Of course I can point out how the video is incorrect - it asserts that because the primary data for the MWP came from the northern hemisphere (or northern europe), it can be disregarded as a regional phenomenon, not a global one. But this is clearly problematic on two points:
1) in order to assert that global average temp during the MWP was actually not anomalously high, you'd have to show evidence from other regions being sufficiently anomalously *cold* as to counteract;
2) the same argument about regional variation can be made about current "global warming", with some areas experiencing much different average trends on a regional basis.
As for Broeker's 2001 article, the case for the global MWP has become much more conclusive over the years - again read the cites:)
I know as a point of faith it is difficult to let go of the hockey stick, but Mann was a fraud, pure and simple. The clever and skillful manipulation he proposed made for a great slideshow, but wasn't very truthful.
The hypothesis holds as long as there's no significant discrepancy between results of the model and actual measurements.
The problem is that the shotgun approach of asserting, say, three dozen models, and then having actual measurements that have significant discrepancies with 75% of them, doesn't really say much. If your model isn't making predictions of any utility, and furthermore, cannot separate correlation from causality.
Not a single AGW model predicted the previous decade of lack of warming, and not a single AGW model can accurately hindcast all previous decades of climate.
Let's say I have a hypothesis that says that global climate change is caused by software piracy, and the predictions of that model I build show a strong correlation to our observed temperatures, within a huge range of error that I build into my model. Does my hypothesis hold? Sure, in the strictest sense of the word. Is my hypothesis really all that useful? Absolutely not.
The sad part, of course, is that so many people do see models as more than what they really are - they assume that these models represent evidence, when in reality, they're simply toys. Especially when you design them to withstand direct refutation by opening their error bars so wide that nearly *any* possible outcome is covered.
You're offering a false dichotomy. By constraining your imagination to only those factors in climate models, you prejudge the question (and frankly, you can tweak the model however you want, say by hard coding unjustified feedback from CO2 to H2O). The opposite of "Anthropogenic CO2 is primarily responsible for observed recent warming" is not "The Sun is primarily responsible for observed recent warming", it's "natural forces are primarily responsible for observed recent warming".
You cannot say "I assert human CO2 is responsible. To refute me, you must prove that something else is specifically responsible, otherwise, I win by default." The null hypothesis cannot be so cleverly avoided. Your placement of human CO2 on the pedestal of supernatural primacy that must be disproved, rather than in its proper place as a hypothesis that must compete against the primacy of natural climate change, is unjustifiable.
Furthermore, why would you assert that we'd have higher warming in tropical regions if the sun was driving warming? The transfer of heat throughout the globe seems to have more to do with ocean currents - http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6033/1076.abstract
That all being said, given the prediction of the CO2 hotspot, would you accept that the lack of such a hotspot represents a solid refutation of your hypothesis? http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
If you don't accept that as a solid refutation, are you willing to make other specific predictions about what kinds of patterns we could observe that would prove your hypothesis incorrect? I'm assuming you would have a longer list than "if the tropics warm more than the poles" - that seems like a pretty broad inclusionary criteria that doesn't logically lead to human CO2 based warming exclusively (especially if we could observe similar warming patterns before human CO2 was significant in the *same* pattern).
It wasn't until activists like Mann showed up that anyone ever denied the existence of a global MWP.
Funny though, your assertion that the MWP was only regional could also be asserted for the current warm period - when you isolate specific parts of the planet, in the modern temperature record, some are notably warming, and some are notably *not* warming. Can we therefore assert that there hasn't been Global Warming, but only Regional Warming?
Furthermore, are you asserting that any extreme warming we find during the MWP in specific regions must have been completely overwhelmed by extra cold elsewhere in the world to balance it out? Do you have any evidence of extremely cold regions during the MWP that would have balanced out the warm periods we have measured in Africa, China and Europe? Was South America particularly cold according to your data during the MWP? Or Australia?
The argument doesn't backfire on semantics, it backfires on rationale. If any observation, over any time period, can be explained way with an ad hoc special pleading (energy inputs dropped, aerosols increased, undersea volcanic activity stalled, etc, etc, etc), then your hypothesis is not a very useful one.
I think that part of the problem here is that you think you're talking to scientific illiterates. If you can step back for a moment, and imagine that you just may be talking to someone who is very scientifically literate, and probably more educated and perhaps even more expert than you (say, Lindzen), then maybe you can start concentrating more on the problems you're having with rationale.
