Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Over at “Digging in the Clay” Verity Jones has an excellent graphic summarizing the different levels of disagreement. The graphic deserves wider circulation. The types of disagreement range in a spectrum from the strongest, refuting the author’s central point, all the way down to the weakest, name-calling. Here’s the graphic:
The graphic is based on How to Disagree by Paul Graham, which is well worth reading. So let me discuss the pyramid shown above.
The problem with proving I’m wrong is that lots of folks don’t understand how to disagree effectively. So here’s the Quick Guide To Proving Willis Is Wrong.
Sadly, far too many folks make their living on the web down at the bottom of the pyramid, name-calling. Whether the insult is “ass hat” or “racist” or “Zionist” or “terf”, that goes nowhere.
Next up the pyramid is the “ad hominem” argument, like “Willis, you can’t be right, you don’t have credentials” or “you post on a ‘climate denier’ website”. Nonsense. The issue is, are my claims true or not? That doesn’t depend on my education, credentials, or where I publish.
Next up the pyramid is responding to tone. It’s where someone ignores the actual claims and issues and instead responds to how it’s presented. That’s something like “Willis, you shouldn’t be so harsh in your arguments.” So what? That doesn’t disprove anything.
Then we have contradiction. Here, the disagreement finally reaches the goal, the actual issues and claims themselves. However, there’s nothing but contradiction—no evidence, no math, no logic. Just “Nope, Willis, you’re wrong”. Again, that goes nowhere. Meaningless.
Then we have counterargument. We’re getting to the good stuff. This first contradicts what I said and then provides observations, evidence, logic, and/or math to support your argument.
Moving upwards, we have refutation. That’s where you first quote my exact words and follow with “Willis, that interpretation of the facts is wrong, and here are the detailed reasons why.”
You have actively refuted exactly what I said. And at this point, for the first time, you’ve shown I’m wrong.
Finally, many arguments rest on a central point. Show that point is wrong and the edifice crumbles. That looks something like “Willis, your central claim is where you say, and I quote, “Germaniums grow better under moonlight.” That’s wrong, and here’s why.”
The top two levels are the only ways to show that I’m wrong, and I invite you to do so—it’s the quickest path to me learning new things.
One thing I’d like to highlight is that in the linked article the author says (emphasis mine):
DH5. Refutation.
The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation. It’s also the rarest, because it’s the most work. Indeed, the disagreement hierarchy forms a kind of pyramid, in the sense that the higher you go the fewer instances you find.
To refute someone you have to quote them. You have to find a “smoking gun,” a passage in whatever you disagree with that you feel is mistaken, and then explain why it’s mistaken. If you can’t find an actual quote to disagree with, you may be arguing with a straw man.
I bring all of this forward to encourage both myself and others to up our game, to aspire in our comments to the higher levels of the pyramid shown above, and to eschew the lower levels.
Finally, please, don’t bother with the bottom levels of the pyramid, name-calling, ad hominems, and the like. I’ll just point and laugh.
TL;DR version:
TO SHOW THAT WILLIS IS WRONG:
• Quote exactly what I said that you think is wrong, then
• Show with supporting arguments exactly why it’s wrong
Quoting is crucial. I can defend my words. I can’t defend your rephrasing of them.
Regards to everyone,
w.
My Usual Postscript: If you disagree with someone, please quote their exact words so we can all understand just what you are disagreeing with.
Further Reading: Verity Jones’s article is here.
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Hmmmm, “Appeal to Authority” seems to be mostly missing in this discussion.
davidmhoffer April 5, 2015 at 10:11 pm mentions it only in passing:
Ten seconds into the physics, they “tune out”. All that is available at that point is appeal to authority and other tactics of the bottom end of the pyramid.
Yes, “Appeal to Authority” is at the bottom or the pyramid.
From the original article (Graham’s):
Sy 12:15 AM on 6 April, Steve Case had observed that:
…to which Verity Jones had replied with a quotation from Graham’s article cited above:
…missing the point that claiming validity for a recognized authority figure’s pronouncement on a subject only because said source is recognized as an “authority” is a species of argumentum ad hominem perhaps even more invidious than uttering a Semmelweis reflex dismissal when confronted with an “outsider’s” critique of the orthodoxies.
I have a helluva lot of difficulty crediting the notion that any physician or surgeon could possibly get gulled by the great [snip . . mod] “man-made global fill-in-the-blank” climate catastrophe fraud.
