# Is the AGW debate about Results or Science? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 27, 2008, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390 "2008-06-27T02:23:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/21 "2008-06-27T20:17:27Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] **MrDibble** , rather than hijack this thread, can I suggest you read one of the threads where **jshore** debates **intention** and watch how the former ducks, dives, squirms, and wriggles? [/QUOTE] This comment bugs me but I suppose I should take solace in the fact that a good “creation science” debater can defeat an evolutionary scientist in a debate in the minds of the general public, particularly those predisposed to believe the creationist. The fact is that non-scientists (or sometimes even scientists outside of their field) are not very good at judging the merits of the arguments, which is why we haven’t generally decided scientific matters in this way…but instead have had it play out through the peer-reviewed literature where scientists debate among themselves. One thing **intention** does very well is say wrong things with total confidence. For example, if you don’t realize that the scientific arguments he posted up at [William Briggs website (see post #108)](http://wmbriggs.com/blog/2008/04/08/why-multiple-climate-model-agreement-is-not-that-exciting/) are completely and utterly wrong, then you might find them to be believe quite believable, particularly given the confidence with which he says them (and, admittedly, also the nice style in which he explains things). As long as he steadfastly refuses to acknowledge they are wrong (and at the same time talks sanctimoniously about how he would never sacrifice honesty for effectiveness), a certain number of people will just assume that his arguments are probably…or at least possibly…right. ---
**Author:** ![jshore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b5e925/32.png) [@jshore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jshore)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/22 "2008-06-27T20:22:54Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Actually, I was being deliberate: there is no evidence of AGW. There is no accumulation of evidence of AGW. There are a lot of models, sure, but there is no evidence. Note that I don’t doubt that Global Warming is real; I’ve just yet to be convinced that man has anything significant to do with it. I have asked for proof on a number of occasions and none has been forthcoming. [/QUOTE] You’ve been led again and again to where (in the IPCC reports, for example) the evidence supporting AGW is. Like all theories, the evidence supporting it involves looking at the theory, which in this case means models that represent the atmospheric processes, and comparing these models to data in the real world. There is no getting away from that. And, you have also had it explained to you again and again that the world “proof” doesn’t apply in science. You have even been given cites regarding this. At some point, one just has to say, “Fine…You think there is no accumulation of evidence of AGW. Basically every major relevant scientific society thinks otherwise. You are entitled to your opinion and they are entitled to theirs. And, other people can decide whether to believe the scientific community or to believe a rather uninformed poster on a messageboard as to what constitutes scientific evidence in this case.” ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/23 "2008-06-27T22:04:48Z")
[QUOTE=jshore] You’ve been led again and again to where (in the IPCC reports, for example) the evidence supporting AGW is. [/quote] Except it isn’t there. Lots of models. Mann’s hockey stick? Discredited. Tree ring data? Doubted > [@](#): > > And, you have also had it explained to you again and again that the world “proof” doesn’t apply in science. Cobblers. Proving the composition of pure water, anyone? Or proving the nature of radioactivity? Now, if you’re going to tell me that climate science has a different definition of proof, well… > [@](#): > > At some point, one just has to say, “Fine…You think there is no accumulation of evidence of AGW. Basically every major relevant scientific society thinks otherwise. You are entitled to your opinion and they are entitled to theirs. And, other people can decide whether to believe the scientific community or to believe a rather uninformed poster on a messageboard as to what constitutes scientific evidence in this case.” This would be the scientific community that’s whipped up so many scare stories before. It’s like Fermat’s Last Theorem: that last step, the proof that the CO2 we emit is causing the warming we see, is proving so elusive to find. I don’t know whether AGW is real or not. I’d like to find out. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/24 "2008-06-27T23:16:07Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Except it isn’t there. Lots of models. Mann’s hockey stick? Discredited. Tree ring data? Doubted [/quote] When the critics jumble together the idea that humans are not responsible for climate change with a denial that there is ongoing climate change then there is no choice but dismiss the criticism. That was a nonsensical jumble of propositions, NASA still shows the hockey stick in their site together with other graphs that support it, National Geographic and many other science groups just show then a perverse definition of what “discredited” means by accepting the evidence. Mann still teaches and he is still contributing to the science. Saying that is “discredited” with no qualifiers shows me a tactic only Creationists would be proud of. This tactic of even denying that many other scientists took a look and they still accepted the evidence does not make your positions more attractive, one could make the now feeble point that they may be wrong, but the continuing acceptance of it in scientific circles tells me that the critics have a definition of “discredit” or “debunked” that comes from a different planet. ---