One doesn't have to believe in conspiracies in order to ask for a simple statement of a falsifiable hypothesis. One doesn't have to attribute evil intentions to AGW activists in order to question the accuracy or logic of their work.
Fail. You're asking to prove a negative. What observation would falsify the hypothesis that finding my keys this morning was the work of God? Any observation which conclusively attributes it to any other factor besides God. Have fun with that one. Or if you like, how about attacking the hypothesis of Natural Global Warming. Simply show me any observation that conclusively attributes the warming to any other factor than natural ones.
Unless you can concisely state an observation or set of observations which would be so inconsistent with AGW or CAGW as to falsify them, you're playing religion, not science. Trying to redefine the null hypothesis, and shift the burden of proof, is a clever argument, but not a compelling one.
Those deviations *were* statistically significant. Being small doesn't change that, and it needs an explanation.
I'm not sure that follows - Newtonian gravity has predictive properties, beyond any small yet statistically significant differences from observations on very very large, and very very small scales - as such, you've at least got some idea of what observations would represent a falsification (though perhaps not enough of a falsification to make it useless as a rule of thumb).
CAGW (and AGW for that matter), have no particular predictive properties, and there are large statistically significant differences between various models, and observations, each of which essentially brings out an ad-hoc special pleading. The fact that the scope for of CAGW or AGW is so complex, makes it even *more* obvious that a simple explanation based on a single molecule that is counted in the atmosphere in parts per *million* is unlikely to have much predictive power.
Given the evidence we've gathered so far, the idea of no human contribution to warming is by far the less credible idea.
First off, "no human contribution" is a strawman. There very well may be human contribution, and in fact, one is almost guaranteed that there is human contribution - the problem comes in determining the sign and magnitude of that contribution, and then, deciding that such a contribution is catastrophic.
As for credibility, the world had climate change long before humanity ever existed, and we can observe similar changes as we have in the past century and a half all throughout the climate history. Why is it *incredible* to think that climate changes naturally? Now, if the climate record showed 4 billion years of completely stable climate, and after the industrial revolution started and humans started pumping out CO2 it changed for the first time *ever*, okay, I'm with you. But that's not the case at all - change in the climate system, be it warming, cooling, or just staying the same for a while, is the *natural* state of things.
No, it would also have to be statistically significantly different from the AGW prediction.
What is the "AGW prediction"? I've seen dozens of models, which actually significantly differ from each other - are there any AGW models we can now throw out because they've been falsified?
My problem is that every observation which is statistically different from any specific AGW prediction is explained away with an ad hoc special pleading. "It was aerosols." or "It was El Nino." Pile special pleading upon special pleading, and pretty soon you're dealing with something that is hardly a hypothesis worthy of note, because it is chock full of special cases.
When you treat contrary observations as obstacles to be overcome, you're doing pseudo-science. When you search high and low for observations that would refute your hypothesis, then you're doing real science.
So far, I haven't heard anyone, anywhere, who believes in CAGW or AGW state a categorical and concise list of observations they would accept as falsifying their hypothesis. If they could at least get that far, then we might be able to get past all the baggage that comes along with belief and faith.
Obligatory xkcd link about a different argument on the precautionary principle: http://xkcd.com/925/
Having several dozen falsifiable hypothesis that *aren't* about CAGW or AGW, does not mean you've built a falsifiable hypothesis of CAGW or AGW. Those falsifiable hypotheses may be *necessary* for CAGW or AGW to be true, but they are simply not sufficient.
State for me your concise falsifiable hypothesis of CAGW or AGW, and then we can start learning something.
Show me a single Creationist which has stated a falsifiable hypothesis of creation. And if they ask you for a falsification of evolution, just remember, "rabbit in the pre-cambrian".
After that, show me a single CAGW (or AGW) believer who has stated a falsifiable hypothesis of CAGW or AGW.
I'm not moving any goal posts, I'm simply explaining to you the rules of the game of science. I'm not looking for "proof" in terms of more reams of "is consistent with" data, I'm looking for proof in terms of a greater search for data which would *not* be consistent, and therefore falsify the hypothesis (kind of hard to search for that data if you *can't even specify what it would be*).
