Young, to science today. It could be said that the peer review process rewards conservative submissions which support the status quo – but that is another discussion all together.

And finally, with so much emphasis on global warming, we are ignoring other weather systems at our peril. As this article in The Telegraph suggests, those who preach global warming could have contributed to the lack of flood preparation in Australia:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8262064/What-was-the-role-of-warmists-in-the-Queensland-flood-disaster.html

What am I doing? I have been involved in the transition town movement, which emerged to help cities become more resilient to both climate change and peak oil. However, what I want personally is the right to ask questions without being labelled in such derogatory terms, and the right to be wrong is important too.

I want to be able to ask questions about the very fabric of reality, about how explorations into quantum physics is teaching us about how “particles” are in fact more like units of meaning, or consciousness. I want to be able to ask questions about deeper levels of reality, that physicists are now developing models of, and I want to be able to do this without fear of persecution.

I hope this clarifies my thinking, and I do regret maybe writing at speed without deeper though for my words.

Peace all

This hideous near-religious like propaganda is now doing humanity no favours,

]but hyperbole like that is tbh you cant accuse him of overstating his case then write stuff like that.
and this

However, today Gaia theory forms a fundamental part of our understanding of the climate, and is now widely accepted

fundamental is vastly overstating its role in understanding within the wider scientific community and climate specifically . It has niche market but so does David Icke, lay lines and other pagan new age views.
TBH Simon I wish it were true what you say but it is just an attempt to give this pointless excercise of life some hidden meaning that it simply does not have 😥

skeptisimis a good thing but ignoring the videnc eis not being a skeptic it is being ignorant
It is a really poor argument to suggest the world scientists made up this theory – with all the supporting divergent evidence – just to make money – it is just mud throwing as you haveno actual data whilst ebing an open minded fence sitting skeptic. They could all probably earn much more by leaving their current jobs anyway – say by being apopulist journalist with a poor grasp of the subject you write on for example. Scientists genreally do it for a thirts for knowledge not money

Back up there sparky. Nowhere have I suggested that scientist are making up a theory to make money…. Read what I’ve actually put into words, not what you think my opinion might be.

Ah right, I understood that the carbon cycle was now generally accepted as one of life’s major systems.

And yeah, you are right to pick me up using emotive language. To paraphrase myself, I do not think that scientists should be using emotive language designed to invoke images of holocaust deniers. They should stick to science.

As for “meaning” well you may have made your mind up but I would say the jury is still out and we would be wise to keep an open mind. 😀

This hideous near-religious like propaganda is now doing humanity no favours,

Kind of like all that anti vaccination stuff you posted.

It is not enough for the scientists such as Viner to admit that their models were wrong. They then say that snow is in fact a sing of global warming, or alternatively, that weather should not be confused with climate, and yet berate laypeople for suggesting that maybe the last few years have not shown overall warming. They are extremely inconsistent.

Who said the model was wrong. 2010 was the second hottest year on record.

As this article in The Telegraph suggests, those who preach global warming could have contributed to the lack of flood preparation in Australia:

That would be the same people who say that global warming means more extreme weather (the telegraph site doesn’t seem to want to open at the moment so I can’t read the article)

Edit. I’ve opened it now, and what a load of guff it is.

Asking questions is good. Assuming that you know better because you are not an expert is nothing more than an argument from ignorance, one of the simpler logical fallacies to avoid.

I missed the programme (well, skyplussed but not watched yet), but I’d like to pick up on something here that got a bit lost.

I also think journalists should work harder at understanding the science before publishing about a ‘scandal’ that doesn’t actually exist.

This. I don’t expect journalists to understand anything, but I expect them to do some basic research before running a story. Hell, how hard is it these days with the Web?

Scandal sells newspapers, is the problem. Which is annoying and dangerous, as people tend to believe what they read in ‘traditional’ media more so that on the Internet (and that’s prevalent enough). Journos wield a lot of power and it’s irresponsible just to run stories to grab headlines.

Case in point, the whole “MMR vaccine causes autism / other ailments” scare. A generation of new parents have had to “make a decision” on whether they should vaccinate their kids.

Except, the risk doesn’t exist. It came out of the “research” of one quack (Andrew Wakefield) who published a report based on anecdotal evidence from a study(*) of twelve kids. He was shot down in short order, but the media latched on to it and whipped it up into a national scare story.

I don’t mean to derail the conversation, but I think it’s worth mentioning in passing as an important lesson in questioning what you read and doing a bit of legwork before forming an opinion. I’m not entering a debate about climate change because I don’t believe that I know enough about it to take an informed stance. I’m reading this thread with interest.

(* and by ‘study’ I mean ‘series of questionable, unpleasant and invasive tests’)

Except, the risk doesn’t exist. It came out of the “research” of one quack (Andrew Wakefield) who published a report based on anecdotal evidence from a study(*) of twelve kids.

Which passed peer review!

Think about that one 😉

Whether climate change is happening or not who knows and we may never know. My father in law is convinced the issue is all to do with the movement of the magnetic poles – which I think are moving the fastest they ever have (but will stand corrected!) which is the key driver and from memory one of the reasons we have a climate and life on the planet is the fact we have a magnetic field so it’s purty important.

All that might be boll@@ks who knows!

I work in utilities and what I do know is it’s not easy planning for stuff but you need to make sure society and my kids can survive in 80 years time when I’m dead

Anyway, any pictures of kylie?!