In the first year of medical school, we get a “History of Medicine” course in which the story of Ignaz Semmelweis is prominently told. Then in Obstetrics during the second year, we again get the story of how iatrogenic puerperal sepsis – “childbed fever” – killed thousands of women while the “consensus” in obstetrics & gynecology deliberately blanked-out the warnings uttered by Dr. Semmelweis, who was anything but a member of the “establishment.”
Especially because the guy was right, and the big mahoffs in OB/GYN were spreading infectious diseases through the wards. Arrogant sons of bitches.
You tell a physician that he should believe and act upon what “the authorities” say for no other reason than that “the authorities” have said it, and he’ll punch you in the nose.
We have a technical term in medical jurisprudence for a doctor who refuses to maintain a high degree of skepticism with regard to “the authorities,” and thereby abdicates his responsibility to exercise perspicacity and good judgement in each clinical situation.
The word is “defendant.”
You forgot the straw man fallacy, which seems to compose the bulk of political arguments against reason.
Willis,
Thank you for posting this article. I first came upon Graham’s hierarchy a year or two ago and recall laughing because it’s such a true story of how the Interwebs work — and indeed how IRL arguments work — and seeing it distilled to its essence this way was rather powerful. I never did read his original essay though, and the bit you quoted here caused a stumble:
DH5. Refutation. The most convincing form of disagreement is refutation.
I immediately thought, no, DH6, refuting the central point is most convincing, because …
Even as high as DH5 we still sometimes see deliberate dishonesty, as when someone picks out minor points of an argument and refutes those.
So in my view he calls it correctly, I just had to keep reading. Someone who argues at the DH6 level consistently is quite rare. They truly are the best sort as they tend to understand what it means to agreeably disagree.
Brandon
I agree with you. Unfortunately you state your points and questions in an aggressive manner, like you are spoiling for a fight. That is rather off-putting and people probably note and react to your manner , rather than to your words.
Alex,
One of my favourite online debate partners is a fellow from the UK who shares your first name. I was specifically thinking of him when I wrote that post. I’m not superstitious about such happy coincidences, but I do think it’s fun when they happen.
I thank you for your critique and the spirit in which it is given. Sometimes I’m abrasive without knowing it, which is distressing. Other times it’s quite intentional. I reiterate my appreciation of Willis’ call for elevating the debate. On top of others’ recent calls for me to tone it down — which did not make me at all happy — I have been consciously attempting to heed them.
Which is NOT to say I promise to always be “nice” under any and all circumstances. Driessen’s essay yesterday is an example of me choosing to express my ire in no uncertain terms.
Gates says:
Sometimes I’m abrasive without knowing it…
Since it’s been pointed out by more than one reader that Gates totally badmouths both WUWT, and commenters that he disagrees with on the other alarmist blogs where he posts (and in a much more vicious, insulting manner than here — if you can imagine), that comment is just not credible.
Gates knows exactly what he’s doing, and why. A lot of WUWT readers know that, too.
It is amazing the amount of time it takes to comment literally thousands of times here, and an untold number of times on other blogs. Those comments are posted around the clock, during work days and on weekends. What’s the point? I’ve seen no indication that Gates has convinced a single reader to change their view from skeptic to alarmist. A lot of wasted effort there.
‘Fixation’ is not nearly strong enough to describe his rigid belief system. The rest of us observe what is happening to the global temperature, and compare it with the endless predictions by the alarmist crowd, made before global warming stopped — and frightening new predictions made since then, as they re-direct their scare into more predictions of climate doom.
It’s all preposterous nonsense. There is nothing unusual or unprecedented happening. Anyone can see that. In fact, temperatures and every other global parameter are completely normal. So why do Gates and his ilk try to convince us there is a problem?
There are several reasons. First, there’s money and fame. That is the motivation of the eco-stars of the climate scare, like Mann, Trenberth, etc. They love to travel to holiday venues at the expense of taxpayers and others. In school they were nerds, and they never dreamed they would be the equivalent of rock stars.
Then there’s the motivation of those who took a position early on, and having argued that position for many years, they cannot change their minds. They view that as a climbdown. So rather than admit that they were flat wrong, they argue incessantly, on lots of blogs — some of the more fixated ones posting thousands of comments in a failed effort to convince people that the climate hoax is valid. Guess who does that more than anyone? As Leo Tolstoy wrote:
I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.