Simply make your clear, concise list of observations that would falsify your belief in CAGW (or heck, even just AGW), and we can start playing the science game. Until then, you're talking about the psychology of belief:)
There is no global thermometer that you can simply look at to get the current global average temperature statistic. Yes, individual thermometers exist. But between taking individual readings on individual thermometers, in geographically disparate locations, over varying time periods, and coming up with a "global average temperature", you're playing with so many monkeys it's hard to keep a straight face. Even the *idea* of an artificial statistical "global average temperature" is laughable - it's like trying to find the utility of a global average telephone number - who answers the phone when you dial it? The ultimate "average" person?
And that really is my beef with the whole "global temperature record", more than any of the specific UHI, or systemic bias, or missing stations, or whatever other technical challenge you may present against the land thermometer record - it's that global average temperature has *zero* utility. It's the *specific distribution* of temperature that matters in the real world. Some distributions are more harmful than others, but knowing the average doesn't give you *any* insight as to the particular distribution.
Assuming that my refutation of your position is reflexive, rather than thoughtful, is a mistake on your part. I have read the references. I have researched the material. And your video is simply incorrect.
Now, I understand how a global MWP undermines the faith of AGW and CAGW, so I understand how threatening idea this can be to your world view, but perhaps, just perhaps, if you're willing to admit that the existence of a global MWP refutes AGW (or CAGW), we've made some progress.
However, in general spelling is too primitive an activity (compared to reading, for example) to be used for measuring intelligence.
Interesting. You started off with "must learn from mistakes", and added another dimension "must not be a primitive activity". I wonder what criteria you would propose to discern between "primitive" and "not-primitive". We could draw the line simply at "spelling" versus "reading"...or maybe we could assert even "reading" is primitive compared to say, "translating". Or "translating" might be primitive compared to "poetry" or some other art. Is there a bright line somewhere there?
Playing basketball may not be an act of intelligence. But it is learning. And learning from introspection, when combined with forming and testing hypothesis, becomes intelligence. Since spam filters are learning and they do form hypothesis (in the form of new testable criteria), they are intelligent.
Wait, I'm not following - you used an example of non-intelligence, and compared it favorably to a spam filter. I think you need to demonstrate an *intelligent* activity that compares to a spam filter. For example, let's say learning tact. Through acts of communication with others, and observations of their verbal and physical reactions, you learn what things make people uncomfortable, and what things seem relatively benign, even when people don't explicitly *tell* you you've made a mistake. Find me a spam filter that can learn, without being explicitly *told* it made an error, and I'll start believing it's exhibiting intelligence.
Brain is a very sophisticated Bayesian filter. You don't "know" anything. You estimate probabilities. As the old saying goes, "when you see the sun come up everyday, you come to expect it." That is, when you observe a certain outcome to result from the same inputs, you estimate with high probability that it will continue to result from the same inputs.
I would argue that that's *part* of the brain, but not all of it. That's sort of lizard brain type of activity, that happens without conscious thought. Now, I suppose you could favorably compare a spam filter to a reptile (having had a snake before, those things act pretty much like robots - no real emotion or higher intelligence at all, just a wad of instincts and bayesian filters).
The conscious mind, the one that can imagine things it *hasn't* seen, or engage in humor, introspection, or art, that's something different. When a spam filter looks at its own code and says, "gee. these particular blocks of code aren't all that efficient, let me try a different compiler, maybe a different language, and rebuild that whole section to be more zippy", I'll agree, that's getting into the realm of intelligence.
In any case, it seems like you've got a fairly sophisticated rationale, and I'll even concede that it's internally consistent with your basic premises (even if I might detail out some of the criteria further), but I think our disagreement comes from our basic premises, namely, you see the brain as a bayesian filter, and I have a different opinion. I'm not sure if there is a way to discern between the two points of view from a truth standpoint, but you've given me some very interesting things to think about, and I thank you for that:)
"According to a report in the British Medical Journal, use of DDT in Mozambique "was stopped several decades ago, because 80% of the country's health budget came from donor funds, and donors refused to allow the use of DDT." Roger Bate asserts, "many countries have been coming under pressure from international health and environment agencies to give up DDT or face losing aid grants: Belize and Bolivia are on record admitting they gave in to pressure on this issue from [USAID].""
"A study published by the Public Library of Science (PloS) One found that three out of five DDT-resistant Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, carriers of human diseases like dengue and urban yellow fever, avoided huts sprayed with DDT. The chemical's unique spatial repellent action, combined with its moderate irritant and toxic properties, reduced the risk of disease transmission by nearly three-quarters. "
Care to alter your reality to fit the real world a bit?:)
I ask those with an ideological position to defend, to stop for just a moment look at the remarkable amount of indisputable evidence that is now available. Its positively mind numbing.