**Author:** ![ManiacMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b782af/32.png) [@ManiacMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ManiacMan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/25 "2008-06-27T23:45:04Z")
Our Sun is causing the global warming…other planets in our system are also warming up. How many SUVS are over there on Mars anyways??? AGW is just a bunch of BS to get people to buy into the “green movement”. OH NOES THE PLANET IS DYING! The only way to save it is to buy “green cars”, “green diapers”, “green” this “green” that…all a bunch of BS. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/26 "2008-06-27T23:57:40Z")
[QUOTE=ManiacMan] Our Sun is causing the global warming. [/QUOTE] Nope. Or to be more precise, Not much. [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm) > [@](#): > > The consensus of most scientists, arduously hammered out in a series of international workshops, flatly rejected the argument that the global warming of the 1990s could be dismissed as a mere effect of changes on the Sun. The pioneer of historical solar influences, Jack Eddy, wrote that if the Sun were “the only agent of climatic change, we would live in a world where the mean global surface temperature varied, in any century, through limits of at most about 0.5°C.” Similarly, in 2004 when a group of scientists published evidence that the solar activity of the 20th century had been unusually high, they nevertheless concluded that “even under the extreme assumption that the Sun was responsible for all the global warming prior to 1970, at most 30% of the strong warming since then can be of solar origin.” When Foukal reviewed the question in 2006, he agreed that there was no good evidence that the Sun had played a role in any climate change back to the Little Ice Age. (Meanwhile, new historical evidence suggested that the cold of the early modern centuries might have been partly due to a spate of volcanic eruptions.)(57a) > > Some experts persevered in arguing that slight solar changes (which they thought they detected in the satellite record) had driven the extraordinary warming since the 1970s. Most scientists expected that these correlations would follow the pattern of every other subtle solar-climate correlation that anyone had reported over the past century — fated to be disproved by the next decade or two of data. A few scientists persevered in studying possible mechanisms, for example devising experiments that they hoped would show how cosmic rays could affect climate. Yet even if somebody did finally manage to show an influence on climate from changes in the Sun, it could not be very great. Greenhouse warming was bound to swamp any solar effects as the quantities of the gases in the atmosphere soared ever higher. Willson, the leader of the satellite experts, explained that in the future,“solar forcing could be significant, but not dominant.”(58\*) > The import of the claim that solar variations influenced climate was now reversed. Critics had used the claim to oppose regulation of greenhouse gases. But what if the planet really did react with extreme sensitivity to almost imperceptible changes in the radiation arriving from the Sun? The planet would surely also be sensitive to greenhouse gas interference with the radiation once it entered the atmosphere. A U.S. National Academy of Sciences panel estimated that if solar radiation were now to weaken as much as it had during the 17th-century Maunder Minimum, the effect would be offset by only two decades of accumulation of greenhouse gases. As one expert explained, the Little Ice Age “was a mere ‘blip’ compared with expected future climatic change.”(59) The bunch of BS is coming from the side of the deniers. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/27 "2008-06-28T00:02:42Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Except it isn’t there. Lots of models. [/quote] I would summarize the evidence for CAGW as follows: (1) weather is occurring which is consistent with CAGW, but is also consistent with natural variation; (2) it’s possible to construct a computer simulation which assumes great climatic sensitivity to CO2 and tune it to fit many aspects of the climate. I would summarize the evidence for AGW as follows: (1) + (2) + (3) theoretical calculations predict that increased levels of CO2 should cause some warming. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/28 "2008-06-28T00:31:59Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84] I would summarize the evidence for CAGW as follows: (1) weather is occurring which is consistent with CAGW, but is also consistent with natural variation; (2) it’s possible to construct a computer simulation which assumes great climatic sensitivity to CO2 and tune it to fit many aspects of the climate. I would summarize the evidence for AGW as follows: (1) + (2) + (3) theoretical calculations predict that increased levels of CO2 should cause some warming. [/QUOTE] This accusation of “tuning” is not really good criticism, and natural variation is not enough to explain the current changes. [http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm) > [@](#): > > Another persistent problem was the poor quality of models that included the oceans. Modelers had long understood that reliable climate prediction would require coupling an atmospheric GCM to a full-scale ocean model. Such coupled models were beginning to dominate attention. They all tended to drift over time into unrealistic patterns. In particular, models seemed flatly unable to keep the thermohaline circulation going. The only solution was to tune the models to match real-world conditions by adjusting various parameters. The simplest method, used for instance by Suki Manabe in his influential global warming computations, was to fiddle with the flux of heat at the interface between ocean and atmosphere. As the model began to drift away from reality, it was telling him (as he explained), “Oh, Suki, I need this much heat here.” And he would put heat into the ocean or take it away as needed to keep the results stable. Modelers would likewise force transfers of water and so forth, formally violating the laws of physics to compensate for their models’ deficiencies.(95a) > > The workers who used this technique argued that it was fair play for finding the effects of greenhouse gases, so long as they imposed the same numbers when they ran their model for different gas levels. Some other modelers roundly criticized flux adjustments as “fudge factors” that could bring whatever results the modelers sought. A few scientists who were skeptical about global warming brought the criticism into public view, arguing that GCMs were too faulty to prove that action must be taken on greenhouse gases. If a model was tuned to match the present climate, why believe it could tell us anything at all about a changed situation? The argument was too technical to attract much public attention. The modelers themselves, reluctant to give ammunition to critics of their enterprise, mostly carried on the debate privately with their colleagues. > > Around 1998, different groups published crudely consistent simulations of the ice age climate based on the full armament of coupled ocean-atmosphere models. This was plainly a landmark, showing that the models were not so elaborately adjusted that they could work only for a climate resembling the present one. The work called for a variety of ingenious methods, along with brute force — one group ran its model on a supercomputer for more than a year.(96\*) Later studies not only reproduced the ice age climate as well as it could be measured, but got an excellent match to another period when the weather patterns had been different from now, the warm “mid-Holocene” about 6000 years ago. > > Better still, by 1999 a couple of computer groups simulating the present climate managed to do away altogether with flux adjustments while running their models through centuries. Their results had reasonable seasonal cycles and so forth, not severely different from the results of the earlier flux-adjusted models. Evidently the tuning had not been a fatal cheat. Models without flux adjustments soon became standard.(97\*) > [@](#): > > Critics kept pointing out every imperfection in the models as publicly as possible It was not just that there were questionable assumptions in the equations. There were also undeniable problems in the basic physical data that the models relied on, and uncertainties in the way the data were manipulated to fit things together. The models still needed special adjustments to get plausible ice ages. And when modelers tried to simulate the climate of the Cretaceous epoch — a super-greenhouse period a hundred millions years ago that had been far warmer than the present and with a CO2 level several times higher — the results were far from the climate pattern geologists reported. > > But for a climate more or less like the present, the factors that modelers failed to understand seemed to have gotten incorporated somehow into the parameters. For the models did produce reasonable weather patterns for such different conditions as day and night, summer and winter, the effects of volcanic eruptions and so forth. At worst, the models were somehow all getting right results for wrong reasons—flaws which would only show up after greenhouse gases pushed the climate beyond any conditions that the models were designed to reproduce. If there were such deep-set flaws, that did not mean, as some critics implied, that there was no need to worry about global warming. As other experts pointed out, if the models were faulty, the future climate changes could be worse than they predicted, not better. > > Those who still denied there was a serious risk of climate change could not reasonably dismiss computer modeling in general. That would throw away much of the past few decades’ work in many fields of science and engineering, and even key business practices. The challenge, then, was to produce a simulation that did not show global warming. It should have been easy to try, for by the 1990s, millions of people owned personal computers more powerful than anything commanded by the climate modelers of the 1970s. But no matter how people fiddled with climate models, whether simple one- or two-dimensional models or full-scale GCMs, the answer was the same. If your model could reproduce something resembling the present climate, and then you added some greenhouse gases, the model always displayed a severe risk of future global warming.(105) ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/29 "2008-06-28T01:22:41Z")