At some point it stops being a debate, and devolves into borderline insanity. When someone cannot convince a single person to change his mind, after years of effort and thousands of attempts, only abnormal people will keep digging that hole. As Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman emperor and student of human nature wrote two thousand years ago:
“The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
We’re surrounded by insane alarmists. Our job is to understand that, and to avoid being one of the lemmings who blindly accept the media’s narrative. Fortunately, most scientific skeptics think for themselves. All we are really saying is: prove it. Or at least, produce convincing evidence that there is the great cause for concern that you believe in.
But to date, they’ve got nothin’. That explains their hate, and their cross-posting to other blogs, and the incessant name-calling (deniers, denialists, contrarians, etc. cf: Michael Mann), and their arguing from the bottom of the pyramid. But as they die off one by one, only the truth remains. So after wasting $billions and more, eventually we will get back to normal — just like the climate.
dbstealey,
Let’s rewind, shall we?
Sometimes I’m abrasive without knowing it, which is distressing. Other times it’s quite intentional. I reiterate my appreciation of Willis’ call for elevating the debate. On top of others’ recent calls for me to tone it down — which did not make me at all happy — I have been consciously attempting to heed them.
Protip: quotemining works best when the full context of what you’re spinning isn’t on THE EXACT SAME PAGE.
Word of the day:
cred·i·ble
ˈkredəb(ə)l/
adjective
adjective: credible
able to be believed; convincing.
“few people found his story credible”
synonyms: believable, plausible, tenable, able to hold water, conceivable, likely, probable, possible, feasible, reasonable, with a ring of truth, persuasive
“only one of the so-called witnesses could provide a credible story”
capable of persuading people that something will happen or be successful.
“a credible threat”
synonyms: believable, plausible, tenable, able to hold water, conceivable, likely, probable, possible, feasible, reasonable, with a ring of truth, persuasive
“only one of the so-called witnesses could provide a credible story”
YMMV, HTH, though I’m mindful of the saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” One wonders if attack poodles are an exception to the rule … thus far it ain’t looking that way.
Hey, just wanted to let you all know, some of you are really very funny to read.
Funny, amusing or funny, peculiar?
Funny as in witty and entertaining.
(Some, not all.)
So no need to go all Joe ” What, I amuse you?” on me.
🙂
Ugh. Phones!
Joe Pesci that is.
In my experience with left-of-center disputants online, there is a reliable tendency to whine about adventitious insult (which I consider nothing more than entertaining efforts at parsimoniously and accurately categorizing the average progtard’s idiocy and moral character), tendered in addition to on-point critique of their positions, as being “ad hominem.”
This reveals the fact that many (probably most) of these friggin’ schmucks are as the beasts that perish when it comes to knowledge of formal logic, emphasis on the nature of the fallacy called argumentum ad hominem, which is the use of an “attack on the man” to evade the responsibility to provide an “attack on the position” under consideration.
I strongly suspect that these blitheringly uneducated jackwads use the expression “ad hominem” simply because they think – if they can be said to think at all – that by peppering their spew with latinate polysyllables, they can appear erudite.
Or even, perhaps, speciously literate.
Wrong!
Thank you to Verity Jones! Too long since i have heard from her 🙂
Very useful graphic, and thank you to Willis for bringing it to our attention.
Good to have in the toolbox for climate debate.
Kind Regards, Frank
Oh … I get it. This is an efficiency chart! The width of each colored region is roughly the ratio of the “personal satisfaction gained” to “effort expended.”
Well, with this in mind, the person who came up with this graphic is obviously an ass hat. There, I just achieved maximum efficiency in Internet confrontational discourse. 😉
Too busy to say much, except that this pyramid, while useful as a visual “bite”, is inadequate and overspecific to describe the range of discourse in a debate. IMO the Logical Fallacy Bingo site presents a much broader and more useful overview of ways one can argue badly. A second point that is omitted is that the figure presupposes that it is possible to e.g. refute/disprove the central point (assuming that there IS a “central” point and not an entire spectrum of points). But in most cases of interest, the reason that there is an argument at all is that there is disagreement at a more fundamental level than the argument itself. Arguments concerning religion are an excellent example. What constitutes “good evidence”? How do you argue with someone who holds different axioms as a basis for their arguments than you do for yours?
If humans were rational enough to be convinced by simple logic and evidence in combination, would any world religions exist at all? They are supremely illogical and are completely unsupported by anything like sound evidence. The definitions of the religions themselves are basically long, self-contradictory polemics that reduces to the “logical” argument “This sentence is true because I say it is true”, and by the way, invisible pink unicorns are the basis of Universal Gravitation.”