You don't have a falsifiable hypothesis. Without that, your "indisputable evidence" is simply a sideshow. If you're positing that all swans are white, I'm not going to be impressed by you showing me a million white swans. I'm not going to be impressed by two million white swans. What will impress me is if you look *really hard* for a black swan, and fail to find it.
As for each of your "incontestable" facts, I'll note that every single one of them could happen *without* CO2, much less human CO2, being responsible. Yes, climate changes. Yes, recent changes have been towards the warmer (except, of course, for the past 15 years). That doesn't mean that we have to buy, hook, line and sinker, that your unfalsifiable explanation of it is true.
Your mountains of data mean nothing until you can succinctly state what data will make you change your mind. If there is no data that can possibly change your mind, then you're playing religion, not science.
Jones and his crew have spent the last 20yrs sorting it out, if you can spot a genuine error I'm sure they would be glad to hear from you.
Did you *read* HARRY_README? He points out a system that is *rife* with genuine errors. I mean, you're talking people who didn't even bother archiving their damn data for traceability!
As for evolution and proxy data, I'll make the snarky assertion that fossilized bodies aren't proxies, they're just *dead*. Using a tree stump to decide what the world temperature average was in 1692 isn't the same thing as using a petrified tree stump to show that there was once a certain tree somewhere.
So, there's no historical observations that could possibly shake your faith? Let's say, 30 years of CO2 falling, but temperatures rising? Or 30 years of CO2 rising, but temperatures falling?
My problem is that I'm not convinced that a) warming is a bad thing, b) CO2 is an overwhelming forcing that is not mediated by other mechanisms. It could very well be that we keep burning fossil fuels, find out that the AGW hypothesis is right, but find out that a warmer planet is *better* for humanity (so only CAGW is wrong). Or, it could be that we keep burning fossil fuels, find out that the AGW hypothesis is wrong, and find out that a cooler planet is *worse* for humanity (so it's really Catastrophic Natural Global Cooling we needed to worry about).
So, 30 year periods. Got it. In another 15 years, if there is no statistically significant warming, you'll finally stop believing in CAGW (or AGW, your choice).
The alarmist trope that there was no MWP was a fanciful invention of Mann, and has been thoroughly refuted:)
My problem is that the tragedy of the commons does not always give us an unambiguous interpretation of what action we should take. If you're right, and warming == terrible bad, and we end up doing things that are *intended* to make more warming, we do great damage. If you're wrong, and cooling == terrible bad, and we end up doing things that are *intended* to reverse or stop warming, we do great damage. For the fuzzy conditions, the precautionary principle is *dangerous*, and we cannot blithely assert we understand the unintended consequences.
I think I've always assumed that a single piece of evidence wouldn't be sufficient - a single day, certainly too short, perhaps even 10 years is too short, but eventually, you make a cut off (the argument of what that cut off should be is debatable of course).
But that being said, nobody has made any assertion of what collective evidence could falsify their hypothesis of CAGW or AGW.
In terms of Newtonian gravity and deviations from the theoretical, I think we can agree that those are pretty small deviations. In comparison, the deviations of observation from the AGW models represent huge error bars that were missed. Furthermore the AGW predictions that *did* match observations on the lower end of their predictions are low enough to at the very least refute CAGW.
"In Bohr’s words: ". . . we are presented with a choice of either tracing the path of the particle, or observing interference effects . . . we have to do with a typical example of how the complementary phenomena appear under mutually exclusive experimental arrangements." In the context of a two-slit welcher weg (which-way) experiment, the Principle of Complementarity dictates "the observation of an interference pattern and the acquisition of which-way information are mutually exclusive.""
There, concise statement of something that would falsify the Copenhagen and Many Worlds hypotheses of quantum mechanics. Perhaps not particularly informative without some background, but a *clear* citation of what observation would mean that the hypothesis is wrong.
Now, please, your turn - what observations could possibly shake your faith?
Sure - inflationary cosmology would be falsified by the observation of a blue shift.
Now, taking your admission that there is no concise statement of a falsifiable hypothesis of CAGW (or AGW if you prefer), can we assume you've now agreed that your belief there is not based on science at all?