Climate always has changed and always will. So far though there has been no unprecendented climate change. There has only been an 0.8C increase in temp since 1850. Which is to be expected as the climate recovered from the little ice age and isn’t out of step with climate change in previous centuries.

Increased atmospheric CO2 will cause some increase in temp but the numbers are just guesses and computer models. The past record for climate predictions isn’t good.

If CO2 was the main driver of temp changes then why was there similar increases between 1910 and 1940 and between 1970 and 2000 despite CO2 levels being far higher during the second period?

And of course there was no statistically significant global warming between 2002 and 2010.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8511670.stm

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/

and from memory one of the reasons we have a climate and life on the planet is the fact we have a magnetic field so it’s purty important.

Not sure as to how it affects the weather patterns, but it certainly is important. Without the magnetosphere, the earths atmosphere would have dissipated off into space due to solar winds, leaving just a baron, lifeless rock. Off topic slightly, but I’m a bit of a science geek and I never remember being taught this – fundamental to life on earth – fact at school. does anyone else?

Can’t be bothered reading all that but I watched a bit of that video, and lost interest after about 10 seconds, but I loved this comment:

If Delingpole loses his job at? the Telegraph, he could make a few quid as a Gareth Southgate impersonator.

😆

Sorry. I know it’s not at all intelligent or constructive, but it made me laugh, and that’s all that matters in my book really. 🙂

Zulu-Eleven – Member

Except, the risk doesn’t exist. It came out of the “research” of one quack (Andrew Wakefield) who published a report based on anecdotal evidence from a study(*) of twelve kids.

Which passed peer review!

Lancet?

If man made climate change is so clear cut then why do they need to manipulate data at all? There surely is no need. That graph was a joke.

For the use of “air quotation marks” alone Delingpole should be shot!

I’m sure it’s all fine.

When Watt developed the steam engine, and Brunel developed steamships, and Henry Ford developed the car, they had all done extensive research on CO2 and how it could affect the climate.

They had steam-powered computers, and coal-fired satellites that gathered huge amounts of data from a network of telegraph linked data monitors.

They developed highly accurate models that would tell us how much we could each burn, and how it may affect the atmosphere for hundreds of years in the future. And gee what do you know – it’s exactly the same amount as we can get our grubby little hands on!

Yes, I really don’t know why people worry. This was all planned for, very early on, in the design process of the industrial revolution.

“Scientists” come up with a theory.

They embrace any evidence that supports it.

They ignore any evidence that discredits it.

Who is making money out of this?

They ignore any evidence that discredits it.

No, they don’t.

Which passed peer review!

Peer review isn’t always a great measure of trapping fraudulent research, as it often assumes that the original researcher isn’t a lying turd. Perhaps this needs addressing.

Without repeating the tests, reviewers would have had no way of knowing that he’d falsified data. They wouldn’t have known that test results were negative if he didn’t declare those results (which is exactly what happened in this case with his PCR tests).

deadlydarcy – Member
They ignore any evidence that discredits it.
No, they don’t.

Reading this thread I’d beg to differ.

What evidence discredits the theory of AGW?

Precisely Cougar

So relying upon peer review and consensus science as a defence of AGW theory is pointless isn’t it?

For me the killer is quite simple – the level of detected change is less than the level of accuracy in the measuring devices and process (devices which in turn, have seldom been calibrated) which makes all raw data collected pretty much useless!

“Scientists” come up with a theory.

They embrace any evidence that supports it.

They ignore any evidence that discredits it.

Who is making money out of this?

That’s rubbish. Like any human endeavour, a scientist with a long career based on a particular theory will be resistant to change and more demanding of evidence, but to say they will ignore it is completely wrong. Obviously there will occasionally be cases of fraud – as I pointed out, it’s a human endeavour – but sooner or later they get discovered, and science moves on.

What evidence proves it?

Note the inverted commas I put on “scientist”

Did I put forward a view either way? For or against AGW?

No, I didn’t.

Zulu-Eleven – Member
Precisely Cougar

So relying upon peer review and consensus science as a defence of AGW theory is pointless isn’t it?

For me the killer is quite simple – the level of detected change is less than the level of accuracy in the measuring devices (which in turn, have seldom been calibrated) which makes all raw data collected pretty much pointless!

You’re comparing one paper based on the research of one man to hundreds based on the research of thousands.

allmountainventure – Member
What evidence proves it?

Nothing proves it, it’s a theory! You first.

So relying upon peer review and consensus science as a defence of AGW theory is pointless isn’t it?

Not at all – the fact is that the MMR results were countered by the scientific method, the original paper was refuted by scientists, and all thanks to the peer review process which requires the inclusion of the experiments carried out and their methodology, which in turn guarantees the possibility of repeating the experiment to confirm its results.

Note the inverted commas I put on “scientist”

Did I put forward a view either way? For or against AGW?

No, I didn’t.

Weasel words, from the context of the thread you are clearly unconvinced by AGW.

Peer review is not the same as consensus. Consensus comes from repetition, validation and building a body of related evidence.

Why is climate change so different to medicine or particle physics? Are there top-quark deniers out there who claim that the various particle accelerators are in fact secret weapons testing facilities or suchlike?

We may be speeding things up, I don’t know, but the planet has been going through cycles long before cars and aerosols were invented.

In the grand scheme of things, aren’t we still just coming out of the last ice age?