One cannot prove or disprove an axiom (or proposition, or postulate). They are the assumptions upon which “proof” of any sort relies. If two individuals have different axioms, they can argue all day and strongly disprove each other’s assertions with the very best of logic, and yet one will never convince the other because the disproof of one isn’t valid for the other.
The very first step, in other words, the “fundmental prior” to having any sort of reason-based discussion of some hypothesis, is to agree on the set of propositions that constitutes a “worldview” (or ontology). If those propositions disagree — for example, if one set allows for “evidence” in the form of hearsay concerning an invisible world where infinite/eternal punishments and rewards are meted out and the other doesn’t — argumentation is just a waste of time.
rgb
rgbatduke: “[I]f one set allows for “evidence” in the form of hearsay concerning an invisible world where infinite/eternal punishments and rewards are meted out and the other doesn’t — argumentation is just a waste of time.”
I can’t resist observing, though, that Dr. Brown’s own silver-wire proof was based on his unfounded assumptions about what physical laws would prevail in a parallel universe that features non-zero equilibrium lapse rates.
Oh, I agree that in the thermodynamic limit the equilibrium lapse rate is zero. But it can be demonstrated that Dr. Brown’s unfounded assumptions lay at the base of his attempt to prove it by showing that the contrary assumption leads to perpetual undriven net heat flow. Worse, defending that argument led him to adopt bad physics.
Theologians are not the only ones who base their arguments on invisible worlds.
“How do you argue with someone who holds different axioms as a basis for their arguments than you do for yours?”
It is always possible to accept the set of axioms as hypotheticals. But of course, without agreeing on the set of grounding propositions for the rest, we don’t even begin on a chain of logic.
“One cannot prove or disprove an axiom (or proposition, or postulate). They are the assumptions upon which “proof” of any sort relies.”
This is only correct within the limit of what we consider a valid axiom. Classically, if the axiom could be generated as a consequence of further and deeper axioms then it was necessarily a logical consequence and so could not be used as an axiom. Though, as a practical matter, it’s simply enough to accept a grounding proposition hypothetically whether or not it meets that strict criterion. Regardless to either, you certainly cannot ‘prove’ a valid axiom. But there remains the possibility in all cases to disprove it experimentally. And, for a set of axioms, to demonstrate a contradiction arising from the set; which disproves the soundness of the set itself. Where ‘contradiction’ can be a purely logical contradiction (by the rules of logic) or by a claimed consequence arising from the axioms that is contradicted by experimental evidence.
Without meaning to put the vise to you, this is all basic logic itself. Which has nothing to do with what educational institutions promulgate or whether people have sussed through texts that have a history older than the point at which we flipped the calendar from BC to AD on the basis of pink unicorns.
The existence of god is not dependent on religion. There is an intriguing argument for such made by Richard Swinburne in a book called, oddly enough, The Existence of God. Basically, it’s a Bayesian argument that establishes god’s existence is more likely than his/her/its [delete whichever is inapplicable] non-existence. Much to The Git’s amusement, the probability of god’s existence falls to zero in the absence of a mind to believe in god’s existence. This casts creation in quite a different light than usual 🙂
Wow … I did not know that about Universal Gravitation …
You learn something new everyday if you want to …
Refutation can work when arguing about science, or concrete facts. Most arguments, are political in nature, and all that’s being argued is personal perference.
Note that AGW fits into the “political” category. Will the earth warm ! C or more with a doubling of CO2?
Even if the answer was yes, “science” doesn’t answer the political question, “would this warming be good or bad, and if so, should we be doing anything about it? It’s these POLITICAL arguments using “science” as a crutch that drive me nuts.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
–
Worth noting. Also worth taking the time to do your homework and develop a good refutation. Otherwise, many people would rather be wrong than corrected. Just let it go.
The first post of Willis’s I’ve actually enjoyed reading. Succinct and to the point, without any waffle.
Applying this model to Michael Mann or the Archbishop of Canterbury, it is possible and very satisfying to combine all the levels.
Refutation.
Often the alarmists argue by claiming to refute with a link they provide. Yet when the link is read there is no authentic refutation at all. When one returns from their recommended link and points out the vacuous nature of their suggested refuting the conversation stalls.
wotts, SS & TP are typical links.