You keep pretending like you've got your ducks in order, and that your position is unassailable, but you still don't seem to have the introspective vision necessary to realize where you're going wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course I can point out how the video is incorrect - it asserts that because the primary data for the MWP came from the northern hemisphere (or northern europe), it can be disregarded as a regional phenomenon, not a global one. But this is clearly problematic on two points:
1) in order to assert that global average temp during the MWP was actually not anomalously high, you'd have to show evidence from other regions being sufficiently anomalously *cold* as to counteract;
2) the same argument about regional variation can be made about current "global warming", with some areas experiencing much different average trends on a regional basis.
As for Broeker's 2001 article, the case for the global MWP has become much more conclusive over the years - again read the cites :)
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5923/78.short
How about we add to europe (which you seem to accept), and show antarctica:
http://epic.awi.de/Publications/Ste2009a.pdf
I know as a point of faith it is difficult to let go of the hockey stick, but Mann was a fraud, pure and simple. The clever and skillful manipulation he proposed made for a great slideshow, but wasn't very truthful.
The problem is that the shotgun approach of asserting, say, three dozen models, and then having actual measurements that have significant discrepancies with 75% of them, doesn't really say much. If your model isn't making predictions of any utility, and furthermore, cannot separate correlation from causality.
Not a single AGW model predicted the previous decade of lack of warming, and not a single AGW model can accurately hindcast all previous decades of climate.
Let's say I have a hypothesis that says that global climate change is caused by software piracy, and the predictions of that model I build show a strong correlation to our observed temperatures, within a huge range of error that I build into my model. Does my hypothesis hold? Sure, in the strictest sense of the word. Is my hypothesis really all that useful? Absolutely not.
The sad part, of course, is that so many people do see models as more than what they really are - they assume that these models represent evidence, when in reality, they're simply toys. Especially when you design them to withstand direct refutation by opening their error bars so wide that nearly *any* possible outcome is covered.
Obligatory cite for you to ponder: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/04/07/climate-models-go-cold/
You're offering a false dichotomy. By constraining your imagination to only those factors in climate models, you prejudge the question (and frankly, you can tweak the model however you want, say by hard coding unjustified feedback from CO2 to H2O). The opposite of "Anthropogenic CO2 is primarily responsible for observed recent warming" is not "The Sun is primarily responsible for observed recent warming", it's "natural forces are primarily responsible for observed recent warming".
You cannot say "I assert human CO2 is responsible. To refute me, you must prove that something else is specifically responsible, otherwise, I win by default." The null hypothesis cannot be so cleverly avoided. Your placement of human CO2 on the pedestal of supernatural primacy that must be disproved, rather than in its proper place as a hypothesis that must compete against the primacy of natural climate change, is unjustifiable.
Furthermore, why would you assert that we'd have higher warming in tropical regions if the sun was driving warming? The transfer of heat throughout the globe seems to have more to do with ocean currents - http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6033/1076.abstract
That all being said, given the prediction of the CO2 hotspot, would you accept that the lack of such a hotspot represents a solid refutation of your hypothesis? http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf
If you don't accept that as a solid refutation, are you willing to make other specific predictions about what kinds of patterns we could observe that would prove your hypothesis incorrect? I'm assuming you would have a longer list than "if the tropics warm more than the poles" - that seems like a pretty broad inclusionary criteria that doesn't logically lead to human CO2 based warming exclusively (especially if we could observe similar warming patterns before human CO2 was significant in the *same* pattern).
Here's yet another cite:
http://www.co2science.org/subject/m/summaries/mwpafrica.php
It wasn't until activists like Mann showed up that anyone ever denied the existence of a global MWP.
Funny though, your assertion that the MWP was only regional could also be asserted for the current warm period - when you isolate specific parts of the planet, in the modern temperature record, some are notably warming, and some are notably *not* warming. Can we therefore assert that there hasn't been Global Warming, but only Regional Warming?
Furthermore, are you asserting that any extreme warming we find during the MWP in specific regions must have been completely overwhelmed by extra cold elsewhere in the world to balance it out? Do you have any evidence of extremely cold regions during the MWP that would have balanced out the warm periods we have measured in Africa, China and Europe? Was South America particularly cold according to your data during the MWP? Or Australia?
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/291/5508/1497.short
http://www.nipccreport.org/articles/2010/sep/15sep2010a2.html
Oh, and that data is all accessible through standard FOIA procedures :)
The argument doesn't backfire on semantics, it backfires on rationale. If any observation, over any time period, can be explained way with an ad hoc special pleading (energy inputs dropped, aerosols increased, undersea volcanic activity stalled, etc, etc, etc), then your hypothesis is not a very useful one.
