Matthew W writes in WUWT Tips and Notes:
Today’s “Fun Challenge:”
I dare anyone to go to this blog/website and get an intelligent, coherent reply posted:
Excerpt:
This is just the sort of metaphorical setting into which the climate change denial lobby is trying to place the debate over climate change without the public or even most policymakers realizing it. The deniers in the fossil fuel industry and elsewhere are attempting by sleight-of-hand to get both the public and policymakers to abandon the preponderance of evidence standard used primarily in civil trials–and which is similar to evidence-based public policymaking–in favor of another judicial standard designed for criminal trials, namely, beyond a reasonable doubt.
So long as the deniers get to claim the role of defense attorney in this public fight, their task will be much easier. The reason that the deniers want to change the standard of proof, of course, is because climate scientists have already shown through an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that human activities are a major cause of climate change. The deniers have no hope of winning the intellectual argument if this standard of proof is used.
Typical of the Cultist, there is no dissent allowed !! The article is being featured on the Yahoo homepage
Oddly enough its normal to ask for ahigh level of proof to support great claims , in fact people this everyday and within science there is even a set method used for this , even the IPCC with infamous 95% claim acknowledge this. And you would have thought that given this is ‘settled science’ they would no trouble at all with meeting this requirement and given they claim CAGW is the ‘most important thing ever and there is no time to lose’ they be more than willing to provided it to. So its strange that lies, BS and claims of ‘authority’ are what they resort to has justification rather than the level of proof which is normal for science.
Now I wonder why that is ?
I have just posted this on their website, I will see if it stays there!
“You talk about consensus as if that is the end of the matter, Science is not about consensus, it is about fact. Hundreds of years ago the consensus was that the Earth is flat. Consensus did not make that so!”
“Hundreds of years ago the consensus was that the Earth is flat. Consensus did not make that so!”
It’s a good thing that happened long ago, back before Gore invented the interweb. Just think what our maps might show if that was the consensus today. Hey, it clears up that map/globe projection issues too.
The author of this latest bit of Yahoo deception demonstrates the intellectual equivalent of the KKK: Bigoted, ignorant and dangerously hateful. The venom that drips from his use of the word “den*er” is not really any different than when a KKK’er called blacks “ni**er”.
Testing, testing, testing
Two days, and only two comments. Must be a subject is not controversial & no one cares about. /sarc
Or perhaps heavy moderation?
No denies “Climate Change.” The question is whether 100 parts per million of man made CO2 can force catastrophic warming of the planet.
There is no evidence this is occurring. The is no convincing evidence this can happen.
OT but, I think, relevant to the discussion. I saw an interesting interview on UK Channel 4 news last night with an Armenian man whose family suffered the death marches into the Syrian desert in 1915 onwards under the Ottomans. The interview was prompted by the news that Pope Francis mentioned the genocide in his easter address. The interviewer asked him if he was happy that the Pope believed the genocide happened. He replied that he didn’t care if the Pope, Cameron or Obama believed in it. Facts are facts. You may hide the truth but the truth is still there. Smart man.
On a quick scan of the thread I see some posts stating that science doesn’t do a ‘preponderence of evidence.’ And we are all certainly welcome to state that this is what science should be. The problem is that science as practiced and published *is* stringently reliant on the notion of ‘evidence based’ theories.
That is, if there are enough results that are not inconsistent with a given theory — then that theory is ‘true for practical purposes.’ Which, quickly enough, becomes simply ‘true.’ Under this notion the rise of a new theory, the disputation of the previous one, is not based on a failure of the theory — a necessary outcome of the theory that is contradicted by observation. It is when the new theory is more ‘parsimonious.’ Which is a fancy way of stating that no theory is refuted, ever, except for social reason. That ad hoc hypotheses are the order of the day.
This is a recurring theme and fault in the field of science. For example, the Phlogiston theory was evidence based. It was elevated from a few cases to all material — despite that not all material had been checked. And when magnesium was shown to refute Phlogiston theory: The refutation was denied. The truth of the theory was still asserted because it was ‘evidence based’ and ad hoc hypotheses proliferated. And this is just what we should expect out of ‘evidence based’ science — because it *is* about the ‘preponderence of the evidence.’