BTW look at this pathetic reaction to EPA head.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/04/03/3642142/gop-wants-to-learn-climate-models/
A couple of points. First, I don’t post much here, mostly because I’ve seen it all and don’t need to re-post what is common knowledge here. As to Willis’ usual postscript, I’ve adhered to it for a couple of decades + now. I used to hang out on David Wojick’s (sp?) Climate Debate (proto)blog, back before there was an internet. I always quoted the things i was arguing against and demanded/encouraged others to do the same.
Second, I’m a devout Christian, and while i don’t proselytize much these days, I will say that having done so in various places, attracted the attention of a lady who has now been my wife for nearly 20 years so doing so is not without value even if it doesn’t seem to bear fruit on the surface.
But since this subject has arisen (no pun on yesterday being Easter), I want to make an attempt at a “refuting the central point” argument, This refers to the gentleman stating that “As a devout atheist myself, I don’t take kindly to being told stuff that I think is pure crap (because it has no basis in evidence)”
It seems to me his main point amounts to: “the Christian godhead cannot be a God because a God would do miracles and therefore the many miracles attested to in the NT and OT must be false because there cannot be a God.” This is circular reasoning and therefore invalid. QED
A perfect example of the straw man argument.
So are you talking to me or the devout atheist? In either case, your micropost is a perfect example of why one should quote what you’re arguing against..
Indeed. The phrase “It seems to me his main point amounts to” is another version of the “in other words” straw man mentioned up thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/04/05/agreeing-to-disagree/#comment-1898984
If the “amounts to” argument is circular, it’s because Daved46 (who wrote it) made it so, meaning he just refuted his own argument.
Dang, I learned something today! Thanks, Willis, George E Smith, and Daved46!
There is no central point. There is a thesis with many points and a conclusion. If you disagree with the conclusion you’ll be accused of being anti science. If you go to the points the journalists won’t follow you complaining that the story is “going into the weeds.”
I like this logical fallacy poster.
I’d like it on a t-shirt so that when people are droning on I could point to the fallacies as they make them.
http://www.franklinveaux.com/venn-poster-large.jpg
You can click on the poster to enlarge it.
This is pretty cool. I’ve downloaded it. Willis’s graphic has been around forever. I was hitting warmists over the head with it on FB threads three or four years ago already.
I agree this post for the most part. The pinnacle of the pyramid should be the main goal and focus but the bottom of the pyramid can be hilarious. So come on how about a ratio of say every 5 “pinnacle points” we get a bottom sarcasm. ☺
Just watch the comments here and witness a poster child debate.
Wesley Clark, retired general speaking at Lewis & Clark Monday, calls for carbon tax to boost national security
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2015/04/wesley_clark_retired_general_c.html
Climate change will be catastrophic to national security unless countries address it with measures such as a U.S. carbon tax, says retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who will speak Monday in Portland.
Clark, a former Democratic presidential-primary candidate who remains influential in policy circles, believes climate change helped cause the war in Syria and conflict across East Africa.
Speaking in a telephone interview Friday, Clark said a carbon tax could be made palatable by boosting U.S. oil and gas production as a start, thereby uniting left and right political wings.
“If we don’t take serious methods in the decades to come to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases, we’re building catastrophe in national-security terms,” said Clark, who led NATO forces to victory in Kosovo. “Not only in the United States, but worldwide, we’ll see pestilence, famines and revolutions.”
I wrotne General Wesley Clark off as an idiot when he was running for president several cycles ago, and stated that the American Revolution was based on a desire for a more “progressive tax”.
Alan McIntire,
Back then we called him ‘Weaselly Clark’. He hasn’t changedf.
I would distinguish a couple of other types of interaction:
1) With poor reading comprehension, someone attempts to refute a confused idea of what they read. It is not a strawman because a strawman is often a deliberate debating tactic.
2) Picking out a minor or irrelevant part of the argument to refute.
3) Writing such an incoherent reply that no one knows what you are saying.
Another type of argument is by assertion. For example, when you call the fit of GCMs to data “excellent” when other people looking at the same data are bewildered how you could say that. If the “data” going in to the debate is defined as excellent, this is an attempt to subvert any dissent. In this case what is lacking is any agreed criterion as to what “excellent” means or how to judge. If the advocate gets to judge the quality of the models than skeptics clearly must just be using motivated reasoning.