I think that part of the problem here is that you think you're talking to scientific illiterates. If you can step back for a moment, and imagine that you just may be talking to someone who is very scientifically literate, and probably more educated and perhaps even more expert than you (say, Lindzen), then maybe you can start concentrating more on the problems you're having with rationale.
One doesn't have to believe in conspiracies in order to ask for a simple statement of a falsifiable hypothesis. One doesn't have to attribute evil intentions to AGW activists in order to question the accuracy or logic of their work.
Fail. You're asking to prove a negative. What observation would falsify the hypothesis that finding my keys this morning was the work of God? Any observation which conclusively attributes it to any other factor besides God. Have fun with that one. Or if you like, how about attacking the hypothesis of Natural Global Warming. Simply show me any observation that conclusively attributes the warming to any other factor than natural ones.
Unless you can concisely state an observation or set of observations which would be so inconsistent with AGW or CAGW as to falsify them, you're playing religion, not science. Trying to redefine the null hypothesis, and shift the burden of proof, is a clever argument, but not a compelling one.
I'm not sure that follows - Newtonian gravity has predictive properties, beyond any small yet statistically significant differences from observations on very very large, and very very small scales - as such, you've at least got some idea of what observations would represent a falsification (though perhaps not enough of a falsification to make it useless as a rule of thumb).
CAGW (and AGW for that matter), have no particular predictive properties, and there are large statistically significant differences between various models, and observations, each of which essentially brings out an ad-hoc special pleading. The fact that the scope for of CAGW or AGW is so complex, makes it even *more* obvious that a simple explanation based on a single molecule that is counted in the atmosphere in parts per *million* is unlikely to have much predictive power.
First off, "no human contribution" is a strawman. There very well may be human contribution, and in fact, one is almost guaranteed that there is human contribution - the problem comes in determining the sign and magnitude of that contribution, and then, deciding that such a contribution is catastrophic.
As for credibility, the world had climate change long before humanity ever existed, and we can observe similar changes as we have in the past century and a half all throughout the climate history. Why is it *incredible* to think that climate changes naturally? Now, if the climate record showed 4 billion years of completely stable climate, and after the industrial revolution started and humans started pumping out CO2 it changed for the first time *ever*, okay, I'm with you. But that's not the case at all - change in the climate system, be it warming, cooling, or just staying the same for a while, is the *natural* state of things.
What is the "AGW prediction"? I've seen dozens of models, which actually significantly differ from each other - are there any AGW models we can now throw out because they've been falsified?
My problem is that every observation which is statistically different from any specific AGW prediction is explained away with an ad hoc special pleading. "It was aerosols." or "It was El Nino." Pile special pleading upon special pleading, and pretty soon you're dealing with something that is hardly a hypothesis worthy of note, because it is chock full of special cases.
When you treat contrary observations as obstacles to be overcome, you're doing pseudo-science. When you search high and low for observations that would refute your hypothesis, then you're doing real science.
So far, I haven't heard anyone, anywhere, who believes in CAGW or AGW state a categorical and concise list of observations they would accept as falsifying their hypothesis. If they could at least get that far, then we might be able to get past all the baggage that comes along with belief and faith.
Obligatory xkcd link about a different argument on the precautionary principle: http://xkcd.com/925/
Having several dozen falsifiable hypothesis that *aren't* about CAGW or AGW, does not mean you've built a falsifiable hypothesis of CAGW or AGW. Those falsifiable hypotheses may be *necessary* for CAGW or AGW to be true, but they are simply not sufficient.
State for me your concise falsifiable hypothesis of CAGW or AGW, and then we can start learning something.
Show me a single Creationist which has stated a falsifiable hypothesis of creation. And if they ask you for a falsification of evolution, just remember, "rabbit in the pre-cambrian".
After that, show me a single CAGW (or AGW) believer who has stated a falsifiable hypothesis of CAGW or AGW.
I'm not moving any goal posts, I'm simply explaining to you the rules of the game of science. I'm not looking for "proof" in terms of more reams of "is consistent with" data, I'm looking for proof in terms of a greater search for data which would *not* be consistent, and therefore falsify the hypothesis (kind of hard to search for that data if you *can't even specify what it would be*).
