[QUOTE=jshore]
I think most scientists who heard this would laugh. (In fact, I think I remember a post by one of the scientists at RealClimate responding to this.) Working on the IPCC report is a pretty thankless task. In fact, there has been some concern expressed that the IPCC may have trouble attracting scientists to be involved because of the large time commitment that takes scientists away from things they would rather be doing.
Most scientists who have achieved a certain amount of stature in the field are looking for ways to avoid meetings and other time commitments rather than looking for more opportunities.
Also, most of these scientists are pretty well-established in their fields, many have tenure at universities, and even if the concern about AGW faded away, they would not be out of a job. They would still be working on some climate-related issues or move into some allied field of atmospheric science or the like.
In the end, despite your protestations, your view is very much a conspiracy theory, I think. It relies on exaggerating the reasons why scientists would want to agree with the AGW hypothesis and ignoring the other side…i.e., the large motivation there is for a scientist to come up with the counter-hypothesis that actually better explains the evidence.
It, of course, doesn’t help that a good fraction, if not most, of the scientists who hold positions strongly opposed to the AGW theory seem to have a direct connection to either industries that benefit or political organizations whose worldview benefits from AGW being wrong. And that they can’t seem to come up with any better hypothesis to explain the evidence, at least in the judgement of every other scientific group but themselves.
You have a pretty hard road to hoe when you are trying to argue that the whole scientific establishment has essentially been corrupted and the few “brave souls” who are willing to tell the truth about “the emperor having no clothes” have quite obvious biases to want to believe this is true independent of the evidence.
[/QUOTE]
So is your point of view that scientists are unaffected by worldly things like travel, fame, prestige, social acceptance, lack of opposition, money, and power, and that the scientists of the IPCC are neutral, being just as willing to consider evidence against their view as evidence for their view?
If so, perhaps you could explain such things as why the IPCC scientists refused to allow Paul Reiter to serve? Or why they are the only major organization to use MER accounting rather than PPP accounting? We can start by you telling us how those actions are compatible with science in any way, and then I have a host of other examples once you’ve explained those.
This is very like your evasion of the question whether any scientific organization but the IPCC has a policy to write the summary, then change the science to match. You claimed the IPCC was scientific, but when it comes to supporting your argument in this instance, somehow you don’t have time, or aren’t interested, in finding even one other scientific organization with such a policy. You even say you don’t think my “description of the process is particularly accurate” … jshore, I merely quoted the IPCC description of the process. If you don’t think that’s accurate, take it up with the IPCC, not me. I didn’t make the policy.
Next, you seem to be saying that if AGW were shown to be 100% wrong, that there would be no change in the amount of funding going to climate science … is that what you are saying, and if so, are you sure you want to espouse that position?
You also say:
[QUOTE=jshore]
It, of course, doesn’t help that a good fraction, if not most, of the scientists who hold positions strongly opposed to the AGW theory seem to have a direct connection to either industries that benefit or political organizations whose worldview benefits from AGW being wrong.
[/QUOTE]
This proves my point exactly. Perhaps your statement is true, I’ve never researched the question, although most of the skeptical scientists I interact with have no such connection. Me, I’m liberal, anti-Bush, and have never made a dime for my climate research. But if your statement is true, it is certainly equally as true to say:
Which, of course, was my point … there’s more going on than pure science, on both sides of the aisle, and we’d be fools to believe that scientists’ motives on either side are pure and altruistic. James Hansen happily accepts a $250,000 award from an environmental group whose worldview benefits from AGW being right … it happens on both sides.
Next, is there a conspiracy? Ridiculous. People, including scientists, are always happy to jump on a bandwagon, in fact it’s so common that we have a proverb for it called … well … “jumping on a bandwagon”. But I suppose you think that scientists are immune to that as well.
Here’s an example. One of the most important questions in climate science is the “climate sensitivity”. This is how much the global temperature is predicted to increase if the CO2 levels double.
In 1980, Wang-Stone made the first calculation of climate sensitivity, using an extremely simple one D radiative convective model. They said the sensitivity was 1.5° to 4.5°C per doubling of CO2.
A quarter of a century later, we have spent millions of dollars and millions of man hours studying climate, and the latest, hot-off-the-presses IPCC report lists the sensitivity as … 1.5° to 4.5°C per doubling of CO2.
Where is the scientific progress? Twenty-five years and millions of man-hours and dollars, and there is no improvement in the estimate of sensitivity. Not only that, there is not one single theoretical derivation of this sensitivity value, just a series of much more expensive and much more complex models that haven’t improved the answer at all in a quarter century of trying … perhaps that might give you a clue about the accuracy and value of the models.
Now you might call that lack of progress, and that unquestioning belief in models which don’t improve over time, “science” … me, I say it’s scientists merrily jumping on a bandwagon carrying a banner saying “1.5° - 4.5°”, a banner which has no theoretical foundation and which decades of study have not improved in the slightest.
Your argument boils down to saying that the only possible reason that in 2007 most scientists agree that AGW is a significant problem is because it is true … which is as foolish as saying that the only possible reason that in 1945 most scientists agreed that continents couldn’t move was because it was true. Was the belief in the immovability of continents the result of a “conspiracy”? Did it indicate that the “scientific establishment was corrupted”? Of course not, that’s foolishness. It was just scientists who were on the bandwagon.
You also make the claim that the lack of some alternative explanation means that your explanation must be correct … I’m sure that sober reflection on this claim will reveal the obvious flaw in your argument. In fact, the exact same argument was made against Wegener and continental drift, because as the scientists of the day pointed out, Wegener had no explanation of how the continents could possibly be moving … so they, like you, believed that absent an alternative explanation, their explanation had to be correct.
Finally, am I saying that “the scientific establishment has been corrupted”? Absolutely not, no more than in the days of Wegener and continental drift. I am saying that scientists are human, all too human, and are as subject to human failings, desires, and a fierce unwillingness to change a previously held opinion even in the face of contrary evidence, as is anyone else on the planet.
My best to you, jshore, it is always a pleasure.
w.