Point irrefutably proven by Craig Loehle’s excellent comments! But seriously… or perhaps not so seriously… those guys who post pics of their wives who look like they went under a road roller and captioned, “My gorgeous wife Xxxxx.” Stupid, but it’s at the same level as the debater posting a link to an extremely weak argument. You thought I was a damfool for marrying this creature or for believing that polar bears are going extinct but see, here’s another damfool who agrees with me! What would you call this fallacy, Craig?
Whatever we love is beautiful–our kids, our wives, our theories. Rose-colored glasses.
@ur momisugly Craig Loehle
Or perhaps we love those who love us. And love has nothing whatsoever to do with the physics, it’s metaphysics all the way down 🙂
Incidentally, most of the argument about climate is not deductive, or inductive; it’s abductive (aka Inference to the Best Explanation).
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/
Good post Willis, thank you.
There is, also, disagreement about unstated premises. Let me quote (summarizing) economist David Friedman:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Libertarian/My_Posts/My_View_of_Oughts.html
“[I]t is very hard to come to an agreement on the assumed facts surrounding the situations we are judging. My imaginary capitalist has capital because he worked hard clearing part of the boundless forest … His imaginary capitalist inherited his capital from a father who stole it. ”
Beginning with the same word for a nearly identical concept — here, “capital” / a pile of wealth — the argument between two people diverges before it takes the first step, based on individual perceptions of what sorts of people hold it and what sorts of actions can be fairly assumed about how they arrived at that condition.
And I don’t see where or how differences of this sort show up in the pyramid. I consider Hansen’s projections about climate — some of which are based on what he calls “Business As Usual” — are intentionally critical of free-market and business-like approaches to human problems and allocation of resources. Fairly quoting here, an example is here: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2011/09/29/332369/nasa-hansen-the-southern-u-s-will-become-almost-uninhabitable/
I concede the possibility this word choice might be unconscious on his part but I believe an anti-business, pro-control philosophy biases his entire approach to the problem, if any, and the possible solution, also if any. Others may see the phrase “business as usual” as non-judgemental synonymous terminology for “ceteras parabis” — if nothing else except this is considered as the changing factor — and therefore suppose Hansen’s biases, if any, arise from non-economic roots and more from his personal morality — if any.
It makes objective discussion difficult.
I note, by the way, that the Texas drought conditions Hansen and Romm discussed in the quoted story have been substantially though not completely alleviated by recent rains.
Willis – Thanks again for the post, food for thought. Also, just an observation – this may qualify for the most terse submission that you have ever posted!!
Regards,
MCR
The pyramid diagram ought to be organized with respect to color better. For example, if we colored the diagram starting with flaming fucsia at the bottom, and work our way up through cooler and more pleasant colors, ending with mint green at the top, then we could just color code arguments.
In a private industry there is a process and an appointed neutral moderator/lead investigator to ensure technical problems (for example the investigation into what caused a plane crash) are resolved, scientifically without prejudice, with no hidden agendas. There is a defined process for private industry technical investigation that always includes deliverables such as documentation of observations, analysis, arguments and counter arguments to enable any knowledgeable person to understand/verify the central issues, arguments, and counter arguments, and conclusions. The lead investigator and the investigating team must ensure the investigation is complete and unbiased.
In private industry paradoxes and anomalies are not ignored, as they logically indicate there are one or more fundamental issues/errors with the based theories, assumptions, and conclusions. In private industry hiding a paradox or anomaly in an investigation (for example a plane crash investigation) is grounds for firing and possible prosecution of those involved in the ‘cover up’. In private industry hiding or changing data is grounds for firing or possible prosecution.
As Ad Hominen and Responding to tone is purposeless and counterproductive, in private industry it is strictly forbidden. There are seminars in private industry that teach employees how to resolve problems effectively. In private industry a technical person (employees) must change their mind when observations and logic support the counter theory.
In private industry a person would be fired for name calling or appealing to an absurd non logical pillar such as the statement that an assertion must be correct as 97% of a group of people believe it to be correct and then adamantly avoiding any discussion of the details to support the specific assertions.
The IPCC team was/is a handpicked group of biased believers with direct influence of NGOs and political special interest groups. The IPCC mandate was to develop ‘sciency’ looking documentation to support a foregone conclusion. The IPCC is not an independent investigation of the issues.
What makes this surreal mad scenario more interesting is it appears there will be in your face observation evidence (planet significantly cools, atmospheric level CO2 significantly drops, and ocean level significantly drops) that all of the IPCC assertions were incorrect.
The practices you ascribe to private industry have accountability as one of their roots. unfortunately, academia not so much.