Simply make your clear, concise list of observations that would falsify your belief in CAGW (or heck, even just AGW), and we can start playing the science game. Until then, you're talking about the psychology of belief :)
There is no global thermometer that you can simply look at to get the current global average temperature statistic. Yes, individual thermometers exist. But between taking individual readings on individual thermometers, in geographically disparate locations, over varying time periods, and coming up with a "global average temperature", you're playing with so many monkeys it's hard to keep a straight face. Even the *idea* of an artificial statistical "global average temperature" is laughable - it's like trying to find the utility of a global average telephone number - who answers the phone when you dial it? The ultimate "average" person?
And that really is my beef with the whole "global temperature record", more than any of the specific UHI, or systemic bias, or missing stations, or whatever other technical challenge you may present against the land thermometer record - it's that global average temperature has *zero* utility. It's the *specific distribution* of temperature that matters in the real world. Some distributions are more harmful than others, but knowing the average doesn't give you *any* insight as to the particular distribution.
The MWP was a global phenomena. Read the following references:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/291/5508/1497.short
http://www.theresilientearth.com/?q=content/medieval-warm-period-rediscovered
Assuming that my refutation of your position is reflexive, rather than thoughtful, is a mistake on your part. I have read the references. I have researched the material. And your video is simply incorrect.
Now, I understand how a global MWP undermines the faith of AGW and CAGW, so I understand how threatening idea this can be to your world view, but perhaps, just perhaps, if you're willing to admit that the existence of a global MWP refutes AGW (or CAGW), we've made some progress.
Interesting. You started off with "must learn from mistakes", and added another dimension "must not be a primitive activity". I wonder what criteria you would propose to discern between "primitive" and "not-primitive". We could draw the line simply at "spelling" versus "reading"...or maybe we could assert even "reading" is primitive compared to say, "translating". Or "translating" might be primitive compared to "poetry" or some other art. Is there a bright line somewhere there?
Wait, I'm not following - you used an example of non-intelligence, and compared it favorably to a spam filter. I think you need to demonstrate an *intelligent* activity that compares to a spam filter. For example, let's say learning tact. Through acts of communication with others, and observations of their verbal and physical reactions, you learn what things make people uncomfortable, and what things seem relatively benign, even when people don't explicitly *tell* you you've made a mistake. Find me a spam filter that can learn, without being explicitly *told* it made an error, and I'll start believing it's exhibiting intelligence.
I would argue that that's *part* of the brain, but not all of it. That's sort of lizard brain type of activity, that happens without conscious thought. Now, I suppose you could favorably compare a spam filter to a reptile (having had a snake before, those things act pretty much like robots - no real emotion or higher intelligence at all, just a wad of instincts and bayesian filters).
The conscious mind, the one that can imagine things it *hasn't* seen, or engage in humor, introspection, or art, that's something different. When a spam filter looks at its own code and says, "gee. these particular blocks of code aren't all that efficient, let me try a different compiler, maybe a different language, and rebuild that whole section to be more zippy", I'll agree, that's getting into the realm of intelligence.
In any case, it seems like you've got a fairly sophisticated rationale, and I'll even concede that it's internally consistent with your basic premises (even if I might detail out some of the criteria further), but I think our disagreement comes from our basic premises, namely, you see the brain as a bayesian filter, and I have a different opinion. I'm not sure if there is a way to discern between the two points of view from a truth standpoint, but you've given me some very interesting things to think about, and I thank you for that :)
"According to a report in the British Medical Journal, use of DDT in Mozambique "was stopped several decades ago, because 80% of the country's health budget came from donor funds, and donors refused to allow the use of DDT." Roger Bate asserts, "many countries have been coming under pressure from international health and environment agencies to give up DDT or face losing aid grants: Belize and Bolivia are on record admitting they gave in to pressure on this issue from [USAID].""
As for resistance: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/79127.php
"A study published by the Public Library of Science (PloS) One found that three out of five DDT-resistant Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, carriers of human diseases like dengue and urban yellow fever, avoided huts sprayed with DDT. The chemical's unique spatial repellent action, combined with its moderate irritant and toxic properties, reduced the risk of disease transmission by nearly three-quarters. "
Care to alter your reality to fit the real world a bit? :)
You don't have a falsifiable hypothesis. Without that, your "indisputable evidence" is simply a sideshow. If you're positing that all swans are white, I'm not going to be impressed by you showing me a million white swans. I'm not going to be impressed by two million white swans. What will impress me is if you look *really hard* for a black swan, and fail to find it.