And this is, once again, a current and common feature in the scientific disciplines. It can be found nearly everywhere, but is most prosperous in precisely those fields that lack the ability to do controlled experiments. Not simply Climatology, but Cosmology, Evolutionary Biology, Economics, Political Science, and so on. And, quite interestingly, Religion. Acknowledging such is not to dispute any of them or their cherished theories. But ‘evidence based’ is just a polite euphimism for ‘confirmation bias.’
The hazard, irrespective or the propriety, in challenging the idea of ‘evidence based’ is that you are simultaneously attacking a number of fields and disciplines. You are calling into question the pronouncements from on High by the credentialed experts in any of them. You are calling into question the legitimacy of their epistemology and their Truth. And given the fields involved? It’s probably a right battle to fight, but a losing one at this point in time. And will probably remain so until the use of confirmation bias becomes too embarrasing for the broad discipline of science; yet again as it has before.
I can’t say I like the analogy – the scientific method is not the same as a courtroom trial.
But if we accept the analogy, then most of the climate change dissenters defense relies on “the butler did it”.
No, if we accept the legal standard analogy, and assume we are left with 51% odds the butler did it, and 49% odds someone else did it.
But then if one reliable, irrefutable piece of evidence conclusively shows the butler was far way and somewhere else at the timeframe of murder, do his fingerprints and DNA on the weapon (physical evidence), the butler’s ownership of that murder weapon, and a known hatred of the victim (motive) make him the murderer?
In Matthew W’s “preponderance of evidence” standard, the butler did it. But other explanations (a frame up) must be considered by fair, reasonable, critically thinking people.
In the Climate Change case, natural variation and natural ocean-atmosphere and solar cycles, combined with increasing clarity of the paleo climate records, are sufficient to explain all the temp observations, all the ice and glacier changes, without any need to invoke anthropogenic CO2 forcing.
Last time:
IT IS NOT MY SITE !!!
If the butler did do it, than that would be a valid defense.
BTW, why do you have to make yourself look stupid by using phrases like “climate change dissenters”?
Nobody disagrees that the climate has changed. The debate is about what role, if any CO2 played in that change.
MarkW,
I don’t waste my time arguing semantics. And I use the term “dissenter” because if I use another common term, I am likely to get snipped or banned 🙂
No the defense is that there are multiple suspects in this case — solar activity, PDO, volcanic activity, aerosols, Natural Variability, CO2, and others that have yet to be identified. The DNA evidence of each is present at that crime scene(historical record).
So which suspect(s) is(are) responsible for the crime of Warming? No one can say for certain. If the CO2 theory doesn’t fit, you must acquit!
climate deniers simultaneously claim that
there is no global warming,
global warming is caused by nonhuman forces,
and global warming
is good even if it is caused by
human activities.
– says Kurt Cobb.
And Kurt Cobb is a honorable man.
– by his measures.
Obviously, Kurt Cobb is Climate Change faith-based believer, not a scientist. He is entitled to his beliefs.
Just don’t call it “settled science.”
That term is used to attempt to silence valid scientific criticism of conclusions when alternative explanations better fit observation.
Person A says this:
Person B says that:
These two positions are incompatible.
Ergo: Everyone who disagrees with me is wrong.
Anyone that is aware of public polls knows the alarmists are [losing] the argument concerning catastrophic global warming. This is just another excuse.
The “resiliance” website is basically a repudiation of fire. They want to stop burning stuff. Fascinating how the progressives have demonized the wheel, fire, chemistry, and any other technical subject or knowledge that does not fit in with their view of the simple life.
The poor fool thinks that the preponderance of evidence is on his side. I’d love to see the catastrophic warming theories subjected to proper rules of evidence. They wouldn’t stand a chance.
on the same blog:
‘The Church Should Lead, Not
Follow on Climate Justice’
Justice. Church. Kurt Cobb and resiliance.
Thanks for the link. Hans
“Debate”? Science isn’t about “debate”. Science isn’t about debating various hypotheses and “winning the debate”. Science isn’t voting on various hypotheses and the “winner” becomes “truth”.
The “debate” about “climate change” was lost when it BECAME a debate!
Thanks, Arthur –
can’t find that dam’ comment button on that resiliant thing.
to say:
some people don’t think before speaking.
