You realise there’s a difference between editorial comment (a post like that, that wasn’t directed at you, but was an aside to the poster above me - Voyager, IIRC and debate (you know, where I quote your posts and clearly indicate which of your points I’m addressing? Just because a post mentions you doesn’t mean it’s directed at you. I said I wasn’t debating AGCC (by which I mean the science of it) here, and I’m not. I’m already sold on it, and I don’t need to convince you of it, or CAGW which I also believe to be proved (as long as we skip over the “only Warming” canard). I was debating who’s qualified to talk on matters of science, that’s all. Not politics, just science.
Yet your ad hominems stay fresh…
Ummm, I fail to see what you think that proves. I said complete laymen aren’t qualified to evaluate the science, and I just repeated that just now. I didn’t say anything about whether they were or weren’t qualified to judge the claims in that post, despite your seeming “gotcha ya” tone. I merely emphasised that I’d been talking about the science up to that point, despite what you may have thought you were debating. I thought you needed reminding.
The other thing is that there are (at least) 3 levels of authority we’re talking about here - climate scientists experts, other experts, and non-experts. You keep trying to make this a binary “can assess” vs. “can’t assess” argument, and I’ve been trying to emphasise that both the various climate reports and the various experts have various spheres of specialisation that determine who can validly comment on what. And it’s a messy thing with various overlapping fields of competence and relevance. But it’s generally easy to tell who fits where, once you have their CV and paper trail. That’s why we can say some vet isn’t in it.
Me, I’m not trying to exclude all climate skeptics from it, either. intention’s already mentioned some in another thread who are well qualified by CV. Still haven’t seen the relevant papers, but I’m sure those are out there, too. So don’t go thinking just because someone’s a skeptic, I’m going to favour shutting them out of the debate. But it’s a debate that has to happen in the literature, not the blogosphere. That’s the way of Science. And this is, ultimately, a scientific debate.
Of course you don’t see. You concocted a Dibble-Distinction for rhetorical purposes earlier in the thread. Now you have abandoned that distinction since it doesn’t suit your purposes anymore.
Except when it’s an editorial comment. Or a scientific argument. Or a scientific claim. Or something like that.
So, you’ve decided you have nothing to add to the debate and want to go out in a blaze of I-don’t-know-what? Be my guest. But la-la-la-can’t-hear-you isn’t an argument to persuade the undecided.