As for each of your "incontestable" facts, I'll note that every single one of them could happen *without* CO2, much less human CO2, being responsible. Yes, climate changes. Yes, recent changes have been towards the warmer (except, of course, for the past 15 years). That doesn't mean that we have to buy, hook, line and sinker, that your unfalsifiable explanation of it is true.
Your mountains of data mean nothing until you can succinctly state what data will make you change your mind. If there is no data that can possibly change your mind, then you're playing religion, not science.
Did you *read* HARRY_README? He points out a system that is *rife* with genuine errors. I mean, you're talking people who didn't even bother archiving their damn data for traceability!
As for evolution and proxy data, I'll make the snarky assertion that fossilized bodies aren't proxies, they're just *dead*. Using a tree stump to decide what the world temperature average was in 1692 isn't the same thing as using a petrified tree stump to show that there was once a certain tree somewhere.
So, there's no historical observations that could possibly shake your faith? Let's say, 30 years of CO2 falling, but temperatures rising? Or 30 years of CO2 rising, but temperatures falling?
My problem is that I'm not convinced that a) warming is a bad thing, b) CO2 is an overwhelming forcing that is not mediated by other mechanisms. It could very well be that we keep burning fossil fuels, find out that the AGW hypothesis is right, but find out that a warmer planet is *better* for humanity (so only CAGW is wrong). Or, it could be that we keep burning fossil fuels, find out that the AGW hypothesis is wrong, and find out that a cooler planet is *worse* for humanity (so it's really Catastrophic Natural Global Cooling we needed to worry about).
So, 30 year periods. Got it. In another 15 years, if there is no statistically significant warming, you'll finally stop believing in CAGW (or AGW, your choice).
You could also look at the ice core records and find a few 30 year periods where CO2 fell, but temps rose (or CO2 rose, but temps fell). Or hey, maybe we can see a link in the *opposite* direction: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/09/a-study-the-temperature-rise-has-caused-the-co2-increase-not-the-other-way-around/
You deny that the MWP existed?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/the-medieval-warm-period-a-global-phenonmena-unprecedented-warming-or-unprecedented-data-manipulation/
The alarmist trope that there was no MWP was a fanciful invention of Mann, and has been thoroughly refuted :)
My problem is that the tragedy of the commons does not always give us an unambiguous interpretation of what action we should take. If you're right, and warming == terrible bad, and we end up doing things that are *intended* to make more warming, we do great damage. If you're wrong, and cooling == terrible bad, and we end up doing things that are *intended* to reverse or stop warming, we do great damage. For the fuzzy conditions, the precautionary principle is *dangerous*, and we cannot blithely assert we understand the unintended consequences.
And perhaps it is that attitude that helps preserve your faith in the face of any data that may contradict it.
I think I've always assumed that a single piece of evidence wouldn't be sufficient - a single day, certainly too short, perhaps even 10 years is too short, but eventually, you make a cut off (the argument of what that cut off should be is debatable of course).
But that being said, nobody has made any assertion of what collective evidence could falsify their hypothesis of CAGW or AGW.
In terms of Newtonian gravity and deviations from the theoretical, I think we can agree that those are pretty small deviations. In comparison, the deviations of observation from the AGW models represent huge error bars that were missed. Furthermore the AGW predictions that *did* match observations on the lower end of their predictions are low enough to at the very least refute CAGW.
http://www.analogsf.com/0409/altview2.shtml
"In Bohr’s words: ". . . we are presented with a choice of either tracing the path of the particle, or observing interference effects . . . we have to do with a typical example of how the complementary phenomena appear under mutually exclusive experimental arrangements." In the context of a two-slit welcher weg (which-way) experiment, the Principle of Complementarity dictates "the observation of an interference pattern and the acquisition of which-way information are mutually exclusive.""
There, concise statement of something that would falsify the Copenhagen and Many Worlds hypotheses of quantum mechanics. Perhaps not particularly informative without some background, but a *clear* citation of what observation would mean that the hypothesis is wrong.
Now, please, your turn - what observations could possibly shake your faith?
Sure - inflationary cosmology would be falsified by the observation of a blue shift.
Now, taking your admission that there is no concise statement of a falsifiable hypothesis of CAGW (or AGW if you prefer), can we assume you've now agreed that your belief there is not based on science at all?
You keep pretending like you've got your ducks in order, and that your position is unassailable, but you still don't seem to have the introspective vision necessary to realize where you're going wrong.