Kurt.Cobb.writes.
warming his seat, not his forehead.
Regards – Hans
Johann,
The comment widget on that site loads as a Java coded run-time executable. That simply means, there is Java coding embedded in the web page that requires permission to run as an extension in whatever browser you are using. You likely need to go to browser settings and enable Java (Java JIT compiler) and or lower the security settings to allow it to run. Another possibility is that your internet router is filtering out (blocking) Java object compiler element loads from Adobe’s website (less likely).
Articles like this (Mr. Cobb’s that is) are what come from shouting in the echo chamber. You’d think an old man like him would know how to think better by now. Pity.
I was banned from Resilience.com on my very first post there. It’s nothing but a site for the dullest of the climate cult to congregate for circle-jerks.
fully agree. The crowd at Resilience I seen many times before in different settings. They are the same people who buy into holistic healing for serious medical illnesses, go to homeopathy “doctors”, put crystals and magnets under their bed for healing, and believe they see evil capitalist intent in every major corporation.
Ignore them. Let them shriek in their self-made, padded rubber room mental jail cell devoid of critical reasoning.
I beg to differ. Science has always been guided by a sort of “beyond reasonable doubt” standard. An idea cannot move beyond the hypothesis category without proof beyond reasonable doubt–i.e. without very solid experimental demonstration such as surviving many experiments designed to demonstrate the contrary position. The idea of a “beyond reasonable doubt” standard in the law did not crystallize until probably 1800, which suggests to me that the law followed science in this regard. It is all part of the sort of enlightenment made possible by science.
Ralph Kramden, everybody of our atavistic reptilian heritage knows:
if not climate disaster there’s other escapistic nolands ahead.
Don’t look back. Al Gore, Schwarzenegger, Rafjendra Pachauri now is back.
Hans
Well that is a progress! Even the cultists now admit that there is a REASONBLE doubt about global warming!
If you want to up end the world’s economy, place the lives of billions at risk, lower the standard of living for 95% of the world’s population.
Than by gosh, you are going to have to meet, at a minimum, the beyond a reasonable doubt standard.
civil and criminal standards of proof have no place in science.
scientific proof is much more rigorous. a theory must be able to successfully predict something that is otherwise hard to predict, and it must have no contrary examples.
there is no such thing as “weighing the evidence” in science. if someone finds an apple that falls upwards, it means that Newton is wrong about his Law of Universal Gravity.
Not only that, but the depositions of the witnesses (temperature data) has been willfully altered, not just once but several times. And if that weren’t enough, eye witness testimony (proxy data infilling) was invented were there were no actual witnesses (stations) at the time of the crime, or the actual testimony (temp data) differed from the narrative.
This is pretty laughable, how can a preponderance of evidence be overwhelming. Preponderance means 51% to 49% which does not sound too overwhelming. Sounds more like barely proven. If the evidence was overwhelming it would be beyond reasonable doubt.
If he thought it through, he is implying the validity of the theory of Evolution could be close to 50-50 since science only requires preponderance (51-49) of the evidence. I guess in Kurts world science moves ahead by simple majority, like many religious fundamentalists claim.
Perhaps the blog-writer kind of mixed up hyperbole with rhetoric and then confused it with his elbow.
This is precious, notice the number. There are a lot of similarities in the financial market and the climate market.
“The credit downgrades have only increased since then, with Moody’s alone chopping the ratings on more than half the 2006 subprime residential-mortgage-backed securities it had rated, including a whopping 97% of the slices, or tranches, it deemed single-A or below, according to a compilation made by Morgan Stanley Fixed Income Research.”
The experts had 97% of Credit Default Swaps rated improperly in 2006. When the vast majority of Experts get it wrong…it costs everybody a lot of money.
http://online.barrons.com/articles/SB119809206941640049?mod=b_hps_9_0001_b_this_weeks_magazine_home_top
I notice comments are now closed. Obviously couldn’t take the heat from skeptic logic.
However, i did see the following “classy” comment from AndyUK was allowed through moderation:
What a lovely man AndyUK must be….
AndyUK has taken the debate to a new level. (low). The ancient question: Who is my neighbor? “I’m sure glad its not AndyUK”