\>I’d say there has to come a point where even the third category is no longer valid - there has to be a point at which we can say “Enough! The evidence has spoken!” and can safely collapse the third category into the fourth. Perhaps. Some philosophy course on reasoning I took described the situation for somebody considering an argument this way: if the argument for a position is logically sound, and the assumptions in the argument are accepted as truth, then the person must accept the conclusion of the argument. But surely there are alternatives. The famous paradoxes, like Zeno’s, are little vignettes in which apparently truthful assumptions and logical arguments force a nonsensical conclusion. Kelvin criticised the newly-emerging idea that the earth was many millions, hundreds of millions, of years old, or perhaps more. He pointed out that it would have cooled off a great deal more than it had, and could no longer have volcanos. In Kelvin’s day they did not know about the heat generated by fissioning isotopes deep in the earth, so Kelvin was solving the problem around the wrong issue. And when I was first learning about astronomy as an interested child, there were dozens of canals on Mars that got more or less green as the seasons there passed. These things were hard to see, you had to look through a good telescope under good conditions, but many astronomers had. So, we have lots of examples of inescapable conclusions still being wrong. I don’t think it’s reasonable to consider all the evidence and pay attention to the field and not think there is AGW, but I have to think it’s not necessarily just stupidity to disagree. I bet one of the things that has broad consensus after considerable scientific effort today will within our lifetimes turn out to be wrong, foolishly wrong, not “Newton described the familiar limiting case whereas Einstein got the broader truth right”, but bloodletting wrong. Maybe the third group is “unreasonable” to belong to. How strict to be about other people’s styles of thinking and satisfying themselves is an open question for me. ---
**Author:** ![Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Public_Animal_No.9)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/30 "2008-06-28T02:16:29Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] …But back to the OP: AGW at the moment more like religion. Those who disagree with it have a very hard time. Those who are merely skeptical have an even harder time. [/QUOTE] Actually, I see people who believe on both ends of the spectrum who believe with equal fervor and, to me, equal lack of willingness to take an objective view of the science. Hence the OP. It’s a bit of hyperbole to equate those who are climate skeptics as skeptical of science in general, or those who immediately believe in AGW as believing scientific results in general the way I did in the OP. But the ensuing discussion certainly is in line with my view that there are those who are never going to believe the science on climate and those who will always believe it. Between the two extremes are those who have done a fair amount of research on their own with an open mind and have come to their own conclusions. But by and large, it seems that there are quite a few people who start with the conclusion of their choice and then find the evidence necessary to support that conclusion. I’m sure everyone who holds a strong opinion on the topic will be able to point to others who disagree with them and agree that those “others” are not being objective. My solution: let’s stop the arguing about the science and go ahead and declare the two extremes to be faith-based, burn the necessary heretics, distribute the appropriate scriptures, anoint the heaven-blessed leaders, and commence arguing about whether discussions of AGW belong in the workplace, at football games, and on government property. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/31 "2008-06-28T07:22:03Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Except it isn’t there. Lots of models. [/QUOTE] Which count as evidence in climate science. The fact that you don’t acknowledge that gives you no standing to comment. [QUOTE=Quartz] Mann’s hockey stick? Discredited. [/QUOTE] Says you. That’s not true. [QUOTE=Quartz] Tree ring data? Doubted [/QUOTE] Only by denialists. [QUOTE=Quartz] Cobblers. Proving the composition of pure water, anyone? Or proving the nature of radioactivity? [/QUOTE] How, please, would you _prove_ the composition of pure water? Or the nature of radioactivity? In a way that isn’t just a pile of evidence, please. [QUOTE=Quartz] This would be the scientific community that’s whipped up so many scare stories before. [/QUOTE] Examples of “scare stories” whipped up by the _scientific community_, please (not the media, the community itself) [QUOTE=Quartz] It’s like Fermat’s Last Theorem: that last step, the proof that the CO2 we emit is causing the warming we see, is proving so elusive to find. [/QUOTE] MAths is not science. [QUOTE=Quartz] I don’t know whether AGW is real or not. I’d like to find out. [/QUOTE] But if you won’t listen to the most qualified people on the way there, how will you ever find out? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/32 "2008-06-28T07:33:57Z")
[QUOTE=Napier] So, we have lots of examples of inescapable conclusions still being wrong. I don’t think it’s reasonable to consider all the evidence and pay attention to the field and not think there is AGW, but I have to think it’s not necessarily just stupidity to disagree. [/QUOTE] Disagreeing with the conclusions is one thing, but the denialists go way beyond that to attempting to discredit the actual work done. [QUOTE=Napier] I bet one of the things that has broad consensus after considerable scientific effort today will within our lifetimes turn out to be wrong, foolishly wrong, not “Newton described the familiar limiting case whereas Einstein got the broader truth right”, but bloodletting wrong. [/QUOTE] I’ll take that bet. I don’t think science has worked that way for the last few hundred years. [QUOTE=Quartz] Maybe the third group is “unreasonable” to belong to. How strict to be about other people’s styles of thinking and satisfying themselves is an open question for me. [/QUOTE] It’s not just about other people’s thinking, though - denialists are a positively evangelical movement with real influence far beyond their limited numbers. They influence public policy that affects us all. That’s why they have to be shown for the misinformed laypeople/mistaken scientists/malicious corporate shills (delete whichever is not applicable) they are. It’s the same as ID. If this was an argument like Expanding Earth vs Plate Tectonics in geology, or Out of Africa vs Multiple Origins in human evolution, I would participate, but it wouldn’t be the critical thing this is. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/33 "2008-06-28T08:27:37Z")
My bolding: [QUOTE=brazil84] (1) weather is occurring which is consistent with CAGW, but is **also consistent with natural variation** ; [/QUOTE] Not true. We should probably, by previous glacial/interglacial cycles, be going into a long, slow cooling phase by now. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/34 "2008-06-28T15:03:02Z")
[QUOTE=Quartz] Except it isn’t there. Lots of models. Mann’s hockey stick? Discredited. Tree ring data? Doubted [/QUOTE] “Mann’s hockey stick” is one of several hockey sticks, and moreso when people refer to it, they’re talking about the first one he made. In science, any one point of data or study is doubted to be accurate. Decisions aren’t made based on one study nor on one methodology. Saying that you have doubts about a single study or methodology is redundant in science, and so it’s rather a silly argument to use. You could take any one study that the IPCC is based upon and entirely remove it, like Mann’s hockey stick or any of the various tree ring studies, and it wouldn’t have any effect. There are 600 different studies made by a few thousand different climatologists that were all combined to create the report. You can toss away all the ones that don’t live up to your personal standards and it will have no effect on the outcome. > **[Sampling bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biased_sample#Spotlight_fallacy)** > > In statistics, sampling bias is a bias in which a sample is collected in such a way that some members of the intended population have a lower or higher sampling probability than others. It results in a biased sample of a population (or non-human factors) in which all individuals, or instances, were not equally likely to have been selected. If this is not accounted for, results can be erroneously attributed to the phenomenon under study rather than to the method of sampling. > Medical sources some... > **[Cherry picking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking)** > > Cherry picking, suppressing evidence, or the fallacy of incomplete evidence is the act of pointing to individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position while ignoring a significant portion of related and similar cases or data that may contradict that position. Cherry picking may be committed intentionally or unintentionally. > The term is based on the perceived process of harvesting fruit, such as cherries. The picker would be expected to select only the ripest and healthiest f... > **[Denialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism)** > > In the sciences and in historiography, denialism is the rejection of basic facts and concepts that are undisputed, well-supported parts of the scientific consensus or historical record on a subject, in favor of ideas that are radical, controversial, or fabricated. Examples include Holocaust denial, AIDS denialism, and climate change denial. The forms of denialism present the common feature of the person rejecting overwhelming evidence and trying to generate political controversy in attem In psy... > [@Denialism](#): > > Selectivity - Relying upon discredited or flawed work supporting their idea while dismissing more credible work; presenting discredited or superseded papers to make a field look like it is based on weak research. Inflating favorable ‘evidence’ while discounting the contradictory, often while misrepresenting the significance of each. The selective use of evidence by denialists includes quote mining and cherry picking. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/35 "2008-06-28T15:19:50Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] You could take any one study that the IPCC is based upon and entirely remove it, like Mann’s hockey stick or any of the various tree ring studies, and it wouldn’t have any effect. There are 600 different studies made by a few thousand different climatologists that were all combined to create the report. You can toss away all the ones that don’t live up to your personal standards and it will have no effect on the outcome. [/quote] Is it possible that every last study which supports CAGW is flawed? The answer is “yes,” because it’s possible for the same problems to infect the studies in a systematic way. For example, it seems that just about all the “evidence” in favor of CAGW rests on the slender reed of climate simulations. If we learn, in a convincing way, that modern climate simulations cannot adequately forecast future climate, then the conclusions of dozens, if not hundreds of studies will be called into question. In one fell swoop. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/36 "2008-06-28T16:14:46Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84] Is it possible that every last study which supports CAGW is flawed? The answer is “yes,” because it’s possible for the same problems to infect the studies in a systematic way. For example, it seems that just about all the “evidence” in favor of CAGW rests on the slender reed of climate simulations. If we learn, in a convincing way, that modern climate simulations cannot adequately forecast future climate, then the conclusions of dozens, if not hundreds of studies will be called into question. In one fell swoop. [/QUOTE] And? No one ever said that the scientists are correct. The scientists don’t say they’re correct. What they do say is that based on the best of modern day technology with the best testing we can do to verify that the models simulate reality, that such and such result seems to be what it is. There’s every chance that that’s wrong, but unless you can create a better model than the best that’s ever been made to date and have it come to a different result, then all your complaining is just pissing into the wind. The only person getting any dirt on them is your pantleg. And so far as I’m aware, as technology has become more advanced, the likelihood of AWG has increased not decreased. And they’ve started to become comfortable estimating what percentage is anthropogenic and what percentage is not. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/37 "2008-06-28T16:31:54Z")
Addendum to my previous post: The IPCC appears to use seven different simulation engines: > **[File:Global Warming Predictions.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Predictions.png)** > > See also: Economics of global warming#Scenarios > Shows climate model predictions for global warming under the SRES A2 emissions scenario(vague – see talk page) relative to global average temperatures in 2000. The A2 scenario family is characterized by a politically and socially diverse world that exhibits sustained economic growth but does not address the inequities between rich and poor nations, and takes no special actions to combat global warming or environmental change issues. This world in ... As to why you would want to trust them: [ > [@](#): > > Those who still denied there was a serious risk of climate change could not reasonably dismiss computer modeling in general. That would throw away much of the past few decades’ work in many fields of science and engineering, and even key business practices. The challenge, then, was to produce a simulation that did not show global warming. It should have been easy to try, for by the 1990s, millions of people owned personal computers more powerful than anything commanded by the climate modelers of the 1970s. But no matter how people fiddled with climate models, whether simple one- or two-dimensional models or full-scale GCMs, the answer was the same. If your model could reproduce something resembling the present climate, and then you added some greenhouse gases, the model always displayed a severe risk of future global warming.(105) > > The modelers had reached a point where they could confidently declare what was reasonably likely to happen. They did not claim they would ever be able to say what would certainly happen. Different model runs continued to offer a range of possible future temperatures, thanks mainly to the different ways they tried to figure how clouds worked. Worse, the various GCMs stubbornly continued to give a wide range of predictions for particular regions. Some things looked quite certain, like higher temperatures in the Arctic (hardly a prediction now, for such warming was becoming blatantly visible in the weather data). But for many of the Earth’s populated places, the models could not reliably tell the local governments whether to brace themselves for more droughts, more floods, or neither or both. > > By the dawn of the 21st century, climate models had become a crucial source of information for policy-makers and the public. Much of the modelers’ attention now focussed on working up results for the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, rather than formal publication in obscure scientific journals. Struggling to provide a better picture of the changes that would come upon the planet as a whole and in each of its regions, the community of modelers grew larger and better organized. Projects to compare the models devised by different groups became a major ongoing activity. This cooperative framework forced the groups to agree on schemes for representing features of climate and formats for reporting their data, and once that was done, computer outputs could serve as raw material for groups that had nothing to do with the originators. That opened new paths for criticism and experimentation. A joint archive was established, which by 2007 contained more than 30 terabytes of data utilized by more than 1000 scientists.(105a) > > There were about a dozen major teams now, and the pictures of overall global warming that their ocean-atmosphere GCMs computed were converging. The decades of work by teams of specialists, backed up by immense improvements in computers and data, had gradually built up confidence. It was largely thanks to their work that, as the editor of Science magazine announced in 2001, a “consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in the history of science.”(106\*) Nearly every expert now agreed that the old predictions were solid — raising the CO2 level was all but certain to warm the globe. > > The computer numbers got an independent check. Other scientists were studying past climates clear back to the ice ages, lining up temperature changes with changes in greenhouse gases and other influences such as aerosols blown into the atmosphere from volcanoes. By 2006 they had arrived at fairly good numbers, which agreed well with what the computers calaculated. When experts were pinned down to be specific, they might say there was scarcely one chance in twenty that the doubling of CO2 (what was expected to come before the end of the century) would warm the planet less than 1.5°C. The upper limit was harder to fix, since doubled CO2 would push the atmosphere into a state not seen for tens of millions of years, but a rise greater than 6°C seemed equally unlikely. The most likely number for climate sensitivity was 3°C.(107) However, experience showed that scientists tended to be too optimistic about their level of certainty. Some insisted that there was a very real chance of an outcome better than the IPCC expected—or far worse. ]([http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm](http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm)) ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/38 "2008-06-28T17:41:06Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] And? No one ever said that the scientists are correct. The scientists don’t say they’re correct. What they do say is that based on the best of modern day technology with the best testing we can do to verify that the models simulate reality, that such and such result seems to be what it is. There’s every chance that that’s wrong, but unless you can create a better model than the best that’s ever been made to date and have it come to a different result, then all your complaining is just pissing into the wind. [/quote] Lol. As it turns out, it would appear that I can indeed come up with a better model. According to **wevets** , here are the Met Office’s year on year temperature forecasts and measurements: > [@](#): > > 2007 Met forecast: 0.54°C ±0.16°C above the 1961-1990 average. > 2007 Measurement: 0.41°C (January - November) > > 2006 Met Office forecast: 0.45°C ±0.12°C above the 1961-1990 average. > 2006 Measurement: 0.42°C > > 2005 Met Office forecast: 0.51°C ±0.12°C above the 1961-1990 average. > 2005 Measurement: 0.49°C > > 2004 Met Office forecast: 0.50°C ±0.12°C above the 1961-1990 average. > 2004 Measurement: 0.46°C > > 2003 Met Office forecast: 0.55°C ±0.14°C above the 1961-1990 average. > 2003 Measurement: 0.48°C > > 2002 Met Office forecast: 0.47°C ±0.14°C above the 1961-1990 average. > 2002 Measurement: 0.48°C > > 2001 Met Office forecast: 0.47°C ±0.14°C above the 1961-1990 average. > 2001 Measurement: 0.42°C > > 2000 Met Office forecast: 0.41°C ±0.16°C above the 1961-1990 average. > 2000 Measurement: 0.29°C One way to test this sort of forecast is to compare the prediction against the “naive” or “no-change” model. In other words, to use the measurement from each year as the forecast for the next. Do the math and see if you agree with me. Looks to me like the Met Office, with it’s millions of dollars of software and supercomputers, could be beaten by a 15 year old with a Commodore Vic 20 and 10 lines of computer code. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/39 "2008-06-28T18:00:33Z")
A) Refer back to what I said in post #34. The existence of a single flawed engine in the world isn’t a proof. Particularly not one which wasn’t used in the IPCC report. B) I’ll research that one and see if what **wevet** said is even true. ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2008, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390/40 "2008-06-28T18:21:22Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] A) Refer back to what I said in post #34. The existence of a single flawed engine in the world isn’t a proof. Particularly not one which wasn’t used in the IPCC report. [/quote] Please feel free to show me another climate model which has been used to make real, testable predictions. I would love to see how it performs. Besides, it’s not as though I cherry-picked a sucky climate model. **wevets** chose that model and those predictions to support his claim that climate models are good at predicting stuff. In any event, you can ask **wevets** which model produced the predictions he cited. I did do a quick google search and it does appear that Met Office models are in fact used in IPCC reports: [http://www.ipcc-data.org/ar4/model-UKMO-HADCM3.html](http://www.ipcc-data.org/ar4/model-UKMO-HADCM3.html) > [@](#): > > B) I’ll research that one and see if what **wevet** said is even true. By all means, feel free to do so. Here’s a link to his post: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9926228&postcount=233](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9926228&postcount=233) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-agw-debate-about-results-or-science/454390.md